by David Archer
Chance let go of Gabriella and turned just in time to catch a hug from Tom. His little brother Andy came running from their bedroom and got in on the act.
“Hey, Chance,” Andy said. “Mom said we’re going to play Mega Zombie Wars tonight. Is that right?”
“We sure are,” Chance said. “Right after dinner, okay? Where is your grandma?”
“She’s in the laundry room,” Gabriella said. “She wanted to fold the boys’ clothes for me, and I'm not silly enough to turn down an offer like that.”
The old woman came in just a moment later, and Chance grabbed the opportunity for a hug from her as well. Gabriella was making spaghetti, which she happened to know was one of Chance’s favorites, and the whole family sat down to eat just a short time later.
Chance told them a bit about the case while they ate, stressing the fact that it was probably going to be boring. The boys talked about their day, and their adventures in getting accustomed to the new school. Both of them were good students, but the schools in Henderson were a bit more advanced than the ones up near Clarksville, where the ranch had been.
“At least we don’t have to ride a bus for an hour,” Tommy said. “That’s the best part.”
They laughed and talked through dinner, then moved to the living room. The boys had the game system connected to the TV, and Gabriella and Grandma sat and watched as Chance and the boys fought against the “alien zombie whatevers,” as Gabriella had named them. They played until nine, when the boys were sent off to bed, and then the three adults sat back to enjoy a movie.
Chance woke before the sun came up, which he often did lately, and slipped quietly out of bed to start making coffee. His attempts to be quiet were foiled, however, when the coffee scoop slipped out of his hand, spilling coffee all over the floor and rattling across the tiles. He was down on his hands and knees, trying to wipe it all up, when Gabriella came to see what had happened.
When she stopped laughing, she got the broom and dust pan and helped him clean it up. Together, they finished making the coffee and then sat to wait for it to finish percolating. The accident gave them the chance to enjoy a few moments alone, sipping coffee together, and then Chance headed out the door.
It took him fifteen minutes to get to the Johnsons’ place, and he pulled in to the same spot in the parking lot where he had watched them the evening before. Darrell Johnson’s car was still sitting in the same place, and Chance settled in to wait for him to head off to work.
He didn’t have to wait long. His quarry came out the back door of the house and got into the car, then pulled out of his driveway. Chance started the truck and eased onto the street, hanging back a bit to keep from being too noticeable.
At first, everything seemed fine. Darrell Johnson was headed toward downtown Vegas, where the DOJ offices were located, but then he suddenly took a left onto Sunset Road. Chance followed some distance behind, and his eyes narrowed when Darrell suddenly took the southbound ramp on I-15. He eased onto the interstate himself, glad to see a semitruck that he could keep between them. He followed closely behind the truck, so that he would see when Johnson decided to change lanes or take the off ramp.
Twenty minutes later, Johnson peeled off at the Jean exit. Jean isn’t even a town; the only things to be found there are the Gold Strike Casino Hotel, a prison, a convenience store in the middle of nowhere and a small airport. Chance was about a half mile behind Johnson, so the man had already reached the end of the ramp and turned left before Chance started down it.
The nice thing about being in the middle of nowhere was that it was easy to follow Johnson’s car, simply by watching the dust trail that blew up off the road. The Chrysler headed directly toward the airport and slid into a parking space. Chance followed the road that led off to the prison a mile away, but then stopped where he could watch his target.
He took out his phone and turned on its video camera, aimed it at Johnson and zoomed in as tight as it would go. Johnson climbed out of the Chrysler and then reached inside to pick up a light, hooded jacket, which he put on. Chance watched as the man walked directly from his car to a small airplane that was parked on a paved lot. Johnson removed the tiedowns and pulled the chocks away from the wheels, then climbed inside the plane.
That had been his first really good look at Johnson. The man was about six foot three, with an athletic, muscular build. He had an unruly mop of blond hair on top of his head, the kind that just never will respond properly to a comb or brush. When he had gotten into the car, he’d been wearing what looked like a business suit; now, however, he was wearing a hoodie over his dark slacks.
Even from where he sat, nearly half a mile away, Chance could hear the engine of the small jet as it screamed to life. A couple of minutes later, the airplane began moving and taxied to the longer of the two runways. It held position at the end for just a moment, then came racing directly toward where Chance was sitting. The little jet lifted into the air only halfway up the runway, then banked hard toward the east.
Now, I wonder where you are headed, Chance thought. He watched the airplane until it was out of sight, then glanced back toward Johnson’s car. He thought about it for a moment, then started the old Chevy truck again and turned it around, heading directly for the airport.
It wasn’t even seven thirty in the morning, and there were only two other cars in the parking lot. Both of them showed signs of having sat for a while, and the only building at the airport was obviously dark and unoccupied. Chance climbed out of the truck and walked to the Chrysler, looking through the windows for anything that might give him a clue as to what Darrell Johnson might be doing. There was nothing laying in plain sight, so he tried the door handle and found the car locked.
He thought about trying to break into the car, but he didn’t have a clue how to go about it without doing obvious damage. He stood beside it for another moment, then walked back to the truck, got in and headed back toward Vegas.
He had just gotten back onto I-15 when his phone suddenly rang. He glanced at it and saw that the call was coming from the office.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Chance,” Pete said. “Anything new on the Johnson case?”
“Yeah,” Chance said. “I followed him down to the Jean airport, and he got into a plane and flew away. Some kind of little jet. No idea where he was going, and I doubt he bothered to file a flight plan.”
“I’ll have Josie check that out,” Pete said. “I need your help on something else. You got a little time you can spare for me?”
Chance shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “What do you need?”
“You remember Bobby Jensen, the detective we worked with on that Cardwell case? He’s the one investigating what happened to Walter Whittington, and I need you to go pay him a visit. He’s just told me that they’ve got a cell phone video that might show Whittington was actually murdered.”
“Okay,” Chance said. “You know, he might recognize me…”
“Already handled. I told him the whole Bill Simmons thing had been my idea, back when. I told him I was using you like an undercover agent, and didn’t want your real name getting out at the time in case everything went sour on us.”
Chance scowled into the phone. “And how did he take that?”
“Better than I thought he would. I told him you and me hit it off, and I asked you to come back and work with me full time. I'm pretty sure he bought it, but be careful he doesn’t try to trick you into admitting something about that mess.”
“I’ll do my best,” Chance said. “You want me to head out there now?”
“Prob’ly be best,” Pete said. “Seems like Mr. Whittington didn’t jump on his own, and he didn’t fall by accident. Somebody actually picked him up and tossed him out the window, and somebody else caught it on a cell phone video. I told Bobby yesterday we’re on the case, and he’s gonna share everything he gets with us, long as we do likewise.”
“All right, then,” Chance said, shaking his head. “I'm headed down
to see Jensen. I’ll call you when and if I get out of there.”
“Hey, we knew one of the locals was going to see you sooner or later, right? Me sending you down to handle this lets us take some control over it.”
“Yeah, probably. I'm just a little worried about what they might find if they run my background. I know there was at least one cop back in Kentucky who wasn’t very happy with me.”
“Do tell,” Pete said. “Go on down to see Bobby. Call me when you get done.”
Chapter 5
Chance pulled in at the sheriff’s office a half hour later, and he walked inside and up to the front desk. The uniformed sergeant sitting there looked up at him. “Help you?”
“My name is Chance Reddick,” he said. “Detective Jensen is expecting me.”
“Oh, yeah,” the sergeant said. “Take a chair, he’ll be out in a minute.” He picked up the phone and spoke into it while Chance settled himself into one of the ridiculously uncomfortable chairs that always seem to find their way into a waiting room.
He didn’t have to sit there very long. Bobby Jensen came quickly out a door beside the desk and stopped when he spotted Chance. He looked at him for a moment, then just motioned for Chance to follow him. A moment later, they stepped into his office. It wasn’t the first time Chance had been there, but the last time, he’d been known as Bill Simmons.
“Well, well, well,” Jensen said. “Somehow I knew I was going to see you again. Tell me something, Mr.—Reddick, is it? Tell me this, am I going to start finding dead bodies laying around with a nine millimeter slug between the eyes?”
Despite the hackles rising on the back of his neck, Chance managed to grin. “I couldn’t say,” he said. “What makes you ask that?”
“Oh, let’s see, Daniel Finnigan? Elizabeth Cardwell? Either of those names ring a bell?”
“Sure, I remember them. Is that what happened to them? I knew they got killed, but I never heard the details.”
Jensen stared at him for a moment, then snorted. “Yeah, whatever.” He shook his head. “Pete says you guys are working on the Whittington case, that the widow hired you to find out if her old man was murdered.”
Chance shrugged. “And that tells me that you probably know more about what we’re doing with that case than I do. Pete said she called and hired us, but I haven’t seen him since before then, so I don’t know any of the details.”
“Well, she’s right; we know now that it was no accident. Take a look at this.” He pushed a couple of keys on his computer, then turned the monitor so Chance could see it. There was a bit of video footage already running, apparently taken by a cell phone from another balcony not too far away. A girl who looked like a teenager was dancing and lip syncing to a recent hip hop song, but the view was wide and a man could be seen on the balcony in the background. The video was steady, suggesting the phone had been sitting on something rather than being held by a person.
The man appeared to be talking to someone in the room behind him, and the gestures he was making made it look like an argument. Those gestures went on for a few seconds, and then a second man, notably bigger than the first and wearing what looked like a hooded sweatshirt, stepped into view. The only sound was the music at that moment, and the men were some distance away and with their backs to the camera, so it was impossible to get a good look at either of them.
They stepped into the room and suddenly were out of view. They remained out of sight for a moment, but then they were back, one man holding the other one in his arms, as if the smaller man was unconscious or incapacitated. He walked directly to the edge of the balcony, stood there for just a moment and then lifted his burden and threw him over. A scream cut the air as he leaned over for just a second to watch the body fall, then turned and walked away.
That would be the scream I heard, Chance thought, but that guy didn’t look like he was capable of it.
The dancing girl had spun toward the men when the scream rang out, and stood at the railing of her own balcony, looking down toward where the body would have hit. She froze for only a moment, then turned and screamed out, “MOM! ”
The man who had thrown Whittington over the railing was already out of sight by then. The girl reached for the phone and the video ended, and Chance looked up at Jensen. “Definitely not an accident, then,” he said.
“No, definitely not. The girl’s mother was scared to come forward yesterday, but this morning she made the right decision and called us. That video shows that Whittington was definitely murdered.” Jensen opened the file folder in front of him and picked up a photograph. He looked at it for a moment, then laid it on his desk in front of Chance. It was a grainy image, showing what appeared to be a large man walking toward the camera with his head down. He was wearing a hoodie, with the hood flipped up over his head and a bit of blond hair just visible under it. Chance admitted to himself that it looked like the same man who had thrown the other one out the window.
“That’s the perpetrator,” Jensen said. “We got that from a security camera outside the service entrance to the hotel. He obviously knew where the cameras were. Now, I saw the news yesterday, so I know you were there when Whittington hit the ground. Did you maybe see this guy around there? He might have walked past you or something, so think hard.”
Chance looked at the photo for a moment, then shook his head. “No, sorry. I didn’t see this guy anywhere near that hotel yesterday.”
Jensen sighed. “Well, it was worth a shot. Now, officially, I can’t share this information with you, which is why you can’t take that when you leave, but if you were to snap a photo of it when I'm not looking… Would you excuse me for a moment? I need to get some more coffee.”
Jensen walked out of the room, and Chance snapped a quick picture, then stared at the photo for a few more seconds until Jensen returned.
“So,” the detective said. “Pete tells me you are working with him now?”
“Yeah,” Chance said, nodding. “After he helped me with my friend, who was one of Doctor Cardwell’s victims, I kinda got interested in being a private eye. He gave me a job, so I can get the experience necessary to get my own license.”
“Yeah? How you like it so far?”
“It’s boring,” Chance said. “Seems like all I do is follow people around.”
Jensen grinned. “Yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes in the PI game. You know, Pete is a friend of mine. I'm glad to see him getting his life back on track, and he makes it real clear that he thanks you for that. You got him off the bottle when nobody else could.”
Chance shook his head. “I didn’t get him off the bottle,” he said. “Pete did that himself. All I did was convince him that he had a reason to try.”
“Whatever,” Jensen said. “Just watch his back, will you? I will guarantee he’s watching yours.”
“I know, and I will,” Chance replied. “I like Pete, he’s become a good friend.”
“You know, I checked you out,” Jensen said suddenly. “Soon as Pete told me you were coming down for him, I ran your name through the system.” He looked Chance in the eye. “It seems like people end up dead around you, Reddick. Trouble is, it always seems to be people the world could do without. Now, I'm not saying that’s always a bad thing, but it’s something I don’t want to have to deal with around here anymore. Understand me?”
Chance shrugged. “Hope you don’t have to,” he said. “Seems to me, things like that happen just about everywhere.”
“Maybe, maybe,” Jensen said. “You know, I heard your other name just a couple weeks ago. Bill Simmons. I got a phone call asking me about whether I’d ever seen Mr. Simmons again. It was one of those FBI agents who came in on that case, the woman. What was her name again? Robertson? No, Roberts, that was it. She called to ask if I’d run across you anymore. I told her I hadn’t. I'm pretty sure she would absolutely love to find out that wasn’t your real name. Might make things rough for you for a little while, though.”
“Like Pete told you,” Chan
ce said, “I was using a phony name because he wanted to keep me from having anybody try to track me down later, if things had gone bad. He was just trying to cover my back, like you said.”
Jensen’s eyebrows rose slightly. “A phony name with a valid Nevada driver’s license, and a permit to carry a concealed weapon? That isn’t something Pete could whip up in a few minutes. My guess is you had them for reasons of your own, and Pete just thought it was a good idea at the time. Right?”
Chance looked him in the eye. “If Special Agent Roberts wants to talk to me, I don’t have a problem with that. If you think you need to give her a call, you go right ahead.”
Jensen laughed then. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said. “The FBI is low on my list of people I want to deal with, and she’s high on the list of people I don’t. Personally, I think she just got pissed off that somebody took out Cardwell before she had the chance to even try to build a case. She’s not the only one who thinks you might’ve had something to do with that, but she’s definitely got the biggest hard on for you.”
Chance shook his head again. “Too bad,” he said. “I'm already married.”
Jensen laughed again, and Chance got up and left the room. He walked out of the sheriff’s office and got into his truck, then drove straight back to Pete’s office. Josie and Pete both looked up with a smile when he came through the door.
“So, how did that go?” Pete asked. “Bobby give you a rough time?”
“Not too bad,” Chance said. “He showed me a video of Mr. Whittington getting thrown out the window, and he let me steal a copy of the picture of the killer. Jensen says he walked out a service entrance, and he kept his face averted from the security camera on that door, so he must’ve known it was there.” He held out his phone to show the picture of the perpetrator.
“Yeah,” Pete said. “Now all we gotta do is track the guy down and figure out who he is. Solving this case could get us some good publicity, and we could use it.”
“We might get it,” Chance said. “Pete, I think I know who this is.”