Death on the Rocks (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 1)

by Michael Allegretto

  “Get up.”

  I wobbled to my feet. My head was booming. Or maybe it was the thunder outside.

  “Move.”

  He shoved me toward the rear of the building and followed close behind with Maryanne and Jennifer and the .45. There was a utility closet in back. The door stood open.

  “Inside. You, too.”

  Reese pushed me in and then Maryanne. The tiny room was cluttered with boxes and bottles, mops and buckets. I turned around and noticed for the first time that Reese had tied a length of cord around Jennifer’s neck. A leash. The other end was wrapped in his hand.

  “You sure you came up here alone, Jake ole buddy?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You better be. Because me and the kid are going outside for a while to see who might be sneaking around. If I see anyone at all, she dies.”

  “I’m telling you there’s no one.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.”

  Some of this was getting through to Jennifer.

  “Mommy, don’t let him take me.”

  Reese yanked the cord to shut her up. Maryanne took a step forward.

  “It’s all right, Jen,” she said with forced calm. “He won’t hurt you. Everything will be all right.”

  Reese slammed the door, throwing the closet into blackness. The lock clicked. I bent down to the keyhole and saw Reese leading Jennifer through the saloon to the front door. He pulled her around before him and put the gun to her head. They went out into the rain.

  “What’s he doing? What’s happening?”

  “They went outside.”

  “Oh my god, my baby, what’s he going to do, it’s like a nightmare …”

  I bumped the door and knew I could kick it open. For all the good it would do me.

  “… why us? What have we done? I told him I’d give him money, anything, just leave us alone. …”

  She was nearly hysterical.

  “Mrs. Townsend. Maryanne. Shut up and listen. Turn on the light.”

  “Wha—where?”

  “There’s a string hanging down by my face.”

  She groped around, then reached up with both hands and pulled the string. The overhead bulb made me blink. I turned my back to her.

  “Untie my hands. Quickly. He could be back any minute.”

  She made feeble attempts at the cord.

  “We’ve done nothing, what does he want from us, I told—”

  “Concentrate,” I said.

  She pulled harder at the wire cord. Reese had put in some tough knots.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Okay, wait. Let me untie you.”

  I managed to. Barely. The cord around my wrists was so tight that I was losing the feeling in my fingers. Maryanne went back to work on the knots.

  “He came to the house last night,” she said, her voice a bit steadier. “Jennifer was asleep. Thank God. He … he raped me. He forced me to—”

  “Forget about that. Get the knots.” I could feel her nails in my hand.

  “He made me get all the cash and jewels in the house. There wasn’t much. He made us pack some clothes, so it would appear we’d gone on a short trip. He made me write a note for Rosa. God, he knows all about us.”

  The knots still held.

  “You never talked to Reese before?”

  “God, no.” There was no way she could be lying now.

  “Wait.”

  I peered through the keyhole. The barroom was empty.

  “We need something to cut the cord.”

  We began moving bottles and boxes and searching the shelves. The bottles were plastic, or we could have tried broken glass. Then Maryanne found something. A box opener. It held a single-edged razor blade.

  She used it on the cord. It cut through the rubber, but not the wire.

  “It won’t work.”

  “Harder. Use both hands.”

  She leaned on the cord, pulling the razor back and forth.

  “He brought us here in a van,” she said. “Late last night. He said none of his friends would hide him. He said he knew how to get in here without tripping the alarm. We were going to leave tonight, whether he could get you up here or not. He said once he got to California or Mex—”

  Her hand slipped and the razor went into my palm.

  “Oh God.”

  “Forget it. Get the cord.”

  “But your hand. It’s bleeding.”

  “The cord, goddammit.”

  She went back to work. Fire burned in the palm of my left hand. Blood dripped off my fingers.

  “There,” she said.

  It took me a moment to realize that the cord was gone. I flexed my fingers. Maryanne found a rag. She tied it around my hand. I rubbed feeling back into my wrists. I looked through the keyhole. The barroom was still empty. For the moment. I stepped back and kicked the door, lock high, with the sole of my shoe. The door flew open and slammed against the wall.

  “Stay in here.”

  “But what—?”

  “Please,” I said. I closed the door.

  I crossed the barroom to the front. The door was partly open. Outside, the rain came down in sheets, hissing against the ground. Reese and Jennifer had been out there for nearly half an hour.

  I went behind the bar and looked for a weapon. The only thing I found was a paring knife used to cut up limes for tequila hookers. I left it in the rack, hefted a few bottles, and chose a thick-bottomed liter of Cold Duck.

  Then I crouched behind the end of the bar, near the door, and waited.

  Another twenty minutes passed before Reese came in. He led Jennifer, shivering, by her leash. Their clothes were plastered to them and water ran onto the floor.

  “Your mommy can towel us both off,” Reese said. “I’ll help her with you. Won’t that be fun?”

  They sloshed past the bar. Reese held the leash in his left hand and my magnum in his right, down at his side.

  I came around the bar behind him, low and fast, swinging the bottle at his head. He saw me in time to duck and raise his gun hand. The bottle cracked against his forearm. The gun jumped out of his hand and slid across the floor. He dropped Jennifer’s leash and started to tug the .45 out of his belt. I grabbed his arm and he got a hand on my throat and I stomped on his instep and tried to knee him and we went down on the floor in a heap. We rolled around, kicking and punching. I saw Maryanne Townsend come out of the closet and hang on to Jennifer and stare at me as Reese punched me in the face. He kicked away and got to his feet and yanked the .45 out of his belt. I went into him headfirst and the gun went off, booming over my shoulder. I kept driving and dropped him hard on his back and the gun fell away. He hammered my head with powerful jabs, then pushed away and scrambled for the .45, lying near the door. I dove for the magnum, rolled over, and fired one into the wall, a few feet from his head.

  He stopped, his hand poised above the automatic.

  “It’s over, Reese.”

  He straightened up slowly, then went for the door. I aimed at his back, hesitated, and he was gone.

  I yelled at Maryanne, “Find a phone and call the cops.” I ran out after Reese.

  The rain was heavy and cold. It pounded on the Olds and puddled in the gravel lot. Reese was nowhere in sight. Thunder rolled overhead. A motor turned and turned and failed to catch. I moved around the building. A van was parked in back. Suddenly, the rear doors swung open and Reese shoved his bike out onto the ground.

  He saw me and pulled something from his jacket pocket. My other gun. He fired three or four times and I ducked back around the corner. The bike fired up. I ran around to the front, as Reese slid through the lot to the road and headed down the mountain. I ran for the Olds and got it started and fishtailed onto the rain-slick asphalt.

  On a dry day I could not have kept up with Reese. But he had to fight it all the way, nearly blinded by rain. His Harley slid and slipped through the wet curves, while the old Olds squished right along on fat tires.

  We wound ou
r way down the mountain. I could see him now and then, through the rain and the trees. I was gaining on him. When we got to the bottom, I had closed to within a hundred feet.

  Now Reese had to make a choice. He could go straight ahead toward Golden, right toward Denver, or left toward the mountains.

  He swung the bike left.

  I followed him up the twists and turns of U.S. 6.

  It was raining harder now, a torrent of gray that cut visibility to a dozen yards. Water rushed down the mountain on my right, ran glistening across the pavement, and poured into Clear Creek on my left. The creek was brown and swollen. It raged with water that days ago had fallen on the high country.

  Reese was sliding all over the road now, barely keeping the bike under him. I gained a little on each curve.

  Then we reached a section of road that snaked sharply back and forth. I closed on Reese. I got within ten feet. Five. I was nearly on top of him. He leaned into the next curve.

  My bumper touched his rear tire.

  He lost control and went down. I slammed on the brakes.

  He and the bike slid across the pavement and gravel shoulder, hit the guardrail, then went up and over in a grotesque somersault. I fought the Olds through a skid, spun around, and stopped on the shoulder. I jumped out and ran back to where Reese had gone over.

  A big semi came whooshing past, covering me with a wave of water and rushing out of sight into the rain.

  I climbed over the rail and down the steep, slippery rocks to the edge of the creek. It was thirty feet across, all brown water hummocks and white spray and overpowering roar.

  The Harley was on the rocks.

  Reese was in the water.

  His momentum had carried him over the slope and ten feet beyond the bank. He’d landed feet first, facing upstream. His legs were pinned under him, wedged tight between submerged boulders. The savage brown water bent him backward and crested up over his chest and face. He was waving his arms, fighting for air, trying to free himself. Now and then his face came out of the water and he could breathe. But it wasn’t often enough. He was drowning.

  He reached out to me. Or maybe he was merely reaching toward shore.

  I wondered if I could save him, if I could possibly fight my way through that torrent without getting sucked downstream. Maybe I could. If he were somebody else.

  I sat on a rock in the rain with the violent creek roaring in my head and watched him die.

  It took a long time.

  When I was certain the movements of his arms were caused by the water alone and not by any conscious effort, I climbed up the rocky slope.

  CHAPTER 38

  I DROVE BACK TO the Mountain Man Saloon. The rain was beginning to let up. Thunder rolled in the distance, away to the east.

  I parked in the lot next to an unmarked cop car. There were also two highway patrol cars and an ambulance. The ambulance pulled away from the building, lights flashing, no siren.

  Ives met me at the entrance. He wore a slicker over his coat.

  “Which way is he headed?”

  “Upstream,” I said.

  “What?”

  “He’s dead. Two or three miles up the canyon. I’ll show you.”

  “What’s wrong with your hand?”

  The rag was sodden with blood.

  “It can wait.”

  We went in Ives’s car, with a patrol unit close behind.

  “Mrs. Townsend seems to be okay,” he said. “The girl is in shock. They’re going to St. Anthony’s. I’d better get you there myself for that hand.”

  “There, I think.”

  Ives crossed the double yellow line and parked on the narrow shoulder. He and the patrolman climbed over the guardrail. I stayed in the car. After a while, Ives came back.

  “I can’t get a good look at his face.”

  “It’s Reese,” I said.

  Ives used the radio to call for a rescue unit for the body and a tow truck for the bike. He called off the a.p.b.

  The patrol car stayed behind at the scene, and we drove down the canyon toward Denver. I told Ives about my phone call with Reese this morning and everything that came after. He listened without comment. When I was through, he frowned.

  “You should have called me right away.”

  “Maybe.”

  Ives turned left off U.S. 6 onto U.S. 40. It curved a bit and became West Colfax. There wasn’t much traffic. Most people were at work.

  “Mrs. Townsend was able to fill us in on Reese,” he said. “He hid out with friends Saturday and Sunday. That’s as long as they’d let him stay. He stole a van and grabbed Mrs. Townsend and the girl, figuring they’d be perfect hostages, helpless and rich. Plus, he could use them to get you. He planned on keeping you alive so you could drive the van, buy food, whatever. At least until he got across into Mexico. Then you were dead meat.”

  He pulled up to the emergency entrance of St. Anthony’s Hospital. They stitched my hand. Three weeks later I had nothing to show for it but a thin white scar.

  I’d kept in touch with DeWitt concerning Maryanne Townsend. The experience with Reese had been more than a little unnerving for her, but now she was getting back into her life. I visited her at her home.

  “You look well,” I said, and she did.

  “Thank you. I’ve been keeping busy, particularly with Eagle Oil. I’ve reopened the office.”

  “You have?”

  She nodded. “These past few months have forced me to, well, reexamine myself. I suppose I felt the need to do something substantial. Clarence tried to talk me out of it, but I think secretly he’s pleased.”

  “So how’s it going at the office?”

  “It’s a struggle, mainly because there is so much for me to learn, but I rather enjoy it. And we’re taking it slowly. We only work mornings.”

  “We?”

  “Yvonne Winters has agreed to come back and help out. Unfortunately, I don’t believe she likes me very much. Of course, that may change.”

  “I’m sure it will.”

  Just then, Jennifer burst out of the back door and into the yard. She was followed by Pasha and Benjamin Krisp.

  “Don’t mind us, folks,” Krisp said cheerfully. He wore a shirt and shorts by Ralph Lauren. His legs were hairy and, I thought, obscenely white. He and Jennifer tossed a rubber ball back and forth and played keep-away from Pasha. The frenzied dog raced between them.

  “I destroyed the videotape,” I said.

  “I assumed that you would.”

  “Also the original.”

  “How? I mean, where did you get it?”

  Pasha snapped up the ball and loped around the yard, with Krisp and Jennifer in hot pursuit.

  “Reese’s aunt let me go through his things.”

  “I see.” She looked away; staring into the middle distance. “I only wish …”

  “Yes?”

  Pasha slowed down and let Krisp tackle her. Jennifer piled on top.

  “I cannot forget what Phillip did.”

  “No, I suppose not. But if your husband were alive today, he’d be doing his best to make up for … for his mistake.”

  “I have been trying to convince myself of that.”

  “I am convinced. Your husband was prepared to tell the whole story, To you and to the police. That’s why he kept the tape—to use as evidence, if necessary, that Reese was blackmailing him. When he drove up to the Mountain Man Saloon to confront Reese and Tiny and tell them no, he knew the terrible danger involved. It took courage to do that. More courage than I can imagine. Your husband didn’t die because he was a coward, Mrs. Townsend. He died because he was a brave and moral man.”

  She smiled faintly.

  “Thank you for saying that, Mr. Lomax. For myself and for Jennifer.”

  At the moment, Jennifer and Krisp and the dog were rolling around on the lawn. And on each other. Jennifer screamed with delight. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

  “Isn’t that nice,” Maryanne Townsend said. “Just th
e way Phillip and Jen used to play.”

  I looked at her. She gazed wistfully at the mad scene.

  Jennifer started school in September. She had some exciting things to say about her summer vacation.

  Based on his statement, signed and witnessed, Tiny was found guilty of accessory to murder. He got eight to ten, a bit stiffer than he’d hoped for. It didn’t matter, though, because during Tiny’s first week in Canon City, an inmate shoved a sharpened spoon handle through his eardrum. He died instantly. Cons don’t like guys who rat on their pals.

  I made one last trip up to the Mountain Man Saloon.

  Al the bartender was surprised to see me. He was more surprised when I told him to open a new jug of his best cheap white wine.

  But he shared a glass with me. Several, in fact.

  Turn the page to continuing reading from the Jacob Lomax Mysteries

  1

  LLOYD FONTAINE COUGHED SMOKE across my desk and said he could make me rich.

  “I’m on a case,” he said, “and I want you for my partner.”

  “I’m pretty busy now, Lloyd.” I wasn’t.

  “Look, Jake, there’s millions involved here. Believe me.”

  I didn’t believe him. When you’re talking about money, it’s tough to trust a guy who’s wearing a brown-checked coat, green polyester pants, black shoes, and white socks. He tugged at his flowery tie and looked at me with rheumy eyes.

  “At least let me tell you about it,” he said.

  Fontaine’s voice was as whiny as it had been the last time I’d seen him, four years ago. He’d looked the same then, too—tired face, thinning hair, and a mustache like a plucked eyebrow. He’d been down on his luck. A mutual acquaintance, an attorney, had sent him to me for work because Fontaine was in the business and at that time I had one or two more cases than I could handle. It was no big deal, and I didn’t expect to be paid back. Hell, I didn’t want to be paid back.

  Lloyd Fontaine wanted to pay me back.

  “Sure, Lloyd, tell me about it,” I said, and a few of the wrinkles went out of his face.

  “It was twenty years ago,” he said, coughing. He lit a cigarette from the one he had going and dropped the old butt in his coffee cup. “Lochemont Jewelers in downtown Denver was knocked over by four gunmen for two-point-one million in jewelry and loose stones plus a necklace on loan from the state historical society that was worth another six hundred grand. You probably read about it.”