Deadly Promise

by Brian Crawford

  Despite all his erratic turns, his overall direction had been south. I took the next right, drove past two side streets, and turned left onto Kerrigan Road heading south. The road turned into U.S. Highway 61 heading out of town. After driving five miles on Highway 61, I had to admit losing Baxter was not temporary.

  CHAPTER 20

  The FBI is full of shit. You fooled them easily seven years ago. Now, they think they have a lead on the money. No way. You did not simply launder the ransom money. You deep-sixed it beyond the reach of the FBI or Treasury Department. When you made your plans seven years ago, you knew laundering the money would be the hardest part. It took the most planning, the most research. You found your answer in Argentina of all places, more specifically the Argentine Currency Board, which held U.S. dollar reserves equivalent to all the Argentine pesos in existence to create the Argentine equivalent of a gold standard. Finding a dirty member of the currency board took time and research. In the end, laundering the money cost you a third of your three million, but it was worth it. Those bills would never be circulated, and if they were, then they were circulated outside the U.S.

  And if that was not good enough, you made sure the corrupt Currency Board official who helped you could not identify you. You had to wait two years to kill him, but it was worth it. No ties to the laundered money remained. You executed the most difficult part of your plan perfectly.

  That is how you know the FBI is full of shit. The premier law enforcement agency on the planet was resorting to using lies as a leverage technique. How pathetic. How unimaginative. How quotidian.

  The FBI’s insistence that phone calls between the husband and the brother of a dead woman on her birthday are further evidence of their desperation. They were brothers-in-law. Family. It only seems natural they might talk on her birthday. It is why you set up the calls seven years ago, to establish a seemingly innocent precedent. Another example of the detail, the foresight, the planning, and the execution of your perfect plan.

  L.T. McCain is more of a threat than the FBI. Or so you thought until you discovered he was working with the feds. How long will it take for their stale investigative techniques to infect McCain, to permeate his pores like a virus, rendering him as impotent as the Federal Bureau of Investigation?

  You are feeling good about your chances, especially with your new secret weapon, Boyd Dallas. Soon, Boyd will eliminate the person driving the newfound interest in your case. Afterward, you will eliminate Boyd because someone like him will grow a conscience. It seems they all do, all but one. The one person who has helped you since the beginning. The one person who continues to help you today. The only trustworthy person you’ve ever found on the planet. If only he can continue to maintain his amazing composure a little longer.

  CHAPTER 21

  I didn’t always have an inner voice. It didn’t show up in my life until I was in college. I wished I could say it was something I found by hard work toward a path of self-discovery and improvement, but my inner voice just showed up one day. Seemingly, a gift from God. Over the years, I read that many people claimed to have an inner voice. Some people described it as their conscience, an introspective dialogue between the metaphorical angels and demons whispering in their ears. Psychologists referred to the voice as inner speech, a sort of internal monologue. And others described it as feelings, ideas, or hunches that came at the most unexpected times. I could relate to the people in the last category as my inner voice provided me with helpful insight and inspiration regularly. But my inner voice, which I heard as an actual voice, went a step farther. The voice seemed to feed me answers anytime speed and expediency were necessary, especially in dangerous situations. The voice in my head was something I learned to appreciate and rely upon. And the familiar, calming, helpful voice had been gone ever since Christmas day of last year, the day I literally woke from the dead.

  I went to bed Sunday night realizing Evan Baxter, a former plumber turned bar owner, in other words, an amateur, had effectively evaded my attempt at tailing him. I couldn’t lie; it was a little damaging to the ego of a former Naval Intelligence Officer. My gut told me I was overlooking something about Baxter. That I was underestimating him. I lied in bed for hours trying to put my finger on it, frustrated and tired knowing that if my inner voice hadn’t abandoned me, I would know the answer.

  I missed my inner voice.

  A loud pounding on the hotel room door woke me from my restless sleep the next morning. Jessica stirred next to me, kissed my cheek, and volunteered to open the door while I remained in bed. As soon as she opened the door, Agent Marshall burst through the door looking well-rested and perky, like she had experienced eight hours of the world’s best sleep and followed it up with a triple cappuccino.

  “Last night, I decided to drive out to Baxter’s house to see if he ever came home. I waited until two in the morning before giving up and coming back to the hotel.”

  I was still sitting in bed, trying to shake the morning cobwebs out of my head. “Good morning to you, too, Agent Marshall.”

  “Yeah, sorry. Good morning. I went there again this morning. Baxter never came home.”

  “Maybe after striking out with you last night, he made a booty call,” Jessica replied.

  “Yeah, and her name might be Diana Crane.”

  “Or Stephanie Underwood. Or Melinda McGillicutty. Or...”

  “No, I’m serious. I’ve talked to Agent Armour this morning. He received the phone records from Mansfield’s house. Although the phone company was initially reluctant to comply, when they did, it appears they were very thorough. And up-to-date.”

  I sat up in bed, my interest piqued as she said the words up-to-date. “What do you have, Marshall?”

  “Mansfield got a call last night around 10:30 local time from the home of Diane Crane of Dubuque, Iowa. I have the address if anyone is interested.”

  I shot up out of bed, not caring if Agent Marshall saw me in my undergarments. “Give me five minutes.”

  I grabbed pants on my way to the restroom. Marshall did not look away. I saw her focus on the scars on my right thigh. She started to say something to me, then changed her mind.

  Through the restroom door, I heard her talking to Jessica. “I read about L.T. getting shot in the chest last year. I heard the vest stopped the bullets, but somehow his heart stopped. It was a rare, freak event. The report didn’t say anything about him getting shot in the leg.”

  “Different incident. It happened long before I knew him. Feel free to ask him about it. He’ll tell you, or he won’t.”

  “He’s pretty tight-lipped, huh?”

  “It depends.”

  “I’ll be damn; he keeps stuff from you, too.”

  “Only the classified stuff from his time with ONI.”

  “ONI?”

  “Office of Naval Intelligence.”

  Marshall nodded. “And the scar on his abdomen? I suppose that was a different incident.”

  “Sort of. Like I said, feel free to ask him about it.”

  There was a momentary pause in the conversation before Marshall spoke again, this time in a hushed tone. “He’s the real deal, isn’t he?”

  “As real as they get, Ann. If my man is on your side, you’ve already won, even if the other side doesn’t know it yet.”

  “Is that what brought you together? L.T. saved your bacon last year, didn’t he?”

  I exited the restroom before Jessica had a chance to answer. “AK-47, 1982. Nearly bled out. Boyd Dallas, the man I’m trying so hard to find, was elbows deep in my blood, trying to stop me from bleeding out. The horrible scar came from me cauterizing the wound. The scar on my abdomen — helicopter crash. You want the rest of the story, help me find Boyd. As for this beautiful, intelligent woman, she fell for me because she can’t stop herself from tousling my hair. It’s like a drug to her.”

  Jessica reached out and tousled my hair, something she started while I was dating her sister. Something she had done at least once a day since we got
together last year, and that included our wedding day, right after our first kiss as a married couple. It was our thing. “Tempered chaos,” she said as she ran her fingers through my hair, “much like my Legend.”

  For the first time since meeting her, Agent Marshall smiled, instead of smirking. She followed it up by pretending to gag on the sappiness in the room.

  Jessica laughed at Marshall. “If you two don’t mind, I’ll let y’all handle this one without me. Hurry back and let me know what you found out.”

  Diane Crane’s house was ten minutes away. Hopefully, she had not already left for work. We both agreed that the FBI should make the initial contact with Ms. Crane. Marshall walked to the door and rang the bell several times. No one answered.

  Marshall slid into the passenger seat of the BMW looking exasperated. “I guess we call Agent Armour and see if he can figure out where Diane Crane works. Or I start asking the neighbors.”

  “Ask the neighbors. Start with the house over there with the birdbath in the front.”

  “Why that house?”

  “Everything about the house screams retirees. Young people put up privacy fences in the backyard and never get to know their neighbors. Not older people. The birdbath is in the front yard, not the back. And look at the porch swing. See the little wicker table to the side of it? The swing is not just for show. Someone likes to sit out front and read. Probably the paper. It doesn’t matter. Either way, the house looks very welcoming.”

  “Is your situational awareness always so acutely tuned?”

  “Yes.”

  “All the time? Ever since you were a kid?”

  “Since I was a teenager.”

  She studied my face looking for something. I wasn’t sure what.

  “What happened to you?”

  “What makes you think something happened?”

  “Because something did. I know it like I know the back of my hand. You are constantly scanning your surroundings. I’ll bet you sit with your back to the wall in restaurants and always know where the exits are.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” I replied with a half-hearted smile.

  “It must be draining to be so hypervigilant.”

  “Special Agent Marshall, your psych minor is showing.”

  She was right about something happening when I was younger. But I did not desire to discuss it with her. I had barely discussed it with Jessica. It was too painful. Jessica knew a drunk named Edward Pitts ran over my father when I was 16. Pitts was driving on a suspended license after his third DUI. There was never any doubt Pitts was at fault. However, I couldn’t shake the idea my father could have avoided the oncoming vehicle...if...if only he been more situationally aware. He had pulled off the road to help a stranded motorist. A noble gesture and something he was akin to doing. He had exited his vehicle in a huff following a rare argument with my mother. Dad was still stomping his way to the other vehicle when he was struck from behind by Pitts. My father, a 16-year veteran of the NFL, someone who knew the importance of being able to focus on multiple defensive players trying to crush his quarterback, got run over by a drunk driver because he didn’t pay attention to his surroundings.

  Marshall agreed to start with the retirees. Secretly, I couldn’t help but think she was hoping they wouldn’t have any information for her so she could rub my face in it. A friendly-looking couple in their seventies met her at the front door. Not only was I right about them being retirees, but they also invited Agent Marshall inside, which gave me the opportunity I was looking for.

  I quickly exited the BMW running around the back of Diane Crane’s house, thinking to myself how lucky I was that Ms. Crane was so trusting of her neighbors and had not thought to install a deadbolt on the back door. Part of my training in Naval Intelligence involved learning how to pick a lock. The door lock was a piece of cake. I was inside the house in less than 20 seconds. Twenty seconds after that, I found what I was looking for in the living room, and it was better than expected. I was hoping for a cordless phone with the redial function on it. One that calls the last number you dialed. Instead, I hit the mother lode, a phone that stored the last five numbers. I was getting ready to write down the numbers when Agent Marshall walked into the living room.

  “This is why you wanted me to check with the retirees, isn’t it? You were planning on breaking in all along.”

  “No, I was hoping Ms. Crane was home, but she wasn’t, so I improvised.”

  She cast me a suspicious look implying she didn’t believe me.

  “Oh, knock it off, Marshall. You knew I don’t play by the rules. You so much as said so when you made your pitch to work with us.”

  She shrugged, indicating she knew I was right. “What did you find, McCain?”

  “Five numbers. Write them down.” I stopped for a second as I examined the numbers. There was one with a 202 area code, which I knew was the area code for Washington, D.C. “I see the call to Mansfield at 10:30. This phone made another call after that around 11:00. 703 area code ring a bell to you?”

  “Not offhand. We can look it up. Better yet, call it. Here, give it to me. I’ll call it.”

  Marshall hit the redial button, held the phone up to her ear, then changed her mind and put the phone on speaker. One ring. Two rings. Three. Four. Five. Whoever was on the other end did not have an answering machine.

  The call was answered shortly after the sixth ring.

  There was a long pause. Marshall and I stared at each other, both of us wondering what to do now that the phone had been answered. The person on the other end would immediately know we weren’t Diane Crane. Or Evan Baxter, for that matter.

  I shrugged. Marshall started to hand the phone off to me as if to say go ahead, give it a try.

  “Hold on, man, I can’t find your sister at the moment.” My jaw dropped. Not because the voice on the phone verified Evan Baxter’s sister was alive, but because the voice on the other end belonged to my friend, Boyd Dallas.

  ***

  “Boyd,” I yelled, “what is going on?”

  “You shouldn’t have called here, L.T. You are gonna mess everything up.” Then, the line went dead.

  I grabbed the phone from Agent Marshall’s hand and hit redial. If you have ever wondered if the phone company will let an unanswered phone ring indefinitely, the answer is no. After what had to be twenty rings, the ringing stopped and was followed by a loud, obnoxious busy signal. The phone company terminated the call, probably an automatic feature to keep someone from being able to harass someone with infinite ringing. I tried again and got the same result.

  I was beginning to dial a third time when Agent Marshall stopped me. “L.T., I don’t think he’s going to answer. You can give it a break.”

  “You have to trace this number, Agent Marshall. Figure out where it’s located and do it like yesterday. You hear me. Yesterday!”

  “Slow down, big guy. We’ll get Agent Armour to look up the number on a reverse directory. It might take an hour or so. This isn’t TV, you know.”

  “I don’t care how you do it; just make it happen ASAP.” I was practically yelling.

  “Okay, I’ll call as soon as we get back to the hotel. Now, what do you say we get out of here before we find ourselves in hot water for breaking and entering?”

  On the drive back to the hotel, my mind was racing through all sorts of reasons as to why Boyd answered that phone. Not one of them made any sense. Marshall could tell I was trying to process everything and, for the most part, left me alone to think.

  Jessica could tell something was wrong the moment I stepped into the hotel room and immediately started grilling me for answers.

  “Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?” I said.

  “Good.”

  “You might want to sit down for this one.” She remained standing. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Boyd is alive. I’ve talked to him on the phone.”

  Jessica looked elated. “That isn’t good, that’s great.” Her face quickly wri
nkled up in consternation. “Wait, you look miserable. How bad is the bad news? Did you find him in the hospital? Is he all shot up or something?”

  “No, he sounded fine over the phone. He even chewed me out for calling him.”

  “Wait a minute, Legend, maybe you better start at the beginning.”

  I explained how I broke into Diane Crane’s home and accessed her phone log. “Marshall and I found five numbers in her log. One was a 202 area code at 10:30 to Mansfield. The last one was a 703 area code. I’m not sure where that’s located, but we decided to call it.”

  “That’s when Boyd answered the phone? Holy shit, Legend. What did he say?”

  I replayed the short conversation verbatim.

  “Holy shit.” Jessica plopped onto the bed, speechless.

  “I told you that you might want to sit down.”

  “Oh man, Legend. This is crazy. Shelley Baxter is alive, her brother knows how to reach her, and somehow, for some reason, Boyd is working with both of them. Holy shit.”

  “You’ve used the same expletive three times now. Does your lack of originality imply you are as flabbergasted as I am right now?”

  A loud knock on the door interrupted Jessica’s reply. I walked across the room to let Marshall in while Jessica remained seated on the bed.

  Marshall starting talking as soon as I answered the door. “Good, I see you told her everything, and from the look on her face you are as confused as your husband.”

  Jessica said, “And you’re not?”

  “I told you we were dealing with a sociopath.”

  “What does that have to do with Boyd being complicit?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Marshall asked.

  “Holy shit.” It was my turn to use the expletive of the hour as I figured out what Agent Marshall was implying. “Shelley Baxter flipped Boyd. He’s working for her now.”