The Death File

by J. A. Kerley

  “I entered Cottrell’s files on Eli Kubiac’s account and found two wills: one leaving Adam everything Eli owned, basically twenty-million-plus in cash, stocks and bonds and property, another leaving squat to kiddy-boy, everything to various charities and foundations. But number two was fake, with only one use, according to Cottrell’s notes. He kept excellent notes.”

  Novarro saw it immediately. “To hold over the son.”

  “Adam was hard to handle. Lazy. Angry. Self-absorbed. Deliberately disruptive. Eli Kubiac had planned to use the will as a threat of last resort: ‘Act like an adult, Adam, or end up with a dollar.’”

  “Looking through Cottrell’s files I quickly figured out lawyer-boy had actually printed out the will and employed Daddy’s ruse. Cottrell obviously planned to extort a good portion of the money by saying he’d change the instrument if paid enough. Cottrell used a spicy little con artist to keep watch on Kubiac and keep him in line: Terri Isfording, temporarily named Zoe Isbergen. They’d met when Cottrell had handled her extortion case three years back.”

  “And then you inserted yourself into the scheme. Easy, from your position in the cloud.”

  “Like I said, I saw the real will, and I saw the false will Eli Kubiac had drawn up, but never actually used. A change of heart perhaps. The fake could never have been entered in probate. It had intentional mistakes to avoid that possibility. But Adam believed it when Cottrell showed it to him. And Daddy died before he could have the fake destroyed.”

  “All Cottrell needed to con Adam Kubiac.”

  “Cottrell and his little vixen were trying to slice off half the money.” Klebbin shook her head. “Imagine leaving ten mill on the table. Such small-time thinking.”

  “You obviously had bigger ideas,” I said. Keep her crowing.

  “Oh, goodness yes, Detective. I armed Rosa with facts about Kubiac’s pathetic little life and, using tidbits I’d gleaned from Adam’s sessions, she gained his trust in a day. When he trusted Rosa, I sent Ramon to scare little Zoe away. We improvised as we went, finally settling on a course of action that eliminated Cottrell, and an attendant idea that will make it easy to get money from Adam. He’s going to hand it over.” She looked at her watch. “Which is set to happen just a few of hours from now.”

  Novarro came to the bottom line. “So in the end, Adam Kubiac was always going to get the money.”

  Klebbin looked down in smug affirmation. “Kubiac never wasn’t the sole beneficiary of Daddy’s will. Of course, with Daddy dead and Cottrell working his con, Adam never knew that.”

  Escheverría was at the door. “The truck is outside, Candace. My men will take it from here.”

  “Why the killing?” Novarro said. “Why kill Meridien’s patients?”

  “They were the only ones who knew my daughter wasn’t Catherine Maruyama. A chance meeting, a communication between people in the group, a casual text with photo, it could have been all over. I didn’t want my $20,000,000 to evaporate.”

  “The kids didn’t communicate,” I said angrily. “They weren’t that tight.”

  An amused shrug, death meaningless to a machine like Klebbin. “Maybe the chance of being discovered was one in fifty. But I wasn’t about to jeopardize $20,000,000, no matter what the odds.”

  “You’re a monster,” Novarro said to the retreating back.

  Klebbin angled her head back toward Novarro, her smile as hard and cold as the reaper’s blade.

  “And you’re a hide-bound little rodent condemned to scurry across the floor waving your badge and gun and pretending you mean something to someone.” She wiggled her fingertips. “Adios, people. Enjoy your trip to the desert.”

  We were marched into the rear of a box truck with a twenty-four-foot trailer, shoved roughly to the front. The outside of the trailer was emblazoned with the words Southwestern Produce Co-op, the subscript saying, Better produce for Less! A cornucopia spilling out tomatoes, green beans and melons was below that. As trucks go, it was innocent, one more working vehicle on the road.

  We were shoved to the front. One of the gangbangers ran his hand to the side of the steel panel and pulled. The seeming front wall of the trailer swung open to reveal a foot-deep space, a hidden repository for smuggling drugs and humans. The inside was padded with acoustic fabric. I doubted any yells would be heard above the sound of the diesel engine.

  “Inside,” the cholo grunted, pushing us against the true front of the trailer. He knocked on the panel. “The cab is right there. If we hear any sound we will pull over and kill you.” His eyes said he meant it.

  The false panel swung shut and we were standing shoulder to shoulder in darkness. We stood and listened to a flurry of footsteps and activity on the other side of the panel, and I realized crates of vegetables were being stacked against the panel, dressing for the subterfuge. Anyone opening the rear door would see a cargo bay loaded with veggies.

  Escheverría had thought of everything.

  “Are you all right?” I said as the engine fired up and we felt motion. I struggled against my bindings but no mistakes had been made there, the ties tight and unyielding. Novarro tried the same, but her slumping shoulders told me she’d come to the same conclusion: no escape.

  “I’m so sorry, Carson,” she whispered and we struggled to stay standing through stops and starts and turns.

  “It was my case, Tasha,” I said into the rocking dark as the truck gained speed. “You had Meridien, I had Bowers and Warbley. When Dr Meridien heard Adam Kubiac ranting about being cut out of the will, she suspected something had gone awry. Eli Kubiac had told Dr Meridien he was having a fake will drafted. But she was under the impression that it was a last-ditch effort to effect change in Adam. And she was also under the impression that Eli Kubiac hadn’t reached the point of using the false will to threaten his son. But she couldn’t be sure; Eli Kubiac was volatile. He could easily have gotten fed up and shown Adam the fake will.

  “So going to the authorities—”

  “Going to the authorities presented an ethical problem, a violation of doctor–patient privilege. And what would she tell them? ‘I think a crime may be being committed, but then again, not necessarily.’ Was a suspicion worth violating a sacred oath? So she confided in Bowers, who spoke to Warbley.”

  “No loose ends for Klebbin,” Novarro said.

  “And Escheverría as well. He was the perfect partner in an enterprise demanding cold and brutal executions. She probably found him in PPD investigative files and made a proposition, a big cut for the killer.”

  “You all right, Ben?” Novarro said to her brother. The kid grunted an affirmative sound. He was stronger than he seemed, and I was sad that his life was almost over. The truck veered around a corner and the ride became bumpier, and I knew we’d left the pavement for a desert road, one leading to a lonely place in the center of sandy nowhere.

  * * *

  Adam Kubiac was lying in bed playing World of Warcraft with a geek from the Ukraine. He wore spongy blue flip-flops, ragged cargo shorts and a stained tee shirt emblazoned with the words Proud Nerd. A knock came at the door. Kubiac sighed, quit the game, and slapped to the floor.

  He opened the door to see a woman taller than he was, and old, like maybe forty. Something about her was familiar, but he didn’t know why.

  “Yeah?”

  “May I come in, Mr Kubiac?”

  “Why? Who are you? You look famili—”

  She walked past him, closed the door and set the lock.

  “What the fuck are you do—?”

  She spun to him. “I want your complete attention, Adam. I have a job for you.”

  “Look, lady, I don’t know you and I don’t—”

  “You’re now in possession of $27,000,000, Mr Kubiac. And a house worth another $3,000,000.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  She ignored the question. “Adam, I need you to transfer your money to another account.”

  Kubiac stared. “What the fuck are you talking
about, bitch?”

  “Do it, Adam,” said a voice behind Kubiac. He spun to see Catherine Maruyama entering from the door to the adjoining suite.

  “Cat?” Kubiac said, eyes wide. “What?”

  Her face was impassive. “You have to do what she says, Adam. There’s no alternative. Mommy knows best.”

  “Mommy?” he echoed. “Mommy? What is GOING ON?”

  The tall woman pressed a slip of paper into Kubiac’s hand. “Transfer the money to this account, Mr Kubiac. It’s that simple.”

  He yanked his hand away, the slip falling to the carpet. “NO FUCKING WAY! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME DO IT!” He pulled out his phone. “I’M CALLING THE POLICE!”

  The woman calmly held up an 8 x 10 photograph of a weapon with a box beside it. “You recognize this, of course, Mr Kubiac. An Ambush 300 Blackout rifle equipped with a scope. A Silencer. And a carton of bullets.”

  Kubiac froze at the sight of the rifle. “Wh-what is this?”

  Maruyama stepped close, a half smile on her lips. “We have the gun, Adam. It has your fingerprints all over it. You bought the rifle, scope, and ammunition at a gun store that not only has a receipt of the transaction, but video footage. Need I explain that within 24 hours of you buying that gun, T. Jefferson Cottrell was shot dead in the desert.”

  There’s something wrong with her eyes, Kubiac’s mind said. They look like ice feels.

  “You … it was your idea! You encouraged me. You told me to—”

  A smile. “Actually, Adam, it was your idea. I kept trying to talk you out of it, remember?”

  Kubiac stared, mouth open, hands shaking.

  “You’re a murderer, Adam,” she continued. “A simple ballistics test will match your gun with the bullet removed from T. Jefferson Cottrell. Arizona has the death penalty. You may not be put to death, but you’ll be in prison the rest of your life. Twenty million dollars will be meaningless to you.”

  Kubiac’s eyes bounced from one woman to the other. “You’re … you’re stealing my money.”

  “You get to keep the house, Adam,” Maruyama said. “That’s worth plenty.”

  “You wuh-won’t do it … the rifle.”

  The woman took Kubiac’s chin and turned his face to hers. “If we’re not going to get the money, Adam, we’re going to make sure you don’t get the money either. The rifle and everything else goes to the police immediately. If you fuck this up, life as you know it is over.”

  “I-I n-n-n-need time to—”

  A head-shake. “Time’s up, Adam. You need to go to the bank and get this done. Rosa will go with you.”

  Kubiac spun to Maruyama. “Rosa? Is that your real name, Rosa? P-p-people talked about a R-Rosa who was in one of Muh-Meridien’s groups. She wuh-was a psycho.”

  Rosa Klebbin’s hand slashed out and cracked Kubiac’s chin, spinning him into the wall. “Don’t be a moron, Adam,” the former Catherine Maruyama said. “Go put on your big-boy clothes and let’s get this over with.”

  50

  A half hour passed in the shaking, quivering truck. The heat in the enclosed space was withering. Our mouths were too dry to talk. Sweat rolled down my face. We had been off-road for the last fifteen minutes judging by the sounds from the tires and the rough terrain.

  The truck’s brakes squealed and we stopped. The engine rattled off. The cab doors opened at our backs.

  “Easy,” I whispered to my companions. “Tasha, look for any opening. Any chance to grab a gun. Take it, no matter how slim.”

  I heard her breath. “You got it.”

  We heard the rear gate of the truck creak open. Footsteps crossed the slatted floor moving aside produce boxes as they went. After a minute the false front of the trailer was pulled away. The light hurt my eyes.

  “Out,” a hulking thug spat, pulling first Ben from the compartment, then Novarro, and finally me. He and the two others roughhoused us to the ground and pushed us against the side of the trailer in the same order as inside: Novarro beside me, Ben beside her.

  The terrain was barren save for desert vegetation. Piles of broken rock and low hummocks lay in all directions, effectively putting us in a low bowl perhaps a quarter mile in circumference. I saw mountains to the north. The three thugs smoked by the cab a few paces away, looking down the trace of road that had brought us here.

  “Are we in Mexico?” I whispered.

  A bark of ironic laugher from Novarro. “Those mountains? The Sierra Estrella. We’re still in Maricopa County, southern end, just above Pima County. We’re maybe thirty miles from downtown Phoenix.”

  “Shut up,” one of the gangbangers snarled. “No talking.”

  Novarro looked at me. She started talking louder. ‘What a shit thing, only forty miles from Phoenix and our only company a trio of stinking—”

  One of the thugs stepped over and backhanded her. I dove at him from one side as Ben howled in from the other. But with our hands bound and feet hobbled all we did was end up on the ground with the thugs kicking at us.

  “He’s coming,” one of the thugs said, pausing just before punting my head. “El Gila.”

  They pulled us back to our feet as a black SUV drove up with a trail of dust in its wake. Escheverría stepped from the passenger side, a triumphant grin on his face, a wicked black pistol in his hand. He crunched across the sand to within a dozen paces and aimed the muzzle at me like a pointer.

  “Him,” he said. “He goes first. Then the brother.” He looked into my eyes and laughed. “We’ll have a quick party with the woman.” He looked at Novarro, held up between two of the thugs. She spat.

  “Spirit,” he said. “I like that.”

  Two of the thugs stood me up then stepped to the side. “Any last words?” Escheverría said, enjoying his moment. “You need to pray? Or cry for Mommy?”

  I stared into the reptilian eyes. “Just gimme an answer, Ramon. How did Klebbin find you … an arrest record with the Phoenix cops, right?”

  He shook his head. “Cottrell was my lawyer. Candace read Cottrell’s confidential file on me and discovered my business of making people either pay or disappear. She came to me with an offer: do some jobs for her and I’d make $3,000,000.” The teeth bared in a rictus of smile. “An offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “I’ll give you four to let us go, Ramon. You can walk away.”

  “You don’t have such money and we both know it.”

  Escheverría racked the slide on the weapon to put a round in the chamber. Oddly, I felt no fear. Only sadness. And sickness pooling in my stomach because my life would end on a dusty patch of sand at the hands of a psycho coated with gang and prison tattoos.

  Escheverría raised the pistol. “Get on your knees,” he commanded.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I said.

  One of the gangsters kicked the back of my knee and I went down.

  “Look at me,” Escheverría said as he sighted down the barrel. He needed to be the last thing I saw on earth. I looked away.

  “I said LOOK AT ME.”

  I calmed my face as if I were standing in a gentle breeze on some faraway island and my eyes looked everywhere but at him: I saw cirrus clouds drifting at the edge of the sky; heat rippling from the desert floor; a hawk in the air above a pair of saguaros; the low rocky rise in the near distance, on it a rippling mirage shaped like a man on a horse …

  “Suit yourself.” Escheverría laughed. “Adios, lawman.”

  I heard the shot and a single echo as the bullet slammed into me. All was whitehot pain and, an eye-blink later, the world collapsed into black.

  * * *

  Carrying a suitcase, Rosa Klebbin stepped over the body on the floor, wrinkling her nose at the thought of getting sticky blood on her new shoes. Blood seemed to be everywhere, like a paint can had exploded. She threw the suitcase on the sofa and checked again, making sure she had everything. Not that it mattered all that much; she could would soon be able to buy anything she needed, but that was a couple of days away, and she wanted to be comfor
table on the trip.

  Though she had packed the suitcase days earlier, it seemed she’d anticipated well and nothing needed to be added. Satisfied with her planning, she zipped it shut and walked to the door, again having to negotiate the blood on the floor. She looked down at the body and smiled.

  “Nice meeting you,” she said.

  And was gone.

  51

  The void was a sucking, liquid darkness and I swam with it, going deeper until I found a place to hide, to sleep, to cover myself with shadows. And then, a hundred years later, someone lifted the edge of a shadow and peered underneath.

  “I think he’s finally coming around.”

  I blinked and noticed it had snowed, the whiteness blanketing everything. The white melted into shadow and form and became white blankets, the folds of a white pillow beside my head. I blinked again and saw an IV rack floating above me, tubes like clear fingers reaching to my body. I started, shifted, felt searing pain in my chest and shoulder. The pain was beautiful because it told me I was alive.

  “Don’t move, Carson. Just lay easy, buddy.” Harry’s voice.

  I wrenched sideways and felt my chest scream in agony. Wonderful.

  “I’ll get the doctor.” Tasha Novarro.

  A man in a blue jacket entered and looked at the machines surrounding me. He was in his fifties with eyes blanked out white until I realized they were glasses reflecting sun through the wide window. He leaned low and the reflections became solicitous brown eyes.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I hurt. What happened?”

  “You took a round just below the clavicle. It punctured the lung, but missed important pulmonary plumbing by millimeters. You’re lucky to be here.” He turned to Harry and Novarro. “You can talk for a bit, but he needs a lot of rest.” The doc disappeared.

  I looked at Harry. Things were starting to make sense. “How bad?” I whispered.

  “You’re gonna get some fine vacation. And a couple months of rehab.”

  “Pour some ice water on my face.” Water was my restorative.