Deadly Moves

by Rodney Riesel

  “Yes.”

  “Fine,” Rick sighed. “The U-Haul was rented on Big Pine Key.”

  “The renter have a name?” Dan asked.

  “Probably, but he didn't give it.”

  “Did he rent it with cash?”

  “Nope, Mitch Fallon's credit card. Even signed Fallon's name on the lease.”

  “Where did the coroner put Fallon's time of death?”

  “Mr. Fallon had been dead about twenty-four hours, Mrs. Fallon only around three hours.”

  “Great dinner conversation,” said Laura.

  The two men ignored her. She shook her head disapprovingly and went back to her own conversation.

  “I spoke to Fallon on the phone the day before, around noon,” Dan said. “So they must have killed him shortly after.”

  Rick nodded his head yes. “Looks like. Then one of them drove to Big Pine, rented the van, and then returned to the Fallons' place”

  “One of them stayed at the house with Mrs. Fallon. Any security cameras at the rental place?”

  “Yeah, two of them. One outside with a view of the parking lot and one inside pointed at the counter.”

  “They get a picture of the guy?”

  “No, he was wearing a hat and sunglasses. He kept his head down most of the time. He knew where the cameras were.”

  “So he had been there before.”

  “Probably. It wouldn't have mattered any way—footage from both cameras was pretty grainy. Probably couldn't have gotten a good picture of him even if he smiled and waved at the camera.”

  “How about the house on Duncan Street, learn anything there?”

  “The Murphys. Coroner said they had both been dead less than two hours. We found them bound and gagged in a bedroom closet; both died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head.”

  “Talk to the neighbors?”

  “We spoke to almost everyone who lives on Duncan Street. No one seemed to know the couple very well. Neighbors said they mostly kept to themselves.”

  “What's the next step in the investigation?” Dan asked.

  “We're circulating the composite drawing based on the description you and Red gave to the sketch artist. Also, we're hoping one of them uses the credit card again—”

  “Who ordered the salmon?” the waiter asked.

  “Right here,” Maxine responded.

  He set her plate in front of her. “And the lamb chops?”

  “That's me,” said Laura.

  “I'll be right back with the gentlemen's plates in just a second.” He turned and walked back inside the kitchen.

  Dan felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket and reached for it.

  Dan tapped the text message icon.

  “Who's that?” Maxine inquired.

  “Mel,” Dan replied.

  “What's he want?” Maxine cut into her salmon with the edge of her fork.

  Dan read the text aloud. How is dinner going? He used his thumbs to text back Fine, and then put his cell away.

  The waiter returned with Rick and Dan's steaks and placed their plates in front of them.

  Dan's phone buzzed again. Red won't play checkers with me.

  Dan texted back: I don't care. Stop bothering me.

  Rick cut into his steak. “Perfect,” he said, and took a bite.

  Buzz! You said to text you if I needed anything.

  I meant something important. Don't text me unless ur on fire.

  Dan cut into his steak. Buzz! “What the Christ!” Dan read the message. What if Red is on fire?

  Dan didn't respond to the text this time and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  “Maybe you shouldn't have bought him that cell phone,” Maxine said.

  “Ya think?” Dan took another bite of his steak and washed it down with the last gulp of his tequila. “Where the hell's that waiter?” Dan's phone vibrated again; he ignored it.

  “So, who exactly is this Mel?” Laura asked.

  “He's a friend of Dan's,” Maxine replied with a smirk.

  “A friend of mine?” Dan shot back.

  “He stays with us every once in a while,” Maxine explained.

  “And where do you know him from, Dan?” Laura asked.

  Rick smiled. “Yeah, Dan, tell Laura where you know Mel from.”

  Maxine answered for him. “Dan and Mel met during Dan's court-appointed stay at the Lower Keys Psychiatric Center.”

  Dan glared at Maxine and then looked around the deck. “Where the Christ is the waiter? I feel like I'm in rehab here.” He took a sip of the melted ice. His phone buzzed again and he clenched his jaw.

  “Oh, yeah,” Laura said. “At Christmas time last year. I had forgotten about that. How are you feeling now, Dan?”

  “I'm feeling fine, Laura. I was feeling fine then. I didn't go because I was crazy. I went because the judge said I had to.”

  Rick laid his hand alongside his mouth and cocked his head toward his wife. “That's what they all say.”

  Maxine and Laura laughed out loud.

  “Oh. My. God. That is so hilarious, Rick,” said Dan. “You are one funny guy.” His phone went off again, it was ringing this time. “Christ!” He started to reach for the phone but noticed the waiter out of the corner of his eye. He went for his glass, raised it over his head, and shook the ice frantically.

  The waiter gave him a dirty look as he walked over. “Can I get you another drink, sir?”

  “Yes, please,” Dan answered.

  The waiter turned with a thinly disguised scowl and headed toward the bar.

  Dan cut into his steak and stabbed the chunk with his fork.

  “Excuse me,” a female voice said.

  Dan looked up from his meal to see the forty-something hostess hovering above him, an apologetic smile on her face.

  “Excuse me,” she said again. “Are you Dan Coast?”

  “Yes.”

  “There's a call for you at the bar. The gentleman said it's urgent.”

  Dan grabbed the cloth napkin that lay over his lap and tossed it on the table. “Thanks,” he said. He looked to the group. “I'll be right back.”

  When Dan got to the bar he said to the bartender, “I'm Dan Coast, there's a call for me.”

  The bartender pointed at a phone that sat at the end of the bar. The receiver lay on its side next to the phone.

  Dan walked over. “Hello?”

  “Dan?” Mel said.

  “Yeah. What's the matter?”

  “Red wants to watch Magnum Force before Dirty Harry.”

  “Holy fuck! Ya gotta be shittin' me,” Dan said sarcastically.

  “No, I'm not.”

  “I didn't think anyone was that stupid.”

  “I didn't either.”

  “You tell him that I said if he doesn't watch Dirty Harry first I'll come back there and shove both those movies up his ass.”

  Mel snickered. “Thanks, Dan.”

  “No problem, pal. Now, please don't call or text me again tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “We'll pick you up in a couple hours.”

  “Okay. Red! Dan said you have to watch Dirty Harry first.”

  “Hang up the phone, Mel,” Dan said.

  “He said he's going to shove both movies up your butt.”

  “Mel, hang up the phone!”

  “You better do what he says!” Mel hollered.

  “Or what?” Red shouted back.

  “Hang up the—Christ.” Dan hung up the phone and returned to the table.

  “Everything okay?” Maxine asked.

  “Compared to what?” Dan asked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At ten-thirty the next morning Red walked through Dan's front door. He was carrying a Styrofoam cup half-full of coffee. “Am I too late for breakfast?” he asked.

  Maxine sat at the dining room table sipping coffee and flipping gingerly through the Key West Citizen. “Dishes are done and the kitchen is closed,” she informed him.

  “Damn
!”

  Mel sat in Dan's La-Z-Boy in front of the television watching a moldy rerun of Rosanne. “I could make you something,” he said. “But they won't let me use the stove.”

  Red feigned surprise. “The bastards.”

  “You're lucky we let you use the microwave,” Dan said as he walked into the dining room from the kitchen.

  Red took a sip of his coffee through the torn plastic lid. “So, what did you learn from Rick last night?” he asked.

  “Not much,” Dan answered. “Someone kept calling and texting me all night.”

  Mel's index finger shot into the air. “That was me!”

  Dan made his way over to the giant dry-erase board on wheels he kept against the wall. “I think this looks like a good time to use the case board.”

  Red crinkled up his nose. “Still going with the name case board, huh?”

  “Until someone comes up with something better.”

  Dan grabbed the two sketch artists' renditions he had lying on the table. One was of the man he had given his five hundred dollar deposit to, and the other was the second man Red had seen, and described to the police, at the house on Duncan Street. He inserted each drawing into its own magnetic clip and stuck it to the case board. Then, he wrote Dan's missing money in red marker.

  “Dan's missing money,” Red read aloud. “So, we're gonna just forget about the four people who were murdered.”

  “For now,” said Dan.

  Red rolled his eyes.

  In blue marker Dan wrote Unsub under each drawing.

  “Unsub?” Red asked. “What's unsub?”

  “Learned that on Criminal Minds. Means unknown subject.”

  “I learned that at the police academy,” said Mel.

  “Shouldn't it be hyphenated?” asked Red.

  Dan stepped back and gazed at the word. “What are you, a goddamn English teacher? It's fine the way it is.”

  “I think it is hyphenated,” Mel agreed.

  “I would think so,” said Red.

  Dan turned to the two men. “Is shut the hell up hyphenated?”

  “I'm not sure,” Mel answered.

  Maxine stared at the newspaper with a big smile on her face.

  “Okay,” Dan began. “Rick said the coroner placed Mrs. Fallon's time of death—”

  “TOD!” Mel shouted.

  “—at around 2:00 pm. Mr. Fallon's TOD—”

  “Thank you,” said Mel.

  “—was around twenty-four hours earlier.” Dan drew a horizontal line across the entire board making a time line as he spoke. “After they killed Fallon, one of the men—the taller of the two—went to Big Pine and rented the U-Haul van with Fallon's credit card. The other one stayed at the house with Mrs. Fallon. I answered the classified ad Monday after breakfast and then we drove out there a little while after.”

  “Fallon was already dead at this time,” said Red.

  “I'm figuring he was still alive when I phoned, but dead by the time we arrived. I gave the five hundred dollar deposit to one of the killers—”

  “Poor, poor, Dan,” Red said.

  “Anyway, after giving him the deposit we left and didn't return to the Fallon house until around five the next day.”

  “And,” Red added. “they figure these two guys kept Mrs. Fallon alive until around 2:00 pm.”

  “Correct.” Dan backed away from the case board and rested his chin between his thumb and index finger.

  “So what does this tell us?” Red asked.

  “Absolutely nothing,” Dan responded.

  Mel muted the television. “How are we going to catch these guys?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” said Dan.

  “Maybe they were targeted because they were moving,” Maxine said.

  Everyone looked at Maxine.

  “What?” Dan asked.

  “Maybe the victims were chosen because they were moving,” Maxine repeated.

  “No one said they were moving,” Dan informed her.

  “Mr. Fallon told us they were moving back to Oklahoma.”

  “But that wasn't really Mr. Fallon.”

  “No, but maybe Fallon told the killers they were moving and that's why the unsub told us.”

  “Doesn't sound very likely,” Dan argued. “The cops questioned the neighbors. Rick didn't say anyone told them they were moving.”

  Maxine counterpunched with: “He also said none of the neighbors knew the Murphys very well, so maybe no one knew they were moving.”

  “There was no 'for sale' sign in front of the house,” Red said.

  “There was no 'for sale' sign in front of the Fallon's house either,” Maxine argued.

  “You got a point there, Maxine,” said Mel.

  Maxine smiled. “Thanks, Mel.”

  “No she doesn't have a point,” Dan said. “We don't know that anyone was moving anywhere, and even if the Fallon's were moving, it doesn't mean anything.”

  “No, but maybe this does,” Maxine said, her index finger pointing at an item in the newspaper. “Look at this story on the last page of the state news.”

  Dan walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder. The headline at the bottom of the page read Allentown Couple Found Murdered In Their Home. He leaned in for a closer look as Maxine summarized the article.

  “It says here the couple had been missing for three weeks. Their house had been sold and everything had been moved out. Neighbors said they remember seeing a U-Haul truck out front, and two movers loading their stuff into it. When their son, who lives out of state, hadn't heard from them in a couple of weeks, he phoned the police. The couple was discovered shot dead in their old home.”

  “Does she have a point now?” Red asked.

  “Shut up, Red,” Dan shot back.

  Maxine continued. “I say we search online for couples who have been murdered right before they were supposed to move.”

  “Okay,” Dan said. “You do that.”

  “But I have to go to work,” Maxine reminded him.

  “You sit at a desk in front of a computer most of your shift. You can do a couple searches.”

  “Are you saying I'm not busy at work?”

  Dan cocked his head and stared at her.

  “Okay fine, I'll search it.” She got up from the table and headed down the hall toward the bedroom.

  Red stared at the case board. “So, what's next?”

  Dan thought for a second. “Maybe we should run a classified ad—moving sale.”

  “Who's moving?” Mel asked.

  Dan turned to Red.

  Red put up his hands. “Not me. They know what I look like.”

  “Can't be me either,” Dan agreed. “They've seen me … and Mel, and Maxine.”

  “How about Skip?” Maxine called out from the bedroom.

  “We'll get Skip to do it,” said Dan.

  “Good idea, Dan,” Mel said.

  “It was my idea!” Maxine shouted.

  “Ignore her,” said Dan. He wrote the words Moving Sale in the upper right hand corner of the dry-erase board. “How should we word it?”

  “Everything must go!” Mel shouted, startling Dan.

  “Okay.” Dan jotted down everything must go.

  “Put an exclamation point at the end,” Mel directed.

  Dan did as he was asked.

  “The best part about this plan,” Red said. “is now I can sell that damn microwave I bought.”

  “You should probably give the microwave back to the Murphys,” said Dan, as he stared at the case board.

  “They give me forty bucks and they can have it back.”

  “The Murphys are dead, but I'll give you forty dollars for the microwave,” Mel said.

  “Sold!” Red shouted.

  “No, Mel” Dan said. “You're not buying the microwave.”

  “But I need a microwave.”

  “What the Christ! Why did you have to bring the damn microwave up again?” Dan jotted down Skip's cell phone number under the words every
thing must go.

  “Shouldn't we ask Skip first?” Red suggested.

  “No,” Dan replied. “The longer we keep him out of the loop, the less time we'll have to deal with him. Come on, let's head over to the newspaper office first.”

  Mel jumped out of the recliner. “Shotgun!”

  “Shotgun's ass,” Dan said. “You're riding in the back.”

  “I get carsick.”

  “No ya don't. Let's go.”

  Red headed out the front door, followed by Dan and Mel. Dan was almost to the door when he heard Maxine shout, “Bye!”

  “Oops.” Dan spun on the balls of his feet and hurried to the bedroom. “Bye,” he said, and pecked Maxine on the lips.

  “Love ya,” she said.

  “Back at ya,” he said.

  Mel was already sitting in the front seat with the door shut, and his seat belt buckled.

  “In the back,” said Dan.

  Mel unbuckled his belt, climbed over the center console and into the back seat. He sat with his arms folded, staring straight ahead. “Dick,” he mumbled.

  “What's that?” Dan asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Red put the old Firebird in drive and headed off down the street.

  They hadn't made it three blocks from the house when Dan and Red heard Hurk! Hurk! From the back seat. They ignored the first two. But on the third Hurk! Dan spun his head around.

  “What the Christ are ya doin'?” Dan asked.

  Mel was halfway through an over-animated convulsion. “Eerff! I'm gagging. I think I'm getting carsick.”

  “You're gonna be my-boot-up-your-ass sick in about two seconds, if ya don't knock it off,” said Dan.

  “You better not puke in my car,” Red warned him.

  Mel let out one more Hurk! and rolled his shoulders forward, then he was done. He slumped back in the seat defeated.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was 3:00 am when Dan Coast heard his cell phone vibrate across the top of his nightstand. He rolled over and fought to open his eyes. The display light lit the entire room. He thought he was dreaming, until Maxine jabbed him in the back with her elbow.

  “Are you going to get that?” Maxine asked. Her voice was grumbly. She cleared her throat in a most unladylike fashion.

  “What?” Dan asked.

  “The phone.”

  The cell vibrated again.

  “Yeah,” Dan said, and reached for his phone.