The Fifth Justice (Michael Gresham Legal Thrillers Book 10)

by John Ellsworth

  “I do. But I can’t just give you records. Someone might find out.”

  “Leave them on the counter and turn your back. It won’t take me five minutes to find what I need to know to get my wife back.”

  “Five minutes? How about three?”

  “Four, then.”

  “When do I get the money?”

  “Right now. I have it in this envelope,” he said, reaching inside his windbreaker for a long white envelope. He laid it on the table.

  Vicki reached for it, then hesitated. “How do I know this isn’t a test of my loyalty?”

  “Do you think the hospital gives a damn about you? My guess is no one knows you even work here except for maybe your boss and a girlfriend or two.”

  He had her there. She knew he knew about her and she was ashamed of the small life she led. She shrunk into her seat; her chin dipped to the table. Without looking at him, she reached out and took the envelope and slipped it into her brown paper bag. Then she rolled the top closed on the bag and set it in her lap.

  “Okay. Four minutes. It will be on the far end of the counter in ten minutes. Now go. Scat!”

  Reno stood, unsmiling. He hurried away. The less time together, the better.

  Fifteen minutes later, Reno left RECORDS with three critical pieces of information. One, there was a small green rose tattoo on her left inner ankle. But he had already known that. Anyone intimate with her body would know, he scoffed. When the rape occurred he had studied her, taken his time with her, memorized her topography. Two, there was a somewhat engorged hang mole on her left breast. Same thing there. He had toyed with the skin tag as he rode her, embracing, stroking her while she wept.

  And three, there was a wedding ring with the inscription 3 March 2012 Forever on the inside band. Only someone close to her, someone intimate, could know these things. But Reno now knew, thanks to Vicki and five thousand dollars. The ring’s inscription would seal the deal; of that he was sure. And there were two other pieces he planned on introducing.

  He headed for the elevator and a ride upstairs to the head injury ward.

  Chapter 17: Michael Gresham

  They assigned Marcel’s shooting to Detective Joe Davidson, the same detective working up Chloe’s case. I went to visit Detective Davidson the day following the attempt on Marcel’s life. I’d checked into the same Ritz-Carlton, moved my stuff to my room, and had a late breakfast.

  I didn’t hesitate to tell Davidson that Reno Rivera was the shooter, that he need look no further than that. I also told him Rivera was the same loser who‘d raped Chloe Constance. Except Davidson didn’t know anyone named Chloe Constance—at least not by name.

  Davidson sized me up across his desk and took my statement. His partner, Rabinowitz, had a few questions of his own for me.

  “What I’d like to know, Mr. Gresham, is what your investigator was doing clear down here in Alton?”

  “We’re looking for a young woman named Chloe Constance. She’s a Chicago lawyer and she’s gone missing.”

  “Are you thinking she might be connected to the man who shot Marcel?”

  “I am. I’m ninety-percent sure it’s Reno Rivera you’re looking for. He goes way back with Chloe Constance.”

  “How so?”

  “He raped her a few years ago. All but destroyed the poor girl. Nervous breakdown.”

  “And you sent your investigator to our neck of the woods why?”

  “We got word this Reno Rivera was in the area. With nothing else to go on, we figured why not? Why not start looking for her down here.”

  “You’re thinking Rivera might have done something to her?”

  “We want to rule that out. It’s the only lead we have.”

  “It’s mighty tenuous,” said Rabinowitz, the wordsmith of the two.

  “It is tenuous. But, like I said, we had to start somewhere.”

  “Okay, so noted. We’ll track down this Rivera and see what we can find out.”

  “Will you share with me?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I lost it. This was Marcel we were talking about. “Let me tell you sons-of-bitches something! This is my best friend in the world we’re talking about. You’ll keep me in the loop on this case or I’ll file a lawsuit against you and take your badges!”

  Both detectives smiled. “Easy, hoss,” Davidson said calmly. “Don’t bust a gut with your threats. We’re just going to ignore what you said. We’ll share what we can, which won’t be much because we don’t know much. Does that help?”

  I was still in a rage, but managed to nod. “All right. I won’t sue. I’m sorry I lost it.”

  “It’s all right, hoss. It ain’t the first time,” Davison said with a chuckle. “We’ve got thick skins in here.”

  “Thank you.”

  Davidson thanked me and showed me the door.

  They‘d heard enough.

  Chapter 18: Michael Gresham

  I checked in with Detective Davidson almost every day. He finally got tired of sharing nothing with me. Now I got bits and pieces of what he and Rabinowitz were looking at. For one, locating Reno Rivera turned out to be much more difficult that anyone had anticipated. After following several promising leads, the two detectives were stymied. And their lieutenant wanted answers. He wanted results.

  They had been told by me that Marcel was from Chicago. They remembered he’d been sorting through accident reports on the main Chicago-Alton routes. Dr. Ingram had suggested we check hospitals and accidents along the route and Marcel had jumped on that. So the detectives, too, got into the accident reports along the Chicago-Alton routes. They worked their computers, reviewing report summaries, looking for vehicles coming from Chicago that were involved in accidents in the area. One of the accident reports lit up the screen. It was the report they knew by heart, the one with the vehicle Jane Doe had been driving. The vehicle belonged to a local who lived in the countryside. The two dicks batted it back-and-forth. Her report was where they’d begin with follow-ups. First up was the owner of the Jane Doe vehicle.

  His name was Elroy Hussell, and he lived in Mount Vernon out past East Alton. They drove out of Alton and headed east to Mount Vernon, a small town with three traffic lights, an Elks Club, a VFW, a Walmart Express, Walgreen’s, and a courthouse in the square. They drove around when their GPS got lost. Finally, they stopped at the Exxon and asked directions. They were directed to Hussell’s road and headed west. Two miles outside town they came to a mailbox on the side of the road that read HUSSELL E.

  Davidson pulled the Ford Interceptor into Hussell’s driveway and waited for Detective Rabinowitz to stub out his cigarette before opening the driver’s door and stepping out. It was late winter in southern Illinois. The sky was low with clouds blowing past. The wind whipped across the cracked concrete of Hussell’s driveway and the brown grass of his small front yard. The house was wood frame, white, with a glassed-in porch across the front. A green ball on a pedestal stood in the near corner of the front yard, reflecting in a swelling arc the front of the house. Detective Davidson eyeballed its surface while walking up to the front door. He wondered why people allowed such things on their property; he also wondered why Jane Doe was driving Elroy Hussell’s VW at the time of her accident.

  Rabinowitz knocked. An ancient white-haired man wearing a white undershirt with brown stains down the front answered the door and peered at them over reading glasses halfway down his nose.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Detectives Davidson and Rabinowitz,” said Davidson, badging the man.

  “Okay.”

  “Can we come in? We need about five minutes of your time.”

  “I don’t think so. Let’s talk right here.”

  It was chilly and they were wearing thin sport coats, but the cops didn’t complain.

  Davidson plunged ahead. “All right. Well, we’ve located motor vehicle records on a 2001 VW that lists you as the owner. Do you remember that car?”

  “So what if I do?”<
br />
  “Well, we’d like to know if you had such a vehicle registered to you.”

  “Yup. Then some sumbitch stole it. Made off with it on Halloween.”

  “Where was it stolen from?

  “From Chicago. My granddaughter was in Chicago with a boy.”

  Rabinowitz spoke up. “You live in the country. What do you have here, eighty acres?”

  “Can’t say. Neighbors encroach and claim my fence is on their land. It’s all tied up in court.”

  “All right. Well, it seems odd that a man living in the country would own a VW. Was that your primary vehicle for getting around?”

  “See that pickup back there?” The man pointed without looking. “That’s my main vehicle. No, the VW was what I bought for my granddaughter, Lacey Anne, while she’s off studying at college. But she never got the title because she never made the dean’s list up there at Chicago.”

  “So your granddaughter drove the VW?”

  “Yup. Right up to where she left the keys in it in her driveway, and someone stole it.”

  “Which would have been Halloween night?”

  “Yup.”

  “Did you ever see the car again?” Davidson asked. He was staring back along the driveway, empty except for the red F-150.

  “Nope. Know nothing about who took it, where it went, who did what. The cops already been here and asked all that. Don’t they let you fellers see their reports?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Davidson, “but we’re just following up on their preliminary work.”

  “And that investigator fellow. He come around with the same questions. When are you people going to find something else to do?”

  “What investigator, Mr. Hussell?”

  “The one from Chicago. He wanted to know who was driving my car. He was looking for a disappeared girl. He thought she might have wrecked my car.”

  Davidson shrugged. “We need to get back and ask him a bunch of questions. Mr. Hussell, thank you for your time, sir.”

  “Are we finished? I want to close this goddam pneumonia hole.”

  He meant the doorway he was leaning out of. Davidson didn’t buy it. It was nowhere near that cold, just windy.

  “We might have some follow-up,” said Rabinowitz, “but we’ll let you go back inside for now.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hussell. Appreciate the time,” Davidson added.

  “I hope we’re done with all this. I don’t know nothin’ else, fellers.”

  Davidson nodded his head. “Goodbye, Mr. Hussell.”

  The door swung shut, and Davidson watched as the glass shutters on the porch windows turned black when the shades inside were drawn. “He is done,” Davidson said. “Strange old bird.”

  “He‘s a miserable old grunt, living off farm subsidies. I hate these people.”

  “You hate anyone who doesn’t have to get up and go to work every day, Frostbite.”

  “So are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I’m thinking we run the title on the VW again and update what the county mounties said in their report.”

  “Exactly my call.”

  The detectives returned to their Ford Interceptor and typed the VW’s VIN into the computer. They waited. Rabinowitz lit a cigarette so Davidson rolled down his window. He complained for the umpteenth time about second-hand smoke. Rabinowitz ignored him, smoking his cigarette almost down to the filter. By the time he flipped the butt onto Hussell’s driveway, the computer had returned title information from the Secretary of State.

  “Don’t that beat all,” said Davidson about the title.

  “Sumbitch was lying,” said Rabinowitz.

  “Let’s go.”

  The two men again exited their vehicle and returned to Hussell’s front porch stoop. They rang the doorbell and rapped on the outer glass storm door. This process went on for a good five minutes before the door finally swung open and there stood Elroy Hussell once again, this time holding a can of pork ‘n’ beans and a spoon.

  “You can’t stay away?” asked the old man.

  “Just a follow-up,” said Davidson. “You told us you never saw the car again after it disappeared.”

  “I said I never saw it again after they stole it. It didn’t disappear, mister. They stole it.”

  Davidson pushed ahead. “But the Secretary of State says you signed the title when the car went to the junkyard. So you must have seen it again, isn’t that right?”

  “Are you callin’ me a liar? I never seen it again. I signed the goddam title.”

  “You’re telling us you didn’t see the car; you sold it sight-unseen to the junk dealer in town?”

  “That’s about the long and the short of it, mister.”

  Davidson looked at Rabinowitz, who shook his head.

  “Well, I’m calling foul,” Rabinowitz interposed. “I think you didn’t tell us the whole truth.”

  “You didn’t ask all the right questions, mister. I ain’t required to do your job for you.”

  Davidson raised his collar on his sport coat. He shivered, but plunged ahead.

  “But why wouldn’t you tell us you signed the title once they recovered the car after the accident,”

  “Why wouldn’t you ask me? I’m freezin’ my nuts off. Goodbye, gentlemen.”

  Before they could react, the door slammed, and the storm door shuddered shut. They found themselves alone, looking at each other.

  Davidson shrugged. “It ain’t a crime.”

  “No, it isn’t a crime to withhold the whole truth. Seeing those beans made me hungry.”

  Davidson sighed. “All right. We’ll hit a drive-through. Then we’re going to have another talk with our investigator. I feel some answers coming on.”

  Chapter 19: Michael Gresham

  Verona’s niece called me from Saint Petersburg. She was a Russian-speaker, of course, and had no English. A translator-for-hire facilitated the call.

  “Mr. Gresham, this is Essine Dimliatov. I am calling about my aunt Verona.”

  “Yes?” I said, already anxious. “You’re calling from Saint Petersburg?”

  Translation from English to Russian while I waited, my heart pounding in my chest like a gong. All I could think she would be calling about would be a second heart attack, maybe worse. I said a prayer while I waited for the comeback.

  “I am calling from Saint Petersburg. Aunt Verona has been taken into custody.”

  “What? Where?”

  “At Pulkovo. She tried to go through customs, gave them her American passport, and they arrested her.”

  “She was returning to America?”

  “Yes, Mr. Gresham.”

  “Why did they arrest her?”

  “We are on high alert for terrorism. We have had terrorist attacks in some parts of the North Caucasus, including Chechnya.”

  “We didn’t know that before she left. But what about Saint Petersburg?”

  “We’ve had attacks in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Russian troops in Syria have angered many groups. Now they’re bringing the war here. Not to mention the crazies in Chechnya. The police are telling me she was arrested on suspicion.”

  “Suspicion of what?”

  “Terrorism.”

  “Are they serious?”

  “They have her behind bars. That’s very serious in Russia.”

  “Okay. I’m trying to remain calm. What should I do?”

  “She needs money for a lawyer.”

  “Are you able to speak with her?”

  “I am not. They only told me they’re holding her because I bribed a customs man. He said they’d taken her back into town.”

  “Town?”

  “Saint Petersburg.”

  “All right. I’m on my way. Please give me your address.”

  The translator spelled the street name and carefully gave me the street numbers in Saint Petersburg.

  “If by some chance you’re able to get word to her, please tell her I’m coming and I’ll bail her right out.”

 
“Bail?”

  “Never mind. Just tell her I’m coming. Do you know what jail she’s being held in?”

  “No. They tell me nothing.”

  “What police agency is holding her?”

  “FSB.”

  “The Federal Security Service. Please contact them and see what you can find out. Please use my number to get back to me. Even a text, if you learn anything.”

  “I will do that. I’ve called them three times already and they say they’ve never heard of Verona Gresham. I also tried under her old name.”

  “Verona Sakharov.”

  “Correct. They deny knowing either name. They’re lying.”

  “Of course they are,” I said. I’d been around and around with this agency before. Very dangerous people, the last police force in the world I’d want after me. Or after my wife. I cursed them silently while the translation was made.

  “I’ll keep trying.”

  “Yes, and call attorneys in the area. See if they can offer suggestions. We might need to hire one right away.”

  “Consider it done.”

  There was nothing else to say, so we hung up. I immediately made reservations, Chicago to Saint Petersburg. KLM, Air France, and Delta. It would be a very long flight, which made zero difference to me. I would move mountains to bring my wife home. I realized, at that moment, that moving mountains might be exactly what it would take to get her free of the FSB.

  Then I called Marcel’s hospital. They said he hadn’t been discharged. I had them put me through to his room. With Verona in jail and Marcel in the hospital yet, I wasn’t going to dump on him. I just wanted to hear his voice.

  “Marcel? Is this Marcel?” The answering voice was a croak. I didn’t recognize it.

  “Hi, Michael. I’m still here. Can’t talk around this thing in my mouth.”

  He’d undergone maxillofacial surgery. Of course he croaked.

  “How are you coming along?”

  “Doc says they’ll probably release me on Monday. Then it’s no-work for awhile. But don’t worry, I’m still on the Chloe case. There’s lots I can do from home.”

  “You’re coming back to Chicago, I assume?”