by Val Bruech
“I see.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any reason he’d want Sam dead. It all points to Benton, Susan, except for his denial to you.”
“But there’s no physical evidence linking him to it. He got back to his office too fast that morning.”
“You are a born defense attorney.”
“Just stating the obvious. Those are two big holes in your case against Benton. Are you guys going to give Brenda a pass for the other night?”
“That’s being reviewed by the state’s attorneys’ office.” His tone became brisk. “But your answering machine tape will help.”
“My tape?” I echoed blankly. “What about my tape?”
“It verified everything you told Ross. Good thing you have a timer on your machine. It showed you called just when you said.”
“You took my tape?” I was incredulous.
The silence stretched for the length of a sunset.
“I thought you knew.”
“How the hell would I know?”
“Ross left the warrant on top of your answering machine.”
I hurried to where the answering machine perched at the end of my desk and flipped the cover open. Empty. A single piece of thin paper lay curled up on the floor, hidden under the desk. I had seen enough search warrants to recognize it immediately. I picked up the phone in a daze.
“You had my keys the other night. Is that how you got in?” I demanded.
“No. Ross applied for the warrant over the phone while I was taking you home. Then he called Iverson, the partner. He had a master key and let Ross in.”
My mouth refused to form the words my brain instructed. Probably a good thing.
“Susan, I didn’t know about this till after I left your place and went to the station.”
“You’re quite the hero.”
“I swear I had nothing to do with that tape.”
“What else did he take?”
“I saw the application for the warrant: it was just for the tape, nothing else.”
I read the document. Tite was correct.
“It would have been too much trouble to come in today and ask me for the tape?” I said icily.
“The sooner we have the evidence in our hands, the better.” Tite did not sound apologetic.
“Ross is an ass.”
“You need a good night’s sleep. Then you can really be your feisty old self.”
I knew what I needed. I slammed the phone back into its cradle.
No matter how vigorously I swam, I couldn’t lose the anger. So afterward I went to the gym, ran a couple of miles, jumped rope, then put on the gloves and sparred with the punching bag. My thoughts ricocheted from the $167,500 Sam wrote in checks on the Great Midwest account, to Ross’s invasion of my office, to the memory of Benton and the syringe. I pummeled the bag till I couldn’t hold my arms up any longer.
After I cleaned up, I went back to the office. An in-depth inspection satisfied me that nothing had been tampered with. My file cabinets are locked every night, and the only key is on my key ring. I sent an email to Theodore Iverson advising him of my extreme displeasure for allowing Ross into my office.
I pulled out a legal pad and listed everyone I knew who was remotely linked to Sam: family, legal community, courthouse workers, witnesses, clients, and friends. Digger Cullerton too. Under each name I set out all the facts I could muster to connect the person with the homicide or with a motive to get rid of him. I included myself for the mental exercise and Benton for the sake of argument. I doodled. I nibbled. I did some stretches.
Malone’s name stood alone in the lower corner of the third page. My foray into his garbage had been disappointing and disgusting. His extraordinary reaction to the name of Cooper Hart could have been an alcohol-driven response to a stranger confronting him with his own wrong-doing, but my gut whispered that once his piece of the puzzle was in place, the rationale of Sam’s murder would be clear.
Invading Benton’s home hadn’t been my most intelligent move, but it had forced his hand and achieved spectacular, if unanticipated results. It was time to push Malone’s buttons. The first time I had been happy for the safety and protection offered by the Hospitality Suite and its patrons. This time I wanted him removed from all assistance, far away from a peacekeeping bartender. I needed the confrontation to be on my terms, and I needed to get ready.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
If you want a handgun in a hurry, the sellers are on the East side, and they don’t concern themselves with gun control laws. But the merchandise there isn’t exactly brand-new-out-of-the-box, and I’d heard too many stories of exploding firearms and blown-off fingers to take a chance. If I wanted to buy from a legitimate gun dealer, I’d have to wait three days for a Firearm Owner’s I.D. card. I didn’t have three days.
I settled for Mace. According to the salesman, it was pepper spray, and a one-second burst would cause fifteen-to-thirty minutes of severe coughing, sneezing, and shortness of breath. The canister fit snugly in my closed fist, and the salesman showed me how to use the flip-top safety cap so I would have great difficulty spraying myself. I hoped he was right. It shot a ten-to fifteen-foot arc similar to a garden hose and my victim, should there ever be one, would suffer no permanent side effects. The best part was that I didn’t need a special permit to purchase it.
I went home, ate, and loaded the fanny pack with the Mace, my cell phone, matches, and a new flashlight. If the cops had found my other one hiding under one of Benton’s cars, they had not yet bothered to return it. I turned off the lights, put on some Eagles and tried to get lost in the easy rock ’n roll.
At eleven, I drove to Malone’s. The house was in total darkness, the driveway empty. I parked at the end of his block, walked through the alley behind his house and took up a station in the shadow of the garage diagonal from his. I had a good view of his garage, yard, and the rear of his house. I alternately tensed and relaxed small muscle groups to stay awake. An elderly gentleman walked by in his pajamas and a bathrobe. He was having such a pleasant conversation with himself he didn’t notice me.
The temperature dropped as the night advanced. To keep my mind from dwelling on the cold, I tried to think of ways to force Malone to reveal the truth about the Cooper Hart case. The cop’s life was a mess. Was there anything left that he valued? His freedom, certainly. Had he discovered Sam’s problem in South Lombard and blackmailed him to keep it quiet? Was that incident somehow connected to Cooper Hart’s death? Was the Hart-Malone-Sam connection merely a coincidence?
I pressed the illumination dial on my watch, convinced an hour had passed, but it had been only twenty minutes. The cold seeped through my jacket, and I longed for the driver’s seat of the Acura, heat on full blast.
Light suddenly flooded Malone’s backyard. A neighbor’s dog shattered the stillness with raucous barking. I melted deeper into the shadows.
Malone trudged out of the house and entered the garage through a side door. Seconds later the bay door rose, an engine turned over, and the old Silverado chugged out. If he went left, I’d be spotlit like a vase in a china cabinet. I gathered myself for a frantic dash up the alley.
Thankfully, he turned to the right. The car paused and the overhead door descended. I strained to make out his license plate as he drove away. CEN 446. Only one taillight was working: the other was decommissioned as a result of the smash-up.
The house was probably empty; I debated whether to search it or follow Malone. His destination was likely a bar, but were any still open at this hour?
I made a snap decision, sprinted back to my car, and roared through the alley after him. I gambled that he had turned right. A single taillight glowed about five blocks ahead. If it wasn’t Malone, I was on to plan B, whatever that was.
The speedometer jumped to fifty as I gained on my quarry. He stopped at a red light. I braked a block behind him and crept up to his rear bumper. CEN 446. Bingo!
He turned left onto a main thoroughfare. I fell in a h
undred yards behind, allowing the few cars that were out at this time of night to get between us. The road angled out toward the mall and the interstate, past the fast food chains and all-night gas stations. I stayed a quarter mile back. Before long the streetlights disappeared, and we were in the country. A solitary vehicle passed us going the other way but other than that we owned the road.
Malone slowed for a right-hand turn and I was almost on his bumper before I knew it. I cruised by, then did a quick U-turn. He had disappeared down a nameless county road identified only by a six-digit number. Malone’s taillight had disappeared, but I couldn’t be more than two minutes behind him.
I drove about a mile when a vehicle approached from the opposite direction. It came on hesitantly, as if the driver was searching for something. As we drew closer, I saw that the car bore the now-familiar license plate. I grabbed a baseball cap from the passenger seat and jammed it on my head. The road was too narrow for both cars, so I swung as far to the right as I dared when we drew even and kept my eyes straight ahead. After we passed each other, I took my foot off the gas and divided my attention between the road ahead and the rearview mirror. Malone made a left turn. I noted the spot, did another U turn and accelerated back to within a few car lengths of where I had last seen his truck. There was no shoulder, so I nudged the passenger side tires off the road and killed the engine. I checked the contents of the fanny pack, exited the car and locked it.
Kelly’s warning about running out of friends drifted through my head. But I was positive Malone had the answer I needed, and this was the time to get it. One, I had the element of surprise on my side. Two, Malone was not nearly as clever or demonic as Benton, and I was confident he was not leading me into a trap.
I covered the ten yards between my car and the narrow gap where the Silverado had vanished, with muted, cautious steps. My flashlight revealed a dirt and gravel trail, too primitive to be called a driveway.
I hovered at the juncture of the road and the trail, listening intently. The silence was eerie. No humming traffic, no buzzing electricity. An owl hooted, seemingly so close he could pick off my baseball cap. A gentle breeze stirred through the branches of soon-to-blossom trees.
I made my way crab-like down the path, settling softly into each step as if I was crossing a sea of grapes and couldn’t crush a single one. After a hundred yards, the trail emptied into a clearing. A dilapidated aluminum house trailer sat dejectedly in the middle, bathed in a sallow glow cast by the crescent moon. Malone’s Silverado and a pickup truck were parked nose to nose. I hesitated. If Malone was meeting a drinking buddy or hooking up with some paramour, the less I knew about it the better.
High above, stars winked like watchful silver eyes, amused by the antics of us mortals. I picked my way slowly and carefully around the entire perimeter of the clearing. The trailer was dark and quiet, except for a block of light that escaped from a solitary window on the opposite side. I tensed, eyes probing every inch of the plot of land and the rectangular box. But for the vehicles and the ray of light, the mobile home could have been devoid of human activity for the last six months. Staying low, I scurried across the clearing and snuggled up against the cold metal. Rising up on tiptoe, I peeked through the window into a room that took up roughly half the dwelling. A battle-scarred table and a sagging, filthy sofa made my first apartment seem like a palace. The light emanated from a lamp with a single exposed bulb, no lampshade. This room was separated from the rest of the trailer by a wall with a cutout space in the middle. I tried to see through the space into the front end but couldn’t get the right angle. I crouched back down and, with my light off, slouched toward the front of the trailer, hoping for another window. My right foot caught on something and I went sprawling with a deafening clatter.
I landed awkwardly, face down in weeds and long grass. I untangled my legs and crouched on elbows and the balls of my feet, every muscle taut, ready to flee. The silence was hushed, expectant.
Nothing happened. Remarkably, I still clutched the flashlight. I switched it back on and discovered a metal bucket on its side a few yards away. Alternately cursing my stupidity and silently rejoicing that my clumsiness hadn’t roused the cavalry, I rose and spotted a second window at eye height in the darkened part of the trailer. I stayed buried in the weeds for a good five minutes, then tucked the flashlight back in the fanny pack and crept toward the window, straining for the slightest abnormal sound. I straightened up and peered in. The interior here was dark, barely illuminated from the other room. I was focused so totally on trying to see this part of the trailer that all other senses were blocked out. That’s when a gloved hand clamped over my mouth as tight as bark on a tree.
“Don’t struggle, don’t scream,” a whispered voice commanded. “Nod your head if you understand.”
Up, down, hyperventilating.
“We’re going in the house.”
My legs were jelly. I was half-pushed, half-dragged around the corner to the entrance of the mobile home. My captor pulled me up the wooden steps, kicked the door open and propelled me inside. A loud click and one bare light bulb dangling on a wire from the ceiling illuminated a nightmarish scene. A rusted out sink and a wall oven with no door hinted that this room had once been a kitchen. Larry Malone was spread-eagled on the floor, his considerable belly pointing skyward. He was either dead or out cold.
“C’mon.” I was prodded around Malone to a table with two hard-back chairs. The hand still tattooed itself across my mouth.
“Sit,” the voice hissed. I did so and a dot of cold metal pressed into my right temple.
“I’m taking my hand away. You make a sound, you’re dead. Understand?”
Nod.
“Put your hands behind the chair.”
I did as instructed. The hand slowly peeled itself from my mouth, and the dot of metal disappeared. I heard a ripping sound and my arms were yanked together behind me. My wrists were cemented together with thick, sticky tape. He peeled another strip off and wound it over the first. Somehow the fingers of my right hand remained free. The fanny pack hung in the small of my back, out of sight under my long jacket. My assailant seemed unaware of it.
“Is he dead?” I gasped.
Cold steel started at the bottom of my ear and traced my jaw to my chin. I shivered involuntarily.
“Why don’t you show yourself?”
A hand rested on my shoulder. It held a gun, the barrel of which lightly touched my neck. “I don’t want to kill you,” the voice said hoarsely.
Malone’s limbs twitched. His head lolled as if barely a thread connected it to his body.
“Shit.” My assailant stepped out from behind me and hurried to the sergeant. It was the same figure who only a few weeks ago had stepped through the evidence tape and greeted me on the fourth floor of the courthouse. A sharp intake of breath, then I heard someone sigh as if her heart was broken.
Tite glanced in my direction, his mouth a thin line. I thought I saw a hint of remorse, but the lighting was bad.
He grasped Malone’s shirt collar with one hand and his belt with the other and hoisted him up like a sack of potting soil into the chair across from me. Malone’s head slammed on the table and he started to slip to the floor. Tite jammed the chair in tightly, keeping Malone from sliding off. Then, without a backward glance, he hurried out the door.
“Malone!” I hissed, desperately working to loosen the tape. “Malone, wake up!”
The sergeant groaned but remained motionless. I banged my knee hard against the underside of the table, hoping to jolt him into consciousness. He moaned louder.
The top of the chair reached my shoulder blades. I stood and slid my arms up and over it. With no small effort I located the zipper of the fanny pack with my right hand and pulled it open.
A car door slammed. My fingers rummaged blindly through the fanny pack. Knife, phone, Mace! I grabbed the cylinder and slid back into the chair just as Tite appeared in the door. Behind my back, out of his sight, I popped the flip-t
op safety cap open and manipulated the dispenser so it would spray away from me.
The handle of a gun protruded from Tite’s waistband. A silver and black cannon nestled in his gloved hand. He surveyed the room.
“What are you going to do?” I barely recognized my own voice.
He shook his head. “It was supposed to be just one more casualty. Now it’s gotta be two. Why couldn’t you have gone back to the courtroom? Why did you have to be so persistent, Susan?”
The Mace would shoot in a straight line, but in the time it would take to stand up, turn my back and press the dispenser, I’d have three holes in me. I had to keep him talking and hope he’d put the gun down.
“Why are you doing this?” The close-to-tears tremor in my voice wasn’t artifice.
Regret swept across his face like wind skimming a calm lake. “You still don’t get it?”
Suddenly, as if the movie just ended and the credits started rolling, I understood. “You and Malone were in it together,” I exclaimed, a sense of exultation flashing through me in spite of the circumstances. “You probably steered cases to him, then you split the payoffs from the blackmails. Now that he’s been caught you’re afraid he’ll make a deal and take you down.”
Tite nodded. “Very good. Larry’s so depressed about his life going to hell, no one will be surprised by his suicide.”
“Suicide?” My gut did a flip turn.
“This is Malone’s extra gun.” Tite raised the weapon in his hand. “He keeps it in his car. I called him from a pay phone and told him to meet me here.”
The synapses were burning. “Were you blackmailing Sam about Anthony Cullerton?”
“Who?” Tite looked at me blankly.
“Was Sam paying you off?”
“He was one of our accounts receivable,” Tite answered laconically. “But he wanted to pull the plug.”
I felt like I was awakening from a weeks-long sleep, slowly starting to focus. “Sam was on to your scheme, so you had to take him out before he blew the whistle.”
“I knew you were a genius from the minute I first saw you.”