COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set

by David Wind

  The matter of fact way he’d spoken made me believe him: he had no reason to lie, given the circumstances. “Who’s the man you’re protecting: The one who likes little blonde girls?”

  His voice went flat. “That was not part of the deal. What you get, and pay attention Storm, is to come out of this a very wealthy man, and with your life, because you are dropping this matter as if it never existed. But you get no names. I am still waiting for your answer. How much do you require?”

  I ignored him. “Why did you have Scotty killed?”

  A flash of irritation crossed his features. “This is becoming tiring. You have it wrong. Whoever terminated your friend, acted on their own.”

  “This ‘thorn in your side’ was murdered and you’re telling me you have no idea who did it. I don’t think so.”

  He shrugged. “Believe me or not, I have no idea who killed him, just praise and thanks for a job well done. Are we going to make a deal?”

  The tension in his voice felt good against the blaze of anger his words produced. I reigned in my fury because it wasn’t time to let it free—not yet. “You still don’t get it do you? It’s not money I want from you.”

  “What then?”

  “The name of Scotty Granger’s killer.”

  “I believe you, Mr. Storm, and I would be more than happy to trade you the name for your withdrawal, but it is something I do not have.” On the last word, he stiffened. His eyes widened and he turned his head to the left. The instant he did, I caught sight of a small flesh colored earpiece in his right ear.

  A millisecond later, a volley of muffled gunshots came from the lobby. I dove left as he pulled a black automatic from his belt and started to track it at me.

  “You fool!”

  “Don’t move” Gina yelled, rising over the lip of the orchestra pit, her pistol held two handed. But Rice was already moving, crouched low and running toward a side exit. Gina shouted a second warning and fired three rapid shots. Splinters flew from the seat backs, inches behind the fleeing figure.

  I drew the Sig and tracked him. He hit the exit on the fly, his shoulder slamming into the bar-like mechanism that opened the door. My bullet struck his back; but it didn’t stop him as he stumble stepped through the door and ducked into the alleyway of the theatre. Two more shots barked out, both taking chunks inches from his head. The firing had come from where Femalé had been hidden above me.

  The interior doors burst open. Malcolm, Sonny Marks and four others charged in like the cavalry. “Side door!” Marks reversed his course and ran out the front. Malcolm raced to the side exit and out.

  Gina crawled out of the pit. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. What the hell happened?”

  Femalé stood on the balcony, a dark avenging angel with her Sig still aimed at the door. I motioned her to join us and headed toward the front, knowing full well Rice was gone and I was back to where I’d started—almost.

  <><><>

  Sonny Marks, Gina, Femalé and I held the post mortem in Malcolm’s office, forty minutes after Rice had fled. Sonny’s two detectives and three of Malcolm’s HomeSec agents had stayed behind to try and pick up a trail on Rice. I knew they would come back empty. Rice had done everything I would have in his situation, and perhaps more. Tarz had been smart enough to go to ground as soon as the shooting started.

  “How in the hell did they get the jump on you?” I asked Malcolm.

  “It was well planned. We took the driver thirty seconds after Rice went in. Either they had someone watching, or they were in radio contact. We didn’t see anyone. Once we were inside, we listened in on your open walkie-talkie. A couple of minutes later, the doors blew open and three men rolled in like they were taking a beachhead. Jesus, they were fast.

  We took two of them out, but the driver was hit in the fight. He’s dead. The third guy got out.” Malcolm shook his head. “I don’t know how he did it, but he got away. There was a car in the alley waiting for Rice.”

  His words confirmed what I’d already surmised because I would have done something similar if I’d been in his situation, except I’d never envisioned a full charge by gunmen. Yet, it did explain Rice’s willingness to give me certain information, and the information would be real because he’d had no reason to lie: It confirmed my suspicions that he’d planned on taking me out at the end.

  “He’s good. My shot hit him in the back, dead center. He was wearing a vest and I didn’t see it. He had every contingency planned.”

  I turned my attention to Sonny Marks. “How did we miss the car in the alley?”

  “It wasn’t there at seven-fifty-five.”

  “It wasn’t there until after we took the driver,” Malcolm said. He slammed his palm on the table. Even as the sound echoed in the room, Malcolm added, “It was my fault. I pulled my agents inside. I should have left one there.”

  “They would have taken him taken out. Rice was thorough. He knew he wouldn’t have much notice. The men would have been laying a block back and in constant touch with the driver and Rice. I caught a flash of an earpiece at the end, so I assume he was wearing a wireless transmitter as well.”

  “But–”

  I cut Malcolm off. “Don’t beat yourself up. Rice knew something would go down. He moved at the same instant as the shots. I’ll lay you twenty to one Rice knew the second your men took his driver.”

  “That’s still no excuse.”

  “It’s a reason. So, what do we have?”

  “Not a damned thing,” the Homeland Security Agent growled.

  “When we talked last night, we agreed that what I needed was his face and what you needed was him. You may have lost him, but I have his face.”

  Malcolm’s expression ranged from puzzled to understanding. He looked at Femalé. “You took pictures.”

  Femalé favored him with a smile. “No… I have the entire seven minutes on video.”

  Malcolm smiled for the first time. Leaning over, he hit the intercom. “Justin, get in here.” He released the intercom button and reached a hand toward Femalé. “The tape.”

  The door opened and a young blonde haired man wearing wire rimmed glasses stepped in. “Sir?”

  “Take the tape,” he nodded toward Femalé, “and transfer it to the computer, fast!”

  He grabbed the camera, handling it as if it was a piece of lava and sat at the computer at Malcolm’s desk. He hooked the camera up with a USB cable and went to work. Three minutes later, the file was transferred and the movie started.

  We gathered around the monitor and watched the scene from the theatre. When it ended, Malcolm told the technician to find the best face shot and give him a close up.

  It took another minute before Charles Edward Rice’s face filled the screen. “Capture it. Run a face match—national and international.”

  “No. Start with political staff: National and local,” I suggested.

  The tech’s eyes went to Malcolm, who nodded.

  “Yes sir.” Justin hit a few keys and then began the ID process. Once the program had started working, the technician said, “It may take a while. It will go through all the politicians and their staffs on all levels.”

  “Thank you, Justin” Malcolm said in dismissal.

  When the tech left, I turned to Malcolm. “Have you called Washington yet?”

  “Have I had time?” he snapped. He raised a forestalling hand. “I’ll call now.”

  I motioned Femalé to me and whispered, “Go to the office, take the camera and see if you can do anything with the face. I want a list of National Security Consultants clients, from the inception of the company.”

  “I’m on it, Boss.” Ten seconds later, she’d unplugged the camera from the computer and was gone.

  Three minutes after that, Malcolm hung up the phone and looked at Gina. “It’s done.”

  “I’m not sure if I should thank you or stay pissed at you.”

  “Neither. I did what I thought was necessary. I did the same thing now.”
r />   “Next time, if there happens to be a next time, you’d best think hard before you screw with someone’s career,” Gina said, her words hammered in anger hard.

  It took two hours for the program to find a match. It wasn’t a perfect match, but it was close enough. The photo on the screen was a dozen years old, but had eight points of match: good enough for the legal definition of recognition.

  “Howard Heinlein, Chief of Staff for United States Senator Brian V. Conklin, of Pennsylvania.” Malcolm hit a key.

  Information filled the screen. Rice, aka Heinlein, had been chief of staff for two of the three terms the senator had been in office. I captured every word into my memory for recall later. “Can you pull up the Senator’s file?”

  Malcolm worked the keyboard. A secure web page opened and he entered his user name and password. A few seconds later, the screen filled with the senator’s Homeland Security file.

  He was fifty-six years old, with a handsome mature face. He had hazel eyes, dark hair veined with grey, and a generous mouth. I went cold as I looked at the face of the monster who had murdered my friend, taken his sister and turned her life into a hell no one would want to imagine. I had no doubts she was long dead and he was responsible.

  Gina took my hand and pressed her nails into my palm hard enough to yank me out of the hell into which I’d fallen. “Can I get a print out of both men?”

  Malcolm gave me a strange look before nodding his head. As the page printed, he said, “What is it?”

  “He’s the reason my friend is dead.”

  “You think he killed him?”

  I just stared at Malcolm.

  Chapter 57

  Gina and I made it to my office just after eleven. Gina had taken the rest of the day off so she could work with me and wait for official word of her reinstatement duty. We joined Femalé, who was in the conference room, which had become her temporary office.

  The video was running. “Is there coffee?”

  “I just made a pot,” she said and started to get up.

  “I’ll get it. Put the movie on hold, we need to brainstorm.” I left the two women, retrieved the pot and three cups and returned to the room. Then, with the three of us sitting at the table drinking the dark brew, we brought Femalé up to date.

  “Any thoughts?”

  “If Charles Rice is Heinlein, it stands to reason Conklin is the pedophile who took Elizabeth Granger.” Gina took a sip of coffee. “There is a way to prove it.”

  “How?” Femalé asked.

  “We know he’s taken at least eight girls: The first one we were able to track—or who we assume to be the first—was between twenty-nine and thirty years ago, which means Conklin was twenty-six. Elizabeth was the second. She was eight when he grabbed her…” She closed her eyes and whispered, “She would have been thirty-four now.”

  Then she opened those deep Italian browns. “We have the timeline for all the missing girls, we need to build one on him,” Gina said.

  How simple life would be if only—“Gina, you’re thinking like an FBI agent, which doesn’t work here. Everything I’ve learned since starting this, tells me most pedophiles plan out every detail of the abduction: The time, the place, the people in the area. They plan where they go and what they do right after the grab, which tells me they also have an airtight alibi set up. I think the timeline will be a zero.”

  Gina tried to interrupt, but I stopped her. “Hear me out. This man is a public figure. He wouldn’t take the chance of being recognized and he’s got brains: he wouldn’t have gotten this far without them. Femalé, did you get the list from the agency?”

  She pulled three sheets of paper out of a folder on the table and shook her head. “I got the client list from their web site.”

  I scanned the list. There were at least a hundred names on it, placed in order of importance. Senator Conklin was the second name. The list boasted two more U.S. Senators, five congressmen and a dozen state level judges. They did a big corporate business as well. I stopped counting at thirty corporations.

  “Here’s your first point of reference.” I pushed the paper outward so it ended up between the two women. Our boy uses National Security Consultants.”

  “Doesn’t the government provide security for senators and congressmen?” Femalé asked.

  “It depends on the need, but yes, when requested,” Gina said, her voice low, “senators have the use of the FBI or Secret Service.”

  “Unless he prefers private security, and I’ll bet you won’t see that expensed from his senatorial payroll. Which opens another line: Where does his money come from?”

  “How do we get a timeline?” Femalé asked, bringing us back to where we’d begun.

  “You can dig around on the Internet or,” I said, my voice going soft, “we can ask our resident FBI agent if she can do some magic. Gina?”

  She gave me a honey-dripping smile. “You haven’t gotten me in enough trouble already—no, don’t answer… just give me a computer.”

  Femalé went to the corner and wheeled over the conference room computer. After setting Gina up, she turned to me. “I’m going to check on the Thornton records you wanted. They still haven’t gotten here.”

  “They’re not important. Proving Conklin did it is.”

  Femalé gave me a strange look before saying, “I’ll see what I can find on Conklin from the public venues.”

  “Gina, are you all set?”

  “I’m fine. Go do something.”

  Sometimes I can take a hint. I went to my office, which made it the first time I was alone this morning, and worked on what Rice, or Heinlein, or Wilkes or whatever he called himself would do now that he’d been outed by me—I preferred Rice, I was used to the name. One thing was certain; he couldn’t go back to his life as Conklin’s Chief of Staff.

  According to Malcolm, Rice was light years beyond wealthy, so the first thing he would do would be to buy a new face. A new identity would follow, and then he would be back in the business. But when I got to Conklin—and not even the Gods of War would be able to stop me, I would get every detail I could on Rice. Rice needed to be stopped as much as Conklin and it would be my pleasure to insure that. Rice may not have pulled the trigger on Scotty, but he was behind everything leading up to my friend’s death and he would not go unpunished.

  But one question remained, which was how to get Conklin?

  “You’ve had a busy morning, eh, Amigo?”

  I hadn’t heard Chris come in. “A little. When did you hear?”

  He gave a low laugh as he sat. “An hour ago. You lost him?”

  “We lost him. He’s good. But I know who killed Scotty.”

  There was an imperceptible shift on Chris’s features. Then his eyes brightened with anticipation. “Who?”

  “Senator B.V. Conklin. He’s also the sick bastard who abducted Scotty’s sister.”

  Chris’s nostrils flared. When he spoke, his voice was intense. “You’re certain?”

  “As certain as I can be without having him in front of me spilling his guts.”

  “How do you know?”

  I started at the beginning, the trail of missing girls, and laid out the interconnected pieces of the puzzle from Elizabeth’s abduction to the last disappearance—the pattern we’d discovered. I used Homeland Security’s version on Rice and summed it up by tying Rice to the Heinlein name and face and then to the senator from Pennsylvania.

  Explaining why Rice had been trying to put me out of the picture, I reminded him of my discovery of the cut police tape, the day after Scotty’s murder. The broken tape was evidence someone had been in the apartment. “Rice was there, looking for what he believed Scotty had discovered about Conklin. Rice was certain Scotty had proof to tie Conklin to the abduction of his sister and the others. When Rice and I met today, he was surprised—very surprised—when I asked him what he’d taken from the apartment. He’d thought I’d gotten the proof, which means Conklin thinks I have it.”

  When I finished
my monologue, Chris leaned forward. “This won’t be easy….”

  “It hasn’t been easy from the get go. Suggestions?”

  “If this was an ordinary case I’d say to extradite him, but that won’t work because we don’t have anything to bring to a judge. We’ll figure a way to get him to New York, and then I can bring him in for questioning and–”

  “–My ass! Bring him in and question him for what?” Suspicion of murder? Pedophilia? Kidnapping? You won’t get him two feet before you’re stopped by every legal gun between here and Washington. No, I have to bring him here. I have to ‘talk’ to him first.”

  “By ‘talk’ you mean get what you can by whatever method will work? What happens then? I arrest a U.S. Senator who’s had the crap beaten out of him by a wild ass private eye?”

  When his tirade ended, he shook his head. “See what you do to me you prick? You make me forget logic! How the hell will you get through his security?”

  “Glad to see you can still think. If I did everything you believe I do, then all I’d have left would be to kill him, because without concrete proof or an admission, he walks.”

  “And why won’t you kill him?” The coldness in Chris’s voice shook me.

  “It’s too good for him. After what he did to Scotty, killing him would be the wrong justice. Making him stand trial and laying open everything he’s done; the children whose lives he’s stolen; the parents who he’s put through hell; and then Scotty’s death, will be much better than my killing him. After the trial, having him spend the rest of his life in a high security prison—not a federal country club—will be the final payment. In the joint, the one thing lower than an informant, is a child molester. Every day of his life will be spent in a hell no sane person can ever imagine. No, killing him would be doing him a favor. I want him to suffer for every minute of his life, and I will pray it’s a very long life.”

  “We still have the problem of getting evidence or a confession—and again, both are unlikely.”