LIES OF THE PHOENIX (A Lieutenant Cassidy Mystery Book 1)

by Jeanne Tosti

  Ben whipped the length of clothes line rope from his pocket. In one motion he wound it around Bazarov neck and held it taught between his two hands. Bazarov fell to the floor with legs kicking and arms flailing trying to extricate himself from Ben’s strangle hold. Bazarov’s clawing hands locked on to Ben’s arms like a vice as Ben fought with all his strength to hold on. What seemed like an eternity passed and then Bazarov fell silent. It was over.

  Ben released his grip on the rope and sat back to catch his breath. Just then Jordan appeared at the top of the steps with his gun trained on Ben. Jordan surveyed the attic and saw Bazarov’s body stretched out across the attic rubble. A smile crept across his face.

  “Thank you, Ben. Very convenient of you to take care of him for me. Good for me, bad for you. I take it that text Sarah sent was to you? Did you follow us here?”

  Ben gave him no response. He stood up and faced Jordan.

  Jordan motioned with his gun for Ben to move away from Bazarov and Ben complied. Jordan crouched near the body and began rifling through Bazarov’s pockets. He found Bazarov’s gun and placed it in his waistband. After a few moments he retrieved the flash drive from one of the pockets. Excitedly he held it up to look at it in the dim attic light.

  His excitement soon turned to dismay. “Son of a bitch! This isn’t it! Where is it? What did she do with it?” Seething with anger, Jordan turned to Ben. “Do you have it?”

  Ben smiled at Jordan, “No, sorry can’t help you there.” Ben was not intimidated by Jordan—not even with a gun. “I think maybe Sarah has it. Did you ask her before you came upstairs?” He was goading Jordan and Jordan knew it.

  “Don’t mess with me. You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” Jordan hissed.

  “Yeah, I think I do. The police know all about your little game. As a matter of fact, they have this whole place surrounded.”

  “Nice try. If that were true, you wouldn’t be standing here with a gun pointed at you.” Jordan was becoming irritated. Ben was wasting his time and he needed to find Sarah. An idea began to take form.

  “Unfortunately, Ben, that fight you just had with the Neanderthal lying at your feet ended in a draw. The police are going to find your body along with his.” Jordan pulled Bazarov’s gun from his waistband and pointed it at Ben. “They’ll find he shot you before you finished him off. And then, too bad, you died.” Jordan took aim at Ben preparing to shoot.

  Ben did not hesitate. He charged Jordan knocking the gun from his hand. He landed a punch to his jaw and one to his midsection that sent Jordan tumbling weaponless into a stack of boxes. Ben picked up the gun and aimed at Jordan. He secretly hoped that Jordan would attack again giving him an excuse to shoot.

  Jordan cowered in fear and held his hand up as if to deflect any potential blows. Ben reached down and grabbed him. He pulled him to his feet and pushed him towards the stairs.

  “Move! The police are waiting for you.” Ben had all he could do to keep from throwing him down the steps and hoping he would break his neck. All he could think about was the nightmare he had just put Sarah through.

  As they made their way down the attic steps, they met with a troop of heavily armed state police charging up the staircase followed closely by Lieutenant Cassidy. Their eyes met and Ben could tell Cassidy was not happy. One of the officer’s took custody of Jordan, cuffed him, and marched him off in the direction of a state police van that had just pulled into the driveway. Ben handed Jordan’s and Bazarov’s weapon, to another officer.

  “Where is Sarah,” Ben asked anxiously. He purposefully ignored Cassidy’s irritation

  “She is fine. We intercepted her running across the grass.” Cassidy’s anger boiled over, “Why are you here? I ordered you to stay put in your apartment. We had this under control. You could have been killed!”

  “Yeah, well, you know how stupid civilians can be sometimes. Oh, by the way, Bazarov is upstairs. He won’t be causing any more trouble either. Also, I lost my gun up there somewhere. If you find it, I would like it back.”

  “Son of a bitch, Ben!” Cassidy pushed past Ben and galloped up the attic steps. Bazarov’s body was lying motionless near the top of the stairs. A length of cord was still wrapped around his neck. Cassidy stooped down and felt for a pulse. There was none. He checked the body for any weapons and found a knife with a finely etched bone handle in a tooled leather holster concealed under his shirt.

  Cassidy stood up and just shook his head. He looked around the attic and then sighed. After a moment he took out his phone and made a call. “Hello, Nora. How’s your head?...”

  * * * * *

  Ben walked out into the back yard looking for any sign of Sarah. In the distance he saw three figures emerging from the woods. It was Sarah accompanied by two uniformed officers. They had heard the all clear transmission on their radios and were coming in.

  Sarah saw Ben and broke from her escorts. She was never so glad to see anyone in her whole life. She ran across the grass and threw herself at Ben almost knocking him over. “Oh my god, I was so scared. I thought that monster was going to kill you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck so tight he could barely breathe.” She couldn’t believe that he had taken on Bazarov and came out alive.

  Ben held her just as tightly. He realized how close he had just come to losing her. He wasn’t going to allow anything like that happen again.

  She had her face buried in his chest, but after a moment she loosened her grip. She looked up into his face and wrinkled her nose, “Funny—all of a sudden, I smell garbage.”

  “That would be me,” Ben groaned. “I’ll explain later.”

  Chapter 37

  SARAH AND BEN sat on the metal chairs in the conference room and felt like school children waiting for the principal to arrive to meet out punishment for an infraction of the rules. Lieutenant Alec Cassidy walked in followed by Detective Nora Castle. Nora was sporting a white bandage on her forehead.

  Cassidy looked at Ben and then at Sarah and said in a matter-of-fact manner, “Alright. You are both alive, the data drive is in safe hands, and the bad guys have been neutralized.” Then his face turned stern and he leaned over the table and continued, “But you two need a keeper! You are not the police, you put your lives in unnecessary danger, and you certainly don’t know how to follow orders.” His last remark was directed specifically at Ben.

  Ben shrugged uncomfortably, but gave no argument.

  “And Sarah, you are just as bad as Ben! Grabbing that data drive and running off with it with Bazarov breaking down the door and Jordan standing there with a gun—what were you thinking? It made you an unnecessary target. If Ben hadn’t been right there, I don’t know what the outcome would have been.”

  Ben smiled briefly, but wiped it from his face when Cassidy gave him a stern sideways glance.

  Cassidy went on to chastise them both for not allowing the police to do their job and taking unnecessary risks with their independent behavior. Neither Sarah nor Ben raised a defense not wanting to extend the torture any longer than necessary. They just nodded in agreement and allowed Cassidy to vent his frustration.

  When he had exhausted all his pent up irritation he said, “Here is your gun back, Ben. It took us some time to find it. It was buried in all that attic junk.” Cassidy sat down with his ire expended and leaned back in his chair. “Nora has some other information to give you.”

  Sarah and Ben were glad to no longer be the focus of Cassidy’s attention.

  “Yes,” said Nora. “The L.A.P.D. Organized Crime Unit is ecstatic about you retrieving that data drive. It gives them the evidence they need to take down the Potestas crime syndicate. Jordan Lawrence, or Lloyd Nash, or whatever you want to call him, will face state charges here in Chicago, as well as in L.A., and then there are federal charges. He is looking at significant jail time. The L.A.P.D. also sends their compliments to you, Ben, for taking out Bazarov. They were particularly impressed with that. They were happy to strike another bad guy off their watch list.
”

  Ben began to smile, but then thought better of it after he saw the scowl on Cassidy’s face. He did not want to say anything that would send Cassidy off on another tirade of censure.

  Sarah paged through her yellow tablet of notes, “Markwall Investment Group in L.A. is also happy because the police recovered about half of the money Lloyd Nash embezzeled. They found a bank receipt at the cottage. They traced it to a safety deposit box at a bank just inside the Wisconsin border. It was all in cash, within easy driving distance of Chicago, and under an assumed name. We figure he probably spent the other half of the money, but Markwall Investment is happy to get any of it back.”

  Sarah and Ben sat quietly listening. They both figured that was the safest response.

  Nora continued, “I also checked into the ownership of that Wisconsin property.”

  Sarah sat forward and was now listening intently.

  “According to the County Recorder’s office in that area, that property is listed in your mother’s maiden name. No one has filed any challenges to the title of the property and there is no evidence to connect Jordan to the transfer of the property into your mother’s name. The transaction was all done through the mail. The last owner was paid in full and has no desire to rescind the sale. Even better, Markwall Investment Group doesn’t plan on pursuing any litigation to challenge the title. They know if it wasn’t for you and Ben, they would be out of the investment business,” Nora said.

  Sarah couldn’t stay silent any longer, “What does that mean?”

  “It means, as far as the State of Wisconsin is concerned, the title on the property is clean. You are your mother’s next of kin and only heir. All you have to do is file some court papers and present a certified copy of your mother’s death certificate, and then the Wisconsin property is legally yours. You can do whatever you want with it.”

  Nora’s news excited Sarah and a smile flashed across her face, but she thought better of it. She wiped it off her face and replaced it with a look of repentance. She didn’t want Cassidy to think she wasn’t taking his chastisement seriously.

  When Nora was finished, arrangements were made to meet with the prosecutor. Cassidy appeared to be in a much better mood by the time it was all over. Ben and Sarah stood to leave and Cassidy stopped Ben.

  “Ben, I came down pretty hard on you and Sarah. I’m sorry—”

  Ben cut him off, “Look Alec, I know where you’re coming from. You weren’t going to stop me, so don’t beat yourself up about it. I did what I needed to do. Besides, it all came out right in the end.” He gave Cassidy a grin and a friendly chuck on the arm. Then he hurried to catch up with Sarah.

  Cassidy watched as Ben and Sarah walked out together. Yes, I guess it did, he thought.

  * * * * *

  “I am going to start cleaning out the townhouse and you are going come to help,” Sarah said with an air of authority.

  “Me? Why would I want to do that?” Ben retorted in a teasing tone.

  “Because you have nothing better to do!”

  “That’s not true. I’m working on a new book. It’s about a guy who steals a bunch of money and information, disappears, and then reappears in another city with a new identity—”

  He never got to finish what he was saying because a throw pillow came whizzing by his head. As he ducked the flying missile, he added, “The female protagonist in the story has a bit of an attitude, too.”

  “Seriously, will you come? I am nervous about going over there.”

  Ben had planned to accompany her all along. He still was reluctant to leave her out of his sight despite the police take down of the Los Angeles crime syndicate.

  “I’m coming, but you should try harder to support my creative writing endeavors,” he bantered. Another pillow came flying in his direction and he decided to drop the repartee.

  They readied themselves and then left for the townhouse. As far as Ben was concerned, the last two weeks had been heaven. He and Sarah had become inseparable and he was pretty sure she felt the same way.

  They arrived at the townhouse and Ben found parking on the street. They approached the house together, but just as they were about to climb the front steps, Sarah stopped and stared at it for several minutes. It was the first time she had been back since she had found the Wisconsin property tax document.

  “Is everything alright?” He understood the turmoil she must be feeling. This was where her relationship with Jordan began and ended. There had to be a lot of memories behind that door. “You know we don’t have to clean this out right now.” He knew it might be hard for her to see part of her life as a jumble of broken furniture and household items heaped disrespectfully in the middle of the living room floor and then have to haul it to the trash.

  Sarah jerked back from her thoughts, “What? Oh, I was just searching for the feelings I used to have for this place, but they’re gone. I used to love this townhouse. It was the first place I bought on my own.”

  They walked in and the destruction was still all there.

  “What are you going to do with it?” He still wasn’t sure if she was ready for this task.

  Without a second of hesitation, Sarah fired back, “I’m going to sell it, of course! What else would we do with it? With your apartment and the country house, we certainly don’t need a third place to live!

  Ben raised his eyebrows and looked at her a little surprised, but she definitely had his attention.

  “And about that book you are writing—you better change the city. We don’t want any of your fans knocking on our door unannounced,” she added.

  “I can do that,” Ben answered.

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  Also by Jeanne Tosti

  Still Water