Snakes and Ladders

by Matty Dalrymple

  “No. Thank you. I’m hoping to turn in soon.”

  Millard went to the kitchen. While he waited for the coffee to brew, he washed, dried, and put away the plate, glass, and utensils he had used for his dinner. Louise had given Juana a week off with pay when Mitchell reported that she was getting flustered by, and curious about, the unaccustomed activity—the installation of the drapes, the scanning, shredding, and burning of the papers—as well as by the general sense of stress among the house’s other occupants. Just as well—Juana made a mean espresso, but she didn’t brew the regular coffee as strong as he liked.

  As the last drops of coffee drained into the carafe, the motion sensor alarm in the pantry chimed.

  Millard filled his coffee cup, then went to investigate. He scanned the bank of monitors arrayed on the shelves on one side of the pantry, expecting to see the deer that had tripped the alarm every night for the past week.

  Instead he saw two forms emerge from behind a carefully groomed yew bush, scuttle across the yard, and disappear behind one of the outbuildings. The images weren’t distinct, but based on the size of the people and the way they moved, he was fairly certain who was prowling the grounds of Louise Mortensen’s home: Elizabeth Ballard and Philip Castillo.

  He put his coffee cup down, pulled out his phone, and tapped out a text.

  We have company.

  A minute later, Louise stood next to Millard in the pantry.

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  Millard pointed to one of the monitors. “Behind the detached garage.”

  “What in the world are they doing?” she asked, her voice tight.

  “Just surveilling the place at the moment,” said Millard, “but I’m guessing they have more in mind than just keeping an eye on us.”

  “Damn. Why did this have to happen when Mitchell was out?”

  “Just our lucky day, I guess.”

  She crossed her arms and stared at the monitor. “With the attorney general’s office reopening the investigation, we can’t risk Ballard or Castillo falling into the hands of the authorities. And we certainly can’t let anyone know they came here. Take care of them. I’m going to the safe room.”

  It gave Millard a moment of bitter amusement that Mortensen never called the room that before tonight had only served as Gerard Bonnay’s wine cellar the “panic room.”

  “How much latitude do I have?” he asked.

  “As much latitude as you need. Just make sure to clean up any mess,” she snapped.

  “You know,” he said, “this is a bit beyond normal job duties. I assume I can rely on you to pay accordingly.”

  “Yes. Fine,” she said, heading for the door.

  “How much?”

  She turned. “Pardon?”

  “How much will you pay me to take care of them?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “This hardly seems like the appropriate time to be negotiating a bonus.”

  “My feeling exactly. I’d say a hundred thousand would make it worth my while.” That life of leisure at his Montana fishing cabin might be closer than he had thought.

  She looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Fine.” She turned and left the room, the heels of her shoes ringing on the parquet floor of the corridor.

  “What if Mitchell shows up?” he called after her.

  “Send him down to the safe room,” she called back. “Or not. Your call.”

  61

  It took Mitchell a little over an hour to get from Pocopson to his aunt’s home in Jenkintown. He had a panicky moment when he realized that the GPS had put him on the entrance ramp to the Pennsylvania Turnpike—he had quit his job when he had joined forces with Louise and Gerard, and had been relying on funds from Louise. He had no idea how much, or little, money he had in his wallet for tolls.

  That concern was put to rest when he realized that the Range Rover was equipped with an E-ZPass transponder, but then his attention switched to the gas gauge, which showed less than a quarter of a tank. He hoped he wouldn’t need to call Louise to have her or, even worse, George Millard come to his rescue if the tank ran dry.

  He had lived with his aunt since his mother had died when he was fifteen—his father having died six years earlier while serving a sentence for wire fraud—until he had moved into the Pocopson house. His aunt thought he was sharing an apartment with a buddy from work—although “buddy” was not a term that sprang easily to Mitchell’s lips—unaware that he hadn’t been to work in almost three months.

  When he arrived at his aunt’s house, the ex-boyfriend was stewing in the car. He couldn’t know the real reason his former girlfriend always wanted her nephew around before she would let him into the house they had shared, but he evidently thought it was worth the inconvenience since the result was usually that he gained admittance. Mitchell had advised his aunt to send him away only once, when he claimed he was there to pick up a miter saw from the basement when his desired prize was in fact a small stash of commemorative coins belonging to his aunt. Those now resided in her safe deposit box.

  This time the ex-boyfriend claimed—truthfully, as far as Mitchell could tell—that he was there for, of all things, a VCR. Mitchell and his aunt watched him as he carried it away, grumbling but evidently satisfied with the outcome.

  As Mitchell began the drive back to Pocopson, his eye on the slowly dropping fuel level, he thought back over the last three months. He was more confused than ever about where he stood with Louise. She treated him alternately like a visitor who had overstayed his welcome and like the man who might step into her late husband’s shoes. She praised him for his ability and achievements—all the more gratifying when compared to her dressing down of Millard—but also treated him like a child with a curfew, a man who couldn’t be expected to protect his own family.

  If he was going to make any progress toward becoming a true partner with Louise, he needed to have a serious conversation with her about their plans. Perhaps tonight was the best time to have that conversation. With Owen McNally still alive, at least as of the last intelligence Louise had been able to glean, and Elizabeth Ballard’s whereabouts unknown, it was important that they present a unified front against any threats. Perhaps he could convince her that she no longer needed George Millard’s strong-arm services. Perhaps he could pave the way for that conversation with a special bottle of wine from Gerard’s cellar.

  When he reached the house, he pulled off the road and onto the drive, hitting a button on the Rover’s visor to open and close the metal gates at the entrance, then drove to the detached garage behind the house where the Rover was kept. Leaving the engine running and the lights on, he stepped out to open the garage door. He unlatched the padlock that secured the big barn-style doors and, as they rumbled open, a burst of light exploded behind his eyes, and the world went black.

  62

  “There’s a car coming,” said Philip.

  Lizzy scrambled to the corner of the building next to Philip and peered around. A Range Rover had just turned the corner of the house, the line of lights bordering the drive casting a glow into the vehicle’s interior.

  “That could be the guy from the video,” whispered Lizzy.

  “It could definitely be the guy who came to my office,” Philip whispered back.

  They jumped back behind the corner of the garage as the vehicle’s headlights swept past their hiding place.

  “Now what?” asked Lizzy.

  “Well, he’s not top on our hit list, right?” said Philip.

  Lizzy winced.

  “He’s not who we’re here for,” he amended. “We just need to get him out of the way. I’ll take care of him.”

  “How?”

  Philip pulled out the Glock. They heard the sounds of the car door opening, and steps on the gravel just a dozen feet away.

  Lizzy pointed to the gun and waved her hands in negation, but relaxed when Philip turned the weapon so he was holding the barrel. He put his finger to his lips and she nodded. He stepped around
the corner of the garage.

  Lizzy heard the rumble of the door sliding open, then the cringe-inducing sound of the gun handle hitting bone and the thump of a body hitting the ground.

  She peeked around the corner and in the car’s headlights saw Philip standing over a crumpled shape. He slipped the gun into the waistband of his jeans, then hoisted the man’s shoulders up and began to drag him away from the pool of light. Lizzy darted out and grabbed the man’s feet. They hustled him behind the detached garage and laid him on the ground.

  “One down,” she whispered.

  “Fasten his ankles and wrists with the ties and put tape over his mouth.”

  Lizzy pulled the items from her jacket pockets and bent to her task as Philip looked around the edge of the garage.

  “Do you think anybody saw anything?” asked Lizzy.

  He turned back to her. “Nothing to indicate anybody’s home—still all dark. But if there is someone in the house, leaving the car running and its lights on for more than another minute or two is definitely going to attract their attention. I’m going to pull the car into the garage.”

  “What if someone’s looking?”

  “I’m about the same height as he is, and we both have dark hair.”

  “Yours is a lot longer, though.”

  He shrugged. “This far from the house, if I stay out of the headlights, I think I can pass a casual glance. If Mortensen or Millard sees someone they think is this guy pulling the car into the garage, it will probably take them a while to wonder why he hasn’t come in the house, and we can take off if someone comes out to check on him.”

  Lizzy nodded and returned to her task. She heard the soft thunk of the vehicle’s door closing, then the crunch of tires on gravel.

  In a moment, Philip was back. “I left the garage door open,” he said. “If they saw the car arrive and look out, maybe they’ll think he’s just sitting in the car waiting for a song on the radio to finish.” He squatted down next to Lizzy. “Why don’t you watch the house and I’ll search his pockets.”

  Lizzy nodded and took up the observation post at the corner of the building.

  Philip patted the man’s pockets and pulled out a wallet. He flipped it open and cupped his hand around a penlight he pulled from his pocket, then read, “Mitchell Robert Pieda of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.” He flipped the wallet closed. “Also known as Mitch Foot.” He rolled his eyes. “Cute.” He did a quick calculation against the birth date. “Twenty-three years old.” He slipped the wallet into his jacket pocket, and continued patting down Mitchell. After a moment, he said, “Interesting.”

  Lizzy turned toward him. He was holding a small oblong object, like a pencil case.

  “What?” she asked.

  “A syringe and vial. Maybe he’s diabetic?”

  Philip started to slip it into his own pocket, but Lizzy said, “If it’s medicine, maybe it should stay with him.”

  He sighed and replaced the items in Mitchell’s jacket pocket. He moved Mitchell’s arms so that they were resting on his hips, wrists together, then tightened the ties around his wrists and ankles. “Let’s roll him face down. It’ll be hard for him to move if he’s lying on his arms. Plus, if he starts to regain consciousness, I can sneak up on him and give him another rap on the head before he knows what’s going on. Zip ties aren’t going to protect us from the squeeze.”

  They rolled Mitchell down a slight depression near the garage, into the darker shadows next to the foundation.

  “Maybe we can hand him over to the government,” whispered Lizzy.

  “Maybe. Let’s keep our options open.”

  Lizzy peered into a garage window above where Pieda lay. “I wonder if there’s something in there we can cover him up with …”

  “Being chilly is going to be the least of his problems,” replied Philip.

  63

  On the monitors, Millard watched Castillo and Ballard carry Pieda behind the garage. He couldn’t tell how hard Castillo had hit Pieda—he hadn’t looked like he had held back. If Pieda wasn’t dead, and if he got away from Castillo and Ballard, Millard would decide what to do with him then. In the meantime, he’d figure Pieda had been sidelined.

  He clicked on an intercom that connected the pantry with the safe room.

  “They got Pieda.”

  “I saw.” The safe room had its own set of monitors. The tinniness of the speaker’s sound didn’t mask the tightness in her voice.

  “Good idea with those new drapes,” he said. “I doubt they can tell whether anyone’s in the house or not.”

  “Yes, that is one of their advantages,” she replied. “What do you think their plan is? Do you think they’ll come in together or separately? And if separately, in what order?”

  “That probably depends on how chivalrous, and how persuasive, Castillo is. I’m guessing he isn’t the type to let Ballard lead the charge, or maybe even come into the house at all.”

  “Or Ballard could convince him that she has a weapon much more powerful than the gun he used to club down Mitchell.”

  Did he hear a hint of regret in her voice? Millard gave it a brief moment of consideration, then decided it was only a trick of the speaker.

  “Unless they get a lot more stealthy than they have been up until now,” he said, “I’ll see them when they come out from behind the garage.”

  “If you take care of them in the house, you’ll have to keep it clean in case someone from the attorney general’s office feels the need to come here.”

  “I’ll get him somewhere the AG won’t be likely to visit.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Millard. “I have a plan.”

  64

  Philip pulled out the keyring he had taken from the car and sorted through the keys as Lizzy kept watch on the house. “One for the Rover, one likely for the padlock on the garage door, and two door keys.” He looked toward the house. “One must be for the door to the garage and one must be for the house. Probably to the back door, since that’s closest to the detached garage.”

  “What now?” asked Lizzy.

  “No movement from the house?”

  “I would have said,” she replied, offended.

  Philip sat back on his haunches. “I don’t think we can pass up the opportunity that having a house key presents. I’ll go in and check things out. We don’t want to assume that they don’t know we’re here—a place like this probably has a pretty sophisticated security system—but we do have the advantage of having one of them out of commission, at least for the moment. Now we need to find out if anyone’s home.”

  “I should go,” she said.

  “It’s better if you stay with Pieda. If he starts to regain consciousness, you giving him a little squeeze is likely to do less damage than me giving him another rap on the head.”

  “I don’t know if I can give him just a little squeeze.”

  “I don’t know if I can give him just a little rap on the head.”

  He could sense her wavering, then she shook her head. “No, I don’t want you doing my dirty work.”

  “Lizzy,” he said, trying to keep his voice light, “anyone who is as concerned as you are that a man who killed a government official in cold blood might get chilly is unlikely to be successful as a murderous vigilante.“

  She looked toward the house, then down at her hands. “I can do it.”

  He leaned toward her. “Lizzy, you might be able to do it someday, but not tonight. I can see it in your eyes, I can hear it in your voice. The easiest way to send this whole thing to hell in a handbasket is for you to go in there thinking you’re ready to give George Millard the squeeze and find out you’re not. That’s not only going to be bad—maybe fatal—for you, but it’s going to put me in a difficult position.”

  In the light of the nearly full moon, he could see tears glistening in her eyes.

  “You don’t need to be upset about it,” he said, “but you do need to be realistic about it. I have no d
oubt Millard is going to have a gun, and one second of indecision on your part means that our plan falls apart.”

  “But it’s my problem to take care of.”

  They were both silent for a half a minute, looking across the lawn to the equally silent house.

  Finally, Philip drew a deep breath. “Lizzy, I have a favor to ask you, when this is all done.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to take care of the man who killed Oscar.”

  After a beat she asked, “What do you mean?”

  He leaned toward her. “I told you I would have been happy to have had your ability to use on the rancher’s son, but I would have killed—and I mean that quite literally—to have had it and been standing next to Oscar in that cafeteria line when those bastards came to make an example of him.”

  Lizzy watched him, her eyes wide.

  “Oscar isn’t the only man Tobe Hanrick has killed in prison—or out of it, for that matter,” he continued. “His gang protects him, and sometimes they do the dirty work for him, so the authorities have never been able to pin anything on him. He deserves the death penalty, and the state isn’t going to oblige. I’d do it myself and deal with the consequences, but I don’t have any way of getting to him. I’m asking you to kill him.”

  “How would I get to him?” she asked, horrified.

  “You could visit him in prison.”

  “I don’t even know him.”

  “He’s not likely to turn down a visit from a pretty young lady. And there would be a glass partition between you—you’d never have to physically interact with him.”

  She stared at him. “But … I don’t even know him,” she repeated.

  “But you know what he’s done. If you trust me, that is.”

  “Yes, I trust you, but …”

  He watched her, his eyes steady on hers, but she was silent.

  “I think if I told you more about the kind of person he is, you would be convinced that he doesn’t deserve to live. I’ll tell you later, but now is not the time.”