Dead Lawyers Don't Lie: A Gripping Thriller (Jake Wolfe Book 1)

by Mark Nolan

  Caxton staggered back several steps, and he fell flat on his back. The other lawyers gathered around him, and they gasped in shock as they saw their friend groaning in agony and bleeding from a sucking chest wound. In a split second, the seemingly invincible lawyer was dying on the lush green lawn with a look of total surprise on his face.

  “Help me,” Caxton groaned, as foamy blood bubbled from his lips and from the hole in his chest.

  One of the lawyers looked at the woods, and then took off running toward the clubhouse. The other lawyers quickly ran after him. None of them tried to help Caxton. It was every lawyer for himself.

  As Caxton was dying, he wondered if one of his law firm’s many victims might have sought vigilante justice through revenge. There was a long list of people who hated him. At 12:18pm Pacific Time, Caxton let out a final gasp of breath, his dishonest heart stopped beating, and his days of lying for a living came to an end.

  Chapter 4

  Jake stared at Caxton in surprise. As the other lawyers ran in panic, Jake made an effort to remain professional and detached. He’d seen people get hit by gunfire during his days in combat. Many of them due to him firing his own weapon. He heard one of the running lawyers yelling into his phone. “Send the police. Send an ambulance.”

  Jake took a deep breath and assessed the situation. In his opinion, Caxton was dead, it was too late for an ambulance. Judging by the sound of the suppressed shot and the direction and angle that it appeared to have come from, Jake figured that the shooter was probably up in a tree. He used his camera to scan the woods, and he saw a brief flash of light as the sun reflected off the glass lens of a rifle scope. Then he saw the killer up in a tree, aiming the rifle right at him.

  Not good, not good at all.

  Jake’s reflexes had been trained to pull a rifle trigger in this situation. His trigger finger pressed the camera’s shutter button instead and snapped a photo. One second later he ducked down to his right onto the front seat of the Jeep so he was below the dash and not exposed through the windshield. He waited for rounds to hit his car, seeking his body, but none came. Maybe the killer had decided to make a quick getaway. Or maybe he was just waiting for Jake to sit up in the driver’s seat so he could shoot him in the head.

  Jake used a tablet computer to connect with the TV camera on the tray outside his car window. He made the camera tilt and turn as he pointed it at the woods and zoomed in for a closer look. The shooter was no longer visible in the tree. He might be hiding behind camouflage and pointing his rifle at the Jeep, or he could be moving fast in Jake’s direction.

  Jake cursed at himself. “You just had to get a picture, didn’t you?”

  He grabbed his phone and called his good friend Terrell Hayes, a plainclothes Police Inspector with the SFPD Homicide Division.

  Terrell was driving his police SUV when he answered the call. “Hayes.”

  “It’s Jake, I need some help.”

  “What kind of help? Financial help? Mental help?”

  “Police help. I just witnessed a murder at the Paradise Golf Club.”

  Terrell cursed and did a U-turn with his tires squealing. He turned on his car siren, put his foot down on the gas pedal and used a key fob device to make the next stoplight change from red to green. “I’m on my way. Give me a report.”

  “A lawyer named Richard Caxton was shot by a sniper near the first tee.”

  “And you saw it happen?”

  “Yes, I was taking photos and video for a news assignment.”

  “Please tell me you took cover and you’re out of the line of fire.”

  “I’m behind cover right now, but when I did recon with my telephoto lens I saw the shooter up in a tree at the two o’clock position from the first tee. I shot a photo of him as a reflex.”

  “That was crazy, you’re lucky he didn’t see you.”

  “Actually he did see me and he pointed his rifle at me. Right now I’m lying low on the front seat of my Jeep, below the dash and out of sight.”

  “Keep your head down and I’ll be there soon.” Terrell ended the call.

  Jake checked the tablet computer again and made the camera scan along the edge of the woods and across the golf course greens. Soon he grew impatient with hiding in his car like a sitting duck. He studied the area for a vantage point where he could see but not be seen. If he could find a good observation post he could provide recon intel for Terrell. It crossed his mind that working as a team with his best friend and covering his back came naturally to him. It was trained into him from their days in the infantry.

  The pavilion near the first tee looked like his best bet. It was a large open-sided wooden structure with an octagon roof. Jake made his decision, and he hoped it was the right one. He stuffed his camera gear into a small backpack, and double-checked to make sure his pistol was in there too. He removed the tray, raised the car window, and locked the door. As he ran to the pavilion, his heart was beating fast. He hoped that the sniper was not taking aim at him right now. All he had to do was find a way to get up on top of the roof quickly and hide on one of the eight sides without being shot. What could go wrong?

  Chapter 5

  The assassin whispered, “As Shakespeare said… Kill all the lawyers.”

  He scanned the scene with his rifle scope and watched the other lawyers panic and run to the clubhouse. It would have been amusing to pick them off one by one, but that was not part of his plan.

  He saw a man sitting in a parked vehicle, pointing a telephoto camera lens directly at him. The man must have seen the rifle aimed at his head because he ducked out of sight.

  The killer frowned. He was tempted to remain in the tree for a while longer and try to get a headshot on this inconvenient witness, or to fire round after round into his vehicle and kill him that way. However he felt that to avoid being arrested he had to stick to his plan and schedule, even more so now that he’d been spotted. He climbed down from the tree and retrieved his golf bag and push cart where they were hidden in some bushes, covered with a small camouflage-patterned tarp.

  Working quickly, the killer removed the suppressor off of the end of the rifle barrel and dropped it into the golf bag out of sight. Next he folded over the skeleton stock of the rifle and placed it into his bag with the butt end down and the barrel pointing up. That barrel looked like just another of his black, graphite golf club shafts.

  From a zippered pocket in the golf bag, he took out a knitted sock cover that matched the same covers he had on his clubs. Inside the cover was a golf club head with a custom-made short plastic hollow shaft that fit over the end of the rifle barrel. He placed the cover on the end of the barrel so it blended in well with the rest of the club heads in their covers.

  Lastly, the killer rolled up the camouflaged tarp and stuffed it down into the bag between the club shafts and on top of the suppressor. The golf bag was on a three-wheeled cart. He pushed it along as he walked up a path leading out of the golf course woods to a nearby neighborhood street. When he reached the street and began walking toward his parked car. He was wearing golf shoes, khaki pants and a designer polo shirt. He completed the look with a plain white baseball cap and a pair of stylish sunglasses.

  The killer didn’t observe any residents of the neighborhood looking at him as he climbed into his parked vehicle and drove away. He made sure to keep his speed at or below the posted limit. While he drove along he whistled softly to himself, a strange and melancholy tune seldom heard in America. A few minutes later he was miles from the scene of the crime and he’d made a clean getaway. It was almost the perfect crime, except for that unfortunate man with the camera. Had he taken a photo, or not? The killer decided he would have to find out who the man was, put a bullet in his brain, and confiscate his camera. The only good witness was a dead witness.

  Chapter 6

  Terrell Hayes arrived at the crime scene before his fellow police officers. When the other cops drove up and saw Terrell standing there, they wondered how he was always one st
ep ahead of everyone.

  Now the serious-looking plainclothes police lieutenant took command of the situation. Terrell stood near the first tee looking down at the body on the perfectly manicured grass. Caxton’s mouth was open. His dead eyes stared at the sky. Flies buzzed around the wound in his chest.

  The CSI Unit arrived along with a police photographer from the Forensics Photographic Unit. Uniformed officers began setting up fence posts and police tape.

  Terrell’s previous experience as a Marine Corps Infantry Rifleman “Grunt,” came in handy now that he worked on the SFPD’s Homicide Detail. Terrell had seen plenty of gunshot victims in both careers. He recognized the work of a shooter with talent when he saw it. Whoever had nailed this victim had known what he was doing. One shot to the chest with a high-velocity round, fired from a fair distance away using a scope.

  Terrell studied the possible trajectory of the shot by standing on the first tee and facing the fairway, then looking to his right. If he imagined the ground as the face of a clock with himself at the center of it, the number two would be found to the front and right of him. After looking back and forth between the trees and the victim’s body, Terrell agreed with what Jake had said. The shot had come from the two o’clock position. He’d sent Ryan and his dog Hank over to the trees to search the area, and now he called Ryan on the phone.

  “Hey Ryan, did you have any luck yet?”

  “Yes, Hank sniffed out the exact spot where the shooter fired his weapon,” Ryan said. “The perpetrator was up in a tree just like you suspected. Hank found the tree and then traced the shooter’s footsteps to a nearby neighborhood street. That’s where he lost the scent.”

  “Good work. The shooter probably got into a getaway vehicle there and fled the scene. Maybe a neighbor saw something. Our people can ask around and check to see if any houses on that street have security cameras.”

  Terrell ended the call and he noticed that the news media people were arriving. They were being kept back behind the yellow police tape strung along several metal fence posts that were stuck into the manicured greens.

  Terrell thought that this kind of murder was like a gift-wrapped present for the TV and Internet reporters and their bloodthirsty viewers. It was similar to a wreck on the highway. Everybody just had to look. They couldn’t help themselves. Terrell had to admit he had gawked at a few car wrecks too. It was human nature, sad but true.

  He wondered where his cameraman friend Jake Wolfe was at the moment. When he’d arrived he’d checked the Jeep, but Jake hadn’t been inside. Jake was probably doing something reckless, dangerous and bordering on stupid right about now. Terrell shook his head.

  Terrell’s work partner, Sergeant Beth Cushman, had been talking to the morgue unit as they’d begun the process of putting the victim into a body bag. Beth raised her voice and yelled at one cop, then turned on her heel and walked over to Terrell with that look on her face that told him she had figured out something.

  Beth had inherited her Scottish mother’s pale complexion. She had short, fiery red hair, and a fiery personality to go along with it. She was a smart, hard-working cop who was good at her job and didn’t take any lip from anybody. She wore a dark pants suit, carried a pistol on her right hip, and had a police badge displayed on her belt.

  Terrell had noticed that lately Beth had been short-tempered. That was understandable, due to her husband’s affair and the resulting divorce. She was still adjusting to being a single parent, and struggling to keep it together for her young son.

  Beth said, “I got a closer look at the exit wound when they moved the body. The victim was hit with a hollow point round. He probably died within a minute or two of being shot.”

  “It seems like the shooter knew what he was doing and had a plan,” Terrell said.

  “That’s how it looks to me too. One shot one kill. He takes pride in his work.”

  “It could be a professional hit, or it could just be a perfectionistic deer hunter with a grudge.”

  “Could be anyone in a criminal gang or someone who just got out of prison after the lawyer failed to keep him out of there. Or maybe, and I hate to say this, it could be a military veteran.”

  Terrell frowned. “Let’s hope it wasn’t a veteran. We don’t need this kind of news making our lives more difficult. Not everybody who ever wore a uniform has PTSD now. In reality, the majority of veterans are great assets to their communities. They’re hardworking, reliable leaders who are cool under pressure and get jobs done right.”

  “We can put together a list of everyone who played golf here today, and the names of the staff working here.”

  “And check with the people who live in homes around the golf course.”

  “The first motive that comes to mind is a vengeance killing.”

  “Right, we’ll have to dig through his list of cases, and match up the people in them with criminal records, firearms permits, and hunting licenses.”

  “I’ve been making some phone calls to see if anything pans out,” Beth said. She saw two plainclothes police sergeants approaching on foot. “Oh come on, not these two.”

  Terrell followed her gaze. “Yeah, no surprise.”

  “I can’t believe Denton and Kirby are here butting into one of our cases again. I bet you they’ll say they were just driving by the area.”

  “Probably, but I think it’s your lucky turn to deal with them,” Terrell said. “I’m going over to the woods to take a look at the evidence Ryan and his dog Hank are finding.”

  “Alright I’ll handle our shadows,” Beth said, and she clenched her hands into fists.

  Chapter 7

  Terrell headed toward the trees while police Sergeants Cori Denton and Ray Kirby walked over to the crime scene.

  Denton was a female police sergeant with brunette hair and a permanent frown on her face. She had a competitive rivalry going against Beth. She was always trying to take credit for Beth’s work, or spreading gossip in an attempt to make her look bad. Her partner Kirby was one of those men who would continue to ask a woman out for a drink even after she’d repeatedly said no. Beth had turned him down half a dozen times.

  Denton said to Beth, “We were driving past the neighborhood and we heard the calls on the radio, so we stopped by to see if we could help you with some more eyes on the situation.”

  Beth just stared at Denton and didn’t say anything in reply. She’d recently been “advised” by the Chief of Police to take some anger management classes. Right now she was trying out their theories, but she still felt like punching Denton in the throat.

  As Terrell walked toward the wooded area, the crowd of media folks saw him passing by and they started shouting, “Inspector Hayes, over here, one quick question.”

  Terrell was known to some of the local media, and easy for them to spot. He was a tall and ruggedly handsome black man who had a body like a professional athlete. He always wore a dark suit, a white long-sleeve shirt, a solid color tie, and perfectly shined black shoes. The same clothes, every day, without fail.

  When Terrell was asked why he always dressed that way, he didn’t know what to say. For a while he said it was because, “Chicks dig it.” His wife Alicia was not amused by that answer, so now he said it was because, “My wife likes it.”

  Terrell glanced back at the scene of the crime. He was now far enough away from the first tee to see that one of the media people was doing something risky that none of the rest of them would ever think to do. This guy had climbed up on top of a wooden pavilion to do some recon. He was observing the terrain from a high vantage point.

  Terrell’s quick police appraisal pegged the subject as a six foot tall male Caucasian with an athletic build, dark wavy hair, devil-may-care eyes, and a jaded smile. The look on the man’s face suggested that he found the world around him both amusing and annoying. Most cops would take one look at Jake and see a potential troublemaker that they should keep an eye on—even though he was similar to them in many ways.

  Jake po
inted his camera’s zoom lens at Terrell, waved and then tapped his mobile phone and held it up to his ear. Terrell’s phone buzzed and he saw that the caller ID from his list of contacts said “Jukebox.”

  In the Marines, Jake had been given the radio call sign Jukebox because he would belt out a few song lyrics at inappropriate moments. Terrell went by “Grinds,” due to his love for coffee.

  Terrell continued walking past the media crowd, nodding to them and acknowledging them but passing by without comment. As he made his way toward the wooded area, he answered the phone with his back to the reporters.

  “From your position on that roof, can you see the woods ahead of me?”

  “Yes I’m doing recon for you, and the woods area looks clear except for your K9 cop and the dog. I doubt the shooter is hiding there under camouflage, or the dog would have found him.”

  “Hopefully he won’t return to the scene of the crime. Some criminals wait until the cops show up, and then they come back and start shooting.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on the area for you.”

  “Thanks for providing cover.”

  “Just like old times, you know I’ve always got your back,” Jake said. “Although I feel empty-handed without my rifle.”

  “Any chance you have some coffee and Ibuprofen with you?” Terrell said.

  “Are the headaches bothering you again?”

  “Yeah and they’re worse when I’m working on an empty stomach. This is bad timing, I was just about to go to lunch.”

  “Only a lawyer could ruin your day after he’s already dead.”

  “If he’s a divorce lawyer I hope you have a solid alibi, after the way you and Gwen have been fighting so much lately.”

  “My alibi is that I’m not married yet, and I’m having doubts about going through with the wedding,” Jake said.

  “When in doubt… don’t.”

  “I’ve got my thermos in the car. I’ll trade you a cup of coffee for a few photos of the police dog and the K9 cop.”