and along came SPIDER ( A Martina Spalding Thriller ) (Spider Series Book 1)

by J. R. WRIGHT

  “Clever, but how do you know all of this came off as planned, Lieutenant? You weren’t even there.”

  “Ever hear of a high sign? Well I got several of them from the bartender at the Brass Badge while we were there. He’s a cop too, in his day job. The progress was phoned in to him, as it came down.”

  “What about me? Are you going to haul me up in a laundry cart, too?”

  “No, you’ll be treated to a nice ride in the back elevator, Martina.”

  “And you? Where will you be?”

  “I’ll be around.”

  “At the original room?”

  “Actually, probably in it,” Dunbar said. “Somewhere out of sight.”

  “But if you want this to look normal, shouldn’t I be hanging around there too, like before?”

  “No way…! No damned way will I use you as a decoy, Martina,” Dunbar said. “You’ve done quite enough as it is. Don’t push your luck!”

  “Look, Lieutenant, I want this guy as much as you do. Neither Gloria nor I will be safe until he’s taken off the street.” She glared. “Please! I’ll be careful.”

  Dunbar thought about it for a moment. He knew she was right, about all of it. “You’ll take my Beretta again?”

  “I’ll take your Beretta again.”

  “And you’ll pull it, if anyone gets within your danger zone?”

  “Yes. Absolutely, Harry!”

  “What did you call me?”

  “Harry. That is your name, isn’t it? I heard someone call you that…back at that place,” Marti said, confused by his reaction.

  “So, what if it is? You think we know each other well enough, all of a sudden, to be on a first name basis? Where’s the respect in that?”

  “I do respect you, Lieutenant,” Marti made an attempt to explain. “I just figured that since we almost died together…and now that I know it…and we are working together…”

  “Well, we didn’t die together, thank God,” Dunbar snarled. “And we sure as hell don’t work together! You’re not a cop. Is that clear? I mean, if you insist on putting yourself in harm’s way, that’s your choice. Just don’t expect me, or anyone else, to be there to save your pretty little ass if you bite off more than you can chew. In other words, you’re on your own, Miss Spalding. Is that understood?”

  Smitte, in the front seat, knew exactly what was coming down with all the crap he was handing her. That was just vintage Dunbar. It was his way of psyching her up to be more alert to her own safety. He’d done it to him in the past, and it’d had an effect on his awareness. It was angering, though, until he finally got wise to what Harry was up to.

  “Understood! Now can I have the Beretta, please, Lieutenant?”

  He reached to his ankle, a bit surprised she’d taken it so calmly.

  “Or should I call you, Daddy?” Marti added.

  This prompted Smitte to chuckle. She’d seen through it, just as he had, but a whole lot quicker.

  Ignoring that remark, Dunbar said, “Okay, Martina, here’s the way we’re going to do this. At the hospital…”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Three hours after entering the room, Marti was beginning to believe this thing would end up a washout. Visiting hours for non-family was up near an hour ago, so the place had cleared out considerably. Stepping into the hallway every now and again, to be seen there acting very much the concerned friend she was, she noticed even Dunbar could no longer be seen. Initially he had shown up in the waiting area — which was no more than a half-dozen chairs down the hall across from the nurse’s station — shy of his fedora, to look less cop-like and more a concerned relative. Now he was gone. Perhaps, he’d gotten bored and gone out for a smoke.

  Just then a dark bearded man came into view. He had on a hooded rain slicker — yellow. He’d come from the hall that would eventually lead a person here from the front entrance and walked directly up to the nurse’s station. He glanced her way briefly before the nurse there pointed him in the opposite direction. He went that way, to the first intersecting hallway to the left, where he disappeared.

  Moments later Marti, restless, pivoted to re-enter the room. But from the corner of her eye, something familiar caught her attention. Turning back, she saw the same yellow slicker coming back up the opposite hallway. Reaching the entrance hall then, he turned and disappeared once again. Thinking that visit hadn’t lasted long, she walked to the nurse’s station to inquire who he’d gone to see. She knew this one from the incident involving Parker McLean a few days ago, when she’d helped out in the ER.

  “Piper…” she got out before a familiar face caught her attention from the side. It was the silver haired bartender from Hannity’s. “Lenny!” she greeted, and turned fully to face him. “What brings you here? God, it seems forever since I’ve seen you.” She reached out as if to pull him in for a hug. But Lenny appeared to have missed the gesture in his nervous panning of the area. Presently, it was only the three of them there.

  “I heard Gloria was here. I came to check on her condition. Is she okay?”

  “She is,” Marti said, glancing back toward the room, wondering what she would do if he asked to see her. “Oh, but Lenny, she’s resting right now… I’ll tell her you dropped by, though.”

  “Well, I kinda wanted to give her this.” He lifted a gift bag that was at his side.

  “Oh, how thoughtful! I can give it to her,” Marti said. “Being it’s from you, I’m sure she’ll treasure it… whatever it is.” She reached out for it.

  Lenny, however, pulled back. “That’s okay. I’ll return with it tomorrow.” He looked at her strangely and turned away, to go.

  Feeling he may have been hurt by something she’d said, Marti offered, “I’m truly sorry, Lenny. I’ll be sure to tell Gloria you came by… when she awakes. I promise!”

  “That’s okay,” he said, making an attempt at a smile that never quite materialized. “Maybe she’ll take my call later on. What room is she in?”

  Marti, anxious to oblige him now, quickly volunteered, “105, just up the hall.” Even though Gloria wasn’t there any longer, he didn’t know that. And if he did call, no one would answer in the room. That is, if the hospital switchboard even put it through, which she doubted at this hour.

  “Later, then,” he said, and abruptly turned heel and retreated the way he’d come.

  Marti watched Lenny push through the swinging doors down the hall, then turned back to Piper, only to find Piper’s questioning eyes on her. “As you may have gathered, that was a friend of Gloria’s. He’s a bartender at Hannity’s.”

  “Strange little guy, isn’t he?”

  “Actually, he’s usually quite jovial,” Marti said. “I don’t know why he was that way tonight.”

  “The way he yanked that gift bag back, you’d think there was a bar of gold in it.”

  “Yeah. Well, they’ve been close for a long time. It was Lenny that introduced Gloria to one of her husbands,” Marti recalled. “I think she said it was the last one.”

  “Goodness!” Piper said. “How many times has she been married?”

  “Three…” Marti said. Then it dawned on her. Raym Koffee was number three! My God, that meant Lenny and Raym must know, or have known, each other! She glanced around, feeling uneasy, now. “Piper, did you see where the man went that was sitting over there? He’s tall, graying hair, has a mustache…”

  “Officer Dunbar…?”

  “You know him?”

  “No. But he came over a few hours ago, said he was on the lookout for someone. He also said that if there was a commotion, I should duck behind the counter here, and stay put until he gave the all clear.”

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “No… I’m sorry. I just remember looking up and he was gone. I thought maybe he had given up on whoever it was he was looking for, and left.”

  Without reply, and with no concern for rudeness, Marti struck off on a run for the front entrance. At the darkened main lobby, she saw no o
ne and pushed on through the front door. The lighted parking lot was quiet, and only a few cars remained. One of them must be Lenny’s, she presumed, since it hadn’t been that long since he left. He must be out here, someplace. Yet he wasn’t. Where could he have gone, she wondered? Re-entering, she dashed back to the ER waiting room, only to find it devoid of everyone, as well. Even Piper had mysteriously disappeared.

  Hearing a noise coming from the direction of the ER, Marti, taking no chances, drew the Beretta from the ankle holster and went to investigate. Creeping up on Gloria’s room, she heard more noises. These sounded like gunshots, but distantly subdued. And they had come from inside the room. Just as she peeked in to investigate, a body flew through the door. This prompted Martina to scream. However, it wasn’t a body at all. It was the life size dummy that’d been put in the bed to replicate Gloria. And clearly it had been shot full of holes.

  Slamming herself against the wall, not knowing what else to do, Marti watched as Lenny slowly stepped out. His hands were raised above his head, and directly behind him was Lieutenant Dunbar.

  “Harry!” Martina was shocked to see him and took a sigh of relief. “Where did you come from?”

  “Now, that will just have to remain a mystery for the moment, young lady.” He shoved Lenny into a wall, holstered his gun, and pulled a set of cuffs from his pocket. “This one just blew our dummy away. The gun he used was equipped with a silencer.”

  This prompted Marti to direct her attention to Lenny. She couldn’t help but be confused and angry now. “Why did you do it, Lenny? I thought Gloria was your friend?” But all she got in return was a hateful look. This unnerved her to the point that she had to look away. That’s when she caught sight of the bearded man, in the yellow slicker, coming through the swinging doors from the ER, farther up.

  “Lieutenant!” Marti shouted.

  Dunbar, in the process of cuffing Lenny, abruptly discontinued that process and went for his gun. The bearded man, however, was faster. The first shot fired from a revolver — expertly pulled from beneath the slicker — dropped Dunbar instantly, causing his gun to spill out onto the floor. But all that happened just a millisecond before Martina’s first bullet reached the chest of the bearded man. And he was already folding like a tent when she began marching forward, pumping a bullet into him with each step, until her gun was completely empty.

  Rushing back to Dunbar, Marti then came to a rude awakening. Standing over him with Harry’s gun trained on her was Lenny. “What are you going to do, shoot me too, Lenny?”

  “Why not? You killed Raym, didn’t you?”

  “Who told you that?” Marti was shocked anybody but her and Dunbar knew what she had done.

  “Don’t lie to me, bitch!” Lenny elevated the gun to her head. “I saw what you did from the apartment next door. I’m surprised you didn’t see the hole I bored in the wall between the two.”

  “You were in there with Raym all along?”

  “I was,” Lenny said. “But I slipped out once Dunbar went inside your apartment. I can’t believe you killed my nephew. What did he ever do to you?”

  “Nephew? You’re Raym Koffee’s uncle?”

  “His mother is my sister. And I can’t wait to tell her I avenged his death.” Lenny cocked the revolver.

  And when he did, Martina made a dive for the room adjacent to her. Inside was her purse. And she got to it just as Lenny — fearing nothing now and taking his time — came through the door. Seeing the revolver leveled at her again, she dropped to the floor just as he fired. The bullet passed narrowly over her head. Rolling now, she got her hand around the Savage semi-automatic pistol inside the purse and began firing even before removing it. When the gun was empty, Lenny lay lifeless on the floor.

  In a dazed stupor, then, she made it to the still body of Harry Dunbar and fell to his side. Checking for wounds, she spotted blood oozing from the side of his head, just above the left ear. Quickly she checked for a pulse, then screamed, “Piper...!”

  “Is it okay?” Piper came up from behind the nurse’s station counter.

  “Get the ER people in here! This man needs a doctor!”

  “What’s all the fuss about?” Dunbar said, trying to rise up.

  “Don’t move, Harry!” Martina cautioned. “Let a doctor check you out first. Just lay still, okay?”

  “Who gave you permission to call me that?” Dunbar glared.

  “Right now you’re in no position to tell me what I can or what I can’t call you, Harry,” Marti said with a smile.

  “You’re trying to piss me off, aren’t you?”

  “Worked for me when you did it in the car,” she said.

  “Does that mean I saved your life for a change?”

  “It sure does. And I’ll never forget it, Lieutenant.” She bent over and kissed his forehead.

  “I’ll be damned,” Dunbar said. “I must be in heaven.”

  “Not yet, Harry,” she said, seeing them coming with a gurney. “You just hang in there, okay?”

  “If you say so, Miss Spalding!” Dunbar flashed what first appeared a smile, but Marti knew better. It was a grimace from the head pain that more than likely had just arrived.

  “Oh, so now it’s Miss Spalding, again!” she said to keep him alert.

  “Just trying to show you the respect you deserve,” he said. “I saw you take out those two guys, by the way. Couldn’t do anything about it, but I saw nonetheless. Shall I take the credit, again?”

  “Sure.” Marti smiled. “But since you’re in a talkative mood, would you please tell me why that dummy come flying out of the room? And you got in there in the first place?”

  “I got into the room the same way Lenny did, by going through the ER hallway. There’s a sliding door you missed on the back wall, and another hallway for nurses. I did my research.”

  “How did I miss that?” Marti stepped aside while the attendants lifted Dunbar onto the gurney.

  “And it was me that tossed the dummy out, after Lenny had emptied his gun into it.”

  “But why?”

  “Well, Marti, when you have greenhorns among you, it’s always best to toss something before exiting a room. Get my drift?”

  “I believe I do, Lieutenant,” Marti said and smiled again. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Martina, will you go on up to the fourth… give Smitte the all clear?”

  “What am I, your errand boy, all of a sudden?” she walked beside him.

  “Go on now, before Smitte has a shit hemorrhage,” he said. “I told him not to leave Gloria under any circumstance until he heard from me.”

  “Okay, already! I’m going,” she said and dropped back. Then, after gathering her gun and purse, she headed for the elevator on a run. Gloria would be anxious to know that she and Dunbar were alright. And that it was finally over. Now she had to muster the courage to tell her that Lenny wasn’t the great guy she thought he was. Not even close.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Dunbar’s head wound turned out to be just a graze, and at his insistence, he walked out of the hospital at midnight, with Martina by his side. There was something he had to tell her, and it couldn’t wait. At her apartment, she noticed a moving truck parked right where her car had been, which prompted her to ask, “Where’s my car, Lieutenant?”

  “It’s at the police garage…”

  “What’s it doing there?” Marti said, quickly panicking. That didn’t sound good, and she didn’t like it.

  “If you’ll let me finish, I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay, tell me!”

  “Your car is at the police garage. I had it towed there yesterday because I’m having it detailed and a new rear window installed, okay?”

  “Okay. But why? Why are you doing this, Harry?” A little relieved, she was still a little lost.

  “Maybe if I ask you a question it’ll become clear,” Dunbar said and focused on her. “How many times does a person need to save your life, before you start to think you ma
y owe them something?”

  “You don’t owe me anything! It’s me and Gloria that owe you. It was your superior investigating that turned up the attempted hit tonight, wasn’t it? If it weren’t for that, we’d be dead now…”

  “Well, okay, Martina. Shall we engage in some sort of pissing contest to determine who saved whom the most? Or will you just let me do something for you, without you throwing a total hissy fit over it!”

  “Okay, Harry,” she said, smiling broadly. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

  “Well, that’s good, because you’re probably not going to appreciate what else I have to tell you,” he said.

  Hearing that, Martina sobered, but dared not ask what was about to happen to her next. But then, what could possibly happen that would be worse than what’d already happened?

  “That moving van behind us will be loaded with the contents of your apartment in exactly two and a half hours. Right now they’re up there packing up your things…”

  “We’re being run out of town? Sounds like the old west…” Marti started, but Dunbar cut her short, with the raising of the flat side of his hand.

  “Now, the city of St. Louis is paying for the first five hundred miles. That’ll put you in somewhere around Oklahoma City or maybe a little farther. After that, you’re on your own,” he said. “Martina, this is not being done because our fair city no longer loves you. We do love you. And that’s precisely why we’re doing what we’re doing. Martina, your life… your lives…yours and Gloria’s… are in more danger now than ever before.”

  “Why?” Marti was shocked.

  “Because of Lenny. I heard what he said, about watching you kill Raym from that apartment next door. And if he knew, the Koffee family knows. And that ain’t all. That fella in the yellow slicker you killed… well he’s a Koffee too. A cousin to Raym.”

  “Oh, God!” Marti wailed. “What did I do…?”

  “You did what you had to do, Martina. Don’t go blaming yourself!” Dunbar ordered. “Now, we’re trying to keep a lid on this till morning. The hospital is on lockdown and the switchboard is unplugged. So everything should be fine for a while, okay?”