Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  Still no response.

  Maybe she wasn’t home, he thought. Maybe Cal taught her to leave the TV on to discourage any burglars.

  Burglars like he was about to become.

  Sandy closed the screen door. He made his way around the house, trying to look into windows without appearing suspicious. All of the curtains were closed. In his mind, he rationalized what he was about to do.

  Cal would approve. Especially after what Larson had become.

  Gail won’t care. She'll want to help.

  He needed the place to hide until he could get out of town under cover of darkness.

  Even though each of those thoughts rang true, he still had a queasy feeling in his stomach. Gail trusted him. She let him into her home, shared her Bailey’s and coffee and confided in him. Now he was going to violate that trust. It was something he had to do, but he still didn’t feel good about it.

  At the back door, Sandy examined the lock. He frowned. No doubt Cal had been security conscious, but he must have passed that trait to his wife as well. The lock and deadbolt were less than three years old and designed to thwart lock-picking and brute force alike.

  He crouched, reaching for the lock picks strapped to his ankle. The only thing approximating a window in the door was three narrow glass strips. Behind those hung sheer curtains with some sort of floral design. With the angle of the light, Sandy could see through the glass.

  On the ground, he saw the shadowy form of two legs extending into the kitchen from the living room.

  He blinked.

  It was Gail. Had to be. She must have had a heart attack or something and fallen down.

  How long ago?

  As he stared through the glass, he saw her foot twitch.

  Sandy reacted without thinking. He stood, stepped back and delivered a forceful kick to the door right next to the knob. The wood in the jamb cracked and splintered. The door flew open.

  Sandy charged in, his mind whirring through possibilities, through plans.

  I have to save her.

  Call 911.

  Perform CPR until the medics get here. Let them take over and slip away before the cops arrive.

  Sandy barreled through the kitchen and around the corner to Gail before the coppery scent registered in his nostrils.

  Gail lay on her back, her jaw slack. Her arms were splayed out to the side like fragile wings. Expressionless eyes stared up at the ceiling. A dark, sticky mass of blood matted her hair and the surrounding carpet. The light from the television flickered and jumped on her still frame, giving the illusion of movement.

  “Jesus,” Sandy whispered. He felt the strength go out of his legs. Instead of resisting it, he sank to his knees.

  Tears prickled his eyes.

  “Oh, Gail,” he whispered.

  The tears threatened, but he forced them away, driving the emotion down deep inside. Instead, he latched onto something else. Something that he’d barely been able to hold in abeyance since he stood in that hallway after shooting an innocent woman.

  Rage.

  “Larson,” Sandy said aloud, his voice still thick.

  He knew it was him, as sure as if there’d been a bloody footprint of a wingtip shoe on display like a signature. Gail knew about him and about the Horseman. She was a loose end and Larson had cleaned it up.

  “You son of a bitch,” Sandy said, staring down at Gail’s impassive expression. “You just changed my plans.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Sandy closed the back door. Then he rummaged around in the hall closet until he found a dark blanket. He draped it over the upper half of Gail Ridley. He knew it was the wrong thing to do from a crime scene perspective, but didn’t care. The woman had been a kind soul. She deserved her dignity.

  He stood over the shrouded form, struggling for a moment. It had been a long time since he’d stood next to a dead body that had belonged to someone that he cared for. Hell, outside of Brian and the other Horsemen, it had been a long time since he’d had the opportunity to care about anyone at all. Most of the time, when there was a dead body in the room, he was busy making sure it looked accidental or like a suicide.

  This was different. This was Cal’s wife. And Cal had been good to him. So had Gail. She deserved something more than an old blanket for a shroud.

  Sandy cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure if he believed in God anymore, but he wasn’t sure that he didn’t, either. So he spoke half-remembered phrases from long ago services.

  “The Lord is your Shepherd, Gail,” he muttered.

  The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed as loud as a church bell.

  “Give us this day our daily bread,” he said.

  When was the last time he’d been in a church?

  Not Cal’s death.

  None of the line of duty deaths while he was on the job, either. He'd always volunteered to cover shifts so others could go.

  “Ashes to ashes,” he said.

  There’d been the military funerals. Sparsely attended. Complete with the lies that the family members were told to cover for operations that were never acknowledged.

  “Dust to dust.”

  Lies that he had to repeat and endure. Lies from another life.

  “Our Father…”

  Images of a huge church flashed in his mind. His own feet dangling over the seat of the pew. His mother weeping. His own confusion. Daddy had left for work one morning, just like all the others. How could he be in that long box at the front of the church? He’d risen from the breakfast table and walked out of the kitchen, tousling Sandy’s hair as he swept past. The ever-present odor of machinist’s oil wafted over Sandy as he sat at that kitchen table, nursing his oatmeal and glass of milk. He couldn’t remember his father’s kisses, if they ever occurred, but he remembered that strong, masculine smell on his hands and clothing. As the years passed, he remembered it better even than his father’s face.

  “Hallowed be thy name…”

  And then a decade later. Standing in the back of that same church. His mother’s picture next to the inexpensive casket. The priest’s empty words assuring everyone in the building that even though this same fate awaited them, too, there was hope. Always hope.

  That was the first time he felt true rage. Rage for the false promises he believed the clergyman was spewing out next to the body of his dead mother. Rage for the step-father who finally took his “discipline” too far. Rage at himself for finally doing something about it after it was too late to matter..

  That day, in that same church, he’d been unable to remain until the last blessings were spoken over her. He left, carrying all of the weight of her death with him. Over and over, the same thought burned in his mind and in his chest.

  I should have stopped him.

  I failed her.

  The story of his life.

  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive—” he stopped, choking on the final words. He swallowed the sadness. Used it to fuel his anger.

  He looked down at Gail again. He wondered if she would want vengeance for her death. Maybe she would have it in her heart somehow to forgive.

  Sandy knew Cal wouldn’t.

  He took a deep breath and shook his head.

  No, there were plenty of people willing to forgive. Sandy was not one of them.

  George Larson was a dead man.

  “Amen,” he said over Gail’s still form.

  He searched the house methodically, always keeping an ear open. If someone saw him boot the door, they’d have called police. After thirty minutes, he felt confident that no one had seen him and that the police weren’t coming.

  There wasn’t a safe anywhere on the main floor. Sandy checked everywhere. Behind pictures. In the closets, including on the floor for a buried safe. Nothing.

  On the top shelf in the bedroom, he found a small metal box. The three digit combination lock was barely more than a privacy lock. He pried it open with a screwdriver. A small wad of cash and a stack of black and white wedding pic
tures fell to the floor.

  Carefully, he picked up the photographs. He arranged them neatly in a stack and put them back into the box. Then he picked up the money. A quick count revealed four hundred dollars, all in twenty dollar bills.

  A careful sweep of the basement revealed nothing. No safe, no lockbox, nothing in any of the storage trunks. If Cal had kept an out, he’d hidden it too well for Sandy to find.

  Back upstairs, he averted his eyes from the covered form of Gail’s body as he walked past. Four hundred dollars would be enough, he hoped. It would have to be. And he’d have to risk being out in the open again, because he couldn’t stay here any longer. Maybe the police would discover him, maybe they wouldn’t. But he couldn’t intrude upon Gail’s home any more than he already had.

  He slipped out the back door and headed back to the bus stop.

  He rode the bus longer than he wanted to, but it was the only way to avoid the central bus station. He doubted the cops would search every single bus, but he was pretty sure that security at the main terminal would have been advised of his description. They might even post an officer down there to monitor security cameras. The city buses went all the way out to the college in Cheney, where someone could catch a Greyhound bus without going to the main Intermodal train and bus station. The police would want to cover that central station.

  He changed buses three times before getting off in the East Sprague district. Every city had a place like East Sprague. It was the “down there” of Spokane. Prostitutes were thick, drugs were available and there were as many stolen property fences as there were legitimate businesses.

  No one asked questions down here, Sandy knew. He could pay cash for a room in a dive motel without arousing suspicion.

  The trade off was that East Sprague was heavily patrolled by police. He risked being spotted. With computers in the patrol cars, he was certain his picture had been disseminated to every patrol officer. Finding him had to be a high priority.

  Sandy walked down the sidewalk, not meeting anyone’s eye but being careful not to let that avoidance be apparent. He ignored the offer of a prostitute on the first corner. As soon as he crossed the street, someone from a darkened doorway asked him, “You lookin’?”

  He ignored that as well and kept walking.

  Half a block ahead, he saw a sign for Palm d’Or motel. The ‘m’ was burnt out and the large ‘O’ flickered, but in the late afternoon light, the sign was still easy enough to read. Sandy made for it.

  In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of a white car. As it rolled further past him, the red and blue lights on top came into view. Sandy tensed inside. He wanted to reach for his .45, still tucked in his belt under the flannel, but he knew better. If he acted suspiciously, they’d key on him. Then they’d recognize him from the picture he was sure they had on the computer. Then it was the gunfight at O.K. Corral. He’d already killed one innocent woman and maybe a federal agent. Shooting more cops was not something he wanted to do.

  The police car slowed.

  Sandy clenched his teeth.

  The lights came on suddenly.

  Sandy reached for his gun.

  The tires chirped. The engine roared and the car shot down Sprague toward some other emergency.

  Sandy relaxed slightly. The city never shuts down, he realized, no matter what else happens.

  He crossed the small parking lot to the office of the Palm d’Or motel. A small man with a buzz cut sat at the desk, watching a movie on a tiny television. His nametag read Arlo. He looked up from eating sunflower seeds.

  “Do for ya?” Arlo asked, spitting shells into the trash can between his legs.

  “I need a room.”

  “Hourly or for the night?”

  “For the night.”

  “Forty bucks.” He pushed a card toward Sandy. “Fill out the registration card. No pets. No loud parties. And I need a credit card in the case of damages.”

  Sandy peeled off two twenties and put them on the counter. Then he peeled off another and laid it on top of the registration card. Arlo eyed the money, then looked at Sandy. Sandy met his eyes with a neutral gaze.

  “That take care of the deposit?”

  Arlo spat out another shell. Without a word, he took the twenty and slipped it into his pocket. He grabbed a key and handed it to Sandy. “Number thirteen,” he said. Then he smiled, showing a blackened front tooth. “Mr. Smith.”

  Sandy nodded his thanks, left the office and headed for the room. Once inside, he found a tiny space with a double bed, an aged television and a bathroom of questionable cleanliness. He shrugged. It wasn’t what he was used to, but he’d been in worse places.

  Images of sleeping in the desert in what looked like a shallow grave sprang to mind. He pushed the thought away, but visions of a single wide trailer replaced it.

  “Stop it,” he muttered.

  He’d done a good job running from his past, and paying penance for it. There was no time to wallow in either one right now.

  Focus on the mission, soldier.

  Find Larson. Eliminate Larson. Get out of town and disappear.

  Sandy slid the only chair in the place in front of the door, propping it under the knob. Then he settled onto the bed, turned on the television and waited for darkness.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  He stepped out onto the back porch of his daughter’s house, ostensibly to be alone. After a backwards glance to make sure no one was watching him, he dumped the rest of the drink he’d been nursing onto the grass. Let them think he was drowning his sorrows over their poor mother. They probably expected it, but he needed to keep his head straight.

  He tugged at his already loosened tie and sighed. Another couple of hours, he figured, and then he could come up with some reason to leave. It wasn’t like he was close with his kids anyway. If he stayed too long, that reality would overshadow the tragedy of the day.

  Then it was off to the Rutherford.

  He smiled.

  His cell phone vibrated. He pulled it from his jacket pocket and examined the incoming phone number. His smile widened and he flipped it open.

  “Zack,” he said.

  “Lee.” Zack’s voice was its usual monotone. “How’s it going?”

  “Peachy,” he said. “You call bearing gifts?”

  “Yeah, sorta. I did the work up for you on Sandy Banks.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s goofy.”

  He frowned. “Goofy how?

  “Like, as in strange.”

  “He doesn’t have a military record?”

  “No, he has a record. There’s a file, but it’s thin. Way too thin. There’s just a little basic information and his DD-214.”

  “English, Zack.”

  “Sorry. A DD-214 is his discharge paperwork.”

  “So what’s strange about that?”

  “I’ve just never seen such a vanilla personnel record before. It only has a few basic sheets in here besides his DD…er, his discharge papers. None of the usual stuff that finds its way into these files.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like transfer orders, physical fitness tests, performance reviews, promotional letters, awards, stuff like that.”

  “He doesn’t have that stuff?”

  “Nope.”

  “So maybe Banks was a low achiever,” he suggested.

  “Maybe. Or his record was lost somehow and had to be recreated later. That was my first thought. On account of how any of the paperwork that has writing on it is all in the same hand.”

  “You said that was your first thought?”

  “Yeah. But that’s not the case. I did a little checking. I called to the two different units where Banks served during his enlistment. I talked to my counterparts in both of those units. They had no record of Banks.”

  “Should they?”

  “Absolutely. In fact, they’d have more background information on him than we do here at Central Files.”

  “So you’re telling me that the
file you’re holding right now is fake?”

  “I’d say so, yeah. And I’d be willing to bet that this DD-214 is what Banks used to get hired by the police department out there.”

  He thought about that. Department of Licensing would probably accept military discharge papers and a military ID to get a driver’s license. And the police department was full of ex-military. No one would question discharge papers and a driver’s license. They’d hire the guy and then issue him a department identification card. With a police ID and a driver’s license, he’d be a shoe-in to create a complete identity.

  “Is there a birth certificate?” he asked.

  “Nope. That’s the other thing that jumped out at me. There are three things every file should have in it and a birth certificate is one of them.”

  “What are the other two?”

  “Enlistment papers and discharge papers,” Zack told him. “That’s what's most important to the Army, Lee. That you were born, that you joined the military and that you were discharged. Everything else is just details.”

  “So what you’re telling me is—”

  “What I’m telling you is that this guy you’re investigating may have been in the Army, but he sure as hell isn’t Sergeant Sandy Banks. Sandy Banks is a ghost.”

  He was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he asked, “How could someone do this? How do they get away with it?”

  “The Army is the biggest corporation in the world,” Zack said. “There are mounds of paper generated just to buy a box of toothpicks. It’s easy to hide things in all that.”

  “But someone would have to want to do it. And have the connections to make it happen.”

  “True,” Zack admitted. “But there’s any number of people that could handle that.”

  “Do you suppose he was some kind of Special Forces or something?”

  “Coulda been, yeah. But he could’ve been some First Sergeant’s kid who had a dishonorable discharge or something and needed clean papers for a fresh start. Who knows?”

  “Thanks, Zack. I owe you.”

  “Nah. Happy to help an old buddy whose one of the good guys.”