Dead Wrong

by Patricia Stoltey

  The car. How could she have dithered around the room and wasted time without calling Thomas about his car? The way things had been going, he might have reported it stolen by now. She found her phone and dialed his number. He answered on the first ring.

  “Thomas, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. When you called the FBI, I was afraid they’d take me out of there in handcuffs.”

  “It wasn’t like that, Lynnette. I told them you were in trouble, that you’d accidentally came into possession of an envelope that contained several very large checks and were scared of the people chasing you. I hoped that getting rid of the checks would get this Ortega guy and his thugs off your trail.”

  “Or make them furious.”

  “Yeah, or make them furious. Where are you?”

  “Did you report your car stolen?”

  “No, of course not. As far as they know, we came in the truck and planned to leave in the truck. Which, by the way, is the truth.”

  “But you didn’t have the checks. What did the FBI agents say?”

  “When they first got there, we were outside by the truck. They checked out the guy on the ground and saw him off in the ambulance. After that, I told them about you getting scared when this guy came into the restaurant. You ran and he chased after you. When I turned to the window and saw this guy sprawled on the ice by my truck, I ran outside to see if he was okay. By then, you’d disappeared.”

  “Thanks, Thomas. I don’t know how I can ever repay you and Blue for everything, especially after Grace’s outburst at the truck stop.”

  “For starters I’d like to get my car back. What are your plans?”

  “I’m working on that. I need to talk to the police officer in Glades. I want to help Grace at the same time I’m getting myself out of this mess, but she’s changed her story again, back to the original about her dad returning to the U.S. tomorrow . . . alive. I need to sort this out myself. If I can keep your car overnight, it would help. I’ll let you know where it is tomorrow morning.”

  With a sigh of relief, Lynnette dialed Dave Buchanan’s number. Her call went to voice mail. She left a message asking him to call her. The least she could do before checking in with the police was tell Dave she’d done nothing wrong and that she’d be fine. She didn’t want him back in her life, but she did want to know if she had a story worth taking to the press. Maybe it was dumb, but one part of her still hoped to turn this fiasco into a coup.

  “What did Thomas say?” Grace asked.

  “He said everything would be okay. I’m supposed to call him tomorrow morning and let him know where we leave the car.”

  Grace picked up the TV remote, and began clicking furiously through the channels.

  “What’s wrong?” Lynnette asked.

  “I’m worried.”

  “About what.”

  “Everything, Lynnette. What if my dad doesn’t get back on schedule? What if you get arrested? What if my mom finds out where I’ve been all this time?”

  “Me too, Grace. I’m worried about all those things, too.”

  Fort Collins, Colorado

  Saturday, January 25

  Albert left the hospital and took a cab to a nearby motel. He used his credit card to check in and had long distance activated on the phone. When he dialed Benny Ortega’s number from the room, his call went directly to voice mail.

  “I quit,” he said. “I will never work for you again. Don’t ever call me.”

  He thumbed through the motel handbook until he located a pizza joint that advertised delivery and placed his order. While waiting for the food, he took two aspirin from the bottle he’d purchased at the front desk. He soaked a washcloth in cold water and pressed it against his forehead. When the cloth turned warm, he wet it again, this time holding it to the back of his head. He continued this treatment until a knock on the door signaled the arrival of his order.

  The smell of warm pizza permeated the room in seconds. After turning on the TV, he stared at the food spread out before him and wondered how long it had been since anything had looked and smelled this good. His headache eased. The tense muscles in his neck and shoulders seemed to melt as he leaned back.

  Pizza first. He pulled a slice from the carton and took a bite. He was still savoring the first taste when a sharp rap sounded at his door. A pain shot through his head as he jumped to his feet. He threw the pizza slice back in the carton and grabbed a napkin to wipe his mouth.

  “Who is it?” he called.

  “FBI, Mr. Getz. We need to ask you a couple more questions.”

  Albert stared at the door. Why were they here? He slipped on the ice at a truck stop and he went to the hospital. Unless the guy and his daughter had told the FBI something different after the ambulance took him away. How would he play it? Pretend he still couldn’t remember what happened?

  He opened the door and stared at the two men who stood in the hall.

  “Do you remember me, Mr. Getz? Agent Bailey? I talked to you at the truck stop.” He waved toward the other man. “This is Agent Drake.”

  “I remember the name. I wasn’t seeing too straight. Why are you here?”

  “We have a couple more questions. Something happened and we’re wondering if you know anything about it. Could we come in?”

  “Oh. Sure.” Like I can do anything to stop you.

  The two agents followed him to the table where his pizza cooled, spilled cheese congealing in clumps on the cardboard container. He sat and retrieved the slice he’d been eating.

  Agent Bailey sat on the only other chair in the room. Drake sat on the end of the bed and took a notepad and pen from his pocket. Albert chewed, swallowed, and said, “Didn’t you have questions?”

  “Yes, sir. A woman was supposed to be at the truck stop with a package of checks for us. The woman and the package have disappeared. Do you know anything about that?”

  “She had the checks?”

  Agent Bailey raised his eyebrows. “You said ‘the checks.’ You seem surprised that Mrs. Foster had them. Where did you think the checks were?”

  “I meant to say ‘she had checks?’ ”

  “That’s what Mr. Young told us. Is that why you chased her out of the restaurant?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know.”

  Albert wiped the grease from his mouth with a napkin and opened the container of salad. He tried to think while he pretended to concentrate on removing the cellophane top on the salad dressing and spreading it across the greens.

  “How did you find me?”

  “We have our ways, Mr. Getz,” Bailey said. “We went to the hospital to talk to you and found you had been released. The receptionist saw you leave in a City Cab and she knew what time. One call to the dispatcher, and here we are.”

  “I didn’t see a package at the truck stop. I didn’t take one with me when I left.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “When you walked out the door of the truck stop. Where were you going?”

  Albert rubbed his forehead as though trying to massage the fog away. “I . . . don’t . . .”

  “Come now, Mr. Getz. You have a minor concussion. The doctor told us your memory should not be impaired. Please tell us where you were going when you left the truck stop.”

  Think. Why not tell the truth? Maybe this is the way to nail Ortega. Albert thought about his story, realized he could be in the clear. He just ran an errand, right? He was a courier. He didn’t carry a weapon, he didn’t do anything wrong. Breaking into the house on the hill and stealing a car didn’t count. After all, he’d been stuck in a damn snowdrift.

  What did he know? He knew Benny Ortega hired Fat Ass Sammy Grick, who was definitely a killer. And he knew about Lynnette Foster, who might be a killer. And he knew Foster had things that belonged to Ortega, even if he didn’t know why Foster had them. Sounds like a mess. Maybe I don’t know very much after all.

  “
Mr. Getz?”

  “Yeah, uh, what was the question?”

  “Where were you going when you slipped on the ice and fell?”

  Albert sighed. “Okay . . . I didn’t slip on the ice.”

  The FBI agents exchanged a glance.

  “Do you want some pizza?” Albert said. “It’s a very long story.”

  By the time he got to the part where Lynnette Foster knocked him off his feet, Drake had taken several pages of notes. The two agents knocked off two slices of pizza and were now chewing antacid tablets.

  “Let me get this straight,” Bailey said. “Mrs. Foster still has Mr. Ortega’s property, which was originally in Sammy Grick’s possession? And as far as you know, she has the checks?”

  “That’s what she told me. She gave me Grick’s cell phone inside the building. I followed her out to the truck to get an envelope from her laptop case. Mr. Ortega said she had a brown envelope containing six checks, and if she turned over everything, I should let her go.”

  “And if she didn’t turn over everything?”

  “I’d have to talk her into it.”

  Bailey said, “I’ll bet.”

  “Nothing happened to her. I waited outside the door of the truck and she got inside to get the stuff. The driver’s door all of a sudden closes on my hand and then flies open, whacking me in the chest. My head hits the ground so hard it feels like it’s splitting open. The next thing I know, I hear voices. That’s all hazy. Then the ambulance siren.” Albert rubbed his head. “I do have a concussion.” He held his hand over his mouth and belched. “Feel like puking.”

  Bailey ignored Albert’s distress. “Where did the Foster woman go after she knocked you down?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? I was out cold.”

  “The car you drove to the truck stop, you say that belonged to Mr. Young?”

  Albert sighed. “Yeah.”

  “So you stole it?”

  “Borrowed.”

  “Did you have Mr. Young’s permission to borrow his car?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?” Bailey asked.

  “It means, they buried me and my snowmobile under a pile of snow and left me there to die. Loaning me his car was the least Young could do to make amends.”

  “Is the car still at the truck stop?”

  “That’s where it was the last time I saw it. Unless . . . how did the Foster woman get away? Oh, hell!” He thrust his hand in his pants pocket. Nothing. He stood up slowly and walked across the room to the closet, pulled out his jacket and felt in all the pockets. No sedan keys.

  “I’ll bet Foster stole the keys out of my pants,” he said. “I don’t have the car. She has it. And if she has it, I’ll bet Young hasn’t reported it stolen. And if he hasn’t reported it stolen, I’ll bet he’s talked to her. I bet she still has the checks. Frankly, gentlemen, I think you’re talking to the wrong guy.”

  CHAPTER 39

  * * *

  Denver, Colorado

  Saturday, January 25

  Less than thirty minutes after she’d placed the call to Dave, Lynnette’s cell phone rang.

  “What the hell is going on, Lynnette? You’re all over the news. I’ve had three calls from a policewoman in Florida and two from your stepmother. Did you kill a cop?”

  “No, Dave. The cop is . . . was my husband. He punched me in the face and I walked out. And someone killed him. That’s all I know. The police left email messages for me, but I didn’t have a chance to answer before now. I’m going to call them, but I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “They told me to call if I heard from you.”

  “That’s okay. Wait an hour, okay? In the Miami airport my laptop case got switched with one carried by a thug named Sammy Grick. From everything I can tell, he worked as a courier for a Cuban businessman from Florida named Benito Ortega.”

  “What was in the case? Something illegal? Drugs?”

  “No drugs. But the other stuff, well, it included an envelope containing a few very big checks from several different companies. I suspect they’re stolen.”

  “So what? You turn them over to the cops.”

  “You don’t think there’s a story in this?”

  “Lynnette, the story doesn’t matter. You’re in trouble. You need to get your priorities straight.”

  “If I go to Florida and still have this stuff in my possession, the police will take it. We won’t have the checks anymore. We need them to investigate.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Should I mail you the checks before I call the Florida cop?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Dave, are you still there?”

  “Yeah. I did a quick search on Benito Ortega, Lynnie. He’s a powerful and very scary guy. I got kids—”

  “Okay.” She tried to ignore Dave’s use of the nickname he’d given her. Their relationship had always been professional until the day Lynnette’s father died. Dave rushed to her side, took her in his arms, and held her while she cried. He also kissed her. But Dave had a wife and three kids.

  When Lynnette resigned from her job, he continued to call her Lynnie and begged her to stay. At one point, he even offered to get a divorce.

  Lynnette handled this crisis the way she tended to handle all crises. She ran away. And because this crisis was two-pronged—her father’s death and the temptation of a married man’s comfort and love—she ran all the way to South Florida.

  And we know what kind of trouble I got into there.

  “Tell you what, Dave. Call me Lynnette and treat me like a reporter.”

  “Okay. What do you think the checks mean?”

  “A check theft conspiracy. Steal them in Florida, launder them in California. These are big checks. One is over half a million dollars.”

  “You can’t withhold evidence. It would be better if the Feds handled this one. Turn Ortega’s stuff over to the FBI.”

  “Dave, are you afraid to look at the checks?”

  “No. I’m afraid to even have the checks in my possession. You should also be afraid.”

  “This is crazy. I’ve been chased all over Denver and points north by the guys working for this Ortega guy, but I hung in there, hoping to get the story. Ortega won’t know anything about you. He won’t know you have the evidence.”

  “He’ll know if I break the story.”

  “That’s it then. We probably won’t be talking again.”

  “Lynnie, please—”

  “Lynnette. My name is Lynnette.”

  Miami, Florida

  Saturday, January 25

  The moment Benny’s plane landed in Miami, he checked his cell phone for messages. When he heard Getz tell him he didn’t want to work for Benny ever again, he laughed. Why would he want to hire the guy for anything else? He was accident-prone. A klutz.

  “Mr. Ortega?” The co-pilot stood in the doorway to the cockpit. “We have instructions from the tower to hold a position near the police hangar and remain in the airplane until further notice.”

  “Why?”

  “They didn’t say, sir.”

  Benny looked at his cell phone and thought about the whole mess with Sammy Grick, Lynnette Foster, and Albert Getz. He wondered where his money was. He thought about the checks that his wife had painstakingly collected from clerks on the take at six different companies. Maria had made all the contacts, she had all the names. He’d have to start from scratch.

  Did Getz have the checks? Or the Foster woman? What did it matter now? It was too late to launder them through one of his bank connections without getting caught. His life was over.

  Denver, Colorado

  Saturday, January 25

  Grace looked up from the television. “Your boss didn’t want the checks?”

  “No.”

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  “Turn them over to the FBI.”

  “That guy still wants them back.”

  “I know
.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “I’m going to call Officer Maggie Gutierrez of the Glades Police Department in Florida.”

  CHAPTER 40

  * * *

  Glades, Florida

  Saturday, January 25

  Maggie sprawled on the couch in her apartment, too tired to cook and almost too tired to call for Chinese take-out. She wanted to stay awake, go over her notes on the Foster case, check on Carl’s background and see why he was under investigation at the time of his death.

  She groaned as she rolled to her side and sat up. Crappy-looking room. She needed to get new furniture. Maybe something red or orange. Brighten up the place. She’d moved in eight months ago and had only a couch, a bed and cheap dresser, and a small kitchen table with two chairs. Books were stacked on the floor by the couch. One floor lamp lit the living room. At least I could get a TV. And maybe a cat. A cat would be good company.

  When her cell phone rang, Maggie jumped off the couch and hurried to the table.

  “Gutierrez,” she said.

  “Officer Gutierrez, this is Lynnette Foster.”

  “Hey, thanks for calling in. Where are you?” Maggie inwardly groaned at her own cheery, conversational tone. She was talking to a suspected killer, for God’s sake.

  “I didn’t kill my husband.”

  Foster’s first five words were exactly what Maggie had expected to hear. “Okay,” she said. “Are you still in Denver?”

  “We’ll get to that. First I want to tell you a long story, starting with last Wednesday when I walked out on my husband. Do you have time?”

  “I have all the time you need.” Maggie sat at her little table, pulled out her notebook and grabbed a pen.

  It took Lynnette Foster nearly an hour to tell her story. Maggie doubted she’d left out anything. She had even mentioned the possibility that she’d left the patio door in their home unlocked when she left. If that was true, whoever killed Carl Foster would have had easy access to the house, which would explain why there was no sign of forcible entry. If Foster’s actions had eased the way for a killer to get at her husband, it would explain her getting choked up when she talked about it, even though she’d walked out on the guy.