Fugitive

by Phillip Margolin

  “Okay, bring him over. It’ll give me something to do.”

  “I’ll be right there. By the way, the problem with Mickey Keys is settled. He signed a waiver to any rights he may have had as your agent.”

  “How much did it cost me?”

  “Seventy-five.”

  “Damn, I’m bleeding money.”

  “Think of it as one less problem you have.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Do you know what you want me to tell Tuazama?”

  “No, not yet. I still want to think about what I’m going to do and this stuff about Gary isn’t making that any easier.”

  “MR. MARSH, DO you know why Gary Hass would have newspaper articles about you in his hotel room?” Agent Cordova asked as soon as the introductions were completed.

  “Gary and me go way back and he was there when the congressman was killed, so it’s natural he’d be interested in reading about me and the case.”

  “Other than curiosity, why would he be interested in you? Does he have a reason to want to hurt you?”

  Charlie thought about that. “He might. The day Pope died, Gary came to one of my book signings and threatened me.”

  “About what?” Cordova asked.

  Charlie suddenly looked uncomfortable.

  “Don’t answer that if you were talking about something criminal,” Amanda cautioned.

  “Miss Jaffe and Mr. Marsh, I’m not taking notes on this and I promise you I will not use anything Mr. Marsh tells me to get him in trouble. The Bureau wants Hass badly. This is strictly background.”

  Charlie looked at Amanda. She nodded.

  “Gary said there were incidents in the book from his life and he wanted to get paid.”

  “What kind of incidents?” Cordova asked.

  “There was a chapter about a bank robbery. That’s the one I remember.”

  “What about a bank robbery?”

  “I wrote about one where I was robbing a bank and everything got messed up and some people were killed. He said I wasn’t there and he wanted to get paid because he said I was taking credit for something he did.”

  “What did you do when he asked for the money?” Cordova asked.

  “I told him that I wasn’t going to give him any.”

  “How did he react to that?”

  “Gary was pissed off. He doesn’t deal well with rejection. He said he was going to give me time to think and we’d discuss the money later at the country club. He showed up but we never got the chance to talk because of the murder.”

  “Did you see him after that?”

  “No. I was in Africa until a few days ago. I never even thought about Gary.”

  “Do you think Hass would hold a grudge all these years?” Cordova asked.

  “Gary’s brain doesn’t work like a normal person’s brain,” Charlie explained to the agent. “He doesn’t believe in forgive and forget. So he might.”

  “Would he be angry enough to try and shoot you?”

  “You mean the sniper?” Charlie shook his head. “I can’t see him doing that. Gary likes to hear his victims scream. Also, I never heard of him being a great shot. A knife is more his style. Or a handgun. He’d use one of those but he’d be close when he used it.”

  “WHAT DO YOU really think about the possibility of Hass being the sniper?” Amanda asked when Cordova was gone.

  “I meant what I said. I just don’t see it. Gary is a psycho. He wants to see suffering up close. A long-range shot doesn’t sound right.”

  “What about Tuazama?”

  “Oh, he’d do it all right. He doesn’t kill for pleasure. I don’t think he knows what pleasure is. He’s a technician. If a person needs to be dead, Nathan kills them. It’s like fixing a flat tire for him.”

  “If he’s that dangerous, what do I tell him about the diamonds?”

  “I can’t do it. It would dishonor Bernadette’s memory.”

  “If that’s your decision, I think we should use some of the money I have in trust to hire a bodyguard.”

  “That’s not going to help. If Tuazama wants me dead, nothing’s going to stop him. That’s another reason why I can’t give him the diamonds. Once he has them, he won’t have any reason to let me live. Those stones are the only thing keeping me alive.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Charlie was going stir crazy but he didn’t dare leave his hotel room with Tuazama on the loose. He called room service for dinner, watched an in-room movie, then tried to get to sleep. The moment he closed his eyes, he thought about Tuazama, and his pulse rate accelerated. He finally fell asleep from exhaustion at 1:30, after downing several small bottles of booze he found in the minibar. At 2:17, the jarring ring of the bedside phone cut into Charlie’s brain like a razor.

  “Who the fuck is this?” he asked after fumbling in the dark for the receiver.

  “Charlie?” a woman asked. It was a voice he would never forget. Charlie sat up and turned on the lamp on his end table.

  “Sally? What’s going on? It’s two in the morning.”

  “I have to see you.”

  “When?” Charlie asked, still groggy from the shock of being jarred out of a deep sleep.

  “Now, tonight.”

  Charlie thought Sally sounded desperate but he had no intention of leaving the safety of his hotel room in the dead of night.

  “Didn’t you hear me? It’s two in the morning. I was sound asleep.”

  “It has to be now.”

  Sally’s voice trembled and that made Charlie pause. The Sally he knew was never out of control.

  “What’s so important that it can’t wait a few hours?”

  “It’s about your case. There’s something I have to show you. It can’t wait until morning.”

  “I don’t even know where you live. I don’t have a car.”

  “Get a taxi. I’ll drive you back.”

  Sally gave him directions to her house.

  “That’s in the middle of nowhere,” Charlie said. “I’m not going to hell and gone tonight. Besides, if this is about my case, I want my lawyer along.”

  “No! This can’t wait until morning. It has to be now,” she repeated. “And you have to come alone. I know something that will help you get your case dismissed.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I can’t tell you over the phone. I have to show you. Please.”

  Charlie was wide awake and wise enough to know that there was no way he would be able to get back to sleep. If he didn’t go, he’d be up all night imagining what Sally wanted to show him.

  “All right, I’m coming, but this better be good.”

  “Thank you, Charlie. Thank you.”

  Sally hung up and Charlie sat on the edge of the bed reviewing what had just happened. She’d said she could show him something that would get his case dismissed. It sounded too good to be true. What could she possibly know now that she didn’t know twelve years ago?

  Sally hadn’t sounded happy or confident. She’d sounded desperate and panicky, emotions he would never have associated with her. What was she afraid of and why couldn’t she wait until morning to show her evidence to him? It was very confusing, but he was too tired to work out the problem and too revved up to fall asleep. He called the front desk, asked them to get a taxi for him, and got dressed.

  THE CABBIE WAS a grizzled, talkative Ukrainian who spent the early part of the ride giving Charlie his unsolicited opinion of the current state of soccer in the United States. Much to Charlie’s relief, he shut up after they left the highway and the signs of civilization faded away. It was spooky driving through the sparsely populated farm country in the dark.

  Even with Sally’s directions the driver almost missed the narrow entrance to her estate. The woods closed around them as soon as they passed through the break in the stonework, giving Charlie the unsettling, claustrophobic feeling that he was inside a coffin of leaves. His anxiety didn’t ease when they drove out of the forest. In daylight, the colorful flower beds an
d bright green lawn made Sally’s antebellum mansion look cheerful. At night, with only the pale rays of a half moon to illuminate it, the house resembled a skull.

  When they drove up to the front of the house, Charlie looked for some sign of life and finally spotted dim yellow light seeping through the curtains in a downstairs room.

  “Stop here,” Charlie said when the cab reached the front door.

  “You want me to wait?” the driver asked.

  Charlie thought about that. Sally had said she would drive him back to town, and he had a cell phone.

  “No, you can go.”

  Charlie got out and the cab drove off. There was a soft breeze, a faint smell of freshly mown grass, night sounds, and nothing else. He was spooked, so he turned in a slow circle to make sure no one was behind him. He had almost completed his turn when he thought he saw movement where the woods ended and the lawn began. He peered into the darkness. The space between the low branches of a tree seemed to disappear and reappear. He strained to find the cause but heard and saw nothing. He blamed the phantom on his imagination and climbed the porch steps.

  No one had left a light on, so it took Charlie a moment to find the doorbell. The chimes echoed hollowly in the downstairs hall. As Charlie waited for Sally, there was a faint sound behind him. He turned toward the yard but still saw nothing. When he turned back, his eyes had grown accustomed to the dark and he noticed that the front door was not flush with the frame. He pushed and it opened. Charlie hesitated before stepping inside. There was a glow at the end of a long hall. Charlie inched toward the light and called Sally’s name. He was waiting for an answer when he saw the dog. It lay on its side partially hidden by a low cedar chest that stood against the staircase to the second floor. Charlie assumed the collie was sleeping. Then it dawned on him that, sleeping or not, the dog would have come awake when he called to Sally.

  Charlie walked to the chest and peered over it. The collie’s head was in a shadow and it took him a moment to see that it was resting in a puddle of blood. He jumped back, almost tripping over his own feet. If Charlie’s DNA contained a gene for common sense, he would have fled. Instead, he picked up a brass candlestick from the top of the chest and started down the hall toward the light. His feet made no sound on the carpet and he could hear his heart beating rapidly. Charlie’s heightened senses focused on the open doorway at the end of the hall. As he inched closer, he could see a rug, the end of a couch, and part of a table.

  Charlie pressed his back to the wall and slid sideways toward the room, brandishing the candlestick like a club. When he reached the doorway, Charlie paused and took a deep breath. Then he spun through the door, his arm raised above his head.

  He was in a large living room and the light he’d seen from the end of the hall came from a table lamp that stood next to a phone. Next to the end table was a straight-backed, wooden chair. Sally Pope was secured to it by duct tape. Her head had fallen forward. She was wearing a white nightgown that showed the blood that drenched the front of it to maximum effect.

  Charlie also took in the body of a dark-haired woman sprawled on the floor in front of a long couch. He couldn’t tell if she was dead or unconscious. He was about to go to her when a muffled sound brought him around. A wild-eyed teenage boy was lying on the floor near the fireplace, tied tight by the same gray duct tape that bound Sally to her chair. He was trying to tell Charlie something but his words were muffled by the tape that sealed his mouth.

  Charlie started toward the boy, who jerked his head violently toward the drapes hanging on either side of French doors that opened onto the patio. The drapes moved and a man appeared. He was dressed in black and his face was hidden behind a ski mask.

  “Who…?” was all Charlie got out before the man raised the gun he was holding. Charlie heard someone moving behind him just before he was shot. As he fell, he heard more shots and the sound of shattering glass. Then he passed out.

  CHAPTER 38

  Dad,” Amanda said as soon as Frank Jaffe answered the phone, “Sally Pope is dead. She’s been murdered.”

  Amanda waited for a response. “Dad?” she repeated when she got none.

  “I…I’m just…What happened?”

  It was 6:38 in the morning. Frank was getting ready for work and had just finished in the bathroom. The unexpected ring of the phone had startled him. Now his daughter’s words stunned him and he slumped on the edge of the bed.

  “I don’t know all of the details, but Charlie Marsh was shot. That’s how I found out. He had someone call me from the hospital. Sally was murdered in her house. He was there.”

  “What was Marsh doing at Sally’s house?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to the hospital. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  Amanda hung up. Frank held the receiver for a moment. It took an effort to return it to its cradle. Suddenly Frank felt very old. His shoulders sagged. A sob escaped his lips and he was consumed by grief.

  THE POLICEMAN WHO was guarding Charlie’s hospital room checked Amanda’s ID before letting her in. Charlie was propped up in bed connected to monitors and IV bags by an array of wires and plastic tubing. His tan was a few shades paler and his left arm was in a sling.

  “How are you feeling?” Amanda asked as she dragged a chair to the side of the bed.

  “If I’d known how good morphine felt I would have gotten shot a long time ago,” Charlie answered with a sloppy grin. Then he sobered. “They wouldn’t tell me anything. Is Sally dead?”

  Amanda nodded. “And Gina, her personal assistant. Sally’s son wasn’t harmed physically but he’s so traumatized that the doctors won’t let the police interview him. You’re the only other survivor. The detective in charge of the investigation is in the waiting room. He wants to interview you. I told him I’d ask you what you want to do.”

  “This is so terrible. I liked Sally.”

  “Will you talk to the detective? I’ll be with you to protect you if he gets too far afield.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

  “One thing they’ll want to know is why you’re not dead.”

  “That’s easy. Someone saved me.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw him.”

  “What were you doing at Sally Pope’s house in the middle of the night?”

  “She called me. She wanted me to come alone, right away. She claimed to know something that would get my case dismissed.”

  “What was it?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. She said she had to show it to me.”

  “How did she sound during the call?”

  “Shaky, panicky.”

  “Do you think she was being forced to say what she did to lure you to her house?”

  “I’m sure of it. The killer probably threatened her kid to force her to call me.”

  Amanda nodded agreement. “Go on.”

  “I took a cab. When I got there, the house was dark. I went in, saw that someone had killed the dog, and noticed light coming from the living room. When I walked into the room Sally was taped to a chair. Her head was down, so I couldn’t be sure she was dead, but there was blood all over her nightgown. There was another woman sprawled on the floor.”

  “That was Gina.”

  “Sally’s kid tried to warn me, but the killer had taped his mouth shut so I didn’t know what he was saying. Then this guy came out from behind the curtains and shot me.”

  “You’re certain it was a man?”

  “Pretty certain. He was wearing a ski mask and gloves, but he had a man’s physique.”

  “Okay, what happened next?”

  “Just before I was shot I heard someone behind me, but I was shot before I could turn. There were more shots behind and in front of me and glass breaking. I’m guessing that was the French windows. Then I woke up here.”

  “So there were two shooters,” Amanda mused. “That might explain the 911 call.”

  “What 911 call?”

  “It’s why you
didn’t bleed to death. Someone made an anonymous call to 911. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been found in time to save you. When the medics arrived you were almost dead from blood loss. I’m guessing that the person who saved you also made the call.”

  The door opened and the police guard stepped in. He didn’t look happy.

  “There’s a man out here who insists he’s part of the defense team. He wants to talk to Mr. Marsh.”

  “Tell this cop I work with you and I’m entitled to see our client,” Dennis Levy yelled angrily from the corridor.

  “Excuse me,” Amanda said to Charlie. She stepped outside and grabbed Levy by the elbow.

  “Come with me,” she said as she led Dennis down the hall until they were far enough from the officer so he couldn’t hear them.

  “You are not a member of the defense team,” Amanda said. “You are a reporter and you have no legal right to talk to Charlie.”

  “Now wait a minute. This story is huge,” Levy said as he bounced in place with excitement.

  “Aren’t you the least bit concerned that Charlie was shot?”

  “Hey, I’m sorry he was hurt. Really, I am. But you have no idea how big this story is. I mean, no idea!”

  “I know how big you think it is because you’ve told me several times. What you haven’t shown me is any compassion toward any of the people involved. Has it gotten through to you that several people were murdered last night? They’re dead, Dennis.”

  “Hey, reporters deal with death all the time. If I got emotionally involved I couldn’t do my job.”

  “Your lack of emotional involvement is pretty obvious, but I can’t shut off my emotions. I do care about Sally Pope and Gina and Charlie, who are all human beings. Charlie could have died. I bet that would really have messed up your plans. Now go to the waiting room and don’t bother the police officer anymore. I’ll tell you what I can when I come out.”