by David Archer
“And those are all you found?” Pete asked. “That match up to the ones in those files, I mean?”
“No, but these are the most recent. In the five years that Johnson has been working for the DOJ, there have been a total of sixteen such cases, and all but one of them happened in the last three months. And here’s the part where it gets really weird: all of the last five were burned or mangled beyond recognition, and there were no autopsies on any of them. All the others were shootings and such, so the bodies were easily identified and they all had autopsies.”
He shook his head. “So, we’ve either got an eraser, or this guy is hiring out to eliminate witnesses in the program. The problem is that we don’t dare go public with any of this until we know for sure which way it is.”
“Why not?” Chance asked. “This is way too much coincidence, I'm certain now that it’s Johnson I saw in that video. Why not just let the sheriff’s office handle it from here on out?”
“Because cops can be dirty. If he’s really killing these people or setting them up to be killed, then he needs to be brought to justice, that’s true. On the other hand, if he’s faking their deaths to keep them alive, that information could be worth millions of dollars in the wrong hands. How many cops do you know that you would trust that far?”
Chance rolled his eyes. “I don’t know any cops I trust at all,” he said. “So, what do we do?”
“We go get lunch,” Pete said. “And then you get back out to that airport and wait for Mr. Johnson to come back this afternoon. Josie is going to be scanning all the news sources out of Denver, to see if any more bodies suddenly turn up while he’s there.”
Chapter 7
Lunch turned out to be pizza, simply because there was a pizzeria three doors away. Chance went to fetch, and then the three of them sat in the office to eat. It was nearly 1 o’clock by the time they were finished, so Chance got into his truck and headed down the interstate towards Jean.
This time, he didn’t bother going all the way to the airport. He pulled up in the parking lot of the casino a short distance away, then sat in the truck to wait for the telltale sound of a jet engine. When it came almost two hours later, he took out his phone again and used it to zoom in as Johnson parked the airplane and tied it down.
He wasn’t alone. There was an older man with him, and the two of them walked quickly to the Chrysler, got in and drove out. Chance started up the truck and fell in a few cars behind them as they passed the casino.
When they got to the interstate ramp, Johnson got on and went north. The cars between his Chrysler and Chance did not, so Chance drove slowly up the ramp and let the Chrysler have some distance before he pushed the truck up to highway speeds again. A few other vehicles went around him and got between them, and he almost missed it when Johnson took the offramp on Cactus Avenue. He managed to slow down enough to take the ramp as he saw Johnson turn left at the light.
By the time he got onto Cactus, the Chrysler was nowhere to be seen. He looked both ways on Dean Martin Drive but didn’t see the car, so he kept going. A moment later, a flash of green caught his eye to the left. He was looking across an empty lot to a spot where three large homes sat in the middle of an empty stretch of desert. As he watched, Johnson’s Chrysler pulled in at the largest house.
Rather than get too close, Chance pulled over in the parking lot of a hotel, then used his phone to zoom in again. Johnson and the other man got out of the car and walked toward the house, but it blocked Chance’s view. He guessed that they entered the house, but couldn’t be sure. Between the distance and the limitations of his phone’s camera, he was just barely sure it was Johnson he was watching.
A couple of minutes later, Johnson returned alone to the car and got in, then started it up and drove back the way he had come. Chance pulled the truck around behind the hotel, stopping where he could see the Chrysler go by. As soon as it passed, he pulled out again, but this time he went toward the house where Johnson seemed to have left his passenger.
There was a real estate company’s ‘for sale’ sign out front, and the place looked empty. Chance parked the truck in its driveway and got out, then walked up to the door and pushed the doorbell button. Nothing happened, so he knocked.
A full minute later, he knocked again. He was looking through the small window on the door but did not see any activity inside. Nobody answered, so he walked off the porch and started making his way around the house.
The windows were too high for him to look into, so he went around to the back door. It was locked, of course, and there was a curtain over the window on the door and the one beside it. He wasn’t able to see inside at all, and he wasn’t prepared to break in. He tried knocking on the back door, but there was still no response. After another minute, he walked back around the house to his truck and got in.
There had been no signs of any kind of violence on the front porch, and Chance was certain that there was at least one person inside. If Pete was right about Johnson, that person could be someone Johnson was trying to hide for his own safety. If he had a phone, he was probably already calling Johnson to tell him that someone was banging on the door. Chance suspected that being caught there might not be a good idea, so he started the truck and drove down the street, then took off across the desert. It was only a few hundred yards to the next street, and he turned the truck onto it while he thought about how to make everything he had seen add up.
For the moment, all he could think of to do was head back toward the office. He took the next left turn, then followed the road around until he made it back to Cactus Avenue. He had just gotten to the intersection when he spotted Johnson’s Chrysler, sitting off to his right. The big, blond man was staring right at him.
The light was in Johnson’s favor, and he cruised slowly through the intersection while still keeping his eyes on Chance. Dammit, I have been spotted, Chance thought, but he kept his eyes straight ahead and avoided returning Johnson’s gaze. He turned his head to the left just enough to keep the Chrysler in sight, but there was no sign Johnson was trying to turn around. As soon as the light changed, Chance took the corner to the right and headed back toward the office.
Chance parked out front like he always did, then got out of the truck and walked inside. He blinked as he went through the door, the dim light inside making it hard to see after the bright sunshine. Josie was at her desk and looked up at him, but she didn’t smile. A second later, Chance’s eyes adjusted enough for him to see that there were two people sitting in front of Pete’s desk.
One of them was FBI Special Agent Sherilyn Roberts. The other was a man Chance didn’t recognize.
Agent Roberts was getting to her feet, and she turned to look Chance in the eye. “Well, well, well,” she said coldly. “Bill Simmons, isn’t it? Oh, no, wait; that’s not really your name, is it?”
Chance forced a smile onto his face as he walked toward her, one hand extended. “Chance Reddick,” he said. “It’s good to meet you properly, Agent Roberts.”
“Like hell it is,” she said, refusing to shake his hand. “You and I both know you’re not happy to see me.” She looked around. “Is there somewhere you and I can talk privately? It really would be in your best interest to cooperate, right at this moment.”
Chance shrugged. “This is it, unless you want to go talk in the bathroom. It’s a cheap office, what can I say?”
Roberts looked at Pete. “You don’t mind giving us the room for a few minutes, do you?”
He glanced at Chance, then slowly got out of his chair. “Josie,” he said, “let’s go get us something to drink.” He looked at Roberts. “Can I bring you folks anything?”
She didn’t answer, but just glared at him. He shrugged, then walked over and took hold of Josie’s wheelchair. He pushed her out the door, casting a quick glance at Chance as he passed by.
As soon as they were out of the room, Chance walked around and sat in Pete’s chair. “Have a seat,” he said. “And tell me what I can do for you?”
Chance chuckled. “Everybody thinks I'm this big, bad killer,” he said. “If you’ll take a good look at that entire case file, you find that I was the guy who was trying to make sure you had the evidence to put her away. If I wanted to do something like you’re suggesting, why would I have drawn attention to her?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why don’t you explain that to me? And while you’re at it, we can talk about Daniel Finnigan and a few of his people. See, they all ended up with nine millimeter holes, mostly in their faces. Now here you are, suddenly using your real name, and it turns out you have a pair of nine millimeters registered to you. Special ones, at that, Maxim Integrally Suppressed. Those are just barely even legal, you know.”
“But they are legal. Believe me, I checked that out before I got them.”
“And where did you get them, Mr. Reddick? There’s no record of them ever being sold to you.”
“At a gun show,” Chance said. “Private owner, sold them to me cheap.”
“Yeah, right. Private owner, maybe, but I doubt you bought them at a gun show.” She was still on her feet, as was McCord, and she suddenly leaned toward Chance with her hands on the desk. “I'm not going to say that Cardwell and Finnigan didn’t get what they deserved,” she said coldly, “but that wasn’t up to you to decide. That was for a judge and a jury, that’s how it works in America. We don’t have any room for vigilantes, no matter how noble they may think their purposes are. Now, you, Mr. Reddick, strike me as a vigilante type. I may not have any evidence yet to connect you to these murders, but you can bet that I'm not going to stop looking. You can save us all an awful lot of time if you just own up.”
Chance leaned forward until his face was only a few inches from her own. “Now, why would I do that? Like I said, Agent Roberts, I was the one who got you all the evidence you had against Doctor Cardwell, and I even brought you evidence that Finnigan was behind the things she was doing. It seems to me that if you had done your job properly, both of them would have been behind bars before somebody could get around to killing them. Oh, but you didn’t, did you? What was it they told me? Something about how they both had powerful friends that would protect them? Personally, I'm glad there was somebody they couldn’t be protected from. Makes the world a safer place, you know?”
“I'm going to get you, Reddick. You can count on it. You see, I got a break yesterday, when I was watching the news and saw your very recognizable face. I found Detective Brannigan and got your name and address, and he told me you were working with Dixon. I ran your name and found all kinds of interesting little details, like the fact that the men who killed your sister were murdered, and you were the number one suspect. Care to comment on that?”
Chance rolled his eyes. “Masters? He’s a small town detective trying to deal with drug cartels and gang killings. He wouldn’t know evidence if it bit him on the ass.”
“Maybe not,” she said, “but I can assure you that I will. And I will find it, Reddick.”
Roberts looked at McCord, and then turned toward the door. McCord started to follow, then turned and looked at Chance.
“She’s damn good at what she does,” he said. “If she says she’s going to get you, you can bet that she will.”
He followed Roberts out the door, and Chance sat back in the chair and let out a sigh.
He wasn’t going to let her get him rattled, but he also had to take her seriously. Chance had always been careful not to leave any evidence behind, but there was always the possibility that he had made a mistake along the way.
There was the prostitute who was present when he killed Finnigan. While he had threatened her if she told the truth about what happened, Chance knew he would never really harm an innocent person. If she broke down and admitted that it hadn’t been a jealous husband after all, if she gave a description that fit the way Chance had looked at that time, that would certainly feed into Roberts’ obsession with him.
Then there was Johnny Fargo, the used car dealer who had provided Chance with a couple of different vehicles. He might not have witnessed any of the killings, but he certainly knew that Chance was connected to them. It was always possible that Johnny could lead Roberts to something she could use.
Chance shook his head. No point in worrying about it now; he had always known it was possible his ‘hobby’ would get him into trouble someday. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” his grandmother used to quote to him. He had to just take one day at a time and do his best not to make mistakes in the future.
Pete and Josie came back a few minutes later, and Chance gave Pete back his chair.
“So,” Pete asked, “how did that go?”
“She seems to be convinced that I'm a murderer,” Chance said. “I tried to disabuse her of that notion, but I'm not sure it worked.”
“Yeah, she came in here like Eliot Ness, demanding to know where you were. I was just about to call you when you drove up. Anything to worry about?”
“I'm not worried,” Chance said. “Not about her, anyway. Johnson, on the other hand—you might be right about the guy, Pete. He flew in a bit over an hour ago, but he brought somebody back with him. Older man, I couldn’t get a really good look, but he took him to a house that sits off by itself in one of the new subdivisions. The place has a for sale sign out front, and looks like it’s empty. Nobody answered the door, even though I know somebody was there. Right now, I'm thinking maybe it’s some kind of safe house or something.”
Pete nodded. “That would fit, if he really is working for Witness Security. Fake somebody’s death, then hide the real person away somewhere.” He turned to Josie. “Any suspicious deaths in Denver today?”
“Let me check,” she said. She wheeled herself up to her desk and started tapping on the computer. “Well, lo and behold,” she said. “Noble Kincaid, sixty-two years old. Mr. Kincaid was killed when his car caught fire and he couldn’t get out. A witness said he saw the poor man trying to get out of the car while smoke was rolling from under the hood, but then it suddenly burst into flame before anyone could get to him to help. The fire department had to take his body out in pieces through the window, because the doors wouldn’t open at all.” She tapped on the keyboard again, and then pointed at two pictures. “Mr. Kincaid was originally Michael Cambisi, and was another witness against Lorenzo Martinelli. He was in the program just as long as Whittington was.”
Chance walked closer and looked at the pictures on the monitor, then pulled up the video he’d taken when Johnson and his guest had returned to the airport. He compared the two for a moment, then nodded. “That looks an awful lot like the guy Johnson had with him,” he said. “I can’t be certain, I didn’t get that close, but it definitely does look like him.”
“I'm just about convinced,” Pete said. “What time is it?”
Chance glanced at his phone. “It’s almost five,” he said. “What do you want me to do now?”
Pete stuck a fresh toothpick into his mouth and began chewing it. “I think,” he said, “it’s time we take a step back and think about this. Go on home to your family, and Josie and I are going to do the same. Let’s both think about this overnight, and talk in the morning about where to go from here.”
Chance looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay by me,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He walked out the door and got into his truck, started it up and put it in gear. As he moved away from the curb, he waved at Josie and Pete, who were just leaving the office.
The office was in an old brick building on East Tropicana Avenue, so the quickest way to get to Henderson was to jump on I-515. Chance rolled the truck eastward toward the interchange, but some motion in the rearview mirror caught his attent
ion. He glanced up again to get a better look and realized that a car was coming up rapidly behind him.
The car was green, but it wasn’t a Chrysler. It came up hard behind him, then suddenly moved over to the left lane as if to pass. Chance turned his attention to the driver side mirror, and that’s when he saw that the man driving the car was holding a pistol. As the car came around, the guy raised the gun and fired directly at Chance.
Chapter 8
Chance ducked instantly and the bullet passed through his open driver’s window and blew a big hole in his windshield. Chance slammed on his brakes, forcing the other car to shoot past him, then reached under his light jacket for the big Maxim. When he looked up again, the green car was racing away.
Chance floored the old truck, but it was no match for the Chevy Malibu. The car took the next left turn, but Chance had to slow drastically to follow. By the time the truck stopped fishtailing, the Malibu was already more than a block ahead and Chance was rapidly losing ground.
He shoved the gun back into his shoulder holster and pulled over in the parking lot of a Starbucks, then took out his phone. He dialed nine one one first.
“911,” the operator said. “What is your emergency?”
“Somebody just took a shot at me on East Tropicana,” Chance said. “It was a green Chevy Malibu, maybe a couple years old, but I didn’t get a license number.”
“Yes, sir, are you injured?”
“No, I wasn’t hit. The bullet took out my windshield, but that’s all.”
“Where are you now, sir? I will need to send officers to take your statement.”
Chance gave her the address of the Starbucks and she said police would respond within five minutes. He ended the call and dialed Pete’s number.
“It ain’t morning yet,” Pete said. “Why are you bothering me?”