Fallon's Flaw

by Dale Mayer

  “It is, indeed,” Quinn said, with an approving nod, “but it’s also a threat.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, you’re next,” Fallon said.

  “And did you mean that, as in, I’m next?” she asked. “Or did you mean that, as in, one of us is next?”

  “I highly suspect it’s both,” he said.

  “We’re back to that Bullard thing, right?”

  “Yes, with the possibility that this guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time or was just a patsy for this killer to use.”

  “Who uses another person to send a message?”

  “Killers all over the world do,” Quinn said.

  Just then a vehicle drove down the road. As it came closer, Quinn took a few steps toward it and waited until it slowed. When Wagner hopped out, a man that he knew well, Quinn reached out and shook his hand. “Glad to see you.”

  “I’m surprised you called me,” Wagner said.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “Linny here did.”

  He looked at Linny and said, “Dave’s niece, right?”

  “Yes.” She walked forward and shook his hand. “These guys were quite prepared to take him out back and bury him,” she said. “But I was afraid there might be a family looking for answers.”

  At her words Fallon gave a short bark of laughter.

  Wagner just looked at him sideways and said, “She’s telling the truth. Admit it.”

  He shrugged and said, “He has to be deposited somewhere, before he gets any riper.”

  “Yeah,” Wagner said, with a nod. “I brought a body bag.” He shook it out, readying it for transport.

  “Good.” And, with that, the three guys quickly lifted Ben into the body bag.

  “What will you do with him?” Linny asked.

  “Take him back to the morgue,” Wagner said.

  “You’ll do a full forensic workup?” she asked.

  “I’ll do that right away,” he said. “I already looked at the satellite feeds, found somebody heading down this driveway.”

  “Right,” Fallon said. “Did you happen to see him drop off the body?”

  “Looked like he had a passenger, sleeping against the window. No blood is here,” he added. “And we already have the transport vehicle.”

  That startled Fallon, who looked at Wagner and said, “What?”

  Wagner nodded. “If you had kept on going down the road, you’d have seen the vehicle. It’s got a little bit of blood in the back end. So he came down here, dumped off the body, then went back there to dump the vehicle. There was a phone tossed on the seat. Presumably it belonged to your dead guy that you tracked here. Only the SIM card is missing and it’s been damaged.”

  “Interesting tactic,” Quinn said.

  “Yeah, the problem is, it’s exactly that—a tactic.” He turned to Fallon. “So what does this guy want?”

  “It could be the death of the team, for all we know,” Fallon said. “It’s hard to say.”

  “No news on Bullard yet?” Wagner asked. Both men shook their heads. Wagner looked at Linny. She shrugged and said, “They’re all still hoping for a miracle.”

  “Well, if there ever was a miracle to be had, it would be Bullard who would put it into play,” he said.

  Just then another vehicle came in behind his.

  “And here’s the coroner,” Wagner said.

  “I thought you would load him up and take him with you,” she exclaimed.

  “Nah,” he said. “I’m doing it officially, just in case it’s all connected to Bullard’s death. So who was this guy anyway?”

  “You should ask her that,” Fallon said. “An admirer.”

  Wagner looked at her in surprise.

  She glared at Fallon. “Not quite.”

  “Well, what else would you call it?” he asked.

  She looked at Wagner. “A stalker. Some guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Uncle Dave had a talk with him because he was getting very arrogant.”

  “Interesting, of course, with Dave not being here—”

  “He flew out today.”

  “And Quinn and I came in this morning,” Fallon said. “So maybe Ben didn’t realize that.”

  “It’s an easy mistake to make,” Wagner said.

  “Not really.” Fallon laughed. “Why would they have not assumed Quinn came back from dropping off Dave at the airport?”

  “He must have missed it,” Wagner said. “Or maybe he didn’t see the vehicle. I don’t know.”

  “No, we don’t know.” Quinn nodded. “I agree absolutely.”

  “Will you tell Dave?” Wagner asked the group.

  “Absolutely,” Fallon said, “but he’s not landed yet.”

  “Fine.” The body was loaded up, and the forensics team went to work on the ground, looking for evidence, but it didn’t take long. They had the drop-off vehicle already, so trying to track anything about the vehicle could wait. Now it was more about footprints. As they looked, it was easy to see that a rake had been used back to where the car had been abandoned.

  “And the rake was used at the other end too?” Fallon asked.

  “Absolutely,” Wagner said. “So we already have a good idea what we’re looking at.”

  “Sucks,” Quinn noted.

  “It does,” Wagner said. “But what else is new? You guys never ever give us easy cases to work on.”

  “No, because you’d get too complacent then,” Fallon said, and, with that, they headed back, leaving Wagner and his men to their job.

  Once inside the compound again, she looked around and said, “I’ll head to bed.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Fallon asked.

  She gave a half laugh. “Sure, I’m just fine,” she said. “It happens all the time, right?”

  “It shouldn’t happen at all,” he said quietly, his gaze intent on her face.

  She frowned at him. “I’m fine.”

  He nodded. “You’re still leaving?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said, sagging into the closest seat, which happened to be one of the stools by the kitchen island.

  “I suggest you stay,” Quinn said.

  She looked at him, surprised. “That’s not what I expected you to say.”

  “No, but, until we really know what’s going on,” he said, “I don’t know how safe you are.”

  “Because you think this is connected to me somehow. Is that it?”

  “We can’t be sure that it isn’t connected to you,” Fallon said. “So we can’t brush this off as being not connected, and, until that can be confirmed, we have to assume that it is.”

  “We don’t know this man Ben. You do,” Quinn said.

  She frowned at the logic, placed her elbows on the island, dropping her forehead into her hands. “And I don’t have much of a connection with him,” she muttered.

  “Not much is still more than none.”

  “I know,” she said, and she did know. It just wasn’t anything she wanted to deal with. “I’m staying the night,” she said. “Then I’ll see how I feel in the morning.” With that, she got up and walked out and headed to her room.

  *

  Quinn and Fallon looked at each other. Fallon said, “Well, we know what needs to be done now.”

  Quinn nodded. “Let’s go take this kid’s life apart.”

  And that’s what they did. It took hours, and, by the time Fallon lifted his head from the focused work he had been doing, he still didn’t have a hell of a lot on his plate to show for it. He looked back at Quinn to see him still buried in documents as well. Just then Fallon’s phone rang; it was Dave. “Are you okay, Dave?” Fallon put the call on Speaker.

  “Yeah, I’m okay but stuck in transit,” he said. “We had some plane trouble, and they’re working on it right now. They kept us on the plane for the longest time, and we had no reception. Now I’m off to the little airport for a few minutes. I’ve been trying to call. My instincts were screaming at me. What the hell’s goi
ng on at home?”

  At that, Fallon’s eyebrow shot up. “Yeah, well, we’ve had a little bit of trouble, but nothing to worry about.”

  “Let me be the judge of that,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  Fallon explained, “Remember that kid, Ben, the one who wouldn’t take no for an answer with Linny?”

  “Hell yes. That guy was a pain in the ass. Make sure you convince him not to come around anymore,” he snapped. “That kid’s just bad news.”

  “Well, I don’t imagine he’s a kid, and the truth of the matter is that he’s dead.” He quickly filled him in on what happened.

  “Jesus, Fallon,” he said. “You’re not even home five minutes, and we’ve got dead bodies everywhere.”

  “Hardly everywhere, and it’s not like I even killed him,” Fallon said, his tone dry.

  “Maybe not,” he said. “It’s like all this shit follows you around.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” he protested.

  “Well, now you better tear apart Ben’s life and see what the hell’s going on.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “We are.”

  “Better yet,” Dave said, “I’m coming home.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am,” Dave said, warming to the idea. “That’s got to be why this plane and everything else didn’t let me go forward anyway,” he said. “I’m telling you that it’s a sign.”

  “Screw that idea,” he said. “Somebody needs to see if Bullard is one of those men.”

  “It’ll be a waste of my time,” he said.

  “Well, we’re looking after your niece,” he said. “So don’t insult us by saying we can’t do the job.”

  At that, Dave hesitated.

  “Look, Dave. I know. She’s the only family you’ve got. We get it. And we’re looking after her. And, if you want to come home, come home, but don’t do it on the assumption that you can do a better job than we can.”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “I just don’t want anything to happen to her.”

  “We get that,” he said. “We also get the fact that you’re almost there. Check out those men, and then, if you want to turn around and come back, that’s a different story.”

  At that, Fallon felt the wheels turning, and Dave finally said, “Fine. Don’t let anything happen to her.”

  Fallon realized that, for Dave, this really would be the be-all and end-all for him.

  “We won’t,” he said gently.

  “Even better, lock her up,” he said cheerfully. “Just keep her completely locked down, so that nobody can get in or go out.”

  “Well, wouldn’t that be nice? Except she’s already talking about leaving … tomorrow.”

  “She was supposed to be there for a lot longer than that,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I went on this trip. I wasn’t even going to go, but she promised she’d stay.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Fallon said, “because now I can use it to keep her here.”

  “I want her there when I get home, Fallon. She’s got over a month off.”

  “Oh, in that case,” he said, “we’ll definitely keep her here. I thought she only had a few days off.”

  “No,” Dave snapped. “She better be there when I get home. Hey, they’re calling my flight. I have to go.” With that, Dave hung up.

  Quinn stared at Fallon in surprise. “She’s got all that time off?”

  “Yeah, so why the hell the quick exit?” Fallon wanted to know.

  Quinn shook his head. “Hard to know.”

  “I know,” Fallon said. “It’s probably me.”

  “You don’t know that,” Quinn said.

  “Hell yeah, I do. She’s always been like that.”

  “No, you mean you’ve always been like that.”

  Fallon looked at his buddy in surprise. “What? I didn’t do anything.”

  He chuckled. “Exactly,” he said. “That’s the problem. You won’t make that step, so it’s probably a case of her needing to run away.”

  “Does she look like the type to run anywhere?”

  “No, she sure doesn’t,” he said, “but you know what I mean.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” Fallon said.

  “And I think you’re wrong,” he said.

  “Fine, we’ll agree to disagree. Again.”

  “We’ve done it plenty of times before.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re still wrong.” Fallon glared at his friend.

  But Quinn just chuckled and said, “You find anything?”

  “No, outside of his fixation with her, there’s nothing.”

  “Well, the fixation makes sense. She’s beautiful. She’s talented. I won’t say she’s superwealthy, but she definitely has huge career potential, and she’s well connected to this compound.”

  “That’s not a plus for a lot of people.” Fallon chuckled.

  “No, it sure isn’t, not right now especially.”

  “So where does this leave us?”

  “Digging deeper, I guess,” Quinn said.

  “I want his friends and associates and anybody he worked with,” Fallon stated. “Somebody knew that he had a connection here.”

  “So now we look at social media?” Quinn suggested. “Or chat rooms? Maybe he belonged to a group? Just too many possible forums to search out, don’t you think?”

  “The trouble is,” Fallon said, “not only are there too many forums but too many aliases he could have used at any time. So we’d just be looking for a needle in a haystack. And we don’t have time to spare for that shit. We need to check out the guy’s apartment, see if we can find anything, like a laptop.” Fallon glanced at his watch, looked at Quinn, and said, “Well, one of us has to stay here.”

  “And that’s you,” Quinn said, hopping to his feet. “Besides, I slept all the way here.”

  “You’re not going alone,” he said.

  “You got another idea?”

  “Yes,” she said in the doorway. “Let’s all go.”

  Fallon turned to see Linny, wearing a pajama top and short-short PJ bottoms covered by a loose robe, as she glared at him. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

  “I would have been, but I heard you talking to Uncle Dave after the phone beeped. And I figured it was something important for him to have called at this hour.”

  “He was just calling in response to the message I left earlier,” he said.

  She nodded. “Says you. So what’s the verdict?”

  Chapter 5

  Linny really had been sound asleep, but her bladder had woken her up, and, when she’d heard the phone, curiosity had gotten the better of her. She stared at the two men, as they looked at each other, then back at her. “I also heard you tell him that you would look after me, so obviously he won’t be happy if you two go off and leave me alone.”

  “Which we would never do,” Fallon said, jumping to his feet.

  “Right, yet you need to go investigate this guy’s apartment, as I understand it. Correct?”

  “We haven’t found anything on our first round of digital research,” Quinn said, with a nod. “So the next logical step would be to check his online presence, which is much easier to do if we have his laptop or phone or some electronic device that he used. Did you have any contact with him online?”

  “No, I met him at the airport a long time ago.”

  “Right, so only contact in person and via text, correct?”

  “Yes, and we found no phone on his body, so why would you think a laptop would be at his place?”

  “We don’t know, but it would cut out a lot of assumptions if we could go look, and it could really speed up the process if a quick trip would tell us something. Besides, everyone has electronics these days.”

  She frowned, nodded, and said, “I’ll go get changed.”

  “No,” he said. “I promised Dave that I’d keep you here and safe.”

  “You can promise Uncle Dave all the hell y
ou want,” she snapped. “You won’t change my mind.” Fallon looked at Quinn, and she shrugged and said, “Go ahead and tell Uncle Dave that. He already knows. He’s just hoping that you’ll have more influence over me than he would.”

  “Will you be this difficult all the time?” Fallon asked.

  She gave him a bright smile. “If you’ll be difficult with me, yes.” With that, she disappeared, racing upstairs to get changed. By the time she was dressed and back down again, the men waited in the front hallway. “That’s smart,” she said.

  Fallon just raised an eyebrow. She smiled and didn’t say anything. “Smart in that we waited for you?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t leave anybody alone,” she said. “So this was smart, and we’ll go as a unit.”

  “It’s still not smart. A man was killed over this connection to you. Have you forgotten?”

  “I live with death every day. Remember?” she said in no uncertain terms. “What I hate is senseless death. And that’s what this is.”

  “Got it,” he muttered. Once in the garage, they headed to the large SUV.

  “Why this one?”

  “Bulletproof glass,” Quinn said, as he slid into the driver’s seat.

  She raised her eyebrows at Fallon, but he just motioned her toward the back seat. “In you get.”

  She didn’t argue because she knew she was already pushing it, just by the fact that she was here in the first place. She knew it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t mean they were willing to agree. If she knew one thing, it was that all these men were tough asses and rarely gave in. So she would take her victory where she could enjoy it.

  As soon as they pulled out onto the main road, and the big gates had closed behind them, she said, “I wonder why this compound is here?”

  “Bullard’s had it for a long time,” Fallon said. “The city’s been growing up all around him.”

  “Well, we’re a good twenty minutes from the city,” she said. “But still, you’d think that this area would be even more deserted.”

  “A lot of people work here. A lot bring in supplies. I think, just as the world changed and grew, this area became more populated.”

  “It’s too bad though,” she said. “A little more distance from it all would be nice.”

  “It certainly would,” Fallon said. “Not so easy to do though.”