Mayhem, Mystery and Murder

by John A. Broussard

  Piling out of the bank, the four raced to their car and screamed away from the curb, with the bank guard firing shots intended to miss. Within moments, the police scanner had come alive. Roadblocks were being thrown up throughout the county. Hadley’s next decision was the only one possible. The car abandoned, the four took off, each on his own.

  ***

  Safe finally in Chicago, Hadley looked back on the previous day as one of the most harrowing in his life. First, the panic in the bank, then the forced abandonment of the car, a long trek under a blazing sun, followed by the risk of hitchhiking and a night of hiding out from the police, who were scouring the countryside in force. Hadley chalked up his escape to good fortune rather than to ingenuity, and held out little hope any of the others had been as fortunate.

  His worst expectations were confirmed when the radio reported the successful rounding up of the trio who, stupidly, had come back together after initially scattering. Hadley knew it was now a matter of hours before one or more of them would pinpoint the Chicago hideout. He was almost to the door when the phone rang.

  It was the technician. “What went wrong?” He asked. “All hell broke loose in town around four, so I bugged out. Sounds like some idiots decided to knock over the bank and screwed up, something fierce.”

  “Four?”

  “Yeah, four. What’s wrong? That’s local time.”

  “It couldn’t have been. It was five. I’m absolutely positive. I checked the time on the radio.”

  A pause at the other end. “Oh, oh! So you’re the one who screwed up. You must have been listening to an Illinois station. Didn’t you know this part of Indiana never goes on daylight saving time? You and your boys showed up an hour early.”

  BYE, BYE, BIRDIE

  She had given serious thought to killing her husband. That she didn’t kill him wasn’t for lack of means. For one thing, there were a half dozen guns in the house, and he’d taught her how to use them back in the early days of their marriage. But she was also certain she could never get away with it. She didn’t know how to kill him and at the same time be sure she wouldn’t have to go to prison for it. She watched the news, and she’d heard reports of more than one wife who’d killed an abusive husband and had then been punished for it. She just couldn’t risk losing the twins, leaving them without a mother, especially since they really didn’t have a father.

  Divorce? Completely out of the question. She didn’t even know how to approach an attorney, never mind pay for one. Her husband would bring a bunch of lawyers to court and hammer her to extinction. The twins would lose their mother and certainly not gain a father.

  Her other plan had been to simply get up and leave. It all sounded so easy—and it was impossible. She had never worked, had never even graduated from high school. She had no money and no one to turn to. Besides, Jay would find her for sure, no matter where she went, and she would pay the price of her desertion.

  He had struck her that evening. There was nothing unusual about that. She never knew when he would lash out at her, since the blows could come anytime for no reason at all. Recently the beatings had become worse—much worse. And now he had started to hit the children as well. Where before she had been living on the borders of hell, her world had now become a raging inferno.

  All she could see ahead of her was the briefest of reprieves. His company was opening a new laundromat in Tijuana. He’d be away for at least a couple of days. After backhanding her a half-dozen times that evening, he’d gone to bed and left her with her bruised body on the living room couch. First thing in the morning, he’d be off on his trip and might just possibly not beat her again before he left.

  It had all seemed so different eight years before. Just sixteen, she’d met Jay Longworth who was then an impressive twenty-two and already a partner in a very successful San Diego laundry and dry-cleaning business. It was no contest at all. He called her his little princess. Within months they’d married, and she found herself in a beautiful home on the hills looking out on the Pacific.

  Her world began to unravel long before she became aware of the unraveling. Jay was not only jealous and possessive but had gradually woven a net around her, isolating her from her friends and what little family she possessed—an alcoholic mother living three thousand miles away. And the lengths he had gone to in order to produce the isolation were all too effective. The home was itself secluded on an acre of land in the wildland-urban fringe, with the nearest neighbor a quarter of a mile away. She really had no one to turn to.

  Tonight she was lying paralyzed in fear and pain before the TV. The evening news barely penetrated. In so far as it did, she derived no benefit from hearing and seeing so much other misery in the world. “Los Angeles man kills self, wife and four of his children… AIDS decimates Central African villages…two Americans held hostage by South American guerillas…typhoon kills over two hundred in the Philippines, thousands left homeless…” And then, a different item, and a flash of hope.

  Jay overslept and got around neither to eating breakfast nor to adding to her pain. Instead, he threw on his clothes, ignored her completely, roared out of the driveway and headed south.

  His partner drove up to the house the following evening. “I’ve got bad news,” he told her. “The Mexican authorities found two guns in Jay’s car. Someone called the border guards and told them Jay was smuggling guns into Mexico. How he could have been fool enough to take them with him, is beyond me. The papers and TV have been full of how paranoid the Mexican government has become over gun runners, and they’re even more scared of terrorists than we are.”

  She said nothing.

  Lionel went on. “Somehow he managed to get word to me, and even that took a lot of doing and all the cash he had on him. Fortunately, I know a businessman in Tijuana, and he cleared the way for me. I got to talk to Jay for a few minutes. He insists he doesn’t know how the guns got into his car, but that doesn’t impress the police. Anyhow, he needs money to defend himself, and the Mexican authorities aren’t about to accept checks. I got his power of attorney for you, so you’ll have access to his assets and can then do what you think best about defending him.”

  She looked puzzled when Lionel handed her the documents. Seeing her expression, he went on to explain. “As long as he’s in a Mexican prison, you’ll be in charge.”

  “But what can I do?”

  “Well, if you’re willing to bribe the right officials, and that could cost a fortune these days since the Mexican government has been cracking down on corruption, he might be released in a few months. If you hire a good lawyer to defend him—which would also cost plenty, but wouldn’t impoverish you—he might get off maybe with a year or two, depending on the judge. With two handguns in the car, there’s a possible ten years for each one, but I think a lawyer could at least get the sentences to run concurrently.”

  “Concurrently?”

  “That means he would serve both sentences at the same time, so he’d be out in ten years.”

  “So if he didn’t have an attorney, the sentences would follow each other. Is that right?”

  Lionel nodded. “Instead of concurrently, the sentences would run consecutively.”

  She looked thoughtful. “ ‘Con-sec-u-tive-ly.’ What a nice sounding word.”

  DÉJÀ-VU ALL OVER AGAIN

  Jimmy Hanson was a humorless man who enjoyed little in life save for his bird watching. Actually, he looked like a birdwatcher—which he was. He did not look like a blackmailer—which he also was.

  Ross Deacon couldn’t believe his eyes when Hanson emptied the envelope of photos onto Deacon’s desk and then sat back in the office chair. Deacon didn’t freeze when he saw them, he didn’t shake as he picked up each one to examine it more closely. In fact, he rather admired the quality of the photos. Not only were they crystal clear—remarkable for telephoto shots—but the composition was excellent, with Ross and the car in the lower left, a tree overhanging the roadside cliff on the right and a cottony bank of clouds at
the top nicely providing a balance for both.

  There were no doubts about the scene, all laid out in sequence—Deacon pulling right up to the edge of the drop-off, getting out from behind the wheel, reaching in to yank a still figure from the passenger’s side over to the driver’s side, slamming shut the car door and, finally, bracing his back against the rear of the vehicle and slowly pushing it over the edge. Included were a few additional “post accident” photos, the most telling of which focused on his face as he turned to go back to his own car. There was no mistaking who he was. There was even less chance of mistaking the self-satisfied smile on his face.

  Even as he said, “How much?” Deacon was already making his plans to kill Hanson, someone whose existence he hadn’t been aware of only a few minutes previously.

  Hanson shrugged. “I’m not greedy. I’m not too happy with my job.” He almost smiled. “I’d much rather be out watching birds. Have you ever seen those red-tailed hawks rise with the thermals? They don’t move a wing. All they do is tilt their bodies and ride the current. It’s…”

  “Let’s get to the point. How much?”

  Another shrug. “As I said, I’m not greedy. How about my salary—which isn’t much above the minimum? And that shack I rent outside of town is kind of depressing. Maybe rent for a cottage out in the Shady Glen subdivision.”

  The negotiations really weren’t much different from hundreds of others Deacon had had over the years with developers, contractors, other real estate agents and property managers. But there was a difference. Nothing on paper. Well, some of those weren’t on paper either, come to think of it. Only this time, Deacon was really in no position to bargain, nor did his position bother him much. He had other plans.

  The plans were only slightly modified by Hanson’s parting remark. “I thought you might like to know I’ve given my attorney a manila envelope containing a safety deposit key and the name of the bank. He’s to use it only if I should die or disappear. It’s a kind of life insurance, you might say.” They didn’t shake hands.

  The door had hardly closed behind his visitor when Deacon reached for the phone book, looked down the short list of private investigators, and tore out the page. He had never been one to hesitate. The day his partner had begun to question Deacon’s handling of company funds, he had spent the next hours carefully working out the latter’s demise. A trip to the backcountry above Cottrell Canyon followed, for inspection of a vast acreage being considered by mythical developers. The use of both cars based on the flimsiest of excuses. Then careful selection of a seldom-traveled back road, where drop-offs were dangerous and unguarded. From there it was easy. A blow to the head—and the rest all secretly recorded by a scruffy birdwatcher hidden in the trees above the road.

  Deacon had figured the partner would be listed as missing, and probably not found until turkey season, which wouldn’t open for a good two months. All in all, a brilliant plan only slightly marred by the unchallengeable photos. Getting rid of the photographer would be a bit of a challenge, but not much.

  The first two private investigators proved unsatisfactory. One was obviously curious. Curiosity was the last thing Deacon wanted. The second seemed altogether too prosperous. The large office staff was a turn-off. Number three was ideal.

  Fran Ellis, of Enterprise Investigators, was the one and only investigator in the company. Her office was miniscule—two file cabinets, a chair, a desk overflowing with paper, a butt-filled ashtray and a computer that could undoubtedly pass for an antique.

  Her appearance was no more prepossessing than her office space. Not a woman a man would look at twice. Somewhat athletic in appearance. Short, slightly graying hair. Small eyes, set too close to a prominent nose, along with a doughy complexion. “Probably a dyke,” Deacon thought. Whatever her other proclivities, she was obviously hungry, took the assignment without question, and simply wanted him to point her in the right direction. Deacon’s only qualm was that she might be too unintelligent to carry out even this simple task.

  “His name’s Alfred Hanson. He goes by Freddy.” Deacon handed her a paper. “Here’s his address. All I want you to do is to find out who his attorney is. How much?”

  Not a moment’s hesitation. “Five hundred.” The cigarette rasp to the voice didn’t mask the eagerness. “I’ll have the name and address by next week. Anything else?”

  Deacon opened his wallet, counted out five hundred-dollar bills in one pile and five in another. “Both of these are yours if you get me the name by tomorrow noon.”

  Ellis looked up, her dull gray eyes now separated by a double frown-line. “Need a receipt?”

  Deacon shook his head, ignored the proffered hand and headed back to his office. There was work to do. Hanson had insisted on cash, which made the work that much easier. Claiming that it would take several days to liquidate some assets, Deacon had agreed to meet him in a remote part of the Wal-Mart parking lot within a week. If Ellis did produce the address by the following day, Deacon was reasonably certain something could be done about that manila envelope and key before the weekend. If not, the meeting could be delayed. Hanson didn’t seem impatient, and he really had no reason to hurry his benefactor.

  Initially, Deacon had assumed that the solution—once he knew who the attorney was—would be to arrange Hanson’s death, then hire someone to burglarize the attorney’s office, steal and trash enough besides the manila envelope to throw the police off the trail. Once in possession of the key, Deacon could remove the contents from the safety deposit box. That might be the more difficult step, but forged documents would do the trick.

  In reality, he wasn’t happy with the scenario. The call from Ellis the next morning with the name of the attorney, and some additional information she provided, opened the possibility of a far more satisfactory solution.

  The raspy voice read off the name and address, “Mandy Bart, 12 South Westlake, third floor.”

  That someone like her could have found the connection so quickly annoyed him. It must have been a very easy thousand dollars. About to hang up, curiosity got the better of him. “Isn’t that in the warehouse district?”

  A snort. “Block away. Seedy area. Seedy attorney. Boozer.” A pause, as though she were thinking better of having said that much. “Need anything else?”

  He really didn’t. Conceivably there was now a far better solution than a burglary, which would have to involve someone else knowing about the folder—perhaps getting ideas.

  Deacon left a message on Attorney Bart’s answering phone, identifying himself as John Holloway. The return call came through late the following morning. Deacon could almost feel the hangover in the latter’s voice. Even so, he sounded eager, and Deacon’s choice of legal problems—drunk driving—clearly struck a responsive chord.

  Dressed appropriately for the occasion in a suit he had long ago planned to donate to the Salvation Army—with a receipt for income tax purposes, of course—he drove off to keep the afternoon appointment. Mandy Bart turned out to be all Deacon could ask for and a little more besides. A quick retreat to a local bar to “discuss the case,” a few drinks to lubricate a slope already slippery from the contents of what must have been a bottle in the desk’s bottom drawer, and Bart would have given Deacon the combination to Fort Knox had he known it and been in any condition to remember it.

  Deacon’s biggest problem was spacing out the drinks to keep the attorney sufficiently coherent, but not allowing him to sober up enough to realize he was being taken on a fishing expedition. The lead-in was talk about strange clients, with strange requests. An hour’s dredging through maudlin divorce cases, defense of child molesters and a pyropile of arsonists brought up the strange case of a client who was guaranteeing he wouldn’t be killed by leaving the key to a mysterious safety deposit box with Bart.

  The attorney leaned forward, and in a stage whisper that could be heard through much of the noisy bar, said, “Blackmail. That’s what it is. Blackmail. Blackmail, I tell you. There’s something in that
box, something that’s guaranteeing him a nice income, I’ll bet.”

  “You mean you’ve got the key in your office?”

  “Yup.” A nod, a long drink and a rattling of the ice left in the glass.

  “Why don’t you check it out and see if it is blackmail?”

  Deacon had half expected that this remark would produce indignation. Instead, the lugubrious face seemed to express disappointment. “Can’t. Power of attorney doesn’t kick in until he dies or disappears.”

  The drive back to Bart’s office was a quiet one, since the attorney had nodded off. It took considerable urging as well as physical support to wrestle him up the stairs to his shabby second floor office. Seated in his familiar desk chair, he revived sufficiently to find his liquor cache in the bottom drawer. Oblivious to his visitor, he drained the remnants and returned to his somnolent state. For Deacon, it was now all too easy.

  The files were a mess, but the H’s produced a Hanson folder containing only one object—a manila envelope. Deacon closed the door quietly and left with it under his arm.

  From there, with a few modifications, the original pattern repeated itself. By noon of the following day, Deacon had already parked his car near the cliff at Cottrell Canyon, but out of sight. He then hiked back to the main road and hitched into town. Hanson was happy to hear that he would receive his first payment earlier than expected. In the lot, once Deacon had checked to make sure no others could see the action, he used the same short iron bar he’d crushed his partner’s skull with. Except that, this time, he didn’t want the blow to kill.

  With the unconscious Hanson nodding as though asleep and locked back in his shoulder and seat belt, Deacon drove the birdwatcher’s car carefully out to the highway and headed for his favorite spot. Practice made perfect. The car tumbled over the cliff in half the time it had taken to dispose of its predecessor. It took only five minutes to walk to where he’d hidden his own car earlier in the day. Now there was only the matter of getting into the safety deposit box, something that could be handled in a variety of ways and which there was no real hurry to accomplish.