Fatal Deception

by Russell Blake

  “They keep it up.”

  “Are you full time?”

  Wendy blinked twice. “I really don’t think…”

  “Oh, it’s none of my business, I know. It’s just that we’re looking for someone who can help with chores – light cleaning, that sort of thing. Never hurts to ask.”

  Wendy seemed to relax. “I’m afraid I couldn’t help you. It’s a full-time job.”

  “No problem. We only need someone a couple times a week – it’s just my uncle and me. I suppose your people have kids or whatnot?”

  “I better be going. Still a lot of shopping to do,” Wendy said, her tone frosty at the probe.

  “Of course. Have a good one, and maybe I’ll see you on the street.”

  “Sure. Which building did you say you were in?”

  “Oh, number fifty-seven. Down the block.”

  Wendy nodded. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Likewise.”

  Tess continued down the aisle, cursing her clumsiness. She hadn’t exactly coaxed a mountain of information out of Wendy, had she? What was she doing, anyway? The whole adventure was foolishness, and she’d done nothing but annoy the housekeeper, judging by the woman’s demeanor.

  Tess opened a beverage case on the end cap, grabbed a liter bottle of sport drink, and made her way to the cashier, feeling stupid for having wasted her time and energy on an obvious fool’s errand, while learning nothing. She caught a glimpse of Wendy watching her from the vegetable section and pretended to answer her phone, conscious that she didn’t fit in among the well-groomed patrons of the market with her bike shorts and messenger attire.

  She paid for her drink and strode to the door, silently chastising herself for an approach that had all the subtlety of a bull elephant charge. She drained the bottle in a few massive gulps and tossed it in the trash, and then made her way to her bicycle, resigned to leave the sleuthing to Ron from this point forward.

  Chapter 39

  Greenwich, Connecticut

  Charles Stibling sat hunched forward in his office, watching rows of numbers on his screen blink, and they changed color as the Forex markets tracked the performance of currencies, commodities, and markets in twenty-four-hour real time. He had retired from actively managing his fund five years earlier, but still kept his hand in the market with a basket of speculations that kept his mind sharp.

  Normal trading hours had long been over, but there was always a casino open somewhere in the world, and his bet on the direction of the Argentine peso was turning out to be more of a winner than he’d hoped, offsetting softness in the Chinese yuan that had been a persistent irritation for him this month. Not that any of it made a material difference in his fortunes – he was rich many times over, so much so that he couldn’t easily calculate the value of all his holdings.

  Of course, compared to some of his peers, he was the poor relation, but he’d grown comfortable with his lot in life. He could pick up a phone and reach his congressman on a weekend night; could dictate terms to judges, politicians, and policy makers; knew the heads of the three most influential newspapers; and could read tomorrow’s headlines today, should he so wish. But as he’d aged, much of it had ceased to matter to him, the challenge gone from the game, his destination preordained. Now, when death was no longer a remote possibility at some distant point in the future, but rather a constant probability with each passing day, most of the things that had seemed so desperately important to him as a younger man had faded to triviality.

  It seemed unfair that he could accumulate so much and yet would go to his grave taking none of it with him. Lately his thoughts had been increasingly morose, and it was only his fascination with the visceral that kept him waking up each morning. He had three mistresses, all skilled, young, and beautiful, to keep him interested, and his parties to whet his appetites and satiate his desire for more esoteric pleasures. But even that was waning, and the jolt of power that came with watching people humiliate or endanger themselves for his amusement was increasingly inadequate to counter the inexorable wearing by the hands of time on what remained of his soul.

  Stibling eyed the clock in the corner of his screen, tapped in a few commands, pressed the return key on his keyboard, and powered down the monitor, ever thrifty in spite of his wealth. There was no reason to consume electricity if he wasn’t going to be there, and he was scheduled to have dinner with the governor and a host of vultures who passed for the state’s venerated elders. The occasion was to honor returning veterans by a donation to the governor’s wife’s pet charity, which was long on rhetoric but short on any actual interaction with the nation’s fighting men. But it gave the ghastly woman something to do while her husband cut deals and did business that lined his pockets at the expense of his constituents, in the time-honored tradition of his predecessors.

  Stibling donned his dress jacket and checked his appearance in the antique mirror his dearly departed wife had overpaid for – part of her collection of junk he’d just as soon dump in the river as have cluttering his house. Yet some part of him had been unable to rid himself of the artifacts, as though she exercised control over him from the grave.

  He thought he looked good for his age, although nowhere nearly as young as he felt. Another unfair trick of time: that he believed himself to still be relatively young and vital, in spite of the geriatric apparition that stared back at him. His rational mind knew it was a lie, yet some part of him that still sheltered hope insisted with vigor that he’d been excluded from the laws of nature by virtue of his exceptional constitution and innate superiority.

  The dichotomy amused him in a dark way, although he found himself questioning his reasoning more and more, wary of the inevitable softening of the brain that he despised in the aged, the slow slide to infantilism that he’d hated in many of his peers. That the mighty could be brought low by the failure of their shells to remain viable seemed the height of unfairness; not that he’d ever believed the universe to be anything approaching just.

  “I just thought I’d get a hall pass,” he whispered at his image, and then winked, determined to whistle by that particular graveyard another night.

  His driver, Monroe, was behind the wheel of the Mercedes parked in the circular driveway, its ebony paint gleaming in the moonlight. At the sight of light from the front entrance, he leapt from the driver’s side and trotted around to open Stibling’s rear door.

  “Good evening, sir,” Monroe said, in his deep gravelly voice.

  “Evening. I’m late.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best to trim what time I can from the trip.”

  “Excellent.”

  The big car pulled away and the iron gates opened. The street beyond was dark, unlit by the estate homes in Stibling’s enclave, which were set far back from the road, each its own compound complete with outbuildings and servants’ quarters. Monroe gave the heavy vehicle gas, and it accelerated almost soundlessly along the smooth pavement, floating along the surface like a hovercraft.

  “What the–” Monroe cried as a black van shot from behind a tree and cut off the Mercedes, forcing it to a stop on the deserted street. Two men in dark clothes, with ski masks pulled over their heads, jumped from the rear and approached the Benz, suppressed pistols in their hands.

  “Get us out of here,” Stibling ordered, and Monroe was already fumbling for the transmission paddle when a second vehicle screeched to a stop behind them, blocking the car’s escape.

  The nearest gunman leveled his pistol at Monroe’s head and yelled at him, “Unlock the doors. Only gonna say it once.”

  Monroe stared down the barrel at certain death and swallowed a knot as he reached for the lock button. Stibling sat forward. “No.”

  The gunman leaned his head away from the window so the shot wouldn’t spray glass and blood on him. Monroe read the intention in his eyes and unlocked the vehicle.

  The second assailant threw open the rear door and motioned with his weapon at Stibling. “Out of the car, pops. Now.”
r />   “You’ll never get away with this,” Stibling said, his voice soft and measured.

  “You better hope we do, or you’ll be the first to eat it. Now out of the car, or I’ll blow your kneecaps off.”

  Stibling climbed from the comfort of the rear seat, and the gunman pushed him roughly toward the van. “Get in. Come on, we ain’t got all night.”

  “If this is a kidnapping, there’s nobody to call. But I can work it out with you…” Stibling tried.

  “I’ll bet you can.” He motioned with his gun. “I said get in.”

  Once in the back of the van, a third man pulled a black cloth sack over Stibling’s head, and then searched him before clasping his wrists behind his back with handcuffs. Stibling remained silent, seeing nothing to be gained by protesting – and a suspicion was growing that he knew what this was all about, in which case there was nothing to say to these men.

  Forty minutes later, the van rolled through the open cargo door of a warehouse delivery bay and came to a stop. The door closed behind it and the men exited the vehicle, unceremoniously dragging Stibling with them. They manhandled him to a cinder-block chamber in the rear of the space and sat him in a wooden chair near the back wall, his hands still bound behind him. He felt his legs being tied to the legs of the chair, and then one of his captors jerked the bag from his head and stared at him for a long beat.

  “Picked on the wrong guy, dipshit,” the man growled, and then he was gone. The echo of the steel door slamming behind him reverberated off the concrete walls with the finality of a gunshot, leaving Stibling alone, the only sounds those of rats scuttling in the dark corner of the vault and the drip of water on the floor from a leaking overhead pipe.

  Chapter 40

  Ben’s radio hissed static as he pulled to the curb outside a closed bar in Chinatown a block from where plainclothes officers were canvassing the area from which the last signal from Gunter’s phone had emanated. Ron gulped down the rest of his tepid coffee and adjusted his sunglasses against the morning light.

  “He still at his flat?” Ron asked.

  “Yep. Hasn’t moved since yesterday.”

  “Does his gallery have hours posted?” Ron asked.

  “No, it only says by appointment only. So if he wants to sleep in, he can.”

  “I want to fry this guy.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  They got out of the car and walked past a group of loitering youths, who had the good sense to stay quiet at the sight of Ben’s expression. Ron checked the time and coughed, having spent yet another lousy night tossing and turning. Tess hadn’t answered when he’d called the prior evening. He intuited that she was angry with him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  Earlier he’d gotten a call from the security supervisor at Jeremy’s building, who had been out sick the day before. The man had sheepishly apologized and read him the results of Jeremy’s card key – Jeremy had indeed been working until four in the morning, but his quick trip for a snack had actually been two full hours, from eleven thirty to one thirty.

  Not that it mattered now – Gunter had painted himself into a corner with his lies, and all that remained was to locate where he’d driven with his passenger. They approached a stocky man in an overcoat with a face that looked like it had been beaten with a meat hammer, who nodded a greeting as he puffed on a stub of cigar.

  “Detectives,” the man said.

  “Larson, got anything?” Ben asked.

  “No luck. At that hour all the stores are closed here, except for a couple of bars on the next block. So far, same story from everyone we’ve asked – nobody recognizes his picture.”

  “Damn. We know he was here,” Ron said, surveying the street.

  “Yeah, well, hard to pull a search warrant if you aren’t sure where you need to search,” Larson said. “We’re not done yet, but it isn’t looking great.”

  “You’re asking about the car, too? Anthracite Audi wagon?”

  “Of course. No takers.”

  Larson resumed smoking and glowering as his men worked the street. Ben ducked into a restaurant and emerged with two more cups of coffee, ensuring that Ron’s nerves would remain jarred from caffeine and sleep deprivation. He felt a definite sense of urgency – tonight would be the fifth since Dakota’s murder, which meant that if Gunter wasn’t the killer, they’d learn the hard way when a fourth tape surfaced. Ron doubted that was the case, but you never knew until you had all the evidence; and right now, promising as the situation looked, it wasn’t airtight. Ron took a sip from his steaming cup. When his phone rang, he almost spilled it down his front, and he held the coffee away from himself as he answered.

  “Stanford.”

  “Ron, it’s Tess. Did I get you at a bad time?”

  “Tess! No, not at all. I tried to reach you yesterday…”

  “I know. I was charging my phone, and I had it off. Sorry.”

  “No problem. I…I just wanted to tell you that I checked on Jeremy’s alibi, and he was at work.” Ron saw no reason to trouble her with the nuance of Jeremy’s two-hour disappearance. “But we’re closing in on the perp. I can’t say anything more, but we’re really close.”

  “You are?” Tess asked, sounding unsure. “That’s great, I guess. Can you tell me who it is?”

  “Not yet. But hopefully in a few hours.”

  “Huh. Well, crap. I thought I’d made a breakthrough yesterday.”

  “Yeah? What was that?”

  Tess told him about Jeremy’s apartment. Ron kept his voice steady when he responded. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t get involved, Tess.”

  “I just dug around on the web, Ron. Nothing you couldn’t have done,” she said, leaving that he hadn’t bothered to do so unsaid. “Anyhow, no harm.”

  Larson called to Ron from where he was talking to an old man in coveralls who was leaning on a mop. Ron nodded and waved. “Tess, I have to go. Promise me you won’t do any more digging until we get a chance to talk.”

  “Nothing else I can think of doing, so you’re safe there, Ron.” She paused. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  He pocketed his phone and ignored Ben’s curious look. They walked together to Larson, who introduced the old man. “This is Arnold. He’s a maintenance guy for this building. Arnold, tell Detective Stanford here what you told me.”

  “I knows that guy, is all. He come in now and then. Rents one of the units in the back of the place next door,” Arnold said.

  “Yeah? Can you show us which one?” Ron asked.

  “Well, that ain’t my property. Don’t wanna trespass on Mrs. Finnegan’s place.”

  “I’m sure she won’t mind. Just show us. That’s all.”

  Arnold nodded, his expression unsure. “Got to go down this little way here. Units are down the back. It’s locked at night.”

  Ron and Ben exchanged a glance. “But open now?”

  “Mrs. Finnegan comes down here every day just like clockwork at eight to open it. Locks it back up at five.”

  “The tenants have a key to the front gate?”

  “I ’spect so, but can’t say for sure. Have to ask her.”

  Arnold led them down a narrow alley to a turn-of-the-century courtyard that had seen better days. Four black steel doors looked out on the little plaza. Ron glanced up at the windows overhead, two of which were broken. “Anybody live up there?”

  “No, building’s condemned. But they’s fighting in court for years.”

  “Which one is our friend’s unit?” Ron asked.

  Arnold pointed at the second one with a gnarled finger, the nail bed stained black with grime. “That’s the one.”

  “You have Mrs. Finnegan’s phone number?” Ben asked.

  “I ’spect I do back in my place.”

  “Let’s go call her, shall we?” Ben suggested, and Arnold nodded.

  Ron was already on the phone to headquarters to get a warrant started as they trooped back to the street. Larraby was in, and
Ron could practically hear the backflip when he gave him the address and described what he wanted. “I’m going to see if we can get the landlady to open up, but put a rush on the warrant, Captain,” Ron said.

  “I’ll have one within the hour.”

  Mrs. Finnegan’s phone went straight to voice mail, leaving Ron and his team waiting for Larraby to make good on his promise. An hour and a half later, a squad car braked in front of the building and a uniform handed Ron a warrant. Ron read it and nodded in satisfaction, and then he, Ben, Larson, and a pair of heavily muscled cops returned to the storage units, with bolt cutters for the industrial padlock securing the door.

  The lock’s hasp gave way with a loud pop, and Ron slid the bolt open, latex gloves on his hands. Ben took photos as he pulled the steel barrier up and their eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. Ron moved to the side and flipped a light switch mounted on the wall, and they found themselves facing a ten-foot-wide by twenty-foot-deep space with a bare concrete floor and mildewing walls.

  “You getting this?” Ron asked as he pointed to the items neatly stacked in one corner. “Garbage bags, a tripod, lights, a stereo, duct tape…”

  “Seems like our boy, huh?” Ben said.

  “Depends on what forensics can find, but I’d say it doesn’t look good for him, does it?”

  “I’ll call forensics,” Ben agreed.

  “And I’ll string the crime scene tape,” Larson said, his voice even grittier than earlier.

  Ron nodded and took in the space. If they were lucky, there would be trace evidence – hair, blood residue, something definite. Now it was up to the techs. Ron turned to Larson. “Not a word of this to anyone. Talk to your men. Any reporters show up, they’re all going to be up on charges. The perp is still out there.”

  “I’ll shoot ’em myself if they so much as whisper about it,” Larson agreed, and Ron believed the man.

  Ben murmured to Ron in a low voice, “Too bad they did away with the chair, huh? I see shit like this, and I want to let the victim’s family chop the bastard up as payback.”