Stone Eater (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 2)

by D. F. Bailey

  His first piece of luck arrived when he’d spent the night at Jennifer Stavart’s apartment on Service Street, a dead-end alley in Cow Hollow. They were both students at City College, he in Finance, she in Theater. They’d met at the studio ticket office where he volunteered to manage the theater’s books during the two-week run of “The Taming of the Shrew.”

  Her bedroom window looked onto the road below. Again, as chance had it, he’d been video-recording her as she portrayed her character, Bianca Minola, and recited her lines for the play. After about twenty minutes he noticed a Mercedes-Benz pull into the alley and park below the apartment. It simply parked there, engine idling, lights off. No one entered the car, no one exited. Strange.

  “Must be smoking pot,” he’d told Jenny as he slid open the window sash and pointed the camera at the car.

  “Or making out.” She nudged against him, her breast rising against his biceps.

  He let the video recorder run and then, just as their boredom approached the level of complete dreariness, the driver cut the engine and emerged as a hulking shadow in the dim light. He pried open the rear door, dove into the back seat and locked the car.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Then they heard two soft slaps and a cry of pain that was instantly muted.

  “Jeez.”

  Hunched almost to his knees, the man dragged a faltering woman from the back seat to the trunk of the car, popped it open, lifted her legs onto the floor of the trunk, folded her torso down as if she were a collapsable doll, and then pressed the lid onto her back, compressing her chest onto her thighs.

  “Shit.”

  “I’m going the to call the cops.”

  “No wait.”

  The hulk returned to the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut. The engine started and after turning in the narrow alley, the car drove off.

  “I’m calling the cops.”

  “And tell them what?” he asked. “To look for a Mercedes-Benz somewhere around Cow Hollow?” He snorted with a cynical laugh.

  As he studied the video the following day, Querrey realized that the camera had captured the car’s license plate. He called his sister, who worked for the Department of Motor Vehicles and asked for a favor. She phoned him at home and after delivering a five-minute lecture about the misdemeanor she was committing on his behalf — and the legal liability he was putting on her — she revealed that the vehicle belonged to Dean Whitelaw of Marin County.

  Querrey turned to his computer and began to compile a profile of Whitelaw. Pages of Whitelaw’s career triumphs filled the screen. Then he discovered the news about the bitcoin fraud trial. A few clicks later he encountered the reports of Gianna Whitelaw’s suicide. He read that she’d jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge the previous night — exactly when Querrey recorded the abduction video. But … Gianna Whitelaw couldn’t jump from the locked trunk of her uncle’s car. No, she’d been killed. And the proof of her murder lived on in his camera.

  Over the next two days Querrey concocted a plan. A simple trade: the evidence he possessed for money. Better still, the camera and his guarantee of silence in exchange for bitcoin. As part of his course in Finance Innovations at City College, he’d registered a bitcoin wallet and kept the account on his cell phone. First he made minor deposits and withdrawals, then multiple transfers between his classmates. The system was flawless.

  In the four text messages they’d exchanged, Dean Whitelaw agreed to wirelessly transfer the bitcoins to Querrey’s account after he showed him the camera with the incriminating video. Once Querrey verified the deposit, the camera would become Whitelaw’s property and the deal was done. The entire process might take less than two minutes. The system seemed magical. Hell, it was magical, he assured himself. Discreet, untraceable. And according to the news reports on Whitelaw’s fraud trial, Whitelaw would have no trouble accessing millions in bitcoin currency.

  Soon Jack Querrey would be a Midnight Millionaire, winner of the biggest crap-shoot lottery ever invented: bitcoin. Then at his leisure he could trade bitcoin for US dollars at any of the online exchanges. The cash would trickle into his bank account for years. Maybe forever.

  As he pulled the car into the parking stall on the top floor of the parkade, Querrey knew that he’d hooked a big fish. No — much bigger than that, he told himself. A bloody shark.

  “Good thing you brought along a gun,” he whispered to himself. He sucked in the last sip of marijuana from a stick-thin joint and flicked it onto the concrete. Time to boogie.

  ※

  The Honda’s door opened with a muted click. Querrey pulled himself from the car, stood on the polished concrete deck and crushed the fading ember of marijuana under his boot heel.

  Finch studied him briefly. Bean-pole lean, he stood a little under six feet and probably weighed less than a hundred and forty pounds. With an open hand he combed his weedy dark hair from one ear to the other. He wore frameless glasses. A small dimple punctuated a long chin that conferred a determined aspect to his demeanor. Not a tough customer, Finch decided. But resolute.

  In the shadow of the staircase Eve hunched against the concrete wall and tapped the video function on her cellphone. She made some minor adjustments to open the aperture without triggering the flash.

  After a moment Querrey took a few steps beside his car, then paused to study the limo at the far end of the parkade.

  “Whitelaw?” he called out, and then in a softer tone, as if he might doubt his own question, he added, “I’m here.”

  A moment later, the rear door of the Mercedes-Benz swung open. Dean Whitelaw emerged from the car and he stepped forward, his hands bunched in the pockets of a black leather trench coat, the sort of garb Finch had seen in European war films. A Gestapo outfit that fell past the knees, with a broad collar that in a damp breeze could be flipped up against the back of the head. A death coat.

  “Where’s the camera?” Whitelaw demanded as he strode across the parkade. His face looked pale and rigid as he crossed under the flickering tubes of fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling. As he approached the Honda, Finch could see the deep, vertical creases that ran from Whitelaw’s cheeks through his forehead into his hairline. This man has seen it all, he figured. He’s capable of anything.

  “I said, where’s the fucking camera?”

  As Whitelaw closed on him, Querrey took a backward step.

  “In the car.”

  “Get it.”

  Querrey returned to the open door, leaned into his car, opened the glovebox and seemed to gather something in his hands. But it all took too long, and when he backed out of the Honda, the camera dangling from a short strap on his left hand, Finch could see a pistol grip tucked into the rear waistband of Querrey’s jeans.

  “Christ,” Eve whispered. She glanced at Finch.

  He shook his head, no.

  She turned her attention back to her video recording.

  “Is that it?” Whitelaw focused his eyes on the camera. His hand clenched the pistol in his coat pocket. A knot of pain cramped his trigger finger.

  “Yeah.”

  With his gnarled hand still bunched in his pocket, he fired a round at Querrey.

  Finch heard a muffled pop. A burst of concrete exploded above his head and filled the air with a spray of gray dust. Eve dropped her cellphone and it rattled down the staircase until it hit the landing.

  “I said no backup!” Querrey turned his head toward Finch, dropped the camera, then fell to the ground as he tugged his pistol from his waistband and leveled the gun at the old man.

  Whitelaw stepped forward and shot a second round that thumped into the bumper of Querrey’s car. Then a third bullet shot into the air, ricocheted against a post and took out one of the ceiling lamps. Finch could see Whitelaw shooting through his coat pocket as he struggled to free his hands from his jacket, wild shots without any apparent target.

  Querrey’s face curled in a bitter sneer and he shot one roun
d point blank at Whitelaw’s head. The explosion snapped his neck backward and a mist of blood sprayed through the air from the back of his skull. He fell to his knees and collapsed on the concrete, both hands still bunched in his pockets.

  Querrey pulled himself away from the bumper of his car and stood up. He glanced at the concrete staircase and hunched toward the open car door, his pistol pointing into the shadows where Finch and Eve cowered on their hands and knees on the stairs.

  “I told him! I said, ‘no backup’!” he screamed and he fired a shot into the throat of the staircase. The bullet ricocheted off the ceiling, then struck the step between Finch’s hands, and clipped against the rear wall.

  Finch ducked and drew Eve under his arm. If Querrey came any closer Finch knew he’d have to charge him. He released Eve and raised his eyes to the top of the steps. He counted the stairs ahead: one, two, three. With three brisk strides he could ram his head into the stickman’s belly and take him down with brute force. Recalling his school days on the football team, he started to prepare. He set the balls of his feet on the lowest step, braced his hands, inhaled two deep breaths.

  Another bullet blasted through the stairwell and flashed against the landing and clattered down the staircase. This time Eve braced her hip against the wall and pulled a snub-nosed pistol from her jacket. Finch gazed at her with a bewildered look.

  As they prepared, Querrey made his move. They heard the Honda’s engine growl. The car door slammed. The gears ground in a painful wail as the car reversed out of the stall, turned, and peeled along the concrete deck toward the down ramp.

  Finch pulled Eve toward him again and then released her.

  “Jesus,” he whispered.

  She cocked her eyebrows at him as if to say, I told you it could get heated. She holstered her pistol under her jacket, stood up and walked to the bottom of the stairwell to retrieve her phone. She tapped the screen and tipped her head in surprise.

  “Still works,” she said and jogged up the stairs until she stood beside Finch.

  Finch nodded to the upper deck. “Let’s have a look.”

  Before they could emerge from the stairwell, the limo drove up to Whitelaw’s corpse, now soaking in a pool of blood that continued to leak from the wound in the back of his skull. The driver’s door swung open and Toby Squire pulled himself from the car. Unaware of Finch and Eve, he picked up the abandoned camera and leaned above his master’s body to study the weeping hole an inch above his right eye. He adjusted his chauffeur cap and bent forward as if he was about to whisper a brief eulogy.

  “Stop right there!” As Eve stepped out of the shadows, she struggled to draw her gun from under her jacket.

  A flash of recognition registered in Toby’s eyes. Then with a faltering limp that surprised them both, he ducked into his car, slammed the door shut, gunned the engine. Without another glance at Finch and Eve, he sped down the corkscrew ramp and into the city streets.

  ※ — FIFTEEN — ※

  SPEEDING UP THE on-ramp to the Golden Gate Bridge, Toby Squire’s damp fingers slipped on the steering wheel rim as he urged the car forward. The last thing you need now is to crash into another car, he mumbled to himself. He pulled his foot away from the accelerator until the car slowed to the speed of the merging traffic. When he was synched with the flow of the surrounding automobiles, he clicked on the cruise control and coasted along carried by the greater will of the highway. Feeling a little steadier, he wiped the palm of his right hand on his pant leg.

  “You’ve never seen anything like that before,” he said aloud. “Shot like that? Never!”

  His hands squeezed the steering wheel and tears fell across his cheeks. He brushed them away and tried to think. But instead of ideas or plans, all that fell into his mind was a single question: Can you make it stop?

  The question loomed before him, a ghost without form or shape. He understood that everything he did now flowed from his single mistake with Gianna. This blunt fact began to toy with his imagination. He sensed that what had happened to her and to Mr. W — all of it would come his way, too. Like falling dominoes. Unstoppable.

  But, maybe. Just maybe.

  Isn’t everything else over? He pondered the question and then nodded to confirm that his life with the Whitelaws was finished. Seven years come and now gone.

  “Time for a fresh start,” he proclaimed and considered the times in the past when he’d struck out a new direction. When he’d left London and moved in with Uncle Jayden in Oakland. And then left Uncle Jayden to take the chauffeur job with the Whitelaws. Yes, you’ve done it before. You can do it all again.

  He set his jaw and glanced at the rearview mirror. He shifted the Mercedes into the right lane beside the pedestrian walk. He then tugged the chauffeur cap from his head. “No more need for this.”

  As he approached the mid-point of the bridge, he touched the window control button and the front passenger window slid open. He held his cap by the brim and with a tight flick of his wrist, he tossed it through the window, an expert shot that carried the hat over the sidewalk and past the railing where it disappeared.

  He smiled. Finally something was going right. As the cars streamed into Marin County and through the Rainbow Tunnel he decided what he must do. He realized that everything was now unfolding according to a new plan. Another sign that he was on track. In control of things.

  When he reached the estate, he pressed the remote clicker to open the gate and eased the limo along the crushed gravel and into the garage. It seemed best to put the car out of sight for now. He’d need an hour, maybe two, and who knows what might happen in that time? Like that girl, Eve Noon. Where had she come from? If he saw her again, he’d have to kill her. He nodded to himself. “Yes. You’ve done that before when you had to.” His voice possessed a measure of certainty. He knew that the more he repeated the idea, the more likely it would come true. “Don’t worry, you can do it again.”

  Then as he sat in the car, an idea came to him like pollen drifting through the spring air. He would take the gimp’s camera and the DVD evidence of his last night with Gianna, collect Mr. W’s camera and the DVD of his confession — and throw them all into San Francisco Bay. Then he’d gather a few possessions from his cottage, herd his dear ones into their crate, and drive everything over to Uncle Jayden’s place in Oakland. There would be no witnesses. No more DVDs or cameras. A fresh start.

  Yes, that would be step one and step two. For sure, there would be other steps to follow. But at least he had a plan now. A prospect. That was the word.

  After he pulled into the garage he grabbed the gimp’s camera in his left hand, closed the door and turned to face the big house. Good thing Mr. W had sent his wife up to Mendocino for the week. That meant no surprises from her or her nosy friends, friends who might stay through the night after they’d drunk one too many crantinis. Toby had learned all about them as they sauntered out of the guest rooms during their “morning after” appearances. Too often he’d been instructed to drive them home and deposit them in their own beds. Drunken fishes.

  As always, the light above the back porch illuminated the painted steel door and surrounding Japanese boxwoods that lined the sidewalk. But how unusual for a light to be shining from Mr. W’s bathroom. Had he forgotten to flick it off before they’d driven into the city? Toby couldn’t remember.

  As he approached the house, he saw the window ajar in Mr. W’s office. He studied it as if he might be seeing it for the first time. Was it open when he’d made his confession to the camera? He shook his head as if he might have missed a lot of things. Some days, he knew, his memory simply failed him. Now that it seemed important, it sent a tremble through him to think that he might forget something that he had to take with him to Uncle Jayden’s house in Oakland.

  “That’s one thing, Toby,” he warned himself as he set his hand on the doorknob, “we don’t want to make a second trip back here. You can bet dollars to donuts that the coppers will happen along shortly.”

 
; He stood in the cavernous hallway and wondered where to begin. First, disarm the security system. No need to fetch any trouble onto yourself. He punched the six-digit code into the keypad next to the door. At least you remembered that. Now grab the camera and DVD. But first, go up to Mr. W’s bathroom and turn off the light. Then tend to everything else.

  As he started to climb the staircase he tuned his ears for any unusual sounds. He detected the chuggle of running water. Probably the toilet handle again. Nothing serious to worry about. Okay, carry on.

  Despite his rationalizations, Toby paused and stepped back onto the lower floor tiles. No. Best to go into the office first, gather what you need and check the security video cameras. Just to be sure. After all, why is that light on upstairs in Mr. W’s bathroom? He opened the office door, flicked on the desk lamp. At the far end of the desk lay Mr. W’s video camera and the DVD he’d made of the confession. Beside them, just under the brown mailing envelope rested the blackmail DVD from the gimp. Toby shoved both discs into his jacket pocket. Then he lifted Mr. W’s camera in his left hand and made an adjustment so that the two cameras didn’t crash together as they dangled from their wrist straps. With everything secured, he strolled over to the bank of four surveillance monitors at the far end of the room.

  After Mr. W had learned to trust him, he’d taught Toby how to operate the security systems. The network, remarkably simple once he understood it, provided alternating views of all the exterior and interior walls, the four entrances to the big house and shots of the front yard, the garage and Toby’s cottage. Dean had taught him how to monitor the camera in real time or play back the recorded sequence covering the previous six hours.