False Witness

by Scott Cook

  “But boss,” Shitbox whined. “You said Sam handled himself okay at the Rosebush. He can use a shotgun. Can’t he look after these guys?”

  Sam felt an absurd rush of pride at that. Crowe said I handled myself okay.

  Alex gave him a strange look. “You can handle a shotgun?”

  “Don’t look so surprised,” Sam said. He tried not to sound defensive. “I grew up on a farm. I’ve shot my own supper a hundred times.” We didn’t have a personal chef, he managed to not say. “I’ve fired everything from a .22 pistol to a thirty-ought-six elk rifle.”

  He was surprised when Alex nodded and said, “That’s good. I’ve never held a gun in my life. I wouldn’t know what to do with one.”

  “I said nobody’s coming with me,” Crowe barked. “Shitbox, you’re staying here with Alex. I don’t feel safe trying to move him yet.”

  Sam said, “Plus Shitbox would stick out like a sore thumb, wouldn’t he?”

  The big man looked affronted, but it was Crowe who defended him.

  “This guy has forgotten more about reconnaissance than you’ll ever know, asshole,” he said. “Don’t let your head get too big just because I said you know how to pull a trigger.”

  Sam looked down, abashed. He’d had a nasty habit of allowing himself to get too big for his britches ever since he was a kid. Now was not the time for trying to prove himself.

  “I apologize, Shitbox,” he said. “I should have known better. You’ve obviously done a hell of a job of staying out of sight so far.”

  Shitbox smiled. “Don’t worry about it. People been underestimating me my whole life.”

  Crowe turned to Sam and Tess. “It doesn’t matter. You two should take Angie in Dunn’s rental car and get back to Calgary. Your part in this is over.”

  Sam was ready for the argument. He’d been thinking a lot of things over for the last few minutes. It wasn’t just the thrill of the chase that was driving him. “You don’t know that,” he said. “They may have recognized me at the Rosebush yesterday. It’s a sure bet that they attended Hodge’s trial, which means they know who I am; if they did see me, they’ve put two and two together.”

  “All the more reason to get out of here,” said Crowe.

  Tess spoke up. “What if it turns out the bad guys aren’t here in Lost Lake? What if they’re back in Calgary? We could be walking right into their hands.”

  Crowe let out a long, hissing sigh. Sam could see a vein throbbing in the center of his forehead. “Fine,” he said. “All my instincts say the black hats are here, but stay if you want. It’s on you, understand? I take no responsibility for what happens from this point on.” He looked Sam in the eyes and jammed an index finger in his chest. “And if you do anything to get Shitbox hurt, I swear I’ll kill you myself.”

  “Aw, boss, I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Shitbox squeaked.

  Sam turned to Tess. “Maybe you and Angie would be better off in Calgary. It’s a big place, easier to hide.”

  Angie, who had been silent for a long time, put her hands on her hips. Her full lips had flattened into a thin line. “A lot of people seem to know what’s good for me,” she said hotly. “How about letting me decide what’s going to happen to me?”

  Sam looked at Alex, who simply shrugged. “She’s a grown woman,” he said. “She can make her own decisions.”

  “So can I,” said Tess. Sam knew from the look on her face that her mind was made up. “And I’m staying.”

  “So am I,” said Angie.

  Crowe looked around the room at all their faces and shook his head. He hoisted the black bag and disappeared into the bathroom with it.

  “What’s he gonna do in there?” Sam asked. “Shoot his poop?”

  Alex snorted a laugh. Tess and Angie both smiled. Even Shitbox giggled. Sam thought it was good to break the tension, if only for a moment. Sometimes a little ridiculousness was the only way to deal with a ridiculous situation.

  A few minutes later, Crowe emerged from the bathroom. At least, Sam thought it was Crowe. The man standing in front of him was clad in the uniform of the summer tourist: cargo shorts, a muscle shirt with an open button-down cotton shirt over it, and sandals. Crowe had shaved off his beard scruff and covered his close-cropped hair with a shoulder-length dirty blonde wig. He looked for all the world like a surfer dude straight out of Venice Beach. If Sam had passed Crowe on the street in this getup, he wouldn’t have recognized him.

  “Whoa,” said Tess, looking Crowe up and down. Sam thought her eyes might have lingered a little too long on his chiseled chest and legs. “Hello, Matthew McConaughey.”

  Crowe ignored the comment. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said to Shitbox. “You know what to do.”

  “Yessir, boss.”

  As Crowe headed for the door, Sam called out after him. “You’re going out unarmed?”

  Crowe turned his head and lifted the tail of his cotton shirt. His trusty Sig Sauer was tucked into a small clip holster in the back of his cargo shorts.

  “Good rule of thumb to remember,” he said as he walked out the door. “Even if I don’t have a weapon, I’m never unarmed.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Shitbox hummed softly in the kitchen as he prepared lunch. Alex wasn’t sure what he was making, but it smelled great. Crowe had been gone for almost an hour, and the sun had climbed to the middle of the sky, but the cabin remained cool. The dense copse of mountain pines out front not only served as excellent cover, they were practically as good as an air conditioning unit.

  Over the past hour, as the four of them talked, Alex’s respect for Sam Walsh had grown considerably. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember what exactly had put him off the guy when they first met four years earlier; all he knew was they had both quickly learned to stay out of each other’s way. Alex had grudgingly accepted the fact that Sam was assigned the crime beat in his absence, which he’d chalked up to brown-nosing on Sam’s part. Now he realized he had actually short-changed Sam as a colleague.

  “So you were really in a shootout?” he asked. “I can’t even imagine what that was like.”

  Sam gave him a half smile. “Crowe was in a shootout. I just fired a few shots and ran.”

  “He’s selling himself short,” said Tess. “Sam was pretty magnificent. He saved my life.”

  “But not Diane Manning’s,” said Sam. The smile was gone.

  “It’s tough to watch someone die,” said Alex.

  “I guess you know that as well as we do.”

  Alex looked out at the noonday sun dappling through the pine boughs. The beauty of it was lost on him in his current frame of mind. “I don’t know if you ever get over it,” he said. “But you know what’s the weirdest thing now? I didn’t even know Tom Ferbey, and he didn’t know me. I spent more than a little time beating myself up for not listening to him sooner, thinking he was just some crank who was wasting my time. Now I find out I never actually spoke to the guy, and the guy I did talk to was lying to me. I have no idea what Tom was like, outside of the portrait Leslie Singer painted of him during the trial.”

  “His wife has spent a lot of time beating herself up, too,” said Sam. “I got the sense that she was a bit of a shrew to him. But it was Tom’s son, Josh, who really hit home for me. I saw something in his eyes. He’d lost his hero. I think that’s what’s been driving me in this. It’s not the story anymore.”

  Tess reached out a hand and stroked Sam’s back. “We should really talk about that,” she said. “There is no story anymore.”

  Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “What are we going to say? Someone stole eleven million dollars from a biker gang and framed the leader for murder? And then came after all of us trying to shut us up? Shippy would call the boys in white to come haul us away; there’s no hard evidence to prove any of what we’ve figured out. And even if he did believe us, how do we frame the story without calling the police down on Crowe?”

  Sam stared at nothing for a few mom
ents. “You’re right.”

  “Welcome to the club,” said Alex. “My book is fifty thousand words of wasted effort. Leslie Singer said Chuck Palliser wanted me to write the story and make some money off of all the shit I had to go through, with the murder and then the trial. To be honest, I think he was hoping for a little fame in the bargain, too. It was the least he deserved after all those years undercover, putting his life on the line for ninety grand a year. Now I find out the whole thing was a lie, and I can’t write about any of it, for the same reasons you can’t.”

  Angie put an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t think you should delete what you’ve written just yet,” she said. “You put your heart and soul into that book; I know I never got to read any of it, but I do know you worked your butt off. Maybe you can salvage some of it.” She smiled. “If nothing else, you could turn it into a fictional story.”

  He smiled back, but it was forced. “Thanks, babe. Maybe you’re right. I will keep it. Who knows how this is all going to shake out?”

  “Good.”

  Sounds of rummaging were coming from the kitchen. Shitbox was hunting for something in the cabinets. “Geez,” the big man muttered.

  “Something we can help you with, Shitbox?” Angie called.

  “No,” he grumped. “This place was supposed to have everything; what kind of place doesn’t have Frank’s Red Hot? I need it for lunch.”

  Angie walked into the kitchen just as Shitbox gave up his search. He was stirring the contents of a cast iron pan filled with what looked to be a mixture of potatoes, onions, peppers, and Spam. Almost a variation on Irma’s corned beef hash. “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t have the secret ingredient,” Shitbox whined.

  Tess joined them in the kitchen. She placed a hand on Shitbox’s massive shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said.

  “No, it won’t,” he said miserably. “It ties everything together.”

  “Why don’t we go get you some?” Angie asked. “There’s a corner store that’s only a block or so from here. That place that’s attached to the old gas station.”

  Shtibox scrunched up his face. “I don’t think so, Miz Dawson,” he said. “Jason said not to let you leave.”

  “He said not to let me leave,” Alex said, joining them. “These three are free to do what they want.”

  Tess looked at Sam. “He did say it was up to us. And I’m getting a little stir crazy in here.”

  Shitbox’s eyes darted from one face to the next. “I don’t know,” he said, obviously conflicted.

  “What harm can it do?” Angie asked. “Crowe said himself that we’re the three least likely to be recognized. And it’s only a block, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Still,” Shitbox grumbled.

  Sam crouched down to the black nylon bag on the floor. “What if I take this along?” He pulled out a small pistol. It looked to Alex like the kind James Bond used to use in the old movies. “I can carry it in the back of my pants, just like Crowe. Piece of cake.”

  “Well . . .”

  “It’s settled, then,” said Angie. “Now, I’m finally going to brave that bathroom.” She made a face. “I don’t like toilets that you’re not supposed to flush.”

  “Amen,” Tess agreed.

  The bizarreness of the scenario suddenly hit home to Alex. It was as if they were a group of pals deciding which bar they would choose to drink away the hot afternoon in. Hey guys, does red wine go with my nine millimeter, or is it white? I can never remember. He resisted the urge to chuckle.

  Tess was stroking Shitbox’s arm. “We’ll be fine,” she soothed. “We’ll be back before you know it. And lunch smells amazing. I can’t wait to try it with the Frank’s Red Hot.”

  Angie emerged from the bathroom. Alex could see she had brushed some of the wildness out of her hair. She crossed to him and slid her arms under his. He clasped his hands behind her back.

  “Don’t worry about us,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “Really, we’ll be fine.”

  Alex glanced at Sam. “I know you will,” he said. “But hurry back anyway, okay? And no trying to sneak off to your place. They may not know where you are, but they know where you live.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear.”

  Alex reached out without thinking and grabbed her. She gasped as he pulled her close and planted a kiss on her mouth. Her lips parted to allow his tongue as she returned his passion.

  “All right,” Sam said. “Either get a room, or let’s go.”

  They parted. Angie’s cheeks were flushed. “Wow,” she said. She looked almost confused, as if seeing him for the first time. “You really know how to send a girl on her way.”

  “Safe,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Right?”

  “Right.” Her face was serious now. “For you.”

  Shitbox had returned to his lunch. He tried to look nonchalant, but Alex could see worry on that great moon face. Alex watched Angie, Tess and Sam stroll down the gravel road that led to the cabin for about a hundred yards. Angie turned her face upwards toward the brilliant midday sun as they emerged from under the mountain pines. After that, the road curved and led down to the paved road where the Bluebird Motor Inn sat. She stopped for a moment and turned to wave at him. Alex couldn’t read her expression from this distance, but he waved back. He watched them until they turned the corner and disappeared behind a copse of golden elder bushes.

  #

  Crowe had spent the better part of an hour exploring Lost Lake, and he still didn’t know what he was looking for. The downtown was mostly a beachfront strip with motels, honky tonks, boutique shops, and down home restaurants with names like Bugler’s Landing and Irma’s Kitchen. A handful of side streets branched off the core, all of them lined with year-round homes, most of which were in dire need of renovation. Some were also home to the lower-end accommodations, like the Bluebird Motor Inn.

  Nothing he had seen stood out to him as a possible base of operations for the people he was hunting. He based his criteria on what he, himself, would choose in the same type of situation. Most places were too close to areas where people gathered. It was the height of the summer tourist season – Crowe estimated the town’s population right now was easily four times what it was in the winter – and those tourists tended to move in herds. Few places in town were more than a stone’s throw from masses of potential witnesses.

  He wandered back down to the beach, blending in with the lunch crowds and the folks milling to and from the water. He stopped in at a tourist information kiosk and picked up a handful of maps and brochures from a pimply kid who was manning it. Most were simply advertisements for the various ways to spend your valuable time and money in Lost Lake, from parasailing to houseboating to cycling tours. The maps were a little more useful; they showed the outlying area and historic spots. One in particular stood out to him: the Bluebird zinc mine, about a mile and a half out of town. It had been shut down in the fifties.

  “Is this mine open for tours?” Crowe asked.

  “Nah,” the kid replied. “They filled it in years ago. All that’s left is the office building. You can’t even get there by road anymore; the new main road bypassed the feeder out to the mine back in the seventies. The only way in is on the walking path that follows the east side of the lake. After that, it’s about a hundred yards into the bush.” He grinned knowingly and leaned forward. “We used to go there for makeout parties when I was in high school.”

  Crowe smiled back. Some kids may have, but not you, he thought. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s really helpful.”

  The kid looked confused. “What’s so interesting about an old mine office?” he asked. “There’s nothing to see there.”

  “That depends on your perspective,” Crowe said as he headed out for the east side of the lake.

  #

  The store Angie was leading them to turned out to be closer to two blocks away from Shtibox’s cabin, but Sam wasn’t going to complai
n. It was good to get out and do something; being cooped up in the cabin, even for a few hours, had started to wear on him. Plus it was an absolutely gorgeous day. They walked more slowly than they probably should have, savoring the sun.

  Tess was the one who pointed it out. “This is a bit longer than you said,” she mock scolded. “Crowe would not approve.”

  “Jason Crowe can kiss my ass,” Angie said evenly. “I’m not making this trip to get hot sauce; if I can’t go back to my apartment, the least I can do is pick up some deodorant. I mean, we’re not animals.”

  “Well,” said Sam, “Shitbox might be a shaved buffalo, but I know what you’re saying.”

  Tess laughed heartily at that. Angie chuckled, too, though she seemed distracted. Again, a little ridiculousness for a ridiculous situation.

  The corner store was a white concrete building attached to an old-school gas station that still used pumps without a built-in payment machine. It was horribly outdated, but still well kept. Inside, the store was chock-a-block with shelves lined with every conceivable item a person on vacation might need, from sunscreen to fly-tying supplies. There was even a shelf dedicated to automotive supplies. Knick-knacks were everywhere; one greeting-card sized plaque read If You’re Lucky Enough To Be On the Lake, You’re Lucky Enough. Sam thought, under different circumstances, that would be the inarguable truth.

  He found Frank’s in the condiments section, next to the squeeze bottles of summer’s holy trinity: ketchup, mustard and relish. The girls were over in a dry goods area, popping the lids off various plastic deodorant dispensers and sniffing. He took the sauce up to the counter and was amused to see a handwritten sign on the ancient cash register that read: “If you don’t see what you want, ask us. We might both be surprised.” The elderly woman behind the register rang up the sauce. “Anything else, dear?” she asked.

  “Just waiting on those girls,” he said, pointing in Tess and Angie’s direction. “Apparently they need to smell every single deodorant you have.”

  “It’s a female thing,” the old lady said. “You wouldn’t understand.”