Crooked River (Jack Francis Novel)

by MP Murphy

  The desk became an obvious starting point and she came across a few bills, a checkbook, and a pair of reading glasses. She rubbed the palm of her hand up and down the legs of the desk and underneath it, looking for something small she might have missed. Not wanting to waste any more time, she moved on to the dresser. She felt a little strange going through Beard’s drawers, but managed to get through them quickly. When she finished she went over the dresser a second time, looking for any fake bottoms or places she might have missed initially. Coming up empty, she began to worry her hunch was wrong and that she was wasting precious time.

  Discouraged, Alex moved on to the bed finding the headboard clean along with the space between the mattress and the box spring. She went as far as lying down on her back and sliding underneath the bed, only coming back out dusty and empty-handed. Alex stood stumped and stunned as she scanned the room one more time. The room was so neat and so lacking that anything out of place would scream out at her, but nothing did. From the silence of the house she heard the sound of a door and she new Jack must have arrived. Alex turned to leave the room and go downstairs to meet Jack, when it suddenly struck her. Quickly and softly she made her way across the room, grabbing the small lamp from on top of the dresser. Smiling to herself as she turned the lamp upside down, she removed a fake lamp base which revealed some wiring and a small memory card. With the excitement of her discovery, she almost missed the sound of voices coming from the first floor.

  Chapter 69

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as Lee Kershaw pointed a gun at me from behind Charles Beard’s desk.

  “I should ask you the same thing, Jack. Where is she? I saw her come in.”

  “I wasn’t aware we were on a first name basis, Lee.” I made sure to stress the man’s name, hoping Alex was somewhere she could hear. Even though I had never actually met Lee Kershaw before I felt like I had come to know him through the investigation. I had to figure he was feeling the same way about me as he sized me up from behind his gun barrel. “Why don’t you put that down? We both know you don’t know how to use it. Why else would you hire other people to do your dirty work?” I miscalculated the man’s capacity to handle a joke, as the beady eyes behind his glasses turned to hate and his mouth curled up in a sneer. If his nerves were as shot as they look, then he might have it in him to shoot me.

  “I’ll ask you again. Where is she?”

  “Who are you talking about?” I knew I was pushing buttons, but I had to stall him long enough to come up with some kind of game plan.

  “You know damn well I’m talking about Alex. Now where is she hiding? Alex, come out, come out wherever you are!”

  The man’s nerves were definitely shot and Kershaw seemed capable of pretty much anything as he moved around the desk and closer to me. “I don’t know where she is. If you watched her come in, then you should know I wasn’t with her.”

  “Call her, yell for her to come. Beg your little girlfriend to come save you.” Sweat was forming on the man’s forehead like rain in a hurricane.

  “What’s gotten you so worked up, Lee? I always had you pinned as the cool and calm type of criminal.”

  “You have no idea what you are into Francis. The man is out for blood and there’s a good chance we will both end up like Jimmy DeLuca.”

  It was now even more apparent that Daniel Shaw had gotten his point across with the gruesome way Jimmy was killed. I had witnessed it rattle Alex to the core, but why was Kershaw so unraveled. Didn’t he order the hit?

  “What is it you want Lee?”

  “I want Alex. Now call for her, or you’re dead and I’ll find her myself.”

  “Why should I call her if you are going to shoot her too? Besides, how is killing Alex going to help you out? After all, it’s your fault she’s even in this mess.”

  “Alex needs to die and it’s not by my choosing, but with her out of the picture and Beard’s computer properly destroyed, this whole thing will finally be over.”

  Kershaw had come for the computer as well, that was an interesting tidbit.

  “Lee did you get a note sent to you by any chance?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I got one too. Don’t you see it is a set up? Someone wanted both of us to come here.”

  “Why would anyone want that?”

  There was some hesitation in his voice as he began to rethink the situation. “Someone wants you dead as well,” he said with sudden recognition. “I guess I’ll have to shoot you too then to find a way back into his good graces. I probably would have done it anyways but now I’ll get credit. The credit for finally putting an end to all the problems you’ve created.”

  “You’re not thinking straight,” I said, getting really nervous about my position. “Someone wants you dead as well as me, if that’s what the notes were intended for.”

  “Shut up Jack. I know how to handle this,” he said, surprisingly calm as he aimed the gun at me.

  I closed my eyes and prayed for the first time in years, as I heard the shot ring out.

  Chapter 70

  A few seconds passed before I could open my eyes and realized the shot had missed me. When my focus came back, a disturbing scene laid out in front of me. On the floor Lee Kershaw was gurgling his last few breaths of sweet life through a mouth full of blood. He had his gun tightly gripped in his right hand on the floor and aimed out away from his body. I stared down at the man in disbelief remembering my fear only seconds ago of facing this same fate. When I finally saw Alex standing beside me I quickly tried to recover my composure.

  “You’re welcome,” she said smiling at me and giving me a peck on the cheek. It was a kiss of relief for the both of us.

  “My savior.” I put my arm around her for a moment hoping for a few more seconds to gather myself. “Where did you come from?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Well, thanks. I owe you one.”

  “No problem. I wanted to do it anyway after hearing him explain how I needed to be dead.” Alex walked over to the dying man and looked down on him with no remorse.

  “Any chance he’s going to need an ambulance?” I asked, as I walked over to her and kneeled down to get a closer look at Kershaw. He was barely breathing, but his eyes flickered towards me as I got closer. His left hand struggled to move as he went for his pocket. The process seemed to take an eternity, as his breathing grew fainter and the blood dripped from his mouth, down the side of his face. With what seemed to be the last of his strength, Kershaw removed his cell phone and pressed a solitary button before his life left him and the phone dropped to the floor. My first reaction was of fear. Had he just used his phone as a detonator for an explosive device he hid somewhere? As I reached for his cell, I realized my time in the FBI made me think the worst of people.

  “What is it?” Alex asked, as she moved closer to me for a better look.

  “He must have hit recall. The phone is showing a number but it’s not dialing out.”

  “Call it. He obviously meant for us to talk to whoever is on the other end.”

  “Or he was trying to send them a warning. I’ll hold off on calling the number for now. Maybe Colin can track it down for me later.” I put Kershaw’s phone into my pocket and stood up walking over to the computer.

  “I doubt you’ll find anything,” Alex said as she moved around behind me to get a view of the screen.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “If the note was a trap to get you and Kershaw here, then do you really think you will find anything on that computer?”

  “Maybe, but it would really take some work to clean out the hard drive.”

  “Yeah, and it took some work to clean this room up after Beard was shot but someone did.”

  “I see your point, but I might as well check it while I’m here.” I downloaded the retrieval software, then began my search for deleted jpeg files. When nothing came back, I knew Alex was right, but I still began another search for all deleted fil
es hoping to find anything more that could help me. The computer backlog was totally clean and any deeper searching would take someone with expertise way beyond mine.

  “It’s ok, Jack,” Alex said. “We at least have this,” and she placed a small memory card down on the desk next to the mouse pad.

  “Well, aren’t you an impressive one?”

  Chapter 71

  It was all there. Every photo the Captain had shown me of Chelsea, plus a few close-ups of the body I had never seen before. I wondered if Charles Beard had sent all of these to the Gilmores and the old Captain simply chose not to show them to me. Looking through them again, I couldn’t come up with any real angle to play using the pictures. The Zeitlin murder had been officially solved by the local police, and there was no implication of anyone else’s involvement or a conspiracy. They certainly could cause the Gilmores some headaches and some unwanted attention. If Charles Beard’s body was ever found or he was formally declared missing, then the pictures would definitely show a motive for the Gilmores to want Beard to disappear.

  “What are we going to do with them?” Alex asked, still standing behind me as we viewed the files.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean? These are the pictures everyone’s been hunting for. They’re the reason I am in this mess.”

  Alex sounded distraught at the thought of the pictures being useless. She must have been hoping they would miraculously save her from Daniel Shaw. “Everyone wanted these photos and probably still do, but they don’t implicate anyone in the murder, except for Charles Beard’s inability to report it, and Chelsea, for being so passed out that she had no idea of what transpired around her. Levi Zeitlin’s killer was Jimmy DeLuca, and with him and Kershaw both dead there is only one last connection between these photos and Daniel Shaw.”

  “Shit.” Alex began to pace as she chewed on the tip of her fingernail. “I need to find some kind of leverage to get that man off of my back.”

  “We do have enough to get him off your back,” I realized suddenly.

  “What is it?”

  “We don’t have enough to ever prosecute him, but we probably have enough to keep him away from you.” I told her about Levi Zeitlin’s phone records and their connection to Mr. and Mrs. Shaw.

  “How is that not enough to build a case against him?”

  “If we were building a case it would be a good start and a nice theory for a motive, but we’re at the end of the evidence line with nothing more to go on. Anything you could testify to would be thrown out as hearsay. It would be a joke to go up against someone as well connected as Daniel Shaw with nothing more than phone records and a story.”

  “I guess using what we have to get him off my tail is all I can really ask for. I guess I’ll go and see him, present what we have, and try to make some kind of deal with the man,” Alex said a little more hopeful.

  “No. You are going to stay away from Shaw. I’ll take Colin and we’ll try to meet with Shaw in the morning. If Shaw knows the FBI has made the connections between his wife and Levi Zeitlin, then he will be less likely to lash out on anyone, namely you.”

  Alex thought it over for a minute as she paced the floor finally stopping at Kershaw’s feet. “What are we going to do about him?”

  “That will be a tricky one, but let me take care of it.”

  “Gladly,” Alex said as she continued her pacing.

  Chapter 72

  After emailing copies of the pictures to Colin and myself, I removed the memory card from the computer and pushed it deep into my pocket. Alex was in the front room gazing through the window out onto the quiet street. There was still a lot of work to be done between Kershaw’s body lying on the floor and finding a way to keep Alex safe until Colin and I had a chance to meet with Daniel Shaw.

  “It’s time we got out of here,” I said to Alex as I got up from the computer.

  “Can we leave?” Alex asked, glancing at Kershaw on the floor of Beard’s office from the other room.

  “Probably shouldn’t, but I need to get you somewhere safe. Don’t forget Kershaw got a note too so someone was sending us both here for a reason.”

  “I was listening and I don’t actually remember him admitting to receiving a note.”

  “Does it really make a difference? You still need to be some place other than here.”

  “Sorry, I was simply considering other options.” Alex was back to looking out into the night. “I wish I could figure out who they sent after Jimmy. It was too outlandish to be the work of anyone I know, or Kershaw’s normal lineup of meatheads. Most of Kershaw’s minions were like Jimmy, simple-minded hitmen who never thought about the details. Something about Jimmy’s murder, the notes, and Beard’s missing body makes it all feel different.”

  “I wouldn’t let yourself worry too much about it tonight. Give Colin and me a chance to strong-arm Daniel Shaw a little and it will no longer be your problem.” At least I hoped it would be that easy.

  “I hope you’re right, Jack.” Alex finally turned from the window to look at me. “So, what do you do now?”

  The words barely left her lips before I heard the window shatter. Alex’s eyes went wide as she stared at me with silence and disbelief. Her mouth was open and lost for words. Her hands went to her stomach and blood rushed over them instantly. “Alex!” I yelled out to her, but before I had a chance to move towards her, a second shot found the back of her head. She lingered, frozen in time with her last glimpse of life resting in her eyes, a moment before it was all destroyed, as the bullet passed through and embedded itself into the floor by my feet.

  I threw myself to the ground, clawing my way across the floor to her. Her beautiful face was missing and in its place was a mess of tissue and bone. Her right eye twitched and bounced around trying to focus on anything. Alex’s mouth was still open, positioned as if to ask God why. Even with the fall and the force of the second shot, her hands still clutched her stomach as I rolled her over and pulled her to my lap.

  At some point I called Colin, and somehow the house had filled with people, but I have no memory of it. There was a flashback of Colin pulling me from Alex. Another where I was talking to a pair of agents, but none of it registers very well. In my head there is only the sound of a window shattering, and the last, lost expression on Alex’s face.

  Epilogue

  It was six weeks since the night at Charles Beard’s house. Since then I pulled myself away from most social activity. Every morning I would leave my condo for a jog along the waterfront, stopping to pick up my daily necessities at the grocer before I returned home. I had no new work to occupy my time, because I had refused to take on any new cases. Colin had been great in tidying up the mess that followed the night at Beard’s place, and he only called on my participation when it was mandated by someone above him. Katya was constantly inviting me over for meals and even though I refused more than I accepted, somehow the food still found its way to my door. Colin and Katya made it easier to remember that there were still a few good people in the world.

  Early October had brought with it cold winds off of the lake, perch fishing, the changing of the leaves, and Sundays filled with tailgating at the stadium but I was going to miss all of it. My fridge had recently been cleaned out and one simple bag was packed with clothes more suitable to a warmer climate. Someone once sang “I want to go where the weather suits my clothes,” and that was what I was doing. The money from the Gilmores could fund my style of living for a time, and even though the money felt dirty I had no intention of returning it. Besides using it to cheer myself up couldn’t be all that bad. With the house locked up I tossed the duffel bag over my shoulder and headed off to say goodbye to Colin and Katya.

  Walking to the Greenhouse Tavern the sun in the West felt surprisingly warm as it battled the Canadian breeze coming across the lake. When I got to East 4th Street and entered the bar I found Colin had a seat waiting for me. Already in place was a warm plate of gravy frites and a bourbon on the ro
cks.

  “I wasn’t planning on staying to eat.” I said to Colin as I tossed my bag on the floor and took a seat.

  “You’ve got sometime and besides, when is the next time you’ll get to eat fries this good?”

  “You may have a point there.” I offered Colin a fork and the two of us began to eat in silence. When the plate was clean I sat back in my stool with the bourbon and asked Colin what I had asked him everyday for six weeks. “Any new leads?”

  “If I had, you’d be the first to know.”

  “I don’t get it. Maybe I’ve been out of the game too long, but I could have sworn we had better ways of getting things done when I was still at the Bureau.”

  “We did, but today our hands are tied down politically, and every move we make has a consequence. When you and I were running around the streets together there was never anyone to answer to as long as we got the job done. Those times are long gone.”

  “I’m pretty sure everything has gone about as far and as long as it should go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kershaw is dead by Alex’s hand and Alex’s killer is still out there with no immediate leads to track him down. The two people who started everything, Captain Gilmore and Daniel Shaw, have never been brought up in connection with what happened to anyone from the Zeitlin kid to Alex. The photos of Chelsea have never been leaked, because I can’t do it in good conscious and the FBI won’t. Better yet Beard’s body has never been found so Chelsea can sit comfy in her rehab clinic.”