Her Last Breath - Debt Collector 9 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  “This one,” he said out loud as he squeezed one out and laid it down on the workbench. There he turned on a small light and took a seat on a barstool. Like an artist reminiscing about his work from the past, he flicked through the album gazing at the multiple photos of women who had so freely given up their lives. For what? Two hundred bucks? He’d heard all their stories and he could remember them all.

  He tapped the album. “Gina, a mother of two, addicted to meth, majored in law but never entered her desired career because she got pregnant. Became an escort after the father abandoned her and the children.” He paused. “Oh Gina, I see your kids in town. You would be proud. They no longer suffer the embarrassment of having a whore for a mother.” He smiled and continued thumbing his way through the next.

  “Abbey, a college dropout, addicted to oxycodone, a runaway. No one loved you but I did. I took care of you and showed you more love in your final few hours than anyone had in your entire life.”

  As he went one by one, he relived each interaction and recalled how he lured them in and got them to lower their guard. So many were guarded when they showed up. They thought they were in charge. Telling him what he could or couldn’t do. Of course, he played into it. He wanted them to think that he wasn’t a danger and just when they had let their guard down enough, he would flip the table. The look on their faces when he did it. It was priceless. It wasn’t fear. It was shock.

  No longer interested in the rest of the faces, he closed the album and placed it back on the shelf, taking a few seconds longer to make sure they were lined up perfectly. It never worried him that anyone would break in and find them as the cabin was in an isolated area of Green Bank. No one came to this town except those interested in the observatory tower or folks who had electro-sensitivity and were looking for peace. That’s what Green Bank was to him — a place of peace and quiet.

  Satisfied that the woman wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon, he went back upstairs and closed the trap door, locked it and covered it with the rug. He was going to return home, but he had more work to do. Now that this man was here, he needed to know more about him. What did he know? He was dangerous, liable to bring an end to his work. He couldn’t allow that. The man returned to his seat and typed in the name: Jack Winchester.

  Larson wasn’t buying her story. The call had come through while he was in the middle of writing up a report for a domestic that had occurred in the south end. It had been the fourth one in the past five days. Now as he stood inside Ali’s Bar gazing around at the mess, he wasn’t convinced.

  “Where did you say they went?”

  “Aaron left here with his pals a few minutes before you arrived.”

  “And how many others were there?”

  “Six of them.”

  He continued scribbling it down, taking just a few seconds to write down the description she was reeling off. According to Meghan Palmer, a group of bikers had rolled in around eight, had a few drinks when Gance and his buddies showed up. One of them had tried to pick up one of their women and had caused a fight. Was it true? If it was, it was the first time he’d heard of bikers passing through this town. It was in the middle of nowhere. There were only a few folks who stumbled across their town — Tourists, and those who had broken down. He didn’t kid himself, it was a shithole that had nothing to offer anyone except those looking to hike, bike or find peace. There were better towns, ones with better bars in the surrounding area.

  Of course like any good cop, he wasn’t one for just taking one statement. He took several that evening, and that’s when it came to his attention that perhaps she was telling a lie. Outside, a young couple was smoking nearby. Larson approached them and they got that familiar look of fear on their faces that all people did when they saw a badge and gun. He recalled what his Academy instructor had told him. Remember, they don’t see you. They only see the uniform.

  “How long have you been here tonight?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  “Big fight, eh?”

  They nodded but didn’t expand. Folks around town were cautious around police, not because they thought they had done anything wrong but usually it was because they knew someone who had and there was always this lingering thought that they would get in trouble for who they knew. There was a real divide between the police and the public. It had been a gap that they’d been trying to bridge but had been unsuccessful.

  “So did you see who started it?”

  “Nope,” the tall guy with long hair and a Metallica T-shirt on said before his eyes flitted over to his girlfriend who had a nose ring and looked like a pig. Whatever happened to fashion?

  Did they know Aaron Gance? Everyone knew Aaron in one way or another. That kid had his fingers in every facet of the families in town. Teens knew him from drug dealing. Women knew him from his offers to help them earn money. He was a weasel that worked his way into lives and destroyed them. Since his release, Larson had been looking for any reason to put him away again. Just one thing. That’s all it would take, and he was going back inside.

  “Too bad, I heard those guys did quite a number on Aaron Gance.”

  “Guys? It was one guy,” the girl blurted out.

  Her boyfriend was quick to dismiss what she said. “What she means is one guy did the most damage.”

  “Cut the shit,” Larson said. “Give me a name.”

  The kid blew out some smoke and navel gazed.

  “A name?” Larson barked, snapping the guy out of his dream world.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know his name. Tall guy, bulky, short dark hair. You should have seen it. That guy took out four of them like he was brushing flies out of his face.”

  Larson frowned. Surely it couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be that reckless, would he?

  “Was this guy wearing a leather jacket?”

  “Yeah.”

  Larson thanked them and headed back into the bar. He made a gesture with two fingers for Meghan to come over to him. He could put up with a lot of shit, and lying was common in this town but lying for a stranger, someone who wasn’t a local? He had to hear this.

  Chapter 12

  Jack had a sleepless night. In the early hours of the morning after hours of rolling around trying to get comfortable, he slipped out of bed and got dressed. The alarm clock was flashing a little after four. His mind was still preoccupied by his previous visit to Jenna Whitmore’s apartment. Journalists were notorious for keeping notes and recording as much information as they could, and yet an extensive search of her apartment had yielded nothing. No laptop. No recorder. No notebook. For someone supposed to have been fired from her work because she was obsessed with the Green Bank Five case, it struck him as odd that she wouldn’t have kept some record of her investigation. You were scared and believed you were getting closer to finding out who was behind it. So where is this information?

  Outside his window, a heavy mist covered the landscape giving everything an ominous feeling. His reflection in the window was illuminated by the glow of the cigarette. Snatching up his keys he headed out. It was still early enough that he could slip back in without being noticed. Jack drove the short distance back to 3rd Avenue and parked a block down the road from the apartments. This time he didn’t enter the front entrance, instead, he scaled up the fire escape, making sure to stay as silent as possible. Sure enough, the window hadn’t been repaired. In its place was a thick layer of cardboard with a few pieces of duct tape holding it in place. He peeled it back before entering. The shattered glass on the floor was gone. As soon as he was in, he removed his boots and switched on his flashlight. Where would you have put it?

  In his time working for the mob, when he wasn’t hunting down people, he often found himself searching for money that had been stolen, or hidden away by those who owed Gafino a debt. Years of doing it had made him familiar with spots that were used by those looking to avoid detection. He shone the light up at the ceiling. Guns, cash, drugs or fake IDs were stored in all manner of tight storage areas
; lockers at bus stations, secret compartments in vehicles, spaces below floorboards, cavities in walls, behind ceiling tiles, in cans of food and much more. But he wasn’t dealing with someone versed in extreme measures. Jack stepped up onto the sofa and raised a few of the ceiling tiles and swept the light inside. He turned over the sofa cushions and stuck a knife into the bottom to check there. Next, he felt around on the floor for any loose floorboards. Nothing. He moved on to the bedroom and ran his hand around the top of the closet, under the bed. He lifted the mattress and tore it open with the blade. Nothing. In the past, he’d seen people install fake walls and hide all manner of shit behind furniture. Scared individuals went to great lengths to hide their secrets. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, he checked each of the room’s ceiling tiles, cupboards, bags, furniture and décor items that might have been able to hold recorded information. The bathroom was the last place he searched. He was starting to come to the conclusion that she’d kept it on her and was about to leave the bathroom when he saw several petals from the flowers above the toilet on the floor. He frowned and looked at the vase; he removed it and lifted the top of the toilet’s water tank. His eyes widened. Bingo! Jack removed the bag, laid it on the floor and proceeded to place the cover back.

  It was a little after five when he made it back to the inn. He was eager to find out what she’d discovered and how it related to her disappearance. He placed the bag on the small table in his room, then went about making some coffee. He stared at the bag from across the room. With the police not convinced that she was missing yet, it would have taken them a while to find that. He took his phone and dialed her cell number and waited for the one on the table to ring. It didn’t. That’s why it never rang in the apartment. You used a second cell phone. She must have known that whoever was keeping tabs on her was getting close to her otherwise she wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of hiding it.

  The dripping of hot water and aroma of roasted coffee brought alive his senses. He rubbed a thumb and finger across the top of his eyes and yawned. He was going to feel it later.

  Jack poured steaming hot coffee into a mug then took a seat in front of the bag. He slid it open and pulled out the voice recorder, a hard drive, and cell. He tapped on the cell and expected it to show a code that he had to enter but there was none. The first thing he checked was the last number she had phoned. It came up with the name: Meghan Palmer. There were several calls to her over a period of days leading up to her disappearance. Jack leaned back in his seat and scrolled through her contacts. He took a pad of paper and wrote down those she had called or had called her the most in the last forty-eight hours. He got up and went over to the window and cracked it open before lighting a cigarette. There was a rule that no smoking was allowed but following rules had never been a strong point of his.

  Next, he browsed through photos. Besides those of her family, there were many that had been taken of different men. There were four shots of a dingy-looking motel called the Lodge on the Edge of Green Bank. A large majority of the shots were taken from a distance as scantily dressed women were seen going to and from the lodge with different men. He didn’t recognize any of them, except for the man he’d fought in the bar — Aaron Gance. Seeing his face wasn’t a surprise. The guy had trouble written all over him.

  Jack flicked the butt out the window and returned to the table. He laid the cell down and picked up the voice recorder. It was dark with silver buttons. Most prominent were a stop and a record button. Beneath that were the play, rewind, forward, volume, erase, folder and menu buttons. At the top was a mic and earphone socket, and on the bottom was a USB port. Before he turned it on, he hooked up the external hard drive to his laptop and powered it up. There was one main folder full of hundreds of photos, snippets of audio and video. Holy cow. It would take him weeks to get through all of this. He didn’t have weeks, so he used the sort by date option in the folder to get everything organized. He figured the closer it got to the date that she disappeared, the more audio, video and photos she would have on specific people of interest. Hopefully, he could skip her preliminary work and pinpoint those who were potential suspects using the most current information.

  Over the course of the next two hours, he pored through interviews with locals, and girls involved in the industry, most of whom were very dismissive and guarded in their answers. He transferred photos of the men onto his phone and made detailed notes. It would be a process of elimination. He’d have to sift through those who were most likely to have been involved, find out who they were, where they lived, what they did for a living and what their connection was to the Green Bank Five.

  He pressed play and heard Jenna’s voice.

  The Pocahontas County Sheriff Department released a statement today that announced the FBI and State Police will be now handling the case. So far their investigation suggests that no foul play was involved but they aren’t ruling it out. I don’t believe that they don’t see the connection. They are holding back. I tried to corner Sheriff Riley but he was very dismissive. The only one that seems to keep an open mind to it all is Deputy Sam Larson. Not sure why he listens to me but I appreciate what he has shared about the case to date. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have known about them pulling in Karl Fraser. Note to self: Speak with him tomorrow.

  Jack pressed stop. Karl Fraser? He flicked back through multiple photos until he stopped on one of a bald, unshaven man wearing light blue overalls with the name Karl on the breast pocket. Six of the shots were taken with him in front of the Lodge on the Edge of Green Bank. He noticed he wasn’t listed in the contacts but the number for the lodge was. There were also numerous notes about him having a history of exposing himself to a maid and attacking an escort. Jack dialed the number and leaned back. He blew out his cheeks and heard his stomach grumble. It was nearly a quarter to eight in the morning. He still needed some breakfast.

  A female answered the phone.

  “Lodge on the Edge of Green Bank. How can I help you?”

  “Yeah, good morning. I was hoping to speak with Karl Fraser.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Hello? Are you still there?” Jack asked.

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No, I—”

  “Mr. Fraser no longer works here.”

  Jack was quick to ask, “You wouldn’t have his phone number by any chance? An address, maybe?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Just a friend.”

  “Listen, do you want a room or not?”

  “No, I…”

  Before he could finish she hung up. Damn it. This wasn’t going to be so easy. He thought about the path Jenna must have taken. How many doors did you have slammed in your face?

  Chapter 13

  After Jack returned from a short morning run, several of the inn’s guests were sipping coffee in the dining area, some talking while others were reading free copies of the Pocahontas Times. The smell of toast, bacon and eggs wafted in from the kitchen as he climbed up the stairs to his room. With so many questions swirling in his mind, running gave him a way to clear his head and focus on the task at hand. It would be easy to get distracted, sidelined by some small personal issue or caught up in small-town drama that had nothing to do with this case. No, he needed to stay on point, so his plan that morning was to visit the lodge. After taking a quick shower and throwing on a fresh pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, he headed down for breakfast.

  Once he reached his table, most of the guests had left, so Jack ate alone. The quick run that morning had worked up quite an appetite, but the owner — Beth Robertson — had done a superb job of filling up his plate, even though there was only fifteen minutes left before they would close up the kitchen.

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  He scooped up some of the scrambled eggs. “By all means.”

  She sat down with her cup of coffee. “I don’t usually infringe on our guests, or ask them questions about why they are here but I
couldn’t help overhearing from one of our local delivery guys that you were recently in trouble with the law — something related to Jenna Whitmore.”

  He paused eating, his fork hovering close to his lip.

  “News travels fast. You know her?”

  “Her mother is a good friend of mine, and Jenna used to work here years ago before she took that job at the Times. You aren’t here to cause her trouble, are you?”

  He snorted. “I’m here to help her,” he muttered before filling his mouth. “Problem is she has gone missing.”

  “This is related to her work, isn’t it?” She shook her head and sighed. “I told her she would land herself in deep waters if she wasn’t careful. She wouldn’t listen to me. That’s Jenna for you, always so gung-ho.”

  “Did she ever mention who she thought might be behind it?”

  “The Green Bank Five murders?”

  “Is that what they are calling it now?”

  “Locals are, the police are afraid to call it that.”

  “Why?”

  “Cottage country, Mr. Winchester. There are only two reasons people come here. To vacation or to live and believe me, there aren’t many that live here that aren’t from here. You have to be a unique individual to want to live in this neck of the woods. So many folks are too attached to their technology.”

  “But you use cells.”

  “We do but depending on where you are the reception is spotty at best. It’s not uncommon to have it drop completely the further north or east you go.”

  While he ate, she continued to give him a history lesson on the county and the observatory tower. How it affected businesses, especially places like the Snowshoe Mountain Resort. He learned they had purchased the inn here many years ago not because it seemed like a lucrative venture but because they were in love with the area and people.