Dead Man's Hand

by Luke Murphy

  “Watters could do that and he’s got the IQ. But that means he wouldn’t be stupid enough to kill a cop and stuff him in his own closet. He knows the police code of honor. His brother’s a cop.” Dale shook his head. “If he did the first three, this one is not his.”

  “Sanders and Shawn Grant are strong enough, but too smart for it too. And I never liked Watters for the others: he’s an intimidator and maybe a bit of a sadist, but not a killer.”

  Dale continued in the same breath. “Also, Craig was shot in the back of the head. Anyone who can hold a gun could have done that, including Linda Grant.”

  “I think someone came here to take out Watters and stumbled on Craig. Maybe Watters knows too much. And except for the gun blast, the scene’s clean. Where’s the God damn blood and chunks of tissue? Gotta be the work of a pro. That means the investigation has just widened.”

  Jimmy put his hand on Dale’s shoulder again and this time squeezed.

  Dale walked outside. He stood at the railing, popped some chew in his mouth and looked out over the city.

  He felt guilty about Craig, but something else too. Watters was now a target, a fugitive and maybe innocent.

  That someone wanted Watters dead made it even less likely that he’d killed Grant or the others. Dale thought again about how much he wished he could talk to Watters, get his alibis, confirm them, clear his name and now perhaps even try to protect him…if he ever found the man.

  Now all Dale had to do was catch two killers, win his family back, outwit the mayor and the other cops, and keep Watters from getting killed before he could find out what was really going on.

  The crime scene unit arrived and cleared the scene. As the murders continued and the investigation kept getting much more complicated, seeming to go in all directions, with only suspicion to guide them, all of Dale’s veteran instincts after twelve years as a homicide investigator told him that somehow all the murders were connected.

  He immediately had officers do a canvas, but the only interesting thing was a neighbor who saw someone trying to boost Watters’ car, then give up. How did that fit in?

  To make matters worse, the sergeant came by before the lab guys had finished—another chance to parade his authority and ask about Watters, again. He was obsessed with Watters. To Dale, that was tunnel vision. The sergeant’s obsession with Watters made him rule out all other suspects, no matter what Dale reported or showed him.

  Supervision was bad enough, but the sergeant was basically controlling the investigation and all Dale could do was follow orders. The sarge had moved his way through the ranks from his success as head of the Vice Squad. That meant he had no direct homicide investigation experience of his own and it showed over and over again.

  Dale was going to have to do what that lazy desk jockey told him, but find enough time to really solve the case. With the mayor, lieutenant and sergeant watching his every move, he hoped that he’d successfully solve these cases and still be sane.

  He watched the sergeant cross the lot, stop at the bottom of the stairs, drop his cigarette and step on it. Dale met him at the top. “The apartment is being processed.”

  “Good. What do you think?”

  “Looks like—”

  “Detective.” A CSI stuck his head out the door. “You should come and see this. Sarge, if you’re coming, put on the paper boots.”

  “Christ.” Dale heard his boss say as they headed inside.

  “We found where the murder happened.”

  Dale followed the tech into the main room. The man turned and hollered, “Wally, hit the lights.”

  When the room went dark, the techie turned on a handheld ultraviolet light and waved it in front of the wall. Dale could see the trace of a large blood spatter.

  “We have the scene pretty well narrowed down.”

  “Tell me.” Dale heard his boss’s footsteps enter the room behind him.

  “We think the killer was already in here when Craig entered. He might have surprised Craig and got his gun. They moved over to this side of the room.” The CSI member moved as he spoke, following the direct line and imitating as best he could how the team discovered it had taken place. “Craig was in the lead with his back turned and the killer was behind him with a weapon with a silencer.”

  So it was a pro.

  “The killer put one round through the back of the head. He dragged Craig’s body to the closet and then had the presence of mind to come back, methodically take time to wipe away the blood and chunks of tissue with a disinfectant and dig the slug out of the wall. The only thing he didn’t do was plaster over the hole.”

  “Any chance of identification from just the hole?”

  The CSI tech removed a tube of Mikrasil from his kit. “I’ll make a mold of the impression and take it back to the lab. Maybe size and internal characteristics will help. But I’m not optimistic.”

  “What happened next?”

  “The killer stuffed the officer in the closet and came back to make everything clean as a whistle.”

  “Jesus, Jenkins, enough already. You sound like a fuckin’ fan,” the sergeant chimed in.

  Jimmy said, “What’s the point of cleaning it all up but leave behind the body?”

  “He would never be able to sneak a body out of here in broad daylight. He was probably hoping to come back tonight when it was dark. But we got here first.” Dale thought about something else and said, “So let me get this straight,” You have never seen an amateur work like that, have you?”

  “No.”

  “This is a seasoned assassin, right?”

  “Calvin Watters is no pro. He’s a street thug on a mission,” the sergeant replied.

  Dale ignored him.

  “Hey, Sarge!” Officer Simpson came into the apartment from outside. “The boys just found Watters’ car in the parking lot. It’s been abandoned.”

  “Impound it. Maybe we’ll be lucky and the guy who tried to jack it left something.”

  There was something at the edge of Dale’s mind. He walked out and had to squint even though he wore sunglasses.

  As he crossed the lot to his car, he could hear his sergeant following him, wheezing like an asthmatic smoker. The sarge called after him.

  Dale waited to be caught and told himself not to fly off the handle.

  “So, where’s Watters?”

  “Not here.” He kept his answer short, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

  “He took out one of our own.” The sergeant glanced at the body bag.

  “We don’t know Watters killed Craig.” He resisted saying anything more.

  “Listen, Dayton.” The sergeant’s voice grew louder. “You need to get on the same page with the rest of us. We all feel bad about Craig. He was a good kid. But we need to focus and do our jobs.”

  “If I’m not conducting this case up to your standards,” Dale said, his voice getting louder, “then take me off, but if not, then—” It clicked, midsentence. He turned away from the sergeant and ran across the lot.

  He picked up his pace. “Hold on guys. Back away from the car.”

  The officers looked confused, but they backed away. Dale knelt underneath the car and spotted the casing and detonator. “This is great news. If we have a demolitions expert, this is going to lead us somewhere.”

  Dale didn’t bother to wait around for the bomb squad. They knew their job.

  He grabbed Jimmy and got in the car. He had not mouthed off. He had found a bomb and had probably learned as much from the crime scene as they ever would. For a moment he thought he was doing pretty well.

  But he was going to have to tell Craig’s family before they heard it on the news. He could do little for them, but at least he could tell them in person. He loved being a cop, but delivering the death notification to a family always made him feel like a failure.

  Chapter 25

  Outside the house, Mike had mounted hidden security cameras at each corner. He positioned motion sensors on the surrounding g
rounds as well as tiny, potent booby traps. Then he hooked up a remote-control joystick before handing the controls over to Calvin, who maneuvered the joystick back and forth. From his seat he could control every mounted camera and motion sensor around the “fortress.”

  Mike then installed three phones with an unbreakable code that scrambled all communications coming in or going out. He’d also brought two military satellite phones with the same scrambling functions. The phone batteries would provide power for a full year. They were more for backup and when he was on the move. When Calvin was in the computer room, he was to use the landline phones—three instead of one, for double backup.

  Also, for backup, Mike had brought military wireless servers that would receive Calvin’s signal, boost it and then provide him with continuous internet access and untraceable e-mail.

  He performed all of the outside duties while wearing a telephone lineman’s suit, to make it look like phone company work.

  In four hours, the building and attic inside and outside had the finest defense and security system Mike had ever installed. Calvin felt fully relaxed for the first time in two days.

  “That’s it,” Mike said with a smile. “You’re protected almost as well as Fort Knox now.”

  “Thanks, Mike. A strong defense beats a good offense every time.”

  Just ask the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

  They had a beer in the garage and broke for lunch. Rachel had left the men alone to sort out their details.

  “So, Calvin, have you found out anything more about your situation?”

  He took a drink. “Yeah, I’ve been doing some digging.” He brought Mike over to a terminal. “I’ve started updating and collecting everything I could find on Grant in my database, including all the articles I’ve collected and stored in my file. Check this out. Grant is twenty-eight years older than Linda.”

  “Yeah, I remember the wedding. That’s all the city could talk about.” It was Mike’s turn to drink.

  Calvin pointed to a picture of the bride and groom. “Anything unusual?”

  “What about it?”

  “The background.”

  “Is that Grant’s son?”

  “Yeah. Shawn Grant.”

  “He doesn’t look too happy.”

  “He looks pretty pissed off to me.”

  “Angry at dad robbing the cradle?”

  “It’s only a picture, but a good place to start.”

  “What else you got?”

  “I googled the words ‘Las Vegas casino owners’ and three names appeared frequently: Doug Grant, Shawn Grant and Ace Sanders.”

  Mike shrugged. “Sounds about right.”

  “So I tried to find out as much as I could about the men.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Shawn Grant is the youngest man in Las Vegas to be a part owner of a casino and it’s said that he’s ready to take over for his father. Sanders—”

  “Sanders is a lowlife.”

  Calvin smiled. “You and I know that, but from the public’s perspective, Sanders is popular and respected. He’s contributed a lot to the city and has supported other businesses. But we also know the rumors about the hatred between Doug Grant and Sanders. Sanders made consistent attempts to buy the Greek. He has a mean, quick temper. He’s a ruthless leader and womanizer—rumor is he’s banging Linda Grant. I have first-hand knowledge that he employed Pitt for dirty work he didn’t want to be involved in. The work was perfect for Pitt. Dirty knows how to handle dirty.”

  “What did you find out about Doug Grant?”

  “Not much yet. But despite what Pitt told me yesterday, I had never heard Grant’s name mentioned for any job during the years I’ve been collecting. Sanders had been Pitt’s biggest and most important client. And anyone who conducted business with Pitt is either crooked or greedy.”

  “So Sanders has Grant’s wife and casino if he kills him?”

  “I’m not so sure about the casino. Shawn Grant will be running things now and I doubt he’s in any hurry to sell to Sanders.”

  “Do you think Sanders would actually go that far? Kill a man?”

  Calvin shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. I checked to see if the three men had conducted business together but came up empty.”

  The two men sat in silence for a while. Calvin got up. “Want another beer?”

  “No, not until the job is done. Sit down, I’ve been thinking about your backup emergency plan. When I was outside, I had an idea.”

  Calvin sat back down as Mike continued.

  “I scoped the attic and think my idea is plausible. I’ll cut a hole in your roof and set a two-foot-wide board outside that leads across to the roof of the neighboring building. I’ll build a secret trap door that covers the hole. The board will be short enough to store in the attic, ready to be used when needed.”

  Mike and Calvin took a swig of the canned brew.

  “It’s perfect. Cops never look up when they’re surveying a house. We’ll set up a smoke screen for them. They’ll be so busy with the explosions that they won’t see you escaping. I’ll plant tiny detonation devices underneath the floorboards. If there ever comes a time when you need to evacuate in a hurry and you don’t want the cops nosing around in your equipment, the failsafe will protect your investment.”

  He paused for a moment and then continued. “When the time is right—and you’ll know when that is—all you have to do is activate the program on your system and the timing device will give you an adequate countdown to escape before the massive explosion. Of course, because of the multiple-server backup system that I installed three years ago, all of your data will still be saved, but on a remote terminal where the cops won’t have access to it.”

  Calvin liked it.

  “There’s more. That’s the beauty of this system.” Mike said. “Not only is your system protected by a password, an intruder must also get past a retina scanner and fingerprint test. A lot more than you really need, but it’s all part of the package.”

  Mike put Calvin and Rachel through the procedure of having their eyes and fingers scanned.

  It was early evening by the time they were finished and everything was set up. Mike packed his tools into the van and slid the side door shut. He shook Calvin’s hand, accepted the rest of Calvin’s payment and jumped into the vehicle.

  Before pulling out, he rolled down his widow. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Here.” Mike threw a package to Calvin. “Your new IDs.”

  Calvin caught the package. “Thanks for everything, Mike. I owe you one.”

  “You owe me nothing, Calvin. You’re a good friend and you took care of Andy.” Then Mike’s face turned grim. “I heard this morning about your boss. I can’t believe that he was killed only hours after we were talking about him.”

  Crash!

  Calvin turned to find Rachel standing behind, the broken beer bottle she had dropped scattered around her feet. She turned and ran into the house.

  Calvin turned back to Mike. “Thanks, Mike. Take care and give Andy my best.”

  “Did I say something?”

  Calvin waved as the bar owner pulled out of the parking lot. He checked the neighborhood and pulled down the fortified garage door. Then he sprinted into the house.

  He found Rachel sitting on the cot, her face buried in her hands, sobbing. He sat down next to her.

  “Just tell me the truth, Calvin.” She sniffled.

  He wrapped his massive arms around her and pulled Rachel close. Calvin, with the gentle hands of a Swedish masseuse, rubbed her back and shoulders.

  “I didn’t tell you last night because it was late when I got home and you had enough to think about.”

  “Did you do it?”

  He stared hard into her eyes. “I swear I didn’t, Rachel.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. I did go to his office, just to talk to Pitt. To get some answers, find out what was going on. But when I got there I found him dead. And not just him, there wa
s a woman with him.”

  “A woman? Who?”

  “I don’t know that either. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. I didn’t want to be caught there and get framed for that too.”

  “You promise you didn’t do it?”

  “Have I ever lied to you before?”

  She shook her head.

  “I promise. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” He got up from the cot but Rachel pulled him back down.

  “Promise you’ll tell me everything.”

  He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. “I promise. Let’s go.”

  He led her to the computer room.

  “It’s cold in here,” Rachel said, rubbing her bare arms.

  “Has to be. There is enough processing power here to generate heat and risk damage.”

  Calvin logged on. News of the Pitt murder was widespread, but because it had only happened last night, little was reported. He read the summaries and thought about the details.

  The murders were linked to Grant by MO. Same killer?

  “Who would do such a thing?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t know. But you know Pitt. Maybe an angry husband or an unpaid client. But I can’t think of any clients who hadn’t paid up.”

  It had to connect with the Grant murder.

  Three people benefitted from Grant’s death—Ace Sanders, Linda Grant and Shawn Grant.

  Calvin could see that Sanders had what it took to be a killer, but not Pitt. He could have arranged for a hit man, however. And Linda’s affair with Sanders, if real, indirectly connected her with Pitt.

  A bing from the newsfeed broke his thoughts.

  Rachel saw it first. “Oh my God!” She brought her hand to her mouth. “It’s you! And that’s your apartment!”

  Calvin felt a lump in his stomach. His pictures, a current one and an old one from college, appeared on the screen.

  “Oh my God, Calvin. That’s your apartment! Is that a body bag? What’s going on?”

  He didn’t have an answer. He read the caption: Cop killed inside his apartment and a bomb found underneath his car.