Burke's War: Bob Burke Action Thriller 1 (Bob Burke Action Thrillers)

by William F. Brown

  “That’s where the woman was,” Bob pointed. “that’s where you killed her.”

  “Where I killed her?” Greenway laughed, having regained his confident bravado. “I don’t know what you were drinking up there on your airplane, but you have a fantastic imagination, Mr. Burke. There was a roof leak up here, and I believe that area is where the repairmen were looking around and running their tests. Isn’t that correct, Anthony?”

  “Yeah, it’s hard to find a leak on these flat roofs, and they still ain’t done.”

  “Mind if I look?” Bob asked.

  “You are persistent; I’ll give you that,” Greenway said with a thin, wary smile. “But I don’t suppose it can do any harm. Be careful where you walk, though. We wouldn’t want any more problems up here, would we?”

  Bob walked slowly to the disturbed area in the center of the roof, bent down, and looked closely at the surface; but he could see nothing wrong. There were scrapes on the black membrane of the roofing material below the gravel, but that meant very little. What he did not see was any blood or scraps of her white dress. He raised his head and looked around at the rest of the buildings. This was the right one, and this was where Greenway killed her; Bob was positive about that. Unfortunately, more than enough time had passed for him to get rid of the body, but not enough for him to clean absolutely everything. Burke knew it, and so did Greenway. He could see it on the doctor’s face as he rejoined them at the stairwell.

  Travers turned toward Charlie Newcomb and Sabrina Fowler. “You two got anything to add? You see anything?”

  Charlie shook his head, but the flight attendant had been waiting for an opportunity like this. “See, I told you I never saw a damned thing! That guy’s nuts,” she pointed at Bob. “Now can I go home?”

  Greenway smiled. “Well, are you satisfied now?” he asked.

  “No,” Bob said as he turned toward Travers and Bentley. “Are you going to get a search warrant?”

  “A search warrant?” Bentley exploded. “For what?”

  “For a body. Look, I know what I saw, and I’ll bet she’s somewhere in this building.”

  “On that ridiculous note, I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to leave — all of you,” Greenway cut him off. “I tried to be cooperative, but you finally exhausted my patience.”

  Travers put his hand on Bob’s shoulder and tried to lead him toward the door. “There’s no grounds for a search warrant, Mister Burke; we would never be able to get one.”

  “You’re damned right you wouldn’t, not in my town!” Bentley added.

  Bob turned toward Greenway. “All right, do you care if we look around the rest of the building?”

  “This time, yes I do. It’s full of trade secrets and proprietary information, so I must say no, Mister Burke. Please leave my building.”

  Bob stopped arguing, because he knew it would do no good. It was time to make a tactical withdrawal, lick your wounds, and wait to fight another day. That was what he would do. He bit his tongue and quietly followed Travers and the others as they returned to the emergency stairwell, walked down to the third floor, and took the elevator to the lobby. Standing against the rear wall, he looked at Greenway and Scalese again. The expression on the doctor’s face was triumphant, but the expression on his Chief of Security showed something altogether different, Bob thought. Scalese looked angry, and it wasn’t only at Bob Burke.

  In the lobby, it was Ernie Travers who finally broke the awkward silence, as he turned back to Greenway and said, “Thanks for your cooperation, Doctor. You too, Chief, thanks for your time. As you can appreciate, it’s something we couldn’t ignore.”

  They nodded, but Bentley couldn’t leave well enough alone. “Well, I hate to tell you I told you so, Loo-tenant,” the Chief chortled, exchanging knowing glances with Bobby Joe. “But I told you so.”

  Bob was livid as he turned back toward Greenway. “Well played, Doctor; but we both know what happened up on that roof, and I’m not the only one,” he said as he looked at Scalese.

  Greenway straightened his suit coat again, and looked back at Bob with a thin, knowing smile. “I doubt that Mr. Burke, but you have a nice day, anyway.”

  While his patrolman, Bobby Joe, escorted them out the front door, Chief Bentley remained behind, leaning on the reception desk in the CHC lobby, watching as Burke, Travers, and the others left the building through the big revolving door.

  When they were gone, Bentley motioned for Greenway to step closer, grinned and placed Bob’s business card on the top of the reception desk. “You ain’t got nuthin’ to worry about, Doc. He’s some kinda ‘telephone guy.’ He works for one of those damned phone companies.”

  Greenway started to pick the card up, but Scalese pulled it out of his hand and took a close look at it. “Toler TeleCom,” he said. “I’ll see what else I can find out about him.”

  Travers drove out of the CHC parking lot and they rode in silence until they reached Mannheim Road. It was Sabrina Fowler, who spoke up first. “Are these games finally over? Can I go home now?” she demanded in a huff.

  “Yes you may, Ms. Fowler,” Travers answered politely, “and I appreciate your help. I’ll take you out to your car. How’s that sound?”

  “All right, but don’t spend all night doing it,” she said as she turned her red-hot glare on Bob and Charlie. “Next time you idiots decide to fly, book American or Delta; you might not survive another flight with me.”

  Travers drove them back around to the main airport terminal and dropped Sabrina Fowler off at her car in the airline crew parking lot. She quickly got out, turned, and flipped Bob and Charlie the bird as she slammed the door behind her and walked away. Travers drove back to the airport terminal and stopped opposite the exit doors from Arrivals.

  “There’s a shuttle bus to your lot every ten minutes,” he told them.

  “You mean you’re not gonna drive us out to our cars?” Charlie asked.

  “No, but I’m not flipping you the bird either.”

  “That guy Greenway is getting away with murder, Ernie, and you know it,” Bob said as he got out of the car.

  “Maybe… hell, I’ll even give you a probably,” Travers admitted. “But you haven’t given me much to work with, you know. There isn’t a shred of evidence that says Greenway’s done a damned thing, him or Scalese, and you don’t have any other witnesses to back you up.”

  “No, but I know what I saw, and things like that don’t go away. Neither do I.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that, Mr. Burke. I’ll keep my eye on them and do what I can. If somebody did get killed up on that roof, sooner or later a body will show up. They always do, but you need to stay out of it. Do we understand each other?”

  “Oh, I understand you perfectly, Lieutenant,” Bob smiled as he closed the door and backed away from the car. Travers didn’t look very happy about it, but they both knew there was nothing he could do.

  As they waited for the shuttle bus, Charlie said, “This has been a very interesting evening, Bob, but you gotta forget all that stuff. We got big problems of our own. I went over all the numbers and the spreadsheets and we gotta focus on the business thing in the morning, both of us, or we’re finished.”

  “Yeah I know,” Bob reluctantly admitted, knowing Charlie was right, but he was having a tough time getting rid of the image of the woman in the white dress on the roof. He kept trying hard to convince himself that he must have been wrong about what he saw and it was the scotch talking, but he knew it wasn’t.

  “First thing, Bob. We gotta talk, first thing.”

  “First thing,” Bob agreed. First thing. The business problems they were facing were huge, and they must be his top priority, his only priority. He knew that, but the look in that bastard Greenway’s eyes as he strangled that woman refused to go away. It was for him to see every time he closed his eyes. Travers and all the rest of them could try to convince him otherwise, but he knew what he saw. The only question that remained was what he was goi
ng to do about it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After Bentley left and the bright-red taillights of two Indian Hills police cars disappeared down the Hills Corporate Center entry road, Dr. Lawrence Greenway and Tony Scalese stood on the front sidewalk of the blue glass Consolidated Health Care building and continued to argue. “Are you out of your freakin’ mind, Doc?” Scalese stepped closer and tapped Greenway in the chest with his forefinger. From most people, a tap in the chest with the tip of a finger would get your attention. From Tony Scalese, it could leave a bruise or break a bone.

  Greenway was half a head taller. He glared down angrily at the muscular Italian but did not dare to do much else as he pulled down on his shirt cuffs and tried to compose himself. “Aren’t you forgetting yourself, Anthony?” he asked.

  “Me? Forgettin’ myself?” Scalese’s angry eyes flashed.

  “Yes, I think you’re forgetting who you work for.”

  Scalese leaned in closer and poked Greenway in the chest again, harder this time, driving him back a step and his confident arrogance along with it. “No Doc! You’re the one who’s doin’ the forgettin.’ I work for Mr. D, not you, and he told you to keep a low profile — no waves, no cops, and no more freakin’ dead bodies. Why’d you think he put me here?”

  Chagrined, Greenway answered, “I did what I had to do.”

  “Like hell you did. I heard what that guy Burke said, and I can see it all over your face. It’s a damned good thing there weren’t any more witnesses, or this whole thing would be over. Now who was it?”

  “It was Eleanor… Eleanor Purdue,” Greenway finally admitted.

  “Like the receptionist, Linda Sylvester, said. Why am I not surprised, Doc?”

  “What choice did I have? I caught her in my office going through my files. She had one of those little miniature cameras.”

  “A miniature camera, huh?” Scalese backed off a half step, thinking.

  “Yes, and with that bastard O’Malley’s Grand Jury starting next week, you know what that means as well as I do.”

  “You think she was turnin’ that stuff over to O’Malley?”

  “What else could it mean? Let’s hope it didn’t get that far.”

  “Hope?” Scalese flared. “Maybe we’d freakin’ know, if you hadn’t gone and killed her.”

  “She did not give me that option, Anthony. She was photographing the Medicaid billings and the test results from India — taking pictures of the spreadsheets, and I chased her. We ended up on the roof.”

  “And you strangled her up there, like that little prick Burke said you did.”

  “Yes! But she didn’t give me any choice, I swear it.”

  “Maybe not, but you loved doing her anyway didn’t you, like all the other ones.”

  “No, those were accidents. I… I lost control. With Eleanor it was different.”

  “Different?” Scalese asked as he stepped closer again, well inside Greenway’s space. The doctor flinched and Scalese smiled. “She was playing you. When you had her on that big leather couch of yours with her feet up in the air, you thought you were screwin’ her; but she was the one screwin’ you, Doc! You sure it wasn’t that she got a little too frisky for you?”

  “How dare you?”

  “How dare I? What? Are you really that stupid? You think I don’t make it my business to know everything that’s goin’ on around here? That’s why Mr. D put me here.”

  “My private relations are none of your business… or his.”

  “They are when you’re playing on our dime, Sport. Besides, the way you parade the hired help in and out of that little office love nest of yours, do you really think it’s some kinda goddamn secret? Even I saw the bruises on her wrists last week, and so did every other broad in the place. What? You like it a little rough with ’em now?”

  “You bastard!”

  “Me? Hell, you think those women don’t talk to each other? Sooner or later, it was all gonna blow up in your face. Now, tell me; how the hell did she find all that stuff?”

  “I… I was looking over some of the files and financial reports… I guess I left them out.”

  “Files? You told Mr. D there was nuthin’ on paper no more. You told him you burned everything they could use against us.”

  “Look, Tony, I can’t keep everything in my head, you know. I needed some spreadsheets to keep track of the numbers, to make sure everything balanced.”

  “Spreadsheets? Numbers?”

  “Don’t worry, it was all coded, and…”

  “Coded? With the FBI, the NSA, and all the rest, you think the Feds ain’t clever enough to figure ’em out?”

  “I’m sorry. They were on my desk, and…”

  “You know, Doc, when the Feds finally got Capone back in the ’20s, it wasn’t for murder, gambling, or running booze, it was for taxes… and you still think they’re only ‘some spreadsheets,’ ‘some numbers’ you left out on your desk?”

  “I know, I know, it was careless of me.

  “You moron! When Mr. D…”

  Greenway was in a panic now. “Oh, come on, Tony. I was in a hurry to get to Glenview for a speech. I got down the road a couple of minutes and realized I forgot my notes, so I turned around and drove back. She had the sheets spread out on my desk and was flipping through them, taking pictures with some kind of little flash camera, when I caught her.”

  Scalese held out his hand and waited. Reluctantly, Greenway reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, rectangular, silver camera, and gave it to him. Scalese held it up and examined it carefully. “This ain’t something you pick up at Walmart to take pictures of the kids at the beach, Doc. It’s a Minox, one of the new digital models — very nice, very sophisticated, and very expensive.” He turned it on and looked at the small display window. “Looks like she took forty-five shots. That’s a lot of pages, Doc, a lot of spreadsheets… unless she was takin’ some of you and her doin’ it on your couch.”

  Greenway was almost a head taller than Scalese, but it was no contest. He was slim and athletic, like a dancer, while Scalese was bulked up, with muscles on top of his muscles and a crazy-mean look in his eye — too much prison time, too many weights, and way too many ’roids. Regardless of the reason, Tony Scalese was intimidating.

  “Well, at least I caught her before she did anything with them,” Greenway offered.

  Scalese’s forefinger shot out again and poked Greenway in the chest, hard. “You don’t know shit, Doc! A camera like that means she wasn’t no amateur. What else did she get her hands onto? And who the hell is she working for?” Scalese asked as he poked him again and pushed him backwards. “You don’t have a freakin’ clue, do you?”

  “I tried to get it out of her, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t talk too well, while those long, manicured fingers of yours were wrapped around her throat. You ever think of that, Doc?”

  “She was my problem, and I took care of it.”

  “Took care of it? Took care of it! Is that what you call it?

  “She got away from me in the office and ran up there, what else could I do?”

  “You coulda called me, that’s what you coulda done. I’d have made her talk; but no, you get your rocks off by strangling women.”

  “I think you are forgetting yourself!” Greenway bristled angrily. “This is my company and my operation.”

  “Your company? Your company? You’re the one doing the forgettin’, Doc. You were bought and paid for a long time ago.”

  “I told you I’ll take care of the problems, and I did.”

  “Like you did today?” Scalese asked sarcastically. “First, you let a snoopy bean counter you were bangin’ get her hands on our books — the real ones! Then you got a witness involved.”

  “Him?” Greenway scoffed. “Bentley slipped me his card before he left. The man works for a ‘communications’ company, for Christ’s sake. He probably installs telephones.”

  “Maybe, but there were two more who
heard him, plus a Chicago police detective, our pal Bentley, and our own receptionist. What’s next? A TV news crew and film at 6:00?”

  “You were there. He’d been drinking. Nobody believed his story.”

  “That Chicago cop ain’t like Bentley. How do you know what he believed?”

  “Bentley told me Chicago has no jurisdiction here. He said he can control it.”

  “Bentley told you that, huh?” Scalese’s finger jabbed him again. “You know, he’s a lot like you; he’s got an over-inflated sense of his own worth.”

  “Bentley won’t say anything.”

  “Not with what we pay him; but the others are risks we don’t need.”

  “What about Linda, the receptionist? She said she saw Eleanor this morning. I can talk to her if you want. You know, make sure she keeps her mouth shut.”

  Scalese turned and glared at him. “No! I know how you ‘talk’ to them; and you stay the hell away from her. I already told her to keep her mouth shut and not to talk to nobody. That Purdue broad wasn’t’ workin’ alone, you know. With a camera like that, she was probably snoopin’ around for that bastard O’Malley or the FBI, gettin’ information that’s gonna put us all down in the Federal pen in Marion, if we aren’t careful.”

  “Don’t you think I know that!”

  “For her to take a risk like that? She musta really been out to get you.”

  Greenway glared back at him, but said nothing.

  “Let me tell you somethin’, Doc,” Scalese closed in on him again. “I can do jail time. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. But a good-lookin’ guy like you? They’re gonna love you in there, but they’ll be the ones playin’ doctor, not you. Don’t worry, though,” he said as he slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a 9-inch stiletto. He flicked the blade open and held it up in front of Greenway’s face so that the light from the lobby reflected off its razor-sharp blade. “You’ll never see the inside of a prison or a courtroom. Mr. D will take you on a little fishing trip out in the lake long before that ever happens.”