The Constantine Conspiracy

by Gary Parker

  For the past two days he’d spent every waking moment alternating between grief over his dad and worry about Shannon Bridge. As the funeral drew closer, he focused more and more on her. Although he saw no better option than sending her to the panic room, that hadn’t settled his fears; one false move, one unlucky mistake, and she could end up in deep trouble. Now it had happened.

  The Nissan slipped into traffic on a four-lane highway as Rick reviewed the past forty-eight hours. He and Shannon had talked through a variety of scenarios and made contingency plans for a lot of possibilities. Before she’d left him that morning to dress for the memorial, she had hugged him quickly, and her touch had electrified his skin. The sensation startled him, shook him, made him crazy. He hooked up with all kinds of gorgeous women on a regular basis, kept the private numbers of scores of actresses, aspiring and otherwise, in his Blackberry. But Shannon’s light, wordless touch had jolted him like none of them ever had.

  The danger they’d faced together in the past few days had supercharged his feelings about her, Rick had concluded as he pondered the matter. Everybody knew that a common peril bonded people faster and deeper than normal situations. Add his grief on top of the danger and a potent combination emerged—an emotional glue that would have connected him to any woman he encountered at the time.

  An ambulance swerved into his lane and Rick braked quickly to miss it, then moved through a red light, onto a ramp, and into traffic on Interstate 85. A fresh idea hit him and he quickly pulled out his phone and dialed Pops’ number. This time his grandfather answered.

  “Pops, it’s me.”

  “Rick,” Pops said, his tone surprised. “I’m worried sick about you. Called your cell but you left it in Montana; the police there found it. I didn’t know how to reach you.”

  “I’m okay, Pops,” Rick assured him. “I called you but didn’t leave a message. I’m sorry I couldn’t attend the memorial.”

  “Don’t worry about that right now. Sorry I missed your calls, but things are a zoo around here.”

  “The service go okay?”

  “Wonderful. People said great things about Steve. He had more friends than I ever imagined, from all over the world.”

  “He did like to travel, used to haul me and Mom all over the globe.”

  “I know you’ll miss that.”

  A short pause fell between them.

  “So things are okay at the house?” Rick broke the quiet, fishing to see what Pops knew about Shannon.

  “As well as anybody could expect. Your mother attended the private ceremony but didn’t come to the estate afterward.”

  “I need to see her soon.”

  “That’s a good idea. When will you return? Where are you?”

  Rick almost told him, but then hesitated. What if the police had the line tapped? “I have to hurry,” he said. “But I need your help on something.”

  “Come home, I’ll take care of everything. It’s tragic about Steve, but he’s been depressed a long time, I’m not really surprised at this. Your mother’s condition hit him so hard, but there’s no reason for this to hang over you any longer. You’re innocent, I know that. Let’s clear this up quickly.”

  “You’re assuming a suicide, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know, Rick, maybe he accidentally overdosed. But we’re certain you didn’t do it, right?”

  “You never put much stock in Dad—always believed the worst about him.”

  Pops hesitated and Rick sensed him fighting to bite his tongue. Rick knew it wasn’t the time to open old family wounds, but today, of all days, he felt the need to defend his father.

  “Your mother loved Steve, so did you,” Pops said. “What I thought of him didn’t matter, not to him or your mom.”

  “Somebody had him murdered, Pops. I have to find out who.”

  “Logic says otherwise.”

  “But I saw this guy! I went to visit Mom and this man . . .” He quickly told his grandfather about the intruder at Rolling Hills.

  “This is getting way too dangerous, Rick. It isn’t one of your grand adventures.”

  “I get that, but I won’t leave things like they are. Somebody murdered Dad, might do the same thing to someone else. We can’t just let the killer slide, can we?”

  “Did anybody but you and Rebecca see this man at Rolling Hills?”

  “I don’t know. He should be on surveillance there, perhaps you can check.”

  “I’ll do that. Did he confess that he killed Steve?”

  “Not exactly, Pops, but he did it. Why else was he there?”

  “That’s a good question. Why was he there?”

  Rick passed a car but kept the Nissan under the speed limit. “My guess is he came after me, wanted to tidy up his work from Montana.”

  “If so, that’s all the more reason to return home. You need protection. We’ll hire bodyguards, go to the police, make sure you’re safe.”

  Rick slipped back into the right lane as he weighed his options. Pops made a good case. But then he thought of Shannon’s warnings about the authorities. “Not yet, Pops,” he concluded. “Somebody needs to find who hired this guy and I’m not confident the police are up to the job. They like things neat, easy. A professional hit man takes them way beyond their comfort zone.”

  “Look,” Pops offered. “You come to me, I’ll throw my weight around, force the authorities to keep the investigation open, not jump to any conclusions about Steve, you either for that matter.”

  “That’s a good offer, Pops, thanks. Let me think about it.”

  Rick heard a siren, checked his rearview mirror and saw a blue light flashing. “I need to hang up,” he said.

  “You said you needed my help on something.”

  Rick hesitated, suddenly unsure about asking him to check on Shannon. If the cops found out she’d gone there for him, they’d push her hard, hold her until she confessed what she knew.

  “It’s okay, I’m fine,” he finally said.

  “Bring yourself home, Rick, we’ll find the murderer, I promise you.”

  Rick pressed the gas and the Nissan bolted forward.

  “Perhaps I wasn’t always fair with your dad,” Pops continued. “But that’s past us, nothing I can do to change it. You’re most important to me now.”

  The police car drew closer. Rick wondered how they’d traced him. Tony’s cell phone? The seller of the Nissan? Either way, he needed to get off the phone and the interstate. He wheeled to an off ramp and the blue light followed. “I’ll be back in touch!” he shouted to Pops over the siren.

  “Home, Rick, it’s your only chance!”

  Rick shut off the phone and whipped off the ramp, the cop car giving chase. He sped past a row of cars, wheeled left, and gunned it through a red light. The cop fell behind as he slipped more cautiously through the traffic signal. Rick swerved right into a mall parking lot and under a deck. The police car disappeared in his rearview mirror. Rick slammed the car to a stop, grabbed his bag, and jumped out. The police car poked its hood under the deck and drove slowly toward him, but then a potato chip truck darted into its path and Rick sprinted past a crew of startled teenagers.

  Twisting quickly, he saw two cops rush from their car, their weapons trained on him.

  “Hold it!” One of them shouted at him, but Rick ducked behind a support beam, then rushed to a door twenty feet away.

  “Hold it or we’ll shoot!”

  Rick’s heart thumped loudly, but he believed he heard a bluff in the policeman’s voice so he scrambled to the door and flung it open.

  The cops rushed after him just as Rick slammed the door, hustled down a set of stairs, and rushed past a group of elderly shoppers, their tottering steps aided by an assortment of walkers, canes, and wheeled contraptions. The cops appeared on the landing, their weapons ready, but the crowd prevented them from firing, and Rick ducked to an exit on the other side of the garage. Seconds later, his face splotched with sweat, he spotted a city bus and hopped on it as it pulled
away.

  19

  The tunnel beneath the Carson Estate reached an end and a set of stairs beckoned upward, but Shannon paused to take a breath before climbing them. Fear coursed through her veins—for herself, for Rick, for everybody she loved and everything she believed in. Until she’d actually seen the video in the panic room, she’d held out hope that she was wrong, that her leaders were mistaken, that her mission to Montana had been nothing more than a cautionary diversion. But now she knew otherwise and she had to tell Rick so he would know it too. How would he react? Would he believe her? Would he make the right choice if he did?

  Unable to answer her own questions, Shannon wiped her hands on her skirt and rushed up the steps. At the door at the top, she glanced back but heard no one pursuing, so she pushed open the door and saw that she’d stepped into a mausoleum. White marble covered the floor and a row of individual crypts—nameplates in place—covered the front wall. Glass bordered the left and right walls, letting in a warm sunshine. Tall oaks, pines, and flowers stretched out in all directions past the glass. Rick’s family cemetery, she realized— the tunnel from the panic room led to a mausoleum on the outskirts of the Carson Estate.

  Seeing nothing threatening, Shannon hurried to the building’s entry, pushed open the door, and walked into the sunlight. A bird chirped and she almost relaxed. But then a noise to her right startled her and she twisted toward it. Officers Wilson and Turley rushed at her, their guns drawn. She turned to flee, but two more officers ran at her from that direction.

  “Hold it!” Wilson shouted. “Don’t do anything stupid!” Shannon bit her lip, threw up her hands, and murmured a silent prayer for Rick as Officer Wilson slid cuffs around her wrists and advised her of her rights.

  “Who are you?”

  The detective standing across the table from Shannon Bridge wore a dark blue shirt, gold-striped tie, gray slacks. A revolver perched on his right hip, and he held a soft drink in his left hand. Name badge read “Webber.”

  “What were you doing in the panic room at the Carson Estate?” Webber asked. “How did you get there? Who gave you the code to get in?”

  Shannon repeated what she had already said multiple times since her arrival at the station—her name, her occupation, her address in Montana. She’d met Rick on Solitude, she told Webber, flew to Atlanta to pay her respects to his dead father. All true.

  “That’s not going to cut it,” Webber said. “You’re holding out, and we’ve got you for trespassing and burglary.”

  “I didn’t steal anything,” Bridge repeated.

  “Like I told you—there’s a watch missing from the bedroom, expensive, worth a hundred thousand or so. That’s grand theft; an orange prison jumpsuit won’t be flattering on you.”

  A female detective entered the room, “Roche,” according to her name tag.

  “Look,” Roche said, palms on the table as Webber backed away to a neutral corner. “We’ve checked in Montana, the parks department assures me you’re legit, clean as a whistle, wonderful person, fabulous employee, model citizen. We don’t know for sure that you took the watch, but it is missing and you’re the only suspect. So we can hold you till the Atlanta traffic problem is solved. Not that we want to do that, but hey, we do what we have to do. You weren’t there for a watch, were you?”

  Shannon shrugged.

  “You’ll have to come clean with us eventually,” Roche continued, sitting down. “What’s your real relationship with Rick Carson?”

  “Not a girlfriend, are you?” Webber asked, inspecting her inch by inch with his eyes. “Not Carson’s type, if I’m any judge. He likes a woman, how should I say this, a little more robust than you, am I right?”

  Shannon burned inside, but she hid it as she stared Webber down. “I’ve never asked him about his type,” she said. “I consider myself his friend, that’s it.”

  “When did you arrive in Atlanta?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “What kept you busy the past two days?”

  “I did some sightseeing.”

  “What did you visit? Aquarium? Carter Center? Coke display? What about Rick Carson? You run into him anywhere on your little Atlanta tour?”

  Shannon bit a fingernail.

  Webber rushed back and pounded the table, his soft drink spilling over. “Stop playing around with us!” he shouted. “Grand theft puts you behind bars, least for awhile, not good for your spotless resume.”

  “Charge me with trespassing,” she said. “But I didn’t take the watch.”

  Roche put her elbows on the table and bent toward Shannon. “We’re not idiots,” she said. “We know that Rick Carson gave you the panic room code. Who else could it have been? But why were you there? What were you searching for?”

  Shannon shook her head.

  “We need to find Carson,” Roche said. “That’s who we really want. Tell us where you last saw him and you can walk.”

  “You think he killed his father?” Shannon asked

  “Probably not,” Webber said. “But we have to talk to Carson to settle it once for all. You understand our position here. The media hounds us day and night; they gobble up every little morsel, then add their own twist to it. You’ve seen the news!”

  “We’re thinking of his safety,” Roche added. “He’s in real danger out there by himself.”

  “But he’s only a person of interest, not a suspect.”

  “True, but we have issued a national bulletin, cops all over the country are looking for him. If he does the wrong thing, makes some threatening gesture, a nervous officer might take a shot at him or something. And if a pro did kill his father, then he’s got even more to worry about.”

  Shannon paused. Roche made sense. “I don’t know that I can trust you,” she said, shifting her gaze from Webber to Roche. “That I can trust any of you.”

  “We’ll dig to the bottom of this,” Roche soothed. “Just tell us where to find Carson.”

  Shannon locked her hands in her lap, tempted to lay out all the facts. Maybe the cops could help Rick, her too. God only knew she could use some assistance.

  Webber sipped slowly from his drink, his eyes fixed on her like a snake ready to strike, and his stare unnerved her.

  “No,” Shannon whispered. “I don’t know where to find Rick.” Although they’d agreed on a hideaway for him, she’d told the truth—at this particular moment she had no idea where to find him.

  Webber crushed his drink can between his fingers. “You’re up to your eyeballs in quicksand, Ms. Bridge. But apparently you haven’t figured that out yet.”

  Shannon’s gaze shifted from Roche to Webber, then back to Roche again. “I’ve figured a lot of things out,” she said. “More than you’ll ever know.”

  20

  Friday, early evening

  Six hours later, Rick wheeled into a gravel drive in the beat-up car he’d bought at a cash-only lot in Atlanta. His body was stiff, his nerves still wired. Shannon hadn’t called and his stomach hurt from worrying about her. If the police had arrested her, she’d face trespassing charges, but then she’d make bail, pay a fine, none the worse for wear. But if the man from Rolling Hills had connected her to him and tracked her to his house, then she faced an imminent threat.

  He turned off the car, climbed out, and glanced around. Palm trees ringed the yard of a small, tan house. Tufts of brownish grass sprang up here and there, and a variety of Florida insects decorated the air with their singing. A lagoon filled with dark green water stretching off to the horizon reflected the late day sun to his left.

  A door slammed, and Rick looked back at the house as a tall, gray-haired lady in black slacks, a blue T-shirt, and a yellow apron stepped off her screened porch and rushed his way.

  “You’re Rick Carson,” the woman said when she reached him. “Seen your face all over the news.”

  “Yeah, I’m Carson. Shannon said I should come here, said you’d hide me out awhile. She’s supposed to meet me here.”

  “Good, sure
, you bet, my name is Mabel.” Breathing heavily, the woman stuck out a hand and Rick shook it.

  “We best go inside,” Mabel said, already moving. “Nosy neighbors all around.”

  She tilted her head left, then right, and Rick saw houses in both directions separated only by a row of the palm trees. Mabel hurried him up the steps and into the front room.

  “Have a seat,” she said, pointing him to a cloth chair as she closed the blinds on the windows and flipped on a lamp. “I’ll get you a drink. Tea, lemonade?”

  “Water is fine.”

  “Good. Right back.”

  Rick studied the room as Mabel disappeared. Simple wood furniture, sheer curtains with blinds underneath, scratched hardwood floor. Scores of pictures lined the walls, mostly of Shannon, images of her in a high school basketball uniform, in a variety of prom dresses, in a graduation gown, then in her ranger uniform. Rick stood, walked to the pictures and examined them more closely. The largest one showed Shannon wearing a white robe, about to step into a lake with bare feet, her hair loose and long on her shoulders.

  “Her baptism,” Mabel said, back in the room with a glass of water in both hands. “Eleven years old, a beautiful girl.”

  Rick took the water and returned to his chair. “I’m sorry to put you in this position,” he started. “Hiding me, it’s not fair to you. But Shannon said—”

  “You relax about that, I’d do anything Shannon asked. She wouldn’t send you to me if she had any doubts about you. So stop apologizing and drink your water.”

  “Are you Shannon’s mom?”

  “You’re a sweet boy. Old enough to be her grandma, maybe. What did Shannon say?”

  “Wouldn’t answer me. Just said come here.”

  Mabel chuckled. “Just like her, real close-mouthed when it comes to her personal life.”

  “Are you?”

  “Talk to her about it, not my place to say.”

  Rick gulped the water and wiped his mouth. Although he wanted to press, he sensed Mabel wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m worried about Shannon,” he said. “I sent her to my house to find something for me. She didn’t come back.”