by Shirl Henke
“Remember Susan Winchester?”
“Farley’s mother. Died of a drug OD around five years ago. You mean maybe it wasn’t just an overdose?”
Matt nodded. “She may have been involved with Reicht. He was her shrink before he treated Farley.”
“You mean the good doc was giving her more physical than mental therapy?” She chewed on the pencil eraser. “Doesn’t work for me. The man’s a toad and from the pix I’ve seen of her, she was a looker.”
He shrugged. “Who can figure the taste of women?”
“Yeah, I married you, didn’t I?” she couldn’t resist saying, laughing as she dodged the pillow he threw at her. “What else about her and Reicht?”
“If she went off the deep end, maybe threatened to tell her hubby, Reicht administered that OD. At least, that’s what the cops are investigating.”
“Yeah, he might have been giving her drugs. He seems to have Farley on something potent. But this is a cold case. What made the cops activate it now?”
“They got a tip from an anonymous source a couple of weeks ago. Complete with photos of Susan Winchester driving away from a hotel in Palm Springs with a guy who looked a lot like Reicht.”
“What about the wronged husband? Anybody working on Roman Numeral? If his wife was having an affair, he’d have motive,” she said, not really seeing Upton Winchester IV as a likely suspect.
“That’s the other part of the equation I was about to get to,” Matt replied. “The marriage had been in trouble for years. Lots of gossip about that. Susan apparently wasn’t the type to suffer in silence.”
“And Upton’s the type to make anyone suffer,” Sam agreed thoughtfully. “Still, I can’t see him offing her with a drug OD. If she had a habit, he’d want to hush it up, not broadcast it. Bad for his image, that kind of thing.”
“Also assuming he cared enough to bother. Her complaint was that he ignored her and their son. I doubt a quiet fling with her shrink would upset old Upton much as long as it didn’t cause a scandal.”
“That fits what I got out of interviewing him. Cold fish, prissy proper,” Sam agreed. “If he wanted his wife dead, he’d find some more discreet, less scandalous way to have her killed. Say, a car crash or drowning. A tragedy without a hint of scandal.”
“Yes, but how does a tight-assed CPA feel about having a Spacer kid who drives around Miami in full Spacefleet regalia? The boy was already in special schools and on medication for years.”
“Elvis told me they got in a brawl at Upton’s country club a few weeks ago. Tried to take a katliff inside when they were going for a swim.”
Matt shook his head. “To fight off pool sharks, no doubt. For now, I see Winchester being a hell of a lot more upset about his son than his wife.”
“But would he try to kill his own son? Maybe,” Sam answered her own question, remembering his icy disdain. Anyone who didn’t meet Roman Numeral’s standards of perfection would be expendable. “Still, after losing his wife in a drug scandal, I figure he’d rather keep the boy sedated at some place like Homeside. Safer and easier and the kid’s out of the picture as far as dear old daddy’s concerned.”
“But Winchester hasn’t been able to keep the kid under wraps very effectively. Look at this escapade, stealing a car, the whole enchilada that brought you into the case,” Matt argued.
“Yeah, if Winchester wanted to kill anyone, his logical choice would’ve been Scruggs. With him out of the picture, Roman Numeral could make the kid go away permanently.”
“Did that goon the other night kidnap the wrong guy?” Matt asked. “Maybe he was sent to kill Elvis, not Farley.”
“You haven’t seen the two of them together. No way anyone could mistake one for the other. Think Yoda and Darth Vader.”
Matt grinned at her. “Now who’s the space geek?”
She waved that away. “Oh, everyone’s seen at least one of those old movies.” She sighed and started doodling on the notepad. “Reicht’s already up to his ass in alligators with the IRS and Miami-Dade Homicide. Would he dare chance hiring goons to kill Farley or Scruggs? For sure Winchester wouldn’t want his kid run over at a Space Quest con. Too messy. Not to mention those shooters this afternoon. And I’m still getting strange vibes from my good ole boy Elvis. Nothing adds up.” She flipped the pencil across the bed in disgust.
Then her cell beeped.
Chapter 11
“Ballanger here,” she answered. “Good work, Edward. I’ll have your cash—with a bonus if you follow them to the parking lot… Yeah, that’s where they’re headed. If I’m wrong, give me a quick call back. I’ll be right down.”
“What’s up?” Matt asked. Already brackets of worry began to form around his mouth.
“Looks like Scruggs is trying to slip off with his meal ticket. God only knows what line of extraterrestrial excrement he’s fed the kid to get him to leave the con.”
“If they get out of the parking lot, we’ll never catch them.”
She grinned and pulled a small plastic and metal disk from her fanny pack, holding it in the palm of her hand as she asked, “What’s this ‘we,’ kemo sabe?”
“What’s that gizmo?” he asked, ignoring her objection to his horning in on her job.
Sam yanked on a pair of shorts and a tee as she replied, “Distributor rotor.” She looked up from tying her tennies, knowing he didn’t have a clue. “I love it when a guy’s dumb. Makes ’em sexy,” she said, standing up to pat his cheek.
“It’s something that stops a car from running,” he grumbled as he reached for his shorts and a shirt.
“Only before fuel injection engines were developed. You see, back in—”
“Never mind, I don’t need another lecture on automotive design.”
“Couldn’t agree more. What you need is to take a couple of years at a good vo-tech.”
“Deal, if you sign up for cooking and household management,” he said cheerfully. “I can get by not knowing how to repair my own car, but you don’t even know how to make a bed.”
“I can get by without making a bed,” she shot back. “Why make a bed when you’re only going to sleep in it again that same night?” That one was a no-brainer for Sam. She checked her stunner and the .38 and placed both in her fanny pack. When she looked over at him he was fully dressed and holding the door open. “You’re not going with me,” she said.
“Think again. No way am I leaving you alone with this Elvis character. He’s a con artist who’s served prison time. And you said he’s a big bruiser.”
She shook her head. “Being protective is a sweet quality in a husband—only not for this wife.”
He stood in the doorway, daring her. “No way, Sam.”
She didn’t have time to argue. “Just let me handle this and do what I say, okay?”
He nodded, gesturing for her to go ahead of him. She dashed for the elevator with Matt beside her. “What if Scruggs decides to leave the Jag behind to ditch you?”
“Nah, he wouldn’t give up that sweet little jewel. It’s every man’s wet dream,” she said as they burst through the opening door and dashed toward the rear exit.
Her intuition was right. Elvis was bent over the engine while Farley stood helplessly by. She could hear Scruggs curse as she paid Edward his bonus. He thanked her and accepted the money, returning to the hotel as they walked toward the conspirators.
“You must’ve really pissed him off,” Matt whispered.
Just then Farley saw Sam and called out sheepishly, “Oh, hi, Sam.”
Elvis cracked his already injured head on the hood when he tried to straighten up. He let fly another string of oaths, wiping greasy hands on his jeans. He eyed her like a cat checking out a canary. “Now why is it, Lieutenant—oh, that’s right, you never did give us your real rank, now didja? Why’d you take out the distributor rotor?”
“If you know what it is, then you have your answer, don’ja?” Sam replied, mimicking his drawl.
“The car won’t start,” Farle
y said, looking nervously from Sam to Elvis.
“Give that young man a cigar,” Matt interjected, leaning against the Jag’s door.
“Who the hell are you?” Scruggs said, eyeing the stranger who had a good two inches on him, and Elvis was well above average height.
Matt watched the other man puff up. “Lordy, you do look like Mr. Presley when you stick your chin out that way.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Scruggs’s tone was menacing now, all the good old boy evaporating like gasoline fumes.
“Granger. Matt Granger.” He waggled his eyebrows at the awful 007 parody.
“Relax, guys, he’s with me,” she said. “Why were you running away from me, Farley? I’m here to protect you.”
“El said—”
“Don’t say nothin’, Far. Told you I checked with Spacefleet Command and she’s not an officer.”
“Of course not, you idiot,” Matt said, flashing a badge he pulled from his pocket. It had some kind of fancy insignia on it that Sam had never seen before. “I’m not supposed to show this to anyone outside those we know we can trust in Spacefleet. I’m Commander Granger to you.”
“Let me see that,” Farley said, excitedly.
Matt showed him the badge. “We’re a covert operation assigned to undermine the Klingoff-Pandorian alliance. My field agents aren’t on record. Neither am I.”
Sam took back every crack she’d ever made about his hokey acting. He halfway had her convinced he was some kind of super space spy. Judging from Farley’s expression, she knew he’d bought it. Scruggs was another matter. “We’re sitting ducks in this open area. Someone tried to run me down a couple of times already. My van’s over there.” She pointed to the Econoline. “We can talk inside it, then decide what to do next.”
“I don’t think so,” Elvis said.
“You want to expose us all to the Klingoffs?” Matt asked, seeming to be genuinely angry. “If you two slime worms piss me off, your next duty station will be a garbage scow circling Tantalus Seven.”
“He’s the ranking officer on-site, El. We can at least listen to what they have to say,” Farley said, looking up at all the open balcony doors surrounding them. He was obviously remembering his brush with death in that very place as he pulled his prescription bottle from his shirt pocket and popped a pill with shaky hands.
“What do you know about Commander Leila Satterwaite’s disappearance?” Scruggs asked Matt suspiciously.
“The Pandorians have her,” Sam said, knowing Matt had no idea who she was.
“Yes, now will you come with us?” Matt added impatiently.
Scruggs wasn’t happy about it, but he went along, keeping more of an eye on Matt than on Sam. That was exactly the way she wanted. Sometimes having Matt around was okay…well, it was always okay when they were in bed…or the shower…or, hell, on a garbage scow circling Tantalus Seven…. Dammit, focus, Ballanger!
She unlocked the van and Matt climbed inside first, taking the front passenger seat. She motioned for Elvis and Farley to get in the back. The boy climbed in without protest. Sam was pleased. Matt knew so well how her mind worked that it sometimes scared her. Warily, Scruggs followed, keeping an eye on Matt while Farley slid across the backseat. Between watching out for his companion and his nemesis, Elvis forgot about Sam.
Big mistake. Cosmic mistake, she thought as she pulled out the stunner and gave him a good jolt right between the shoulder blades. He dropped silently onto the parking lot, flopping around like a banked carp.
“Hey, what did you do to El?” Farley said, trying to get out of the back of the van before Sam could climb in, but Matt placed a restraining hand on the boy’s bony shoulder, saying, “He’s a traitor who sold out to the Pandorians.”
By that time Sam was inside the van with a nasal inhalator hidden in the palm of her hand. She waited to see how Farley was going to react to Matt’s spiel before she risked drugging the kid.
“We have inside information about Elvis Scruggs,” Matt began. “You know he grew up poor. Well, the Pandorians offered him one of the moons of Orion Four. You know how rich they are in trilythium crystals. He thinks he’ll be a billionaire.”
Farley shook his head. “I don’t believe you. El wouldn’t do that. He’s my friend…my only friend. I don’t know you…” His voice faded away and he blinked back tears, then made a sudden lunge, trying to knock Sam away from the door.
Damn, she had been afraid of this. Sam ducked just enough so that Farley overbalanced when he attempted to push her out of his way. Then she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and yanked him back into the van. Before he could regain his footing, she clamped a hand over his mouth and shoved the inhalator into one nostril just as he gasped for air.
Matt knew the effect of the drug was almost instantaneous. She’d used it on him the first time they met and he’d gone down in barely a minute. The kid weighed less than half what he did. He didn’t even have to help her as she got Farley to take a second sniff in his other nostril. Then he went to sleep.
“Help me move him to the back,” she said to Matt.
“Finally, she asks for my help.” He threw up his hands in exasperation, then picked the kid up and lifted him over the seat to the padded floor space in the rear of the van where Sam had installed specially designed straps for her “patients.” “What were you planning to do without me? Drag the poor kid around to the back of the van and hope nobody noticed?”
“I would’ve thought of something, but speaking of unconscious bodies, Scruggs won’t be down for long.” She quickly placed the restraints around Farley.
“What, no straitjacket? You used one on me.”
“You were dangerous. The kid’s harmless and I don’t want to freak him out any more than I have to. He’s pretty rocky as it is.” She finished her job, then climbed over the back and front seats, taking her place behind the wheel as Matt closed the passenger door. “Oh, by the way, you did good with the spacie stuff back there. Thanks, sweetie.”
“You’re welcome, I think,” he groused as she pulled the van away from Elvis Scruggs who had stopped flopping and was struggling to sit up.
“Where did you get that badge thingee that Farley thought was the real deal?”
“Had it since I was fifteen. Sent for it through the mail.”
“And you kept it all these years?” she asked incredulously.
“This from a woman who’s never cleaned out a closet in her life!”
“But my stuff’s good stuff! Guns, fishing gear—”
“Engine parts, bowling balls.”
“Like I said, good stuff,” she replied as she approached the parking attendant’s booth.
“You never know when something like that badge might come in handy,” Matt argued, climbing into the front seat. Then he glanced at the side-view mirror. “Uh-oh, our boy’s on his feet.”
Sam grinned. “He can’t chase us in the Jag and I don’t think he’ll call the cops.”
“Neither do I,” Matt said dryly.
She handed the ticket to the attendant and didn’t even complain about how expensive the rates were. But she did ask for a receipt.
Farley woke up several hours down Illinois Route 3 headed for a cutoff to link them to I-24. Sam had decided on an alternate way back to Miami, just in case whoever had sent those goons in the Caddie had hired more players for a repeat performance. They were in the wilds of southern Illinois when Farley started thrashing against the bands holding him down.
Sam quickly pulled the van to the side of the road, concealing it beneath the low hanging branches of a weeping willow on the wide berm. “Let’s see if we can talk some sense into the kid.”
“Fat chance,” Matt said.
Sam opened the back of the van with a water bottle in her hand. “Here, Farley, I’m going to give you a drink. I know how thirsty you must be. Now, when I loosen the restraints, I want you to sit up, not try to fight us, okay?” she asked in her most soothing professional tone.
>
Matt had heard it before. All it had done was infuriate him, but then she’d taken him away from a hot story, and he had all his marbles, something this poor kid obviously didn’t.
“You’re a Klingoff agent. I’m not drinking anything you give me. El said they’d been drugging me.”
“Pure water,” Sam said, taking a long pull on the water bottle and swallowing. It was a hot afternoon. She offered the water to him again.
Stubbornly, he shook his head, then started to tremble. “I…I n-need my medicine.” He tried to reach his shirt pocket where a pill bottle was visible.
“That the stuff Dr. Reicht’s been giving you?” Sam asked.
“Y-yes. How did you know about him?” Now Farley looked less like an outraged kidnap victim, more as if he was acutely embarrassed because he had been under the care of a psychiatrist. “I never told you. I…I never told…”
He was shaking like a dog passing peach pits. Damn, why hadn’t Roman Numeral warned her about the boy’s condition? Probably because he had no idea about it and didn’t care. But Reicht had to know if the meds he’d given the boy caused withdrawal problems and he hadn’t told her, either.
“Okay, here’s the deal, Farley. Your father hired me to bring you back to Miami. I know you were under Dr. Reicht’s care. In fact, I talked with him about you before I came to St. Louis to get you. That’s my job. I’m a retrieval specialist. I bring people home.”
Her words rang hollow to her as she gave the same talk she’d given dozens of times before. Sam watched the kid’s eyes glaze over, as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He obviously wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Farley’s mother had been a socialite druggie and his father cared more for his accounting ledgers than he did for his only child. Where was “home” for this boy?
“We aren’t taking you back to Dr. Reicht, Farley,” Matt said gently.
“Or to your father,” she added.
The boy was shaking hard now, struggling to get free of his bonds. “I don’t believe you! You’re K-klingoff agents—or P-pandorians…in disguise. I know. El will come get me…and you’ll b-be sorry. You’ll be sorry.”