by David Archer
Chance gave him a blank look. “I’d probably ask you what they were drinking, or what they were smoking. If I remember correctly, they were killed just a day or two after my sister was murdered. During that time, I was pretty much sitting right here at this house, or else Grandma and I were out trying to make funeral arrangements.”
“Mr. Reddick, we’ve got one witness who gave a very accurate description of you, and said he saw you shoot one man and then force the other one to load the body in a car, and then the witness says you drove away with them. We found the bodies in the car the witness described, and it was pretty obvious that someone had been in the back seat. I’m assuming that was you?”
Chance grinned. “Haven’t you ever heard what it does when you assume? It makes an ass out of both you and me, remember? Detective Masters, I don’t know who your witness might have seen, but it wasn’t me. You can ask my grandmother; except for when we went to the funeral home, we were right here the whole time.”
“He’s right about that,” Grandma said. “I know, because he wouldn’t let me out of his sight. When my granddaughter was killed, my husband had a heart attack and died, as well. Chance was afraid I was going to keel over dead the same way, so he wouldn’t even leave my side.”
Masters looked at her with frustration in his face, then turned back to Chance. “We have another witness who described your pickup truck. You know, there aren’t a lot of those old Chevy trucks around, so it’s not that hard to believe that yours might be the one they saw.”
“Not unless somebody took it joyriding and brought it back when they were done,” Chance said. “Detective, I built that old truck out of junk I found around this farm. Besides the fact that I don’t allow anybody else to drive it, I’d be surprised if anyone else could. The shifter linkage hangs up a lot, the steering box is about worn out and has a lot of play in it, and you have to hold your mouth just right to get the engine to start. I can pretty well assure you that, if I was sitting here, that truck was also sitting here.”
Masters continued trying to break Chance’s story, but neither Chance nor his grandmother ever blinked. After two hours of interrogation, he finally gave up and headed back to Hinckley.
Just before he left, however, he asked Chance to step out on the porch with him. Chance followed and Masters turned to look him in the eye.
“Here’s the deal, sport,” Masters said. “I know you did it, and you know you did it. Now, maybe you feel like you were justified after what they did to your sister, but that’s not how things work in America. There’s a reason we have laws and police, and that means that you can’t go off and act like a vigilante. Now, maybe I can’t prove you did it, not this time, but I can tell you this. If you ever do this kind of thing again, I will be breathing down your neck. You can get away with something like this once, Reddick. But you will never get away with it again, not on my watch.”
The detective looked him in the eye for a few more seconds, then turned and walked down the steps. He got into his car and turned around, and then drove away.
Chance went back inside and sat down at the table with his grandmother again. “Well, I thought that went pretty well, didn’t you?”
“At least he knows he can’t prove anything,” Grandma said. “That’s the important part.”
“Yeah,” Chance said. “But it’s possible it’s going to make things harder for me now that I’m here.”
THIRTY
Masters had not been gone half an hour when Bryce Wilson, the local police officer, pulled in. Chance and his grandmother were sitting on the bench on the front porch, and waited for him to come up. He climbed up the stairs slowly, then sank onto the bench when Grandma said she would leave the men to talk and went inside.
“Heard you were back,” Bryce said. “Been an awful lot of people wondering what happened with you, Chance. It seemed kind of strange that you took off like that, just disappeared.”
“I just needed a change of scenery,” Chance said. “This place just isn’t the same, with Robin and Grandpa gone. I got a chance to go out west and help somebody buy some horses, make a little extra money. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
Bryce shook his head, then looked Chance in the eye. “Nothing wrong with it,” he said. “Like I said, a lot of folks just thought it was odd timing. Then, of course, there’s that detective over in Hinckley, Masters. He’s got himself convinced that you went over and killed the people who killed Robin. I tried to tell them I didn’t think you were that kind of guy, but he told me I’m an idiot.”
“I talked to him a little while ago,” Chance said. “Grandma told me he was coming around a lot, so I figured I might as well get it out of the way. He came by and spent a couple hours here, and we both told him I was right here with Grandma when those men were killed. I’m not a hundred percent certain he believes me, but I’m not too worried about it. I mean, all I was doing around that time was worrying about Grandma, and trying to make funeral arrangements.”
Bryce nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Thing is, Chance, there’s a lot of the local street punks still telling the story that you’re some kind of hitman for old man Baldizon. They say that if he gets angry at somebody, he sends you over to take care of them.”
Chance busted out laughing. “Are you serious? Bryce, do I look like a hitman?”
“No, not to me,” Bryce said. “On the other hand, I would imagine that any successful hitman would make it a point not to look like one. Look, I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just telling you what’s being said. With a story like that going around, you might find that some of the folks you’ve known all your life might be just a little bit nervous about you, now.”
Chance looked directly at him. “Bryce, as far as I know, there is nobody in Silver Bell who would have any reason to be nervous about me. I’m probably not even going to be staying around town very long. I’ll tell you something, but I don’t want to spread it all over town; while I was gone, I met an absolutely beautiful woman and we’re planning to get married. She’s got a ranch out west, and that’s probably what I’m going to be calling home.”
“Well, I guess congratulations. I just thought I’d stop out and see how you’re doing, make sure there’s not any, you know, problems.”
Chance laid a hand on his shoulder. “You can relax, Bryce,” he said. “I’m not going to be causing any problems while I’m here.”
Bryce nodded, then slowly got up off the bench and walked down the steps. He stopped when he got to his car and turned around to look at the Chance, then waved and got behind the wheel. He started up and backed out, then drove off down the old dirt road.
Grandma came outside. “What was that all about?” she asked.
“Bryce heard the stuff Masters has been saying, I guess,” Chance said. “I told him that I already talked with the detective, and that everything is okay. He just seems a little nervous about having me back in town.”
Grandma sat down beside him on the bench again. “That’s the way it was for your grandpa,” she said. “Back then. Nobody could ever prove anything, but there were those who always suspected he might have been the one who helped Bob Mallard hang himself, and why. It was a long time before people would look him in the eye again, and some folks never did get over being scared of him. We never told anybody, but we actually thought about moving away during that time.”
Chance looked at her for a long moment, then reached out and put an arm around her. “Well,” he said, “then it’s probably a good thing I’m not planning to stick around here for long.”
“Yep,” Grandma said. “Probably a good thing.”
Grandma went back into the house, and Chance waited a moment to see if she was coming back. When she didn’t, he took his phone out of his pocket and called Gabriella.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said. “I thought I’d check in with you. Any luck with the bank?”
“Oh, my gosh,” Gabriella said. “I literally just got off the phone with them, Chanc
e. I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to prove that I was Benny’s widow, and then I had to email them copies of my birth certificate, my drivers license, my marriage license from when Benny and I got married, and his death certificate. Once they checked all that out, the man called me back about twenty minutes ago, and said that there really is such an account, and since I’m Benny’s widow, then it goes to me.”
“Okay,” Chance said. “That’s definitely interesting. Any idea where it came from?”
“The man at the bank said that there were nine deposits over a two-year period, all of them sent in by bank wires, all of them from the same bank in Texas. Chance, that account has almost three million dollars in it! That’s the exact amount you said Benny was supposed to have stolen, do you think he really did?”
“Not according to Baldizon,” Chance said. “This is getting more and more confusing. Somehow, Oscar knew about that money. The only question is what he thought he could do about it. He apparently didn’t know where it was, or he would have told you about it after Benny was dead, let you get the money and supposedly give it back to Baldizon. I just can’t understand why he’d want you dead, because without you, there’d be no way for him to ever get his hands on it.”
Gabriella suddenly gasped, and then she was silent for a moment. “But what if he could? Chance, back before Benny died, he and Oscar were really close, so close that Benny wanted Oscar to be the one to take care of our kids if something happened to both me and him. Benny is dead, but we both signed the papers to make Oscar their legal guardian if we died. As long as I’m alive, it doesn’t matter, but if I were dead…”
“Then Oscar becomes their legal guardian,” Chance said, “and he’d be in a position to file for them to inherit that money, which would basically put it into his hands. It’s all starting to make sense, now.”
“Yes, it explains a lot. Oh, Chance, what are we going to do?”
“I’m going to talk to Baldizon again,” Chance said. “And then I’m going to take care of Oscar. You just stay put and keep that shotgun loaded, just in case somebody shows up before I get this done. Let me go take care of business, and then I’ll let you know when I have some answers.”
“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “I miss you, Chance. The boys and I miss you terribly.”
“Well, if everything goes well, I’ll be back before long. Hug the boys for me, and tell them I’ll be home soon as I can.”
They said their goodbyes, and Chance sat for a moment and thought about what he had just learned. Oscar Reyes somehow knew about that money, which told Chance that Oscar and Benny must have been involved in something together. The money had been put into Benny’s care, and Oscar had wanted to get his hands on it. Gabriella said that Benny and Oscar had argued occasionally about something, and Chance was fairly sure he now knew what it was.
Then, when Benny died, Oscar didn’t know how to get his hands on the money. He hoped that Gabriella knew about it, but she said she didn’t. As far as she knew, that was the end of it.
Not for Oscar, though. He still wanted that money, and was even willing to arrange to have her killed in order to have a shot at getting his hands on it.
Chance took out his phone and called Baldizon.
“It’s Chance Reddick,” he said. “I just spoke with Gabriella. She was able to find out about the account the money was wired into, and I thought you might be interested to know that it has three million dollars sitting in it. All of that money was sent by bank wires from a bank in Texas. Now, that’s the exact amount Oscar told me Benito was supposed to have stolen from you. Are you certain no money was ever stolen?”
“Mr. Reddick, I never said no money was ever stolen. I said there was no possibility that Benito stole any money. However, there is something I need to look at. If you could give me a moment…”
Chance heard him put the phone down, and there were the sounds of papers rustling and the clacking of a computer keyboard. He waited a couple of minutes, and then Baldizon came back on the line.
“I believe I have found the answer,” Baldizon said. “When I sent Benito that money, I did not go to the bank myself. Oscar was my right hand man, so I gave him the paperwork and sent him to do it. The people at my bank knew him, so there was no problem. I looked at the account records just now, and I found that there were several more bank wires sent to the same account. In every case, the signature of the person who sent it was that of Oscar Reyes.”
“And you never ordered any more money sent to that account, did you?” Chance asked.
“No. Other than once when I needed to ask him a question about something he had once taken care of for me, I never spoke to Benito again. But I stand on what I have said. There is no way that Benito would have willingly stolen money from me.”
“So he didn’t steal it,” Chance said. “He was just letting it sit in his account. Wouldn’t that be the same thing?”
“Mr. Reddick, you have met Oscar. It should be obvious even to you that he is a ruthless man. There is no doubt in my mind that Benito cooperated with him because Oscar threatened him. And the only thing Benito cared enough for to risk something like this was his family. Oscar must have threatened Gabriella and the children.”
“That son of a bitch,” Chance said. “Well, it gets even worse. Oscar somehow convinced Benito and Gabriella to name him as legal guardian to the boys if both of their parents were to die. If I had actually killed Gabriella, he would have been able to get his hands on that money.”
Baldizon was quiet for a moment. “Then, it seems to me, Mr. Reddick, that we must move quickly. Can you meet with me this afternoon?”
“Yes. You want me to come to your house?”
“No. The less you are seen here, the better. Meet me at the old coal mine. I will be there in thirty minutes.”
THIRTY-ONE
Chance told his grandmother he had to go out, then drove his Dodge out to the old coal mine. The gate was open when he arrived, and he found Baldizon sitting on the hood of his own car near the old equipment shed. He pulled up close, then stepped out of the car and shook hands with the older man.
“Thank you for coming,” Baldizon said. “Let me tell you what is happening, and then we will plan what we should do about it. Oscar Reyes is now working for Felipe Gonzalez in Louisville. He is Gonzalez’s enforcer, which means that he has almost as much power as Gonzalez himself. He gives all of the orders to the soldiers, the people who actually do all of the work for the cartel.”
“And that’s the job you wouldn’t give him, right?” Chance asked.
“Yes, because Oscar is too volatile. With that much power, I suspected he would try to take over my operation, but now I have learned that Gonzalez is planning to push me out. He hopes to run all of Kentucky, and I am still one of the strongest generals in this part of the cartel. If he can get rid of me, he will have less trouble getting rid of the rest of them. This is not uncommon within the cartel, but I have no wish to allow him to kill me and take over what I have done.”
“Yeah, okay,” Chance said. “And you think Oscar is trying to help him?”
“I’m certain of it. When I realized that Oscar was the one who was stealing the money, and somehow forcing Benito to hide it for him, I realized that Oscar has been planning to get rid of me for some time. Had he been able to get hold of that money, he could have used it to pay soldiers. With enough soldiers of his own, he could have killed me, which would’ve put him in charge of my entire operation. It is only my good fortune that he was never able to get his hands on that money.”
“But now he’s got himself into a position of power with Gonzalez, so he doesn’t care about taking over your smaller operation anymore. By helping Gonzalez, he comes out on top from his point of view. Am I right?”
“Yes, you are. However, there is something we can do. You see, within the cartel, there are two ways to become a general. The first is to become strong enough to kill the general in that position. If you are that strong, then al
l of his soldiers will become yours as soon as you take his life. Unfortunately, I am not strong enough to take Gonzalez on personally. He has many more soldiers than I do, and there is no doubt that he will win if it comes to a war.”
“Okay. So what’s the other way?”
“Within the Zetas, a general must be fearless. If he can be shown to be weak, then he loses his authority. Whoever kills him at that point becomes the general. Normally, in order to become the general, the person who kills him must be one of our own, from Guatemala. Anyone who works with the cartel who is not from our country, we call them only associates. An associate cannot be general, unless he is able to kill the current general over a matter of honor, and the general must show weakness before he dies. What this means, Mr. Reddick, is that there is one small possibility for me to take over Gonzalez’s entire operation, which would make me the strongest of all the generals in this part of the country.”
“And I get the feeling that, somehow, you need my help with that?”
“You are an associate,” Baldizon said. “You also are the only associate who has the right to kill Gonzalez over a matter of honor. This is because it was Gonzalez who ordered the death of my son, Jorge. This means that Gonzalez is responsible for the death of your sister. For that reason, you can challenge him. If you can force him to beg for his life, or show weakness in any other way, then his soldiers will become yours. And you, because you do not wish to live the life of a cartel general, would then be able to pass that authority over to me.”
Chance looked him in the eye. “You know,” he said slowly, “I know that you are involved in the drug business. Personally, I’ve never had any use for drugs, but I see the damage they do. When I was in college up in Louisville, I saw an awful lot of people so strung out on meth and cocaine and heroin that they didn’t even know who they were, half the time. Can you tell me why you would be better to have in the position of general then Gonzalez? Because, from the way I’m looking at it, either way is bad for the people.”