Grave Mistakes_A Deadly Vigilante Crime Thriller

by Brian Spangler

  When my insides was warmed by the wine, I took to my seat and looked at every single digital keepsake in the folder. Much of it left me gutted, a blubbering, sobbing, tearful mess. But I told myself this was part of the process. The part of getting over the regret.

  There was more to the folder than just the family photos and certificates and newspaper clippings. I learned about Steve’s fast rise in the state government, of his start in the District Attorney’s office. After he’d been shot by Sam Wilts, he’d gone to law-school, fully intending on working for the District Attorney. But I had no idea how far he’d gone. Over the years, I’d heard things, heard he’d become important, a rising star. I remember the guards talking about about him, talking about his becoming the next District Attorney and his run for various offices and winning every election. Steve was a natural. How far was he going to go? Mayor? Governor?

  Brian left clues about the Wilts gang too. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around their being in business. It seemed impossible. We’d cut the head off the snake in a single blow, killing the gang forever.

  “Two-headed snake,” I said, learning of Todd Wilts’ uncle, Justin Wilts. After the shooting, he’d stepped up and took over the gang, running it, never missing a beat. He’d also adopted his brother’s orphaned son, Tommy Wilts—the man with Snacks. I clenched my teeth at the thought of them together. Why didn’t Brian try to stop it?

  The death of Todd Wilts, and his matriarch father, only strengthened the gang. And every year after the shooting, every year I was locked inside, the Wilts gang grew twice more powerful. By now, their reach was almost national. It might even be international. While the gang was led by the uncle, Tommy Wilts was taking the reigns and would lead soon enough. An image of him with my daughter flashed in my mind, his arm draped over hers, holding my baby like she was his property. Dread filled me.

  “Amy’, what have you done.”

  NINETEEN

  BY THE TIME THE MOON and sun had traded places with the sun, my work for the day was done. Tomorrow would be a road trip to where Derek Robbins lived. I still had no idea what I would do, how I was going to murder the man. There were a few ideas that had graduated from my brain to the whiteboard, but nothing struck a chord or tickled my muse. I picked up the whiteboard eraser, set to erase the day, a habit of old, but then left well enough alone. There wasn’t enough to show that I had anything in mind—let alone a murder. To most, the drawings would be gibberish. A knock at the front door gave me an excuse to quit and not feel like I was giving up. I checked the time, seeing it was well past six. I wasn’t expecting anyone.

  “One minute!” I called out, my voice bouncing off the office’s high ceilings. No answer. I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous, a little apprehensive. I knew Roxanne’s reach inside Holmesburg, and that she’d had contacts outside too. For all I knew, her reign extended beyond the walls, and might have been as far as the other side of my door. “Amy, you’re being stupid paranoid.”

  A foody goodness hit me when I swung open the door as Brian held up takeout bags from one of my favorite restaurants, Romeo’s. I was glad the restaurant was still around, and truth be told, I was ravenous. I snatched a bag from his hands and made my way to the kitchenette.

  “Nice to see you too,” he said, his voice trailing behind me.

  “Less talk. Need to eat,” I answered, swiping plates and flatware and taking them back to the couch.

  When I returned, I found Brian staring at the whiteboard, his lips pressed, pinching, and his brow furrowing. He turned away, raising his hands, blocking the sight from his eyes like a priest who’d witnessed the devil’s doings.

  “None of my business,” he said, kneeling to the floor and plunking the other bag of food onto the table. “Like I said, just keep me out of it.”

  “No worries,” I answered, ripping open the bag, but then remembering what else went great with Romeo’s food. I grabbed two glasses and a bottle of red. Next, the radio. In my search, I’d come across a not-so-bad radio station and quickly found it, resting the needle between two numbers. The reception was scratchy, and faded in and out, but it was musical goodness for my ears. “Will this work?”

  Brian gave the old radio a look and laughed, “You know it’s an antique. We kept it here because the cabinet it’s in matches the rest of the furniture. Becky thought it gave the room an authentic look.”

  “It sure is authentic,” I countered. “It works.”

  “What I mean is, you can use your phone.” He motioned with his hand for me to turn down the radio. I rolled the volume knob to the left until only the slightest bit of static was audible.

  Brian tapped on his phone’s plastic face, asking, “Early twenty-teens?”

  “Sure,” I answered, expecting to hear a tinny sound of music. But suddenly the room filled with the sounds of a concert hall. If I closed my eyes, I’d swear I was sitting center stage as the band played around me. I waved for him to lower the volume, not showing how impressed I was. I turned on my music. “I like the nostalgia.”

  Brian shrugged. “I brought over some corporate papers for you to sign,” he said, changing the subject.

  “You mean I can’t do that with a simple thought?” I asked sarcastically.

  He raised his chin in a mock laugh while unsleeving the documents, laying them across the table, presenting me with a parchment filled spectacle of words and signature tags. I almost laughed, thinking how far technology had come, yet a signature was still old-school, complete with a ballpoint pen. He handed me the pen and pointed to the lines requiring my signature.

  “And what do these mean?”

  “Puts the controlling rights back in your hands as the majority owner of T2.”

  I hesitated and placed the pen in front of him. “What did I say at the Diner?”

  He shrugged and pushed the pen back in my direction, answering, “It’s the right thing to do. It’s your company. And when it’s no longer your company, it will be your children’s company.”

  “Brian, I’m fresh out of prison, I couldn’t even run to the store, let alone have a responsibility like this. It’s yours. You built T2. Not me.” He reached into his bag and pulled another sheet out, yellowing, aged, my signature at the bottom easily recognizable next to his. It was the paperwork we’d arranged when we were just Team Two, ensuring the business was covered in the event something happened to either of us. “Can we extend that one? Extend it indefinitely?”

  “I thought you might ask,” he answered, re-arranging the papers. He pinched a sheet, lifting it, and added, “With this new draft, it leaves the majority shares in your name, but gives me the day-to-day operations.”

  “That’d work,” I said, feeling relieved. “And give yourself a raise while you’re at it.”

  We said little as we ate, but it wasn’t hard to see Brian’s interest in what I’d been doing today. He scanned the whiteboard a half dozen times and I could tell he was piecing together what I’d come up with so far. Before we finished, he asked, “Derek Robbins?”

  “Impressive,” I answered, referring to the name. I’d never mentioned more than Wilma’s name. “How did you pull that rabbit out of your hat?”

  “Wasn’t too hard. I did a little digging after you asked about your friend.”

  “You want in?” I asked without hesitating. “No money involved. Like I said, I owe her my life, and this guy . . . well, let’s just say—”

  “I saw the police reports. I saw what he did.” Brian arched his back, his face stuck in a scowl. The reports had to have bothered him, given what Todd Wilts had done to his little sister. But there was a consideration in his tone, and while he might not admit it, I could sense he wanted to help. “I can’t help. Not like that. But I wonder if there’s something else we can do. You know, something that doesn’t involve murder?”

  I finished the wine in my glass, drinking it down in a single gulp, annoyed by the direction the conversation was going. I poured more, sloppily clanking the
top of the glass with the carafe. Reluctantly, I confessed, “I don’t say this lightly . . . but I’ve wondered the same.”

  Brian’s eyes lit up. With relief in his voice, he asked, “Well that’s a good thing. Right? I mean, why take the risk.”

  I frowned and shook my head, “But I owe her Brian. And Wilma’s expecting his life as payment.”

  “That’s perfect.”

  “I don’t follow,” I said, confused.

  “Then let it be life. Life without parole. Legal technicalities aside, we know he’s guilty. We also know why your friend did what she did. So why should she spend time in prison while he is free?”

  “Just how much research did you do?” I asked, curious by the amount of background information he’d prepared. And then it hit me—he’d played me. A flush crept up my neck, embarrassed and annoyed for not having caught on sooner. His bringing the corporate papers was a ruse. And the meal from Romeo’s was bait. Brian had staged our impromptu dinner meeting to talk me out of the plans for Derek Robbins’ murder.

  “Corporate papers, my ass,” I answered sharply.

  “Listen, Amy—” he began, and stood abruptly, taking to the whiteboard in a single bound, swiping the dry-erase marker from atop his old desk. “Please don’t do this. I’ll help you find another way. Something your friend will agree with. All debts covered.”

  He faced the whiteboard, eraser in hand, my day’s work in jeopardy, his eyes fixed like a dog’s, begging for my approval. I gave the nod. And without hesitation, his long arm swept across my work, erasing my plans to kill Derek Robbins.

  “But Brian, if we can’t arrange a conviction, something that will put Robbins behind bars for the rest of his life, then I’ll have to stick to the original plan.”

  “Agreed,” he said, wiping his sweaty brow. He panted and fanned himself, his hand shaking nervously. “You have no idea how relieved I am to have you agree.”

  “Becky,” I said, peering over to my desk and to the slab of glass they called a computer these days.

  “Home. Probably binge watching something online,” he answered, continuing to clean the whiteboard.

  “Becky,” I repeated, clarifying. “I want eyes inside. Holmesburg’s computers and closed-circuit television systems are old. Becky shouldn’t have any problem infiltrating, navigating their networks.” I was worried for Wilma. And while having eyes inside gave me a small bit of comfort, I knew there was little else I could do for her. And there was a part of me that wanted to check in on the other girls too—the lifers who’d never see freedom. I missed their company, and I missed listening to their prison wisdom. Sadly, somewhat pathetically, I would find comfort in listening to the prison chatter again.

  Brian pulled his phone, tapping without looking up. “Done,” he said and motioned to my computer. “Becky has been there for years. How else was I going to know you were safe?”

  “I figured as much,” I said with a nod. “Derek Robbins. You’ve obviously done some homework, some planning too. So I’m thinking you didn’t come here with just the food in hand. What have you got in mind?”

  Brian shook out his hands and took hold of a marker, drawing a set of lines on the whiteboard that showed a timeline, a schedule. Like prison, everything was set to a schedule, and placing Derek Robbins behind bars would be no different. As he fleshed out the time sequence, he answered, “I’m just thinking aloud, but this guy has a penchant for little girls, right?”

  “He does,” I confirmed.

  “I believe there is something we can use on his computer or on his phone, or anywhere in his home where there’s a digital presence. If we pushed enough evidence, and surfaced it in front of the right set of eyes, the police would be forced to question him.”

  “You’re talking child porn? That’s a huge stretch, Brian. And what if he’s careful or there isn’t anything to host the material at his house?” I asked, acting as the devil’s advocate.

  “Simple,” Brian said. “We make sure there is. And, I’m not just talking about a few curiosity kiddie pics he can talk his way out of. I’ll create a history, backfill his computer with years of data that would clearly implicate him for trafficking.”

  “Show me,” I said, intrigued by the idea. I got up to work, standing with him at the whiteboard, finding a familiar place like we’d done two decades before.

  Brian faced the skeleton timeline he’d started and drew new lines, expelling each, talking fast, laying out a rudimentary plan that showed what we’d need to infiltrate and plant the evidence digitally. While the idea seemed too simple, too amateurish, it grew on me. And if this worked, and Robbins ended up in prison, his life would be a living hell. It there was one thing you didn’t want to be labeled as in prison, it was a chomo, slammer slang for a child molester.

  “If this works—”

  “Then Derek Robbins will serve time for a crime. Just not the original crime,” I finished for him.

  “Exactly,” Brian answered. “And, best of all, nobody gets killed. No blood on our hands.”

  For the next hour, we mapped where the target lived, his job, the stores he visited. And we researched what would become the most critical component in our plan: a list of the children who lived near Derek Robbins’ home. With the plan, we’d need help. we’d need the word of a child, a concerned parent, anyone who could spur interest from the police, leading the law to ask questions and investigate Derek Robbins. Without that one witness, one complaint, nothing we could do would trigger the police response our plan required.

  The whiteboard filled with wavy, colorful lines—blue and green and red and purple—each of them new and fresh, and the chemical smells lending to an oddly intoxicating high. Brian continued to impress me. He’d done a lot of homework before coming over, rattling off names and addresses around Derek Robbins’s neighbors—but specifically, who it was I’d need to speak to first: a ten-year-old girl named Natalie. Popping the cap off a red marker, I wrote Natalie’s name in tall capitalized letters. She lived across the street from Derek Robbins and had the unfortunate luck of looking a lot like Wilma’s twelve-year-old daughter. If there was one child who’d had the misfortune of being a victim of Derek Robbins, it was likely Natalie. I stepped back to review our work, my eyes landing on the red lettering, leaving me to wonder if this would be the only red I’d see with this case. And if so, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

  Brian left for home within the hour and I dozed on the couch, opening and closing my eyes like a camera shutter, memorizing every line we’d drawn on the whiteboard. A sudden knock at the door gave me a stir. I tried to focus, but my head was cluttered with fuzzy prison thoughts—I saw women caged, pacing their cells, their skin gleaming in the dim light of the night. Another knock woke me with a start and I bolted upright, cursing Brian’s name, thinking he’d forgotten something. I swung open the door expecting to see his apologetic face, but standing in front of me was my daughter, her eyes troubled and her face bloodied.

  “Hi Mom.”

  TWENTY

  I THOUGH I HAD TO be dreaming—my daughter was in my home, and she was looking at me with eyes that recognized who I was: she recognized me too. Her face was battered though. A fight, I thought, or Tommy Wilts showing her the Wilts’ way. Instinctively, I wanted to wrap myself around her like a warm blanket, protect her, shield her. Her beautiful mouth was swollen in one corner, a bulbous bruise split open with a trail of blood that reached her chin. And her left eye wore a blue crescent moon around the outside which would blacken by morning. I’d seen enough in prison to recognize a sucker punch, the one she didn’t see coming. The first was a setup for the second, which should knock you out. Only, she looked to have survived both and made her way to safety. I took my daughter by the hand and led her inside.

  “What happened?” I asked, my voice in a tone as though she were five again, having come to me after falling off her bicycle. But when I saw there wasn’t any pressing dangers, no concerns warranting more than a butterfly stitch, I
asked, “And what are you doing with the Wilts gang?”

  She gave me a slow nod, and said, “Yeah, that . . . sorry about yesterday. I knew who you were. I mean, I don’t know you, but I know of you.”

  “I’m confused,” I answered, trying not to sound annoyed. “Why didn’t you? I mean, why the ruse?” As I spoke, I brought my daughter into the kitchenette and pulled a first-aid kit from the cupboard. Brian’s wife had truly thought of every amenity.

  She looked at me sternly, her hands hinged on her hips—a posture that reminded me of my mother. There was anger in her eyes as she asked, “Do you have any idea who was in that bar? Or the danger you put us both in?”

  I did and felt a bit embarrassed for having taken the risk. “I didn’t think the Wilts family was still . . . well, a gang. I mean, that was over twenty years ago.”

  She shook her head, adding, “They’re not just any gang. They are the gang. They’re bigger than most of the organized crime families, and a lot more dangerous too.”

  As I laid a piece of white tape over a cut on her cheek, recalling the rings I’d seen on Tommy Wilts’ fingers, I asked, “So what are you doing there?”

  “I knew you’d been released, I didn’t expect you to track me down at the Bear.”

  I quickly asked again, “Answer me. The Wilts?”

  “I’m working.”

  A short answer. I could sense this wasn’t going to to be easy. “Working? So are you working for the Wilts or just working at the White Bear?”

  “I don’t want to say too much, but they think I’m working for them, actually, I’m more of a companion.”

  A million ideas ran through my head. Was she a cop? Undercover? Was she a vigilante assassin, like her mother? “You can’t tell me any more than that?”

  She shook her head, “Listen, I don’t know you.” The words cut like a knife, but they were the most honest thing she’d said since entering my home. She sensed the disappointment, and quickly added, “But that’s part of why I’m here. I want to get to know you. I haven’t had a mother and could use one now.”