Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  Would someone see the beater of a Ford Maverick he was driving and call it in as a suspicious vehicle? Or did everyone in this neighborhood mind their own business?

  Sandy looked up and down the block, trying to gauge his exposure.

  Then a light went on at Valczinski’s house.

  Sandy’s gaze snapped to the small side porch where a single light blazed. A figure appeared at the door, clearly female. She locked the door, went down the steps and walked toward the garage.

  Where was she going?

  He paused, thinking. He could probably get to her before she left in her car. Force her back into the house. Hash out this whole sordid mess at gunpoint. Figure out why Larson – no, Merchant – went from being the Keeper to setting him up. Get to the bottom of this, and maybe even finish it.

  He could do that.

  Instead, he waited. A better plan was forming in his head. Follow her and see where that might lead. Was she going to meet Merchant? Sandy frowned. Maybe. She could be headed to the station, too, and that was the last place he’d want to follow her.

  He decided to roll the dice and follow her.

  The garage door rose and a dark blue Land Cruiser pulled out. She drove down the short driveway and turned right, heading north.

  North was toward the police station.

  Sandy waited until she was near the end of the block before starting the Maverick and following her. He pushed the small sinking feeling in his stomach aside. A lot of the city lay to the north. Just because she started that direction didn’t mean she was headed for the police station.

  He kept a reasonable distance, maintaining a visual on her Land Cruiser. They made their way to Grand Boulevard and headed north. Sandy followed. He calculated how far he’d follow her toward the police station before he peeled off. The problem he saw was that the closer he got to headquarters, the greater the volume of police traffic he’d encounter. He didn’t believe the Maverick was on the radar yet, unless investigators had somehow traced him to the motel. Even then, would Arlo give up that he loaned his car? Sandy couldn’t be sure, but he knew the sentiment on East Sprague was generally not to tell the police anything.

  Valczinski stopped for the traffic light at Third Avenue, now on the southern fringe of downtown Spokane. Sandy eased the Maverick to a stop directly behind her. He averted his eyes, but watched her in his peripheral vision. She was checking out her reflection in the rearview mirror, primping her hair and touching up her lipstick. A thought struck him.

  Why wasn’t she driving her issued police car?

  Unless times had changed radically, every lieutenant and above was issued an unmarked take-home police car. The vehicle was equipped with lights, siren and a police radio. He was sure Valczinski had driven something like that up to the homicide scene at the Merchant address. That’s why the higher ranking members of the department had personally issued cars.

  So why was she driving her personal vehicle instead of her G-ride?

  The light turned green and Valczinski headed north, still toward the police station.

  Sandy followed.

  At Second Avenue, she turned left. Sandy bit his lip and renewed his consideration. Would he follow her across the Monroe Street Bridge? The police station lay just a few blocks north of the river. If he crossed the bridge, he’d be right smack in the middle of all the comings and goings of the patrol vehicles.

  Maybe he should—

  Valczinski turned right on Post.

  Sandy frowned. This was an odd route to take to headquarters.

  A couple of blocks later, she pulled into a parking spot next to the Rutherford Hotel.

  Sandy’s frown disappeared.

  She was meeting Merchant. She had to be.

  If you’re right about that, he reminded himself.

  Sandy parked up the street. He watched her exit the Land Cruiser and jaywalk across the street to the hotel entrance. Once she disappeared from sight, he got out of the Maverick and walked directly toward the entrance himself.

  The Rutherford Hotel was the grandest hotel in Spokane. Steeped in history dating back to the late 1800s, its ornate architecture and opulent surroundings always seemed out of reach to Sandy. This was a place where rich people met, where they conducted business and drank expensive liquor. It was where celebrities stayed when they travelled to Spokane and where the daughters of high society held wedding receptions.

  It’s just another hotel, Sandy told himself as he approached the oversized glass entrance doors. A man in a formal suit and top hat swung the door open for him.

  “Good evening, sir,” he said in a polished tone.

  Sandy nodded back at him, hoping the doorman didn’t watch the news. Or that his face would disappear into the sea of other faces the man encountered every shift.

  He spotted Valczinski at the front desk. He drifted nearer, pretending to admire the carving work on the support beam along the wall. He kept his chin tucked low to his chest, just in case someone was watching on the security cameras. At the same time, he focused his hearing on the conversation between the desk clerk and Valczinski. He wasn’t able to make out all of the words between them, but he caught a number.

  Four-eleven.

  Valczinski thanked him and moved to the white courtesy phone. Sandy didn’t wait. He headed for the stairs.

  Once he reached the fourth floor, he scouted the location of room 411. He found it near the end of the hall, just a few strides from the stairwell.

  Perfect.

  He propped the stairwell door open with his door and peered through the crack. He rested his hand on the .45 in his belt and waited.

  A few minutes later, the ding of an elevator echoed down the hallway. Through the cracked door, he saw Valczinski approach. Her expression was one of self-satisfaction and anticipation. He waited until she used her key card to open the room door and push it open before he made his move.

  In a smooth motion, he slipped through the stairwell door and power-walked toward Valczinski. She may have sensed him at the last moment because he saw her tense and turn slightly. He didn’t hesitate. He used his hand to keep the door open and planted his foot in the small of her back. His thrusting kick sent her flying into the suite, tumbling forward off to the ground.

  Sandy stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. The quality hinges slowed the process and the door didn’t slam, but closed with a solid click.

  Valczinski lay motionless. Sandy stepped forward. At that moment, she whipped around, a small revolver clutched in both hands.

  Sandy dropped to both knees and fired. The barrel flashed. The suppressor made a slapping thud noise. The metal slide clacked loudly.

  Valczinski let out a cross between a grunt and muted cry and fell to her back. The revolver fell from her hands, making a subdued thump as it landed on the carpeted floor. She clutched at her knee, rocking on her back and moaning.

  Sandy rose, took two steps and kicked the revolver. It skittered and hopped across the carpet like a football landing on its end, finally landing several feet away. Sandy was satisfied that the gun was outside her immediate reach and let it alone. A small kitchenette lined the wall to his left. He stepped around the mini-island , found a dish towel that was hanging from the stove handle and tossed it to her.

  “It hurts like hell,” he said, “but you’re not going to die. Sit up and put pressure on it with that towel.”

  He didn’t know what to expect of her, but she surprised him by sitting up and reaching for the towel. She folded it over clumsily with one hand and press down on her wounded knee. She gritted her teeth and breathed heavily, but made no further sounds of pain.

  A warrior, Sandy thought. Interesting.

  “I guess here is as good a place as any to talk,” he said aloud. He walked around the kitchen island and squatted down like a baseball catcher, letting the .45 dangle from his hand.

  Sandy could see her mind already at work, trying to determine his identity and his intent.
r />   “I’m Sandy Banks,” he told her. “Just to clear up any concerns you might have.”

  She blanched slightly, but recovered. “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Valczinski said through clenched teeth.

  Sandy nodded. “Okay.” He looked at her carefully, noting the lines in her face. He guessed she was approaching fifty. He tried to place her in the context of his time on the job, but couldn’t.

  “I don’t remember you,” he said. “When I left the job, twelve years ago, where were you?”

  Valczinski didn’t answer.

  Sandy sighed. “You’re a captain, so I’m going to assume you’re an intelligent person. I know most working cops would disagree with that, but I figure you’ve got to take some tests to get as high up as you are, so you must be smart.”

  She flicked her eyes up at him, then back down at her wounded knee.

  “Even if you’re not that bright,” Sandy went on, “you can’t be a cop and not have figured out something as simple as human motivation, right? So I’m going to make it simple enough for you.” He pointed at his chest. “Right now, in poker terms, I’m what you would call ‘all-in.’ You know what that means?”

  He was glad to see Valczinski give him a short nod.

  “Good,” he said. “In this case, it means I pretty much have nothing left to lose. You know what happened up at Merchant’s house. You were up there.”

  Her eyes registered a moment of surprise, then realization. She knows I watched the news, Sandy thought. Even in all that pain, she’s a thinker.

  “So you know what I’m up against,” Sandy continued. “For all I know, that FBI agent is dead and I’m facing a federal firing squad.”

  Valczinski shook her head. “He’s alive.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I called the field office,” she said. “He’s critical but stable.”

  Good, Sandy thought. Aloud, he said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m in deep shit either way. My point is pretty simple. I want some answers. You’re going to give them to me. If you don’t…well, I don’t have anything to lose here, do I? Like I said, I’m all in.”

  She stared at him warily.

  He motioned to her knee. “And if it comes to that, the little boo-boo there will seem like a pleasant diversion, I can promise you.”

  After a few moments, she looked away and nodded her head. “Yes. Fine.”

  “Good.” Sandy took a deep breath and let it out. “Let’s start with where you were twelve years ago. Because like I said, I don’t remember you.”

  “I was a sergeant in D.A.R.E.,” she said.

  Sandy nodded, considering. He wouldn’t have paid much attention to a unit like that. He’d been a graveyard officer, more concerned with taking doors and arresting bad guys.

  “My name was Murray back then,” she added.

  “Maiden name?”

  She shook her head. “Husband’s name. Valczinski is my family name.”

  “So you’re divorced.”

  “Over ten years now.”

  “What did you do before D.A.R.E.?”

  Valczinski grimaced in pain and adjusted the pressure on her knee. “I worked undercover.”

  “Narco?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, some of the time. And before I worked dope, I was in Vice.”

  Sandy gave her an appraising look. He imagined her fifteen years ago, dressed as a prostitute out on East Sprague. She’d probably been an effective lure. “That can be touch and go work,” he observed.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Get into any tight corners?”

  “What cop hasn’t?” she replied.

  Sandy nodded. “True.” But undercover work is a special kind of danger, he thought. “Looks like you fast-tracked to Captain,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Are you writing my biography or something?”

  Sandy smiled at that. “No. I just want to know what I’m dealing with.”

  She didn’t reply.

  Sandy sat quietly for a moment, thinking. Then he asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Getting away from the grind.”

  “With who?”

  “With myself,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”

  Sandy gave her a skeptical look. “Not meeting Lee?”

  Her expression gave nothing away, but the flicker in her eyes told him everything.

  “Lee who?” she asked, her tone almost convincing.

  “Save it,” Sandy said, playing out his partial bluff. “I know.”

  She hesitated, then said, “I’m not sure what you think you know, but –“

  “I know that you’re having an affair with Lee Merchant,” Sandy interrupted. “I know he’s one of your detectives. And I know that he manipulated me into killing his wife, Kelly.”

  Valczinski maintained her façade. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “But if you killed Kelly Merchant—“

  “I killed her because the Keeper gave me a file,” Sandy said in a quiet, forceful tone. “A fake file.”

  Valczinski’s jaw set. “I don’t know –“

  Sandy leveled the gun at her. She stopped short.

  “See,” Sandy said, “this bullshit game isn’t working for me. Way too much has happened. I’m in no fucking mood.”

  Valczinski swallowed. She looked down at the bloody dish towel that she held against her knee. “I should have never told him,” she whispered. “Cal told me to never say a word to a single soul.”

  Sandy’s eyes narrowed.

  Cal?

  “I should have just let the whole project die,” she said.

  “You should have…” he stared at her.

  Valczinski stared back, her expression a mixture of anger and pain.

  Sandy shook his head to clear his mind. “You’re the Keeper?” he asked, bewildered.

  Valczinski cleared her throat and looked up at him. She saw the confusion in his face, then lowered her own eyes in defeat. “Jesus. You didn’t know.”

  Sandy sat in stunned silence. He started to put the pieces together.

  Valczinski raised her eyes again to meet his questioning stare. She shook her head. “Cal was smarter than you thought, wasn’t he? Passing the baton to a woman like he did.”

  Sandy nodded slowly. It made sense to him now, though. Cal had been in almost every position there was on the department during his thirty-nine year career. And Sandy knew he’d spent a lot of time supervising the undercover units like Narcotics and Vice. Which was where he would have met Valczinski.

  A thought occurred to him. “You and Cal weren’t –”

  Valczinski sniffed in disgust. “Are you kidding me? Cal was my rabbi, that’s all. He looked out for me, brought me along. When he came down with the cancer, he took me aside and told me everything about the Four Horsemen. He turned it over to me. I was a brand new Lieutenant, working patrol at the time.”

  Sandy shook his head slowly. “We never knew who took over for Cal.”

  “I never knew who any of you were, either,” she said. “Cal said it would be better that way for all of us.”

  “He was probably right,” Sandy said. “But how did you find out about us?”

  Valczinski sighed. “I only know about you and Brian Moore. I don’t know who the other two are.”

  Are? Maybe she really doesn’t know.

  “How?” Sandy repeated.

  “Simple,” she said. “Lee tailed Brian from the drop box about a year ago. He tailed you on the Troy Collins job. After that, it was all just research. And I’m good at that.”

  Sandy watched her for a few quiet moments. “How’s the knee?” he asked.

  “Hurts like hell,” she answered.

  He nodded. “Good.”

  “You’re a bastard,” she growled at him.

  Sandy shook his head. “You have no idea. I killed Kelly Merchant, right? But what about Gail Ridley? Who killed her? You or Lee?”

  He thought he saw some surprise come in
to her eyes, but he couldn’t get a sure read on her. “Gail’s dead?” she asked, her voice faltering.

  “Shot in the head in her living room,” Sandy said.

  Valczinski turned a shade whiter and looked away. When she looked back, tears had formed in her eyes. “I didn’t know,” she said, her voice wavering. “It must have been Lee.”

  “I figured,” Sandy said, watching her carefully.

  She raised a bloody hand to her cheek and wiped away tears. The motion left a red smear across her cheekbone. “Gail was always good to me. And Cal loved her so much.”

  Sandy said nothing.

  Valczinski wiped her eyes again, then slowly regained her composure. She swallowed and gave Sandy a steady gaze. “What else do you want to know?” she asked. “Do you want to know why?”

  “Why Lee killed Gail? I think I know.”

  “No,” she said. “Why I gave you the false file for Kelly Merchant.”

  “I think I know that, too.”

  Valczinski nodded. “It was for love, you know.”

  Sandy gave her a puzzled look. “Love? How can you say that?”

  Her expression became defensive. “Because it’s true. Lee and I love each other. The only way we could be together is if his wife was gone.”

  “You never heard of divorce?”

  She shook her head. “I wanted him to divorce her, but that wasn’t an option. He’d lose a fortune. The house was in her name. So were most of their investments. Plus, he said his kids would hate him forever if he divorced their mother.”

  “So you kill her?” Sandy shook his head in amazement. “When exactly did that seem like a sane decision?”

  She mirrored his amazement with her own. “Seriously? You’re going to sit there and pass judgment? After all the people you’ve killed over the past how many years?”

  “Those were evil men,” Sandy said. “They earned their fate.”

  Valczinski actually laughed, letting out a short, barking sound. “You stole that line from Cal,” she said. “Those were his exact words when he was justifying this whole sick project to me ten years ago. And I bought it.” Her laughter died off. “No, you don’t get to judge. You didn’t know Lee’s wife. Little Miss Perfect for the world to see, but she put him through hell.”