The Harry Starke Series Books 4 -6: The Harry Starke Series Boxed Set 2 (The Harry Starke Novels - The Boxed Sets)

by Blair Howard

  She glowered at me, but didn’t answer. She still wanted to know what I knew. Well, I didn’t mind telling her.

  “I know you and Hartwell are robbing the banks. I also know how you’re laundering the money. You send it to offshore accounts. From there it goes to shell companies that either invest the money in Archer or make nonreturnable loans to the company, and then you wash it, the money. I know every which way you do it. It’s a long list, so for now I’ll just tell you about one of them.

  “Archer Realty owns 263 rental units spread all over Chattanooga. In 2014 the company declared a ninety-eight percent occupancy rate. That’s so far out of the norm that I had it checked out. You know what we found? As of yesterday afternoon, of the 263 units, 119 were vacant. That’s forty-five percent. So the true occupancy is about fifty-five percent. You’re washing money through bogus rentals, more than 100 of them to the tune of more than $100,000 a month. I also know you’re doing the same with the other companies in the group: bogus car and boat sales, bogus… whoa, look at you.”

  The look she was giving me was one of such blind hatred I thought she might throw herself at me. If I’d thought she was capable of killing Angela before, I was sure of it now.

  “Okay. Let’s talk some more about Ralph for a minute, shall we? He’s a nasty little piece of work, with less spine than a jellyfish. You do know that he’ll bring you down, right? Hah, You don’t believe me? Okay. Let’s think about it. He knows we’re onto him, both for the death of his brother and the loss of the five million dollars from Hartwell’s customers. You should have seen his face when I told him we were going to exhume his brother’s body.”

  Now that really got her attention.

  “He almost wet himself when we pulled him in for questioning. Just how long do you think it will be before he caves and gives up his accomplices? I’ll tell you how long. The next time I put the screws to him, he’ll break. If he thinks he can cut a deal and avoid prison by throwing you under the bus, he will.”

  She uncrossed her legs; no view this time. Then she walked around the desk, sat down, reached over and punched a number into the intercom, “Max. If you wouldn’t mind. Please come in here.”

  A few seconds later, the door opened and in walked what could only be described as the Terminator. Max Tully was about as tall as me, but there the similarity ended. He must have weighed at least 250 pounds, but his body fat index was probably less than five percent. He was a body builder, a powerhouse, probably on steroids. He was so muscled his arms wouldn’t hang by his sides.

  “Mr. Starke is leaving now, Max,” Ruth said. “Please show him out.”

  I stayed where I was. “I have a few more questions, if you don’t mind,” I said, reasonably.

  “I do mind. Max?”

  He took a step toward me. “You heard the lady,”

  “Back off, Fatso,” I said, even more reasonably than before, so I thought, as I got to my feet and turned to face him. “Fatso,” probably wasn’t what I should have called him, but I learned a long time ago that the best way to handle a tough guy was to throw him off his game before he got started. Anyway, he went for it. He growled, and took another step forward. I took a step backward.

  “I said, back off.”

  He grinned, exposing a set of white but crooked teeth, and raised his right hand to grab my shoulder. That’s the trouble with big strong guys like him. They think their size and strength are all they need. This one, by the self-satisfied look on his face also thought he was better than me.

  Fat chance, Blutto.

  He didn’t even see it coming. I grabbed two of his outstretched fingers—the pinky and the one next to it—and bent them back. He howled in pain. His knees bent. His arm crooked upward toward his shoulder. His eyes closed. His head went back. Ruth sat staring, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

  “Down, boy,” I said, as I slowly forced him to his knees. I sighed and shook my head as I increased the pressure until he was down on his back.

  “All you had to do was ask nicely, and I would have left,” I said quietly. “You didn’t need to bring in the heavy—and that’s all he is, Ruth: heavy.”

  I pulled on Max’s fingers and he rose into sitting position. I bent down, put my mouth close to his ear.

  “Max, I’ll say this just once, so listen up. I’m going to let you go now. When I do, you’ll stand up and go back to whatever hole in the wall you crawled out of. If you don’t—if you decide you think you can ambush me—I’ll blow away one of your kneecaps. I’ll put you on sticks for the rest of your days. Understand?”

  He nodded. He was in too much pain to even speak. I let him go and stepped back, and pushed my jacket back to expose the grip of the MP9 under my left arm. He got up and staggered out of the office, his right hand clasped in his left, close to his chest.

  “Now.” I turned to Ruth. “I will want to talk to the twins, but in the meantime I suggest you think about what I’ve said. It’s better you come clean, rather than let Ralph do it for you. I’ll leave now. Oh, and it’s better you don’t give Fat Luther downstairs any ideas. I don’t want to have to hurt him too.”

  “Get out,” she snarled in a voice so low I could barely hear it. Then she all but screamed, “Get the hell out of my office!”

  I left. Her eyes were half-closed, two chips of flint filled with hate. The muscles in her face were tight; those in her neck were like steel cords. Suddenly she didn’t look quite so beautiful anymore.

  I went down the stairs, past the ARC office. The big guy was still at his desk, staring at me through the open door. His expression was unreadable, but I had a good idea of what was on his mind. I smiled and walked out into the late morning sunshine.

  Chapter 27

  On the whole I was quite pleased with the way the interview with Ruth Archer had gone, but afterward, as I sat in my car outside her office, I realized what little evidence I had of her or her sisters’ involvement in anything: check fraud or murder. What I did have was all speculative. True, she now knew that I knew all about her crooked little operation, but unless I could tie them to some physical evidence I couldn’t prove any of it. I needed more. I called Kate.

  “You busy?” I asked when she picked up.

  “That’s a stupid question. Yeah, I’m busy. I’m always busy. But I’m glad you called. I have some news. Can you come by my office?”

  “I can, but—”

  “Get your ass over here, then. You’ll be glad you did.”

  Click.

  I looked at the phone, exasperated. I hit the starter button, put the car in gear, circled up onto I-24, and headed north to Fourth Street and from there to Riverfront Parkway. Ten minutes later I dropped into a chair in front of Kate’s desk. She had her seat tilted back, her fingers locked together behind her neck. She was grinning at me.

  “So,” she said. “How did it go?”

  “Well, I managed to piss off a few people, including the redoubtable Burke—or maybe it was Hare. No matter. I got under Ruth’s skin big time. I accused her of everything but robbing the cat of its dinner. She shrugged it all off, at first, but when I laid out her scam for her, and the probability that Ralph would cave and give her up, she lost it and called one of two repo men in to throw me out. You can guess how that went.”

  “So you think you got to her, then?”

  “Oh I got to her. She’s one thick-skinned lady, but at one point in the conversation she was coming apart at the seams. I wouldn’t put it past her to do something stupid. I guess I’ll need to start watching my back again.” I grinned.

  “Well,” she said, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is, we finally got Angela’s phone records from Apple. The bad news is, there’s nothing there. Apparently she didn’t set up the auto-backup feature. So all we have are her phone records from Verizon. No text messages; they only keep those for five days.”

  “Damn.” I shook my head, then looked up at her. “Did she make any noteworthy calls?”

  “See for
yourself.” She picked up a thick wad of printed pages and tossed them across the deck. “Those are her records for the last twelve months. There are hundreds of calls. To Ralph, her lawyers, friends—there are even a couple to Ruth Archer. It’s a dead end, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

  I glanced through them, then set them on the edge of her desk.

  “I’ll have Tim take a look at them, but I’m betting you’re right. What else?”

  “We’re still waiting on the DNA report on the hair follicle. I called earlier. Should have it by Friday.”

  “Hmmm. Well that’s something, I suppose. What else?”

  “Nothing. At least not now.”

  “But you told me to get over here, that I’d be glad I did. What was that about?”

  She smiled. “I thought you might like to buy me lunch. Aren’t you glad?”

  “The hell I am. I was on my way back to the office.” Actually, I was glad, but what the hell. She didn’t need to know that.

  We went to the Boathouse. It was just a couple of miles west on Riverside Drive. The weather was nice, a balmy seventy-two degrees, and we managed to get a table by the window. The view of the river was almost as good as the one from my Condo, and the food? As always, it was exceptional.

  “You don’t think she would, do you?” Kate asked as she nibbled on her fried calamari.

  “Would what?”

  “Do something stupid.”

  I sat back in my seat, dropped my spoon into the clam chowder, and thought about it. I’d learned a lot about people like Ruth Archer at Fairleigh Dickinson, but this was the first time I’d ever encountered one.

  “She’s a sociopath. Classic. So yeah. I think she might, especially if her back’s against the wall, and right now that’s just where it is.”

  Kate shook her head, “That’s not good, Harry. One of these days you’re going to push someone too hard, and they’ll push back.”

  She was right, of course. I’d been pushing my luck for more years than I could count, but hey, what would life be without a little excitement?

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said. “I can handle her, and I can certainly handle her two goons.” Then I had a thought. What if there were more of them—goons, that is? Then I had another thought. Amanda?

  “Excuse me for a minute, will you, Kate. I need to make a quick call.” I got up, walked outside, and punched the speed dial.

  She picked up on the fifth ring, long after my heart had started to jackhammer in my chest.

  “Hello, Harry. I didn’t expect to hear from you until later this evening.”

  “What took you so long to answer the phone?” I demanded.

  “Excuse me? What do you mean?”

  “You usually answer on the first or second ring. I thought something might be wrong.”

  “I’d left the phone in the bathroom, silly. What could be…? Oh my God, Harry. Not again?”

  Jeez, she’s sharp.

  “I dunno. Maybe. Look. I ran afoul of Ruth Archer today. She’s very angry. I think maybe angry enough to… well, you know.”

  “Damn it, Harry. Yes, I know. I know only too well. Last time you made someone angry, Jacque ended up in hospital for almost a month.”

  “Yeah, I know. It couldn’t be helped this time. What time are you going in to work?”

  “Three, as usual, and I’ll be out at a quarter to midnight. Do we have to start this escort thing again? If so, I don’t want to. You hear?”

  “Yeah, I hear. I’ll pick you up at a quarter to three. Pack Baby in your handbag, or whatever it is you carry these days.” Baby is her Glock 26. I bought it for her and taught her how to use it during my altercation with Sal De Luca. She hadn’t touched it, as far as I knew, since that mess ended almost six months ago.

  She argued for another minute, halfheartedly, then finally gave in. I went back inside and finished my soup.

  Am I being paranoid? I wondered. Probably. But better that than the alternative.

  Chapter 28

  For what seemed like the first time in a couple of weeks, I slept well. It had been almost midnight when I’d picked Amanda up from Channel 7. She was bushed, and so was I. She was also more than a little concerned about the situation that had arisen between me and Ruth. She well remembered the five days in hell we’d spent back in January, waiting for De Luca to show his hand. I didn’t really think we were in that kind of danger, but… well, it just wasn’t worth taking any risks. Ruth had struck me as being kind of… volatile. And then there were Tully and Crabb, her two heavies, to consider. So we talked for a short while, drank a half bottle of red, and then went to bed, and to sleep.

  I arrived at my office early, busied myself catching up with some of the routine tasks Jacque had insisted I pay attention to and… well, it had turned out to be a pleasant and unusually quiet morning. I was sitting comfortably in my throne, a second cup of Italian Roast in hand, when my cell phone buzzed. It was Kate.

  “Harry. It’s me. I’m at Ralph Hartwell’s house on Signal Mountain. You need to get up here, now. He’s dead. Suicide. Doc Sheddon is already on his way. How long before you can get here?”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “You’ll see when you get here. Get your ass in gear and come on.”

  I looked at my watch. It was just after eleven. From downtown it was a drive of maybe thirty-five minutes. “I’ll be there by eleven thirty. Don’t let ‘em move the body until I get there.”

  I made it in twenty-five minutes. Even the outside of the place was a madhouse. There were a half dozen cruisers, Doc Sheddon’s official SUV, an ambulance, two fire trucks, and at least a couple of dozen onlookers standing at the roadside in front of the house. Kate was on the front steps. I hardly recognized her, covered as she was in white Tyvek.

  She gestured to the officer at the gate to let me through.

  “You’re just in time,” she said as I came up the drive. “Doc Sheddon is about to wrap things up. I asked him to wait for you.”

  “What does he have to say?” I asked.

  “He’ll tell you. Better cover up, Harry,” she added, eyeing my shoes.

  I grabbed a set of Tyvek covers from the box by the door and suited up, face mask, booties, and all.

  Doc Sheddon was in the foyer. He’d already taken off his covers and was in the process of bagging them.

  “Ah, Harry, m’boy,” he said affably. “Nasty one, I think you’ll agree. But it’s very interesting. Go on through. Take a look at him and then tell me what you see.”

  Ralph was in the library, just off the foyer, dressed in pajamas and seated in an easy chair in front of the TV. It was tuned to Fox News.

  I stood for a moment just inside the room to get an overall view of the scene. Ralph was a mess. Blood had run from an entry wound at the right side of his temple and down onto his shoulder, where it had soaked through his shirt then pooled on the carpet below his chair. His chin rested on his chest. His left hand lay in his lap, palm down; his right elbow sat on the arm of the chair with his hand hanging over the end, palm up, fingers curled. Just to the right of the chair there was a small table. On the floor in front of it, below his hand, lay a Smith & Wesson 686 revolver. The grip looked clean, but there was blood spatter on the barrel and cylinder.

  I made a wide circle around the body, taking care where I put my feet, even though they were covered. The exit wound on the left side rear of his head indicated a front to rear trajectory, just as I would have expected, and there was blood there. Hell, there was so much it looked like he’d bled out. Devastating as the wound was, maybe he hadn’t died instantly. Finally, I completed the circle and stood and looked at the wound. It didn’t look quite right to me. It was in the right place, front right temple, but I could see stippling around it, indicating that it wasn’t quite a contact wound. The muzzle of the gun had been at least one, maybe two inches from his head. That was a problem, because the suicide’s natural instinct is to press the muzzle of the gun against the skin. />
  I looked around at Doc Sheddon. He was standing with Kate in the foyer, just outside the room, still wearing booties. He was smiling one of those grim little creases that was always a dead giveaway: he wasn’t at all happy.

  “Come on, Harry,” he said. “Out with it. Do you see what I see?”

  “I dunno, Doc. Give me a few more minutes, yeah?”

  I crouched and looked at the gun. There was something. I straightened, turned again to Sheddon.

  “You have a pencil I can borrow for a minute?”

  He smiled, nodding, and took one from his pocket and tossed it to me.

  I crouched again, slipped the pencil into the barrel of the .357, and gently lifted it from the floor. As I did so, its weight swung it into the upright position, and I turned it so that I could see the grip. There were two minute spots of blood, barely discernable, on the back of the grip.

  No way….

  I looked at Ralph’s right hand. There were two matching spots on the center of his palm, and several more on his fingers. I looked at the trigger. Nothing. Which was as it should be, but…. I laid the gun gently back where it had been.

  “Harry?” His voice was low, almost mocking.

  “Murder, Doc.”

  He nodded. “Tell me.”

  “The blood, if it is blood, on the grip. Transferred from the palm of his hand. There’s not much, but there shouldn’t be any. It’s blowback. His hand was where it is now. It’s not a contact wound either, hence the blowback and stippling. I think someone crept up on him while he was watching TV, shot him, put the gun in his hand so that his prints would be on it, and then let it drop where it is, thus the transfer. They were sloppy, Doc. I guarantee there will be no GSR on his right hand. Hell, even the position of his left hand is wrong. You don’t sit there with one hand in your lap and shoot yourself with the other.”

  “It might surprise you to learn, Harry, that even today, not everyone watches CSI. But you’re right, of course. I knew you’d spot it.”