Fixed in Fear: A Justice Novel

by T. E. Woods

Lydia said nothing. Mort was glad she didn’t try to sidestep the issue. She didn’t lie. He hoped their relationship had progressed to a point where she could trust him to know the truth.

  “All that money he stole from that guy he killed. Feds say it’s been shipped back to his wife and kid. Nice work. I guess all that investment you poured into that fancy equipment down there in your bat cave helped you find Dirkin and the money.”

  She still said nothing.

  “FBI says they’ve never encountered a system like it. They can’t trace how Dirkin’s accounts were hacked and all the money siphoned out. Can’t figure out how the widow’s accounts were accessed, either. Looks like The Fixer’s as stealth as she’s always been.” When she still said nothing he shifted gears. “Listen, Liddy. I’m damned proud of you. Dirkin’s been a black eye on the feds for years. You found him when they couldn’t. Good on you. His trail was cold as ice but you found him. You found the money, too. The widow and kid of the man Dirkin killed deserve to have that back at the very least. Again, great job.” He hesitated a moment, then murmured. “It would have been easy to kill him, Liddy. I know that. Loner found dead in the middle of nowhere…living under an alias…no way anyone would have made him for Dirkin. Especially if you made it look like an accident. There wouldn’t have even been an inquest. But you did the right thing, Liddy. You didn’t kill the bastard. That’s what I’m most proud of. Can you hear me, Liddy? Can you?”

  “I hear you, Mort. It’s an interesting story you’re telling.”

  She didn’t trust enough to admit to anything. He went on with the message he knew he had to deliver. “You’ve got to stop. You can’t keep chasing justice. Not alone. Not outside the channels. It’s too dangerous. For you and for me. Look, Liddy. You did the right thing this time, but you can’t keep putting that kind of temptation in front of yourself. If you keep this up, one of these days you’re going to cross a line and flip into autopilot. You’ll pull that trigger. You’ll tighten that rope. You’ve been too long without justice for what’s been done to you to keep walking away without doing something that could jeopardize everything you have. Leave the past in the past, Liddy. I’m begging you.” Despite being alone on the porch he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Keep The Fixer dead and buried. Before she buries you.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Tell me you hear me, Liddy. Can you do that much?”

  “You’re calling from Robbie’s.” Mort understood she must be in her communication center. She’d traced the location from which he was calling. “Everything good there?”

  Mort shook his head in frustration with this wounded woman. “Everybody’s fine. You? How are things?”

  “Things are good, Mort. I appreciate you reaching out. Maybe we can have coffee soon.”

  He wished he could reach into the phone and touch her with some kind of spell that would make whatever soul-crushing pain caused her to be so reckless disappear.

  But magic spells lived only in the fairy tales his granddaughters loved. He feared Lydia would carry her burden forever.

  “I’d like that, Liddy. I’d like that a lot.”

  “Take good care, Mort.”

  She hung up before he could ask her to do the same.

  Chapter 10

  “Thank you for seeing us.” Rita Willers, chief of the Enumclaw Police Department, shook the hand of Abraham Smydon. “And please accept the condolences of not only my department, but our entire town. We’re all sorry for the death of your brother.”

  Abraham Smydon gave a brief nod. He had a full head of gray hair and wore it closely cropped. Mort read a sense of determined action in the man’s eyes when Abraham turned to greet him.

  “You’re Mort Grant.” Abraham’s voice bore the telltale rasp of a man who used shouting as his normal speech volume. “You’re a friend of the man my daughter married.”

  Businessmen are usually so efficient, Mort thought. Wouldn’t it have been easier to have called Larry his son-in-law?

  “Have been for years.” Abraham’s crushing handshake gave no indication the seventy-five-year-old’s strength was waning. “I don’t like to rank, but if I had to, I’d call Larry my dearest friend.”

  Abraham looked him up and down. A small smile came to his lips when he finally released Mort’s hand and motioned toward a sitting area at the west end of his office. “It’s odd, don’t you think? A white police officer befriending a black schoolteacher. How did you two meet?”

  Mort felt an urge to defend his friend against Abraham’s dismissive description. A heartbeat later he decided to focus on the reason they were there. L. Jackson Clark, adviser to heads of states and humanitarian of world repute, didn’t need to be defended to the self-crowned Seafood King.

  “Over crossword puzzles and beer. On an afternoon long ago.”

  Abraham asked Rita and Mort to take a seat on the sofa. He sat opposite them, in a straight-backed chair formed from silky smooth teak. He unbuttoned the jacket of his suit and crossed one leg over the other, all the while keeping his eyes on Mort.

  “Did you know my daughter?”

  “Helen died two years before I met Larry. But I feel like I know her. Larry speaks of her often. He loved her very much.”

  Abraham said nothing as he considered Mort’s words. “I suppose my name’s come up over the years, Detective. Do you feel you know me, as well?”

  Larry’s told me what an arrogant jerk you can be. So far you’re proving him right.

  “I know you’re Helen’s father. I know you adored her.”

  Abraham’s face softened. He looked away, in the direction of his desk. Mort couldn’t tell if he was focused on the stacked files there or the bustling Seattle waterfront activity just outside the wide windows behind it, but he assumed Abraham was trying to find a distraction to break the moment of pain that came with Mort’s assessment of his love for his dead-too-young daughter.

  “Mr. Smydon, we know you’re busy. We’ll ask our questions and let you get on with your morning.” Rita Willers pulled a notepad from her purse. She’d dressed in plain clothes today and Mort understood why she always wore her uniform at work. While the navy blue suit and pink blouse accented her trim figure, the overall effect was one that was more likely to inspire a man to wonder if the lovely woman was single rather than to obey any order she might bark. “When did you last see your brother?”

  Abraham shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “Carlton is…was…my half brother, Chief Willers. I’ll accept the simplicity of referring to him as my brother for the sake of this conversation, but I want everyone to be clear about the nature of the relationship. We shared a father. An accident of birth. Nothing more. If you intend to ask specifics about his life or the names of friends he may have had or what I know about who may have wanted harm to come his way, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.”

  “When did you last see your brother?” Rita Willers asked again and Mort stifled a smile at the woman’s effortless step away from Smydon’s attempt to control the agenda.

  “Last year at Kenny Kamm’s parole hearing. Helen’s husband, Carlton, and I make it a point to be there whenever the issue comes up. We didn’t really speak then. We focused on the matter at hand. I haven’t had any real sort of conversation with Carlton in at least two years.”

  “Tell us about that,” Chief Willers said.

  Smydon brushed a piece of lint from his trousers. “It was in my attorney’s office. I’d purchased extra docking space in Juneau and Ketchikan. We had some papers to sign. I saw him there. My attorney took us to lunch afterward. Carlton told me about his most recent trip. India this time, if I remember correctly. After lunch I walked back to my office here and Carlton went his own way. I’ve not seen him since.”

  “Did he keep you informed of his whereabouts? His activities?” Mort asked.

  “Do you mean did he send me postcards from these—oh, what would you call them—vision quests? Spiritual journeys? No, Detective. He didn’t.
It’s my understanding your good friend Larry would have more to offer you in this regard than I. I tend to stay focused on my business.”

  “What’s your brother’s stake in this business?” Willers asked. “Why did he need to sign papers in regards to purchasing dock space?”

  The irritation on Smydon’s face was clear. “I started this company with one boat more than fifty years ago. It was me and my crew, bringing in a hull filled with fish before most people reached for their snooze buttons. I mortgaged that boat and bought two more. Business was good and I was expanding fast. By then I was married.” Smydon looked toward Mort. “My wife was pregnant with Helen. I needed to take care of them. A chance came up to buy four boats. An old salt got himself in trouble with his two ex-wives and offered his boats and his docking rights to me for half of what they were worth. I was leveraged too heavily for the bank to arrange a loan unless I could come up with a third of the price in cash. I didn’t want to pass up that opportunity. I went to my father.”

  “Luther Smydon.” Rita Willers didn’t need to refer to her notes. “He was a postal worker, correct?”

  Abraham nodded. “My father was one of the hardest-working men I’ve ever known. It wasn’t easy for a black man to get his start back in his day.” He huffed at his own statement. “Not much better these days, for that matter. But my father provided for my mother and me by the sheer force of his will and the strength of his body. For all my coming-up years I knew him to work two, sometimes three jobs. When my mother was sick with her cancer he never slept. He’d take care of her and me and still get to work on time. He was at the post office for nearly forty years. I got my work ethic from him.” The muscles in Abraham’s jaw churned. “Can’t say his younger son benefited the same.”

  Mort watched Rita jot her thought on her notepad. He’d keep his own to himself.

  “By this time my father had remarried, of course. Carlton was young and his wife insisted he go down to just the one job. I suppose she wanted him to be part of his son’s life. I can’t fault her for that. I watched my father soften.”

  Abraham’s tone suggested no resentment for his father spending time with his new son in a way he never did with Abraham. Mort wondered if Abraham’s own experience of his wife’s sudden death and his subsequent renewed connection with his daughter drove that understanding.

  “My father agreed to borrow against his retirement so I could expand my fleet. In return I offered him twenty-five percent of my business. It was a win all the way around. My business grew. My father saw a return on his investment that allowed him to spend more time with his family.” He hesitated. “My family, too. Olivia…my wife…and Helen would spend most of their time with my father during those early years. I was so focused on work. I’m glad my father was there for them.”

  “And that’s how Helen and Carlton grew so close,” Mort said.

  Abraham nodded. “Yes. They were two of a kind. The life of any party. I worried about that at times.”

  “How so?” Mort asked. Beside him, Rita leaned forward almost imperceptibly.

  Abraham waited before he spoke, as though he was forming an answer to himself as to why he was concerned. “Like I said, my father instilled in me the need to work hard, play by the rules. Who knows why Carlton didn’t get that same lesson? Maybe his mother coddled him. Or perhaps my father did, for that matter. He was more grandfather than father to his second son. It showed in Carlton’s attitude toward responsibility. He did just well enough in school to keep the teachers from complaining. He never held a job in high school. Dropped out of college after two semesters.” He pushed himself back into his chair and stared straight at Mort. “You got daughters?”

  Mort breathed through the knot in his stomach he got any time he was asked a similar question. “One. Two kids, boy and a girl.”

  Abraham nodded. “Then you know what I went through when I came home one night and found my sixteen-year-old daughter and my twenty-six-year-old half brother down in our basement higher than kites on marijuana. Helen said Carlton got it for her. He was laughing so hard I never got a straight answer from him. If my wife hadn’t stopped me I’d have punched him right in the face. I couldn’t have been more disappointed in her.”

  What I wouldn’t give, Mort thought, to have disappointment be the worst of my reactions to my daughter.

  “My father outlived his young wife,” Abraham continued. “When he died his share in my business passed to Carlton. I offered to bring him on board, teach him the business.” His eyes grew wistful. “I even hoped maybe someday Carlton and Helen could take over the company. Life sure changes, doesn’t it?” He blinked himself back to the moment without waiting for their answer. “Carlton wanted no part of it, of course. He wanted me to buy him out. Told me he had no plans to smell like fish the rest of his life. He told me how his mother used to beg my father to visit with me out on the back porch so the smell of salmon wouldn’t leech into her upholstery. I offered him ten cents on the dollar and he was stupid enough to take it without calling for an appraisal. But he did do one smart thing. He held on to five percent of the business. Maybe he knew himself too well. He never could hold on to money. Maybe he realized he’d need some source of steady income.” He looked toward Rita. “So that’s why he needed to sign the papers, Chief. He’s five percent owner in the company. I imagine whoever inherits his estate will need to be dealt with.”

  Mort felt an unexpected pang of pity for the multimillionaire sitting across from him. A lifetime of hard work and no one to share it with. Abraham Smydon may look and act twenty years younger than he is, but death will come to the Seafood King as it comes to us all. Abraham’s father, mother, wife, daughter, and now his brother were gone. Who would stand beside his bed as he dies? To whom will he leave this company to which he’s given his entire life?

  “The picture you paint of your brother is quite different from how Larry describes him,” Mort said. “How do you explain that?”

  “I think it was Helen’s death. They were so close. Carlton had nothing to steady him in the face of such loss. No career. No real relationships. He lacked a North Star to guide him through his grief. He crumbled. He’d been staying in some tumbledown apartment and I suggested he move into my house until he got his legs under him. I know he and Larry saw each other a few times. Carlton showed me that foolish tattoo the two of them got. But it wasn’t enough. Larry had his classes to teach. He just wasn’t available the way Carlton needed. Nor was I, for that matter. I realized Carlton was sinking into a deep depression. My housekeeper told me days would go by and Carlton wouldn’t leave his room. She’d deliver food that went untouched outside his closed door. He’d stumble through the halls at night. I could hear him sobbing. I offered to pay for a psychologist, but he refused. My gardener found him one day at the end of the pier, just staring into the lake. He sat and talked with him. Next thing I know, Carlton’s going with him to church. Then it was a revival meeting down in Tacoma. He started to come back to life. He was changed. He bought books and videos. He and Larry grew closer.” Abraham turned to Mort. “You know Helen’s husband teaches that stuff, right?”

  Mort nodded. It seemed so odd to him that anyone would hold a man like L. Jackson Clark in such casual disregard.

  “Anyway, within the month Carlton was gone. He bought that small house over near the university. It’s my understanding he wasn’t there much. He spent his time traveling the world. Chasing his spiritual rabbit.” Abraham glanced at his watch. “And now you know the sum total of my knowledge and history of my half brother. I’m afraid I have nothing to offer by way of clues as to who may have wanted him dead.” He stood. They were being dismissed.

  Rita slipped her notebook back into her purse, shook Smydon’s hand, and asked him to call if he remembered anything that may be of help in the investigation.

  “We’ll keep you informed as the investigation continues,” Mort promised. “And, of course, we’ll let you know when we make an arrest.”

&n
bsp; Abraham held Mort’s gaze. “There’s no need for that, Detective. I’ll get what I need from the newspapers.”

  Chapter 11

  “That’s a hard man.” Rita Willers buckled her seatbelt as Mort pulled his Subaru away from Abraham Smydon’s dockside office. “I mean, I get family feuds and all, but his brother’s been murdered. You’d think he’d at least act a little sad when the police come calling.”

  “I get the impression he’s the kind of guy who never acts at all.” Mort thought of all the stories Larry had told him about Helen and her father through the years. “Smydon strikes me as a guy who believes hard work is its own reward. Look what he’s built from nothing. To hear him tell it, Carlton was different. I don’t think it was so much a feud as a complete lack of understanding.”

  “Maybe so. But Larry paints a different picture. He and Carlton were close. And a guy like Larry wouldn’t hang with a slacker.” Rita Willers craned her neck to take in the skyscraper canyon that was downtown Seattle. “How do you live here, Detective Grant? All this glass and concrete. Doesn’t it drive you crazy?”

  Mort loved his city. Especially in the morning. He liked the way the buildings cast ever-changing shadows throughout the day—titanic sundials on every block. He loved the briny smell of Puget Sound breezing into the heart of the city, reminding Seattle that for all its sophistication and polish, its fortunes began with the churning of the sea.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve lived here all my life. I guess I’m used to it. The way you’re used to the forests and the rivers of where you were raised. Maybe we’re a bit like Carlton and Abraham. We know what we know and that makes it tough to understand each other.” He glanced over to her. “And I wish you’d call me Mort. I don’t know how long we’ll be working this case, but it seems to me we might as well be friendly.”

  She continued her examination of Seattle’s architecture as he drove toward the station. She was a woman of few words, and Mort wondered if she grew up on Salish land. Was it the solitude of the reservation that instilled her with an appreciation for quiet?