Ice Fire: A Jock Boucher Thriller

by David Lyons

  He heard muffled sobbing, a woman crying. “They took my Tom,” she said. “Hannah, they took and sold off my man.”

  “That’s all right, Becky, Ol’ Hannah’s here. Let’s just pray he’s gone to a better place. We all goin’ to a better place by and by.”

  “But I’m with child, Hannah. How’m I gonna care for a child when I ain’t got no man?”

  “The good Lord gonna care for us all. Lemme fix you a little warm milk. You’ll feel better with a little warm milk, and so will that baby inside you. I’m just goin’ in the next room now. You set right here.

  “Becky, you get away from that railing now. That wood’s done gone rotten. Get away from there, Becky. BECKY, NO!”

  Boucher grabbed the plugs from his ears and opened his eyes to the pitch-black. He felt a sensation he had never known, a fierce, raging hatred. People had suffered under this roof. His nostrils flared, his upper lip curled. He seethed with an anger born of man’s mistreatment of his fellow man. It gave him strength beyond mortal limitations. He heard sounds nearby. He heard the scratching movements of vermin. Crawling on the roof were rats: two-legged rats. He remained in his crouch. He listened as they climbed down the roof and dropped onto the second-floor walkway, six feet away: first one, then the other. They stopped, looked, cross-checked, took one slow step, then another. When Boucher could reach out and touch them, he stood. He closed his eyes and snapped one of the nitrocellulose wafers, momentarily blinding them both. Boucher opened his eyes just after the flash of light and threw a right cross, hitting his first opponent’s chin dead on with enough force to snap his jaw. This was followed by an uppercut that lifted the man off his feet. Boucher lowered his head and butted the first victim into the second, knocking the latter off balance. The second man took two tottering steps backward and fell against the rotting wood railing. It splintered and they both fell to the ground below. Boucher jumped down, landing on top of them, feeling their bones snap as he used their bodies to break his fall. He stood up. One was still conscious and trying to move. He bent over him and delivered the most basic of boxing combinations, a right hook to the jaw followed by a jab with the left fist to the opponent’s head with a power he had never known: the raw power of pure hate. The man was out. They both were.

  Boucher flicked on his outside lights, all of them, and stood over the two. He stared at a lacerated face and eyes, hideous but superficial wounds inflicted by Dawn. Obviously, she’d not done as much damage as they had thought. Matt Quillen lay in a pool of blood, the dark stain expanding beneath him. Boucher kicked him over onto his back. Quillen had fallen on the hunting knife he had brought for the occasion, its lethal blade buried in his body to the hilt. The shit-heel had indeed fallen on his sword. Cantrell lay next to him, his eyes open wide, his broken jaw giving him a most curious smile. The odd position of his head showed that his neck was broken, by the punch or the fall, Boucher didn’t know. He hoped it was the former. He hoped he’d killed the bastard with his own bare hands.

  “They deserved to die.”

  This time Palmetto hadn’t startled him. The two men looked down at the bodies on the ground.

  “You killed them, Judge. And that is justice.”

  Boucher turned away from the bodies and walked toward his house, down the driveway to the front yard, and hollered for help.

  There might as well have been klieg lights on his front lawn for all the cop cars, ambulances, and paparazzi that congregated around his place. Fitch had ordered a cordon of officers to keep the curious at bay. Boucher had heard an inebriated passerby with a particularly loud voice ask if they were making a movie. There were enough cameras present that this wasn’t that wild a guess.

  Fitch was considerate enough not to smoke in the house, but, ignoring his doctor’s dictate, he’d already gone through a pack securing the courtyard as a crime scene. At least he was thoughtful enough to extinguish his cigarettes on the sole of his shoe and put the butts in his jacket pocket, which he emptied in the trash can. The odor embedded in his clothing, however, accompanied him into Boucher’s fine salon. He scratched behind his ear before making his confession.

  “Two guys in uniform relieved the sentries we had on duty; obviously hired by Perry and Cantrell. They were good; my guys believed them and left their posts. Either that or my guys took any cash that was offered them. It wouldn’t be the first time. Anyway, the imposters probably split as soon as our guys were gone. So Cantrell and Quillen were able to enter by way of the back property with no problem.”

  Boucher said nothing, nodding at the people milling about within earshot. Fitch understood and ordered everyone to clear out.

  “I want to know one thing from the autopsy,” Boucher said. “I want to know the exact cause of Cantrell’s death.”

  “Why?” Fitch asked.

  Boucher flexed the fingers of his right hand and balled them into a fist. “I just want to know,” he said.

  The sun was up before the circus folded its tent. Boucher stood at the kitchen window once again, looking over his courtyard as he sipped a cup of coffee. Fitch and Palmetto sat at the breakfast table.

  “Where are we now?” Boucher said. “Cantrell and the contract killer are dead. We know Cantrell killed Dexter and Ruth Kalin. Your lawyer’s poor assistant all those years ago? Probably murdered by Quillen, probably in very much the same way he killed Judge Epson. I know Cantrell shot Dawn, I heard his voice on the bayou when the shot was fired. The killers are dead.”

  “But their boss still lives,” Palmetto said. “It’s time to close the books on John Perry and Rexcon Energy.”

  CHAPTER 32

  ANY IDEAS ON HOW we get Perry?” Palmetto asked.

  He and Boucher were seated in the courtyard at the glass-topped wrought-iron garden table. Chalk silhouettes in the corner marked where Cantrell and Quillen had fallen to their deaths. The chalk marks looked like graffiti, cartoonlike except for the dark stains in the center of one of the outlines. From these stains drying in the late afternoon sun could be heard the low buzzing of flies.

  “Bob, I think I’ve had enough,” Boucher said. “I think it’s time to let those charged with enforcement of the law do their jobs: the police, the FBI.”

  “The police? Like those policemen who were supposed to protect you and walked off their posts, maybe with cash in their pockets? The FBI? Like those who investigated Judge Epson’s bribery, then turned over their findings to him? Those guys? You expect them to go after Perry, a man who plays governmental agencies like hole cards in a poker hand? They won’t touch Perry and he will not only get away with ordering the deaths of innocent people, he’s going to be free to get away with something much, much bigger.

  “Remember, I told you that the data I sent for you to use in stringing them along was incomplete. What I left out is fundamental to the safe extraction of methane hydrate. They didn’t have this essential information. They didn’t miss it and have no idea of its importance. We know Perry is exploring in international waters. If he goes forward without regulatory oversight he could be responsible for a cataclysm beyond our worst nightmare. That’s why it is crucial that we stop him.

  “Jock, with this fuel source our country can regain energy independence. We can have all we need for hundreds of years, energy that will be far superior to any source we use now. But its development must be done right. We can either begin to reduce global warming or we can dramatically increase it. We can safely mine this resource from the ocean floor or we can create chaos that will destroy the coastal areas of some of the most populous areas on the planet. If the greed of hollow men goes unchecked, if caution does not prevail, the result may not be a bang, but the whimpering will come too late to reverse the damage done.” Palmetto was animated as he spoke, his hands flailing the air.

  Boucher smiled. “You remind me of something Abraham Lincoln said. ‘When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.’ That’s what you look like: like you’re fighting bees. And you d
o sound like a preacher.”

  “I would hope, after all you’ve seen, that I’m preaching to the choir. I’m fighting a man as dangerous as anyone on earth,” Palmetto said, “and it’s not a job I’m prepared to delegate. You know, from that first minute I walked into your court, I decided to trust you. I felt your courage.”

  “Wasn’t my court; it was Epson’s.”

  “I knew that. I heard about his heart attack on the radio that morning. That’s when I decided to turn myself in.”

  “I thought so.”

  “You treated me with respect. I appreciated that. Can I tell you something, a personal observation?”

  Boucher nodded.

  “I think you have too much compassion to be a judge.”

  “I didn’t show Cantrell much compassion. I killed him with my bare hands.”

  “He got what he deserved.”

  “I’m not going back on the bench anyway,” Boucher said. “I killed two men and I’m glad I did. I can’t sit in judgment of others.”

  They were talking to each other, but were staring at flies as they massed on the blood drying in the final rays of the day’s sun.

  “Perry,” Palmetto said.

  “Yes,” Boucher said. “Let’s get him.”

  He stood up from the table as shadows fell on the courtyard. “Sun’s over the yardarm. Ready for a drink?” Boucher asked.

  Offer accepted, he went into the house as Palmetto followed. He fixed two glasses of bourbon and water.

  “Cheers.” They clicked glasses. Boucher was pensive. “I keep thinking about what the doctor said were Dawn’s last words before she died. ‘Get him,’ and something starting with the letters d-o-b.”

  “Could it refer to something you did together?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t have time to do much together.”

  “It was an intense couple of days. You were hardly apart.”

  “She was supposed to keep an eye on me. I felt the same as you at first. I didn’t believe our meeting was chance. I don’t care if she had been to an art gallery like she said, or that the Columns was her neighborhood bar, and that she did own a home in the neighborhood. It was too much of a coincidence.”

  “Coincidences do happen, especially when all the factors you just cited line up. Anyway, of course she was told to keep an eye on you. That was just prudence.”

  Boucher shook his head. “I think she sought me out because she wanted to tell me something. She said she would, in her own time. She didn’t get the time.”

  “Sounds like something was bothering her; maybe something about her job.”

  “Perhaps. Anyway, we’ll never know.”

  It’s not found in any manual, but there is a rule adhered to by all owners of fine antiques: After two drinks, get off the good furniture. Boucher moved the bourbon into the kitchen and they continued talking, much of the conversation recounting their near-death experience on the bottom of the ocean. After reviewing their nautical adventure, with several glasses poured in the process, both were pretty much hammered. Palmetto’s laugh became a high-pitched giggle.

  “Mae told us she woke up with you rubbing her ass.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “And Mark got out of his wheelchair yesterday. He’s able to get around on crutches.” He hiccupped loudly. “How ’bout them apples?” Then his chin fell to his chest and did not rise. Just like that, Bob Palmetto was out.

  “Hey.” Boucher nudged him. “You don’t expect me to carry you up the damn stairs to your bedroom, do you? Hey.”

  But there was no response. Bob Palmetto had left the building. Boucher, who had left his own sobriety in a neighboring county, lifted him from the kitchen chair, astounded that an adult male could weigh so little. He carried him about as far as he was able with judgment and reason being so impaired and dropped him. It had probably been over a hundred years since anyone had actually slept on the nineteenth-century period sofa, but that night Bob Palmetto did.

  Of course, the devil had his due the next morning.

  Boucher had not bothered to get undressed and had just fallen on the top of his bed. When he woke, high-pitched whines were going off inside his head like clockwork, zing, zing, zing, the sound of his elevated blood pressure ringing in his ears. He went to the bathroom and threw cold water on his face, then to the kitchen for some coffee. Aghast, he spotted Palmetto sprawled on his antique sofa. He looked dead. He rushed over and prodded him.

  “Get up, get up. You can’t sleep on that.”

  Palmetto snorted, then rolled over on his side. And fell off the sofa. Boucher left him there. No patience for his French press coffeepot this morning, he fixed instant, heating the water by microwave. He went to the fridge for milk, cursing, furious with himself for drinking so much and getting so fucked up. He pulled too hard on the refrigerator door and the fridge slid forward. The safe. It’s a pretty damn good piece of security that’s installed where even the owner forgets about it. He pulled the fridge out farther, reached behind, opened the safe, and retrieved the file Ruth Kalin had given him. He put it on the counter and finished his coffee.

  On the hardwood floor in the living room, his fall cushioned by a vintage handwoven Tabriz carpet, Palmetto snored like thunder.

  Ten o’clock, the phone rang, jarring both to an unwanted state of cognition. It was Fitch.

  “Just checking to make sure you’re both okay,” he said.

  “We’re both okay,” Boucher said. “Thanks for calling.”

  Having been around that particular block more than once or twice himself, Fitch recognized the condition of the party on the other end of the line, and decided it was best to leave him alone. He had planned to caution them both about going out without letting him know, but from the tone of Boucher’s voice there was little imminent chance of that. He’d call him later.

  On the Tabriz carpet in the salon, there was movement.

  “Oh, my God,” Palmetto said, walking into the kitchen, where Boucher stared into a cup of stale, cold instant coffee. “What did you put in that bourbon?”

  “Which one, the first or the tenth?”

  The components for instant coffee were all in plain sight and Palmetto began fixing his own. He spotted the file on the counter.

  “What’s this?”

  “File Ruth Kalin stuck in my truck. I put it in my safe and almost forgot about it.”

  Palmetto fixed his coffee and sat at the table. He focused his bleary eyes on the pages in front of him, turning them over slowly.

  “Judge,” he said softly, ominously.

  Boucher looked up.

  “Have you read this?” He stuck his index finger on the file.

  “Ruth Kalin’s file: it has charts and graphs of stock movements. I may be just an old scientist, but I did own a corporation once. I know what she was doing. She was tracking stock sales. Securities and Exchange Commission was Dawn’s area of responsibility. Maybe what Dawn said she wanted to tell you had something to do with that.”

  “Stock fraud?” Boucher said.

  “We’ve got a greedy CEO who will stop at nothing, not even murder. Do you think a little stock manipulation for personal gain might not be in his bag of tricks? Do you think that two women who knew of such criminal activity might not be exterminated as threats?”

  Boucher looked around, at the walls, up at the ceiling, then into the eyes of Bob Palmetto.

  “We’ve got to find out for sure,” he said.

  Palmetto sipped his coffee. “Gotta get past this hangover first.”

  Fitch paid a personal call midafternoon. He entered Boucher’s living room, refusing a seat when offered. He stood before them as a priest facing penitents.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I want to tell you about the dangers of alcohol. One is especially vulnerable when one has suffered an emotional loss or crisis.”

  Boucher threw a pillow at him and Palmetto quickly followed. Fitch dodged the first, got caught in the face with the second. Both
men told him to sit down and shut up. They had something to tell him. They had work to do. They needed his help.

  CHAPTER 33

  WHEN I FIRST RECEIVED the file,” Boucher said, “I just stuck it in my safe. I forgot about it.”

  “If you weren’t a damned judge I’d have you arrested for withholding evidence and obstructing justice,” Fitch said, “but after spending a day in our evidence room, I’ve got to say I probably would have done the same thing.”

  “Also,” Boucher said, “this was Dawn’s area of responsibility. She was working up the nerve to make a confession to me about her work, I’m sure of it.”

  The three men sat in silence and stared at the open file on the kitchen table. The page to which it was opened showed a line graph with sharp peaks and troughs.

  “Can you explain to me once again what this represents?” Fitch asked.

  “Ruth Kalin wrote a report that explains everything in layman’s terms,” Palmetto said. “What this graph shows is how much money can be illegally made by backdating stock options.” He saw Fitch’s befuddled expression. “Backdating is just what it says: it’s marking a document with a date that precedes its real date. A stock option is the right to buy or sell a company’s stock at a fixed price at a fixed date.”

  Boucher offered his analysis. “Backdating an option is falsely altering an option to reflect a date that’s before the date the company gave the option.”

  “I smell a rat,” Fitch said, “but I’m still lost.”

  “The exercise price of the option is set to equal the market price of the stock on the grant date. The option value is higher if the exercise price is lower, so executives want to be granted options when the stock is at its lowest. If the executive can choose a date when the market price of the stock was low, he increases the value of his option.”

  “It’s going to take me some time to get my head around this,” Fitch said.