Fatal Chances (The Red Lake Series Book 5)

by Rich Foster

  Donatello's rebuke to his goon came back to Harry, “that broad as you called her, is my future wife.”

  Perhaps Harvey's death was an arranged convenience for Donatello?

  When he reached home the house was shut up. Harry went down to the boat and took out the runabout. Fifteen minutes later he was in Gulls Bay. He idled in close to a dock that was laying in deep afternoon shadow and turned his binoculars toward the Donatello's new house. Two men casually strolled the deck, Protective muscle, he concluded. When he focused on the glass beyond them Vito Donatello came into view.

  Someone is getting an earful?

  Harry watched Donatello's jaw aggressively work as he spat out words, his arms gesticulating at the air.

  The object of his tirade never came into view but Harry suspected it might be Nick Cassini. After ten minutes, not wanting to be noticed by the guards, he gave up and turned the boat toward home.

  Paula came home. Harry grilled fish fillets. Their dinner was a quiet affair. Unaddressed issues clouded the air. Harry made small talk about his case. Paula's answers were muted, terse and distracted. As they made up the dishes she turned to him and asked, “Harry, where are we going?”

  Harry was tempted to parse words over their meaning, but finally he merely said, “I don't know.”

  Paula turned away and hurried upstairs.

  Wrong answer, schmuck. Harry thought. To console himself he opened another beer.

  Chapter Eight

  Under the cover of dim pre-dawn light, Harry pulled onto the shoulder of Route 12 near the gates of the Donatello's lake house. He quickly filled the back of his pickup truck with the contents of the trash can and several cardboard moving boxes. In less than a minute he was gone.

  Two hundred yards up the road he turned onto a dirt road that accessed a Corbet Mill logging tract. He wended his way back until well clear of the road and parked in a clearing. The ground was scrapped clean of debris by the logging skidders leaving only raw and scarred earth. Tourists on the highway seldom realized that the coniferous forests that lined the road merely screened the rape of the land a few hundred yards away.

  He built a small campfire behind his truck and took a seat on the open tailgate. He went through the trash one piece at a time, setting a few things aside.

  Donatello's diet stinks! He thought as he burned numerous wrappers and bags from fast food service or ready to eat frozen meals.

  He came across a piece of a photograph, it was a corner. The photo was grainy and the scrap did not show enough to tell what it was. A bit later he came across another and then another. The beer bottles he dropped into zip lock bags; glass always held high quality finger prints. Stuff that would not burn he tossed into one of the boxes he emptied.

  It was not long before Donatello's trash was turned to either ash, recyclables, or items of interest. He had a zip lock bag with pieces of torn photographs, a box of bagged beer bottles for finger prints that did him little good unless someone was willing to run them through the FBI's IAFIS database. Lastly, he had a number of notes that made no sense to him. He assumed it was in code.

  Harry let the fire burn out, ground the ash into the dirt and then moved stealthily through the trees in the growing light. Using the forest for cover he staked out the lake house that Donatello now curiously owned.

  From a perch in the crook of a tree he could see over the wall. In the driveway was the gray sedan that Cassini drove. A Mercedes bore Nevada plates as did a blue SUV. A guard circled the grounds, puffing on a cigarette.

  Definitely doesn't believe in the motto, be prepared!

  If Harry came across a man as lackadaisical in his duties when in the Army he would have put him on report. The guard tossed the butt into the bushes and lit another. As for the house itself, nothing stirred. After a bit, Harry dropped down out of the tree and returned to his truck.

  The photographic scraps lay scattered on the blotter of Harry's desk. It was a grand jigsaw puzzle but not a hard one at that. Soon he organized them into six photos of Julia and himself having lunch at the Ashton Club. The window pane affected the quality but Julia's arm reaching across to his, as she leaned over the table, was clearly visible. The last was from a different angle and showed Julia embracing him in the portico of the Ashton Club.

  If Donatello wants to marry her this must have been irritating!

  Harry tilted back in his chair.

  I wonder if she will go out with him tonight?” And if so, where?

  He did not feel like driving to Beaumont and assumed there was little to learn if he did. A late visit to Donatello's house might prove more informative.

  Paula came in from her desk. Harry felt an urge to cover the photos but decided that would make something out of nothing,

  Then why the urge to cover them up? he asked himself.

  He left the photos and his motives alone.

  Paula handed him a bill from Ziggy. Harry skimmed it over, “Quite reasonable,” he muttered.

  “That looks chummy,” Paula said churlishly.

  Harry glanced up in innocence, “What?”

  “That.” she answered testily and pointed to the photo of Julia hugging Harry.

  “It's just business.”

  Harry wasn't sure she said “harrumph” but whatever noise it was that Paula made, it sounded ominous.

  Ziggy called. Surprisingly it was during the middle of the day.

  I wonder when he sleeps?

  “What's up, Zigfeld?”

  “I ran your boy through the system and he doesn't exist.”

  “Of course he does”

  “”Well sure on paper, but everything prior to fourteen years ago is non-existent.”

  “What about his first marriage?”

  “To Heather Melford? Well that is on paper in Reno but Heather is a fiction. The only person of that name died in a car accident three months before the marriage took place. I found the news story about the crash in the newspaper archives but oddly there is no death certificate for her in Washoe County.”

  “Was the accident elsewhere?”

  “No, so there should be one, unless...”

  “Someone made it disappear?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What about the academic records?”

  “There is a Harvey Stockman in the Prospect High School yearbook but I ran it through a facial recognition program and did both geometric and photometric comparisons, the facial composition is wrong.”

  “What about plastic surgery?”

  “Its kind impossible to move eye sockets in the skull. Besides I also ran aging software on the photo and if the guy in the yearbook were alive today he wouldn't look much like Stockman.”

  “What do you mean, if he were alive?”

  “It's inconclusive but the trail for the Illinois Stockman goes cold right after he graduated from the University of Illinois. Your guy turned up in Reno two years later.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Could be your Stockman is on the run and picked up the missing guys life, but he would need to be good to cover his trail as well as he did. Without the Internet his past would be almost untraceable. On the other hand this has all the markings of the Justice Department.”

  “Witness Protection Program?” Harry chimed in.

  “Bingo. If you ran the fingerprints you could find out if he was a runner because there is no way he could change data in the National Fingerprint Database. If his prints comes back verified you can bet the government is involved.”

  After he hung up, Harry mulled over this information. He wanted to run Harvey's prints but was not sure he wanted to ask Julia for an item that might have them

  She's been holding back. They all do, the question is what is she hiding?

  The conversation with Ziggy changed his plans. Rather than trying to get into Donatello's house he decided to go to Beaumont. If Julia went out with Donatello he wanted to know it, and if she did go, her house would be empty.

  On t
he other hand if she was home alone he would drop in and see if he could find something that promised to have the late Harvey Stockman's prints.

  Harry checked into the hotel again. It gave him a legitimate place to park and a good position to watch the house from.

  “Is three ten available? I've stayed there and I prefer the northern light.”

  “Sorry, sir, it is occupied. However, three twelve is vacant.”

  “I'll take it.”

  The angle of view was little altered, excepting a street tree that blocked a bit of the corner but not the house. He tossed his overnight bag on the bed and set up the telescope. Nothing stirred but, it was only four-thirty, if Julia went out it would likely be after seven. Harry opened a beer he carried in a cooler, something he found useful during stakeouts. Stacking the pillows he settled back on the bed to watch the five o'clock news. Occasionally he glanced out the window, at a view of the Stockman's front door framed between the balcony's metal railing stiles.

  During the sports news he almost missed her. The garage door closed as he looked over. Harry waited by the scope. Julia appeared in the bedroom, she held a shopping bag in one hand and a dress in a dry cleaners or department store sack in the other. She pulled the plastic away and spread the dress on the bed. New dress! Harry thought as she cut off the tags.

  Julia peeled off her clothes. Rather than the sheepish guilt he usually felt when his worked forced him to play the Peeping Tom, while watching Julia he found his voyeurism titillating. Too soon, she disappeared into the bath area.

  It was almost half an hour before she came out. With the remorseless lechery of an adolescent Harry watched Julia move about the room. She sat at the vanity where she brushed her hair, and did her makeup all sans clothes. Her colorful lingerie was more sex shop than department store.

  I wonder if she has plans for more than dinner? And why does that thought annoy me?

  Harry found the answer in the way she wiggled into her dress. It was stunning! The dowdy clothes he first saw her in were either the exception or with Harvey's apparent demise now rejected.

  At six forty-five a familiar SUV pulled up to the curb. Vito Donatello bounded out of the back seat before his guard, a man that Harry last saw on the house deck and who now sat behind the wheel, could get to the car's rear door. Donatello strode to the Stockman's front door with their air of a teenager on his first date.

  Curiouser and curiouser! Harry ungrammatically thought.

  Julia came out with a gold lame shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

  For a women who detests Donatello she is putting out a lot of effort!

  Perhaps she plans to put out even more?

  Harry checked himself, suddenly feeling rather absurd by his behavior and his jealousy of Vito's night out.

  It was still light. Breaking and entering is best done before dark after which time people grow cautious. Harry walked over from the highway with a clipboard in one hand, a pen in the other, and a hard hat pulled low on his brow. Wearing a blue work shirt with a dummy name tag clipped to the pocket, twill pants and sturdy shoes he became invisible despite the neighborhood watch signs that littered the parkway of the development..

  He briskly walked up the side path of the garage and let himself in the rear yard gate. The Armed Response sign in the front yard was a false deterrent, the windows were not wired and a cat door guaranteed the house did not have motion detectors.

  He did not need his lock picks, the rear entry door to the garage was unlocked. Once inside, safely away from prying eyes, he took his time. The work bench was promising, It was unlikely Julia's manicured nails ever held a tool. Harry picked two crescent wrenches. When he lightly sprinkled them with graphite he could see clear sets of fingerprints. He placed the wrenches in a plastic bag under the paper on his clip board. A minute later he closed the gate, walked down the drive and crossed the street.

  Alone in his hotel room, Harry perversely felt irritable as he waited to see if Julia came home and whether she did so alone.

  Why would a woman go out with a man she feared?

  At eight-thirty a taxi pulled to the curb in front of the house. Julia stepped out, clearly visible in the twilight and hurried to her door. A minute later the lights came on.

  Harry fought off the urge to stay and watch, instead he took his overnight bag, ice chest, and telescope down to his truck.

  When he checked out the clerk desultorily asked, “Was there a problem?”

  “No, I just need to go home.”

  *

  Saturday morning Harry stopped by Sheriff Gaines' house. After Harry explained what he wanted the sheriff shook his head slowly as if sorry he was forced to deal with an idiot.

  “Harry this is not a lending library. It is not a community service facility. Nor is it a do it yourself fingerprint shop!”

  The bag with the wrenches lay on the edge of his table. The sack with the beer bottles rested beside Harry's foot on the floor.

  "Actually, it's your kitchen."

  "Your right and I would like to have my day off in peace."

  “Wouldn't you like to know what happened to Stockman?”

  “That's Panama's problem.”

  “What about a mobster moving into your county? Doesn't that bother you?”

  “Listen Grim, I don't know where you got those wrenches nor how they could tell me what happened to Mr. Stockman. As for mobsters, they need vacations too! I don't care as long as they don't do business here.”

  Not a good sign being called, Grim. Last names again, he's vexed.

  Harry shrugged as if defeated. “Okay, here's the deal, Julia Stockman hired me to protect her from her brother-in-law who has a goon shadowing her. Yet, last night they went out to dinner together.”

  “So your client lies, why should that concern me?”

  “What else may she be lying about?” Harry paused for effect. “Harvey Stockman was not who he seemed to be. The real Stockman, the one he based his past on, disappeared right after college. I want you to run his prints to see if he is in the FBI data base. If they are on file I want to know if they are under Stockman's name and if so when they were entered?”

  “And,” said Gaines cutting in, “if not we may find out who he is and if he is wanted.”

  Harry nodded. “But, if he is in the file the important question is when did they go in? And secondly, who filed them?”

  Gaines' hand reached across the desk and drew the bag toward himself. “Okay you convinced me. But you better be playing this straight.” His eyes added the silent “or else!”

  “Sheriff, have I misled you before?”

  Gaines face grew pained. “That would be parsing words Harry, but I will admit we have successfully interfaced in the past, so lets not screw that up."

  "What about the beer bottles?"

  Gaines sighed, "It can't hurt to run them. Maybe some of these boys have warrants out, it could be an easy way to clear them out when the time comes."

  Harry sat the bag on Gaines' desk, who let out another weary sigh.

  "I'll give you a call when we get something back from IAFIS," he said.

  *

  Late that morning Harry took the houseboat off the hook and motored north,. Paula declined to go.

  More boats were back in the water and docks were sprouting from the shore as quickly as weeds in the spring. He looped up the eastern shore rounded the end of the lake and came down on Gulls Bay. Several houses at the upper end still had floating docks dragged up on the beach sand, a good sign the homes were unoccupied.

  A light breeze stirred the water. Harry nosed into the wind and dropped the anchor. The chain clattered out. The depth sounder read twenty feet so he ran out sixty feet of chain, a short rode but he was not anchoring for a storm.

  He went into the cabin and picked up his binoculars. All was quiet at the Donatello house. Harry watched for twenty minutes. At regular intervals the guard made his circuit but the house appeared empty, no blinds moved, no motion show
ed beyond the closed windows. He put the lens down and picked up a thermal imager. No hot spots glowed behind the drapes or window.

  If someone's home they are not staring back.

  The boat swung on the hook as the breeze shifted. He ensconced himself on the aft deck, book in hand, and a cooler within reach. By mid-afternoon, some activity occurred, but the wind was shifting and the boat was swinging around so that if he turned to watch the house might be obvious so he went below decks. He found a clear view from the porthole in the head. He dropped the toilet seat and leaned his arms against the bulkhead, and twisted at an uncomfortable angle.

  Through his binoculars Donatello came into focus in the living room. Two of his men came and went carrying suitcases out.

  He's decamping? Perhaps the wedding is off?

  Certain thoughts of Julia crept in closely followed by worrisome thoughts of Paula.

  Ten minutes later Donatello left. Evidently, he was not expected back soon because the remaining guard strolled in and sat down in front of the television with a smoke in one hand and what Harry assumed was a beer in the other.

  Not much reason for me to hang out.

  The boat's diesel engine chugged to life. On the foredeck the electric windlass clattered as the anchor rode spilled into the chain locker. Harry reached over the rail and lifted the CQR onto the deck. Easing the boat into gear he headed for Cody's Marina.

  From the fly bridge he called Paula's cell phone.

  “Can you meet me at the marina? I need a ride home.”

  “Sure, I am on my way to the market.”

  “I'll be an hour.”

  “I'll get you on my way home.”

  Harry's eyebrows quizzically peaked. She seems happy. Maybe things have blown over?

  He was glad to have the boat going back to it's slip. The fuel dock was open for business and the tie up clear, so he nosed in, tied off, and told the dock boy to top off the tanks. Ten minutes and a chunk of change later he brought the boat around into its berth. He cinched the mooring lines down on the dock cleats, hooked up the shore power, and filled the water tanks. He was snapping on the canvass covers when a horn barked in the parking lot. Paula waved. Harry held up one finger and a few minutes later trotted up the dock's gangplank.