Chasing the Ghost

by Bob Mayer

  “Airborne School,” Chase said. “When parachuting, the first point of contact with the ground is your feet, second is your shins, then your thighs, then your ass.”

  “Oh.” There was the static of silence over the Satphone for a few moments. Then Porter spoke again. “Be careful. And if you need back-up, call?”

  “I will,” Chase said. But not you, he thought. His partner had already put too much on the line. “Later.” He turned the phone off. And this was way too far in the black for Ben Porter and Boulder Major Cases.

  Chase got out of the Jeep and walked into the psych building. It was practically deserted with the down surge for the summer semester. There was no graduate student guarding the approaches to Gavin's office, so he rapped on the door.

  "Come in."

  The Professor was packing his stuff and looked none too excited to see his visitor. "Detective Chase. What a surprise. What can I do for you?"

  "Going on vacation?"

  "No. Leaving."

  "Where to?"

  "I've accepted a position at another university. Seemed like a good time to make some changes. The academic year is done. My papers are to date. My research is dead here. And I don't particularly want to see my wife driving my car around town and pass by the house that used to be mine."

  Chase wasn’t here to listen to Gavin whine about his divorce. “You got some coffee?”

  “Too much partying last night, detective?”

  Too much death over a lifetime, Chase thought without answering.

  Gavin caught the mood and rustled up two cups.

  "Why was Rachel so deceptive?" Chase abruptly asked.

  Gavin's handed Chase the cup and took a step back. "Can't you just give up on that? Her killer is in jail."

  "Yeah, he's in jail, but I'm thinking there's more to this whole thing than came out. And I’m not sure he’s the killer."

  "What do you mean?" Gavin said, tiredly sinking down into his chair.

  "Nobody knew Rachel Stevens and exactly what she was doing. From reading the papers, you know all about the swinger's club and how she hid herself even here at CU, but now I'm uncovering stuff that makes it look like she was involved in something to do with drugs."

  "Rachel Stevens?" Gavin's jaw dropped. "What do you mean she was involved with drugs?"

  "We found some money in her account. We also found two hundred and fifty grand in cash that York had squirreled away."

  Gavin shook his head slowly. "Are you sure drugs were involved? I find that very, very hard to believe."

  "Let's just say that I found some information that indicated Rachel might have been a mule. Carrying drugs or cash to someone here on campus. I'm starting to wonder if York also wasn't a dealer, although we uncovered nothing during our investigation of him to show that. Maybe he was working for a dealer."

  "Here at the University?"

  If he’d had the energy, Chase would have smiled at Gavin's expression of dismay. As if some of the people at CU didn't do some snorting and shooting up. "Yeah, here at the University. I got a good idea who her supplier was, but it doesn't make any sense for the supplier to have bumped her off. I need to find out why York killed Rachel, if he did." Chase made a decision on one of those balls that had been rattling around in his head. "I'm going to go see York tomorrow at the jail."

  "But he won't talk, will he?" Gavin cautioned.

  "We found his money. That might make him change his religion."

  "But how did Rachel get involved in all this?" Gavin wanted to know. “Her husband had no idea?"

  "No, but he was being deceptive in his own way."

  Chase didn't want to smear Jeffrey and bring up Lisa Plunkett. He longed to deal with people who didn't have all these secrets, but that was the nature of the job. Sometimes Chase wished he worked as one of those guys who mow the grass along the edge of the interstate. Each day they did the same thing but with changing scenery. At the end of the day, they could look over their shoulder and see that they had really accomplished something. Most of the time, particularly now, he felt like he had his finger in a crap filled dike and it was constantly leaking all over him. He’d felt like that in the Army and it had led to his abrupt resignation after being wounded.

  The professor derailed Chase’s doom-filled train of thought. "Maybe Rachel was being deceptive to all those around her because she couldn't afford to let anyone see the real person inside of her," Gavin observed. "With all that you say she was involved in, in her secret life, I would say she most certainly couldn't let her husband or any of her Pine Brook Hills friends know what she had planned or what she was doing to try to achieve that plan. If she had a plan," Gavin added.

  "But why couldn't she just live the life she had?" Chase wanted to know. Hell, he'd seen her house and been out to the country club. It didn’t look too bad.

  Gavin slipped into lecture mode. "She choose her surface life when she was young. Who knows what her reasons were then?" But even Gavin seemed stumped by the whole thing. "The whole field of psychology tries to figure out why people do what they do and we're as often wrong as often than we are right. Sometimes you just have to accept that there are some bad people in the world."

  No shit, Chase thought. Bad people. There was one of them out there who had drilled into a baby’s mouth.

  “Who else knows about your York faking it, theory?” Gavin asked.

  “I just came up with it,” Chase said.

  Gavin started packing again, which Chase took as a hint that it was time for him to move on. "Thanks for your time, Doc. Good luck at your new job."

  "Thanks, Detective. Good luck to you too."

  Chase turned for the door, when Gavin’s voice stopped him. “You should have left well enough alone.”

  Chase turned around and looked into the gaping muzzle of a large caliber revolver. His eyes slid from the manhole-sized black hole to the face above.

  "Don’t move, please," Gavin gestured with the gun, which was the sure sign of an amateur.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Chase said.

  Gavin edged over to the small refrigerator underneath one of his bookcases. He opened it and pulled out a beer. Gavin rolled it across the floor to Chase’s feet.

  "Open it."

  Chase did as told. “I’m going to hurt you, maybe kill you. I’m in a bad mood.”

  "Drink."

  Chase took a sip.

  "No, I mean drink it. All of it." Gavin nodded as Chase shot gunned the beer. "I've got eleven more although we might not have to do all."

  Chase felt the cold beer swirl around inside of him. "What are you doing?"

  Gavin rolled another beer across. "Can't you see the headline, buried somewhere in the middle of the paper tomorrow or probably the day after since it will take them a while to find you? I can sum the story up in one sentence: Drunken, divorced, suffering PTSD, ex-vet cop in trouble at work, kills self after seeing a shrink at CU. I’ll say you came to me for help. You were despondent, suicidal possibly. I told you to go the emergency room for immediate help

  “There’s a logic to it. I'm sure all your co-workers will say nice things about you at your funeral that they certainly don’t mean and would never say to your face."

  "Why?"

  "Why what?" Gavin asked.

  "Why are you doing this?"

  "Oh, I think you have an idea now, don't you detective?"

  “Pretty much,” Chase said.

  Gavin gestured at the second beer in Chase’s hand. "Let's make a deal. For each beer you drink, you get to ask me a question and I'll answer. It's the least I could do for someone who has been so helpful to me."

  What an idiot, Chase thought. "You're another CU connection. A dealer."

  Gavin laughed, his eyes sparkling above the revolver's muzzle. That’s not good, Chase thought. Crazy eyes. "That's not too bright asking close-ended questions. The answer is yes. Well, at least one of the pick-ups at CU. I would think you would want to know more, seeing how
much this case bothered you. Think real hard before your next question." Another beer rolled across the floor.

  Chase popped the top. "You know this isn't my brand. Someone might think that's suspicious

  "It’s a cheap brand," Gavin replied. "I figure that fits your personality."

  “Got me figured out, huh?” Chase asked.

  “I could give you a diagnosis based on what I’ve seen,” Gavin said.

  “You already did,” Chase said. “And you were wrong.”

  “Was I?”

  “You’ll find out shortly.”

  “I’ve got the gun.”

  "For now. Why did you pay York to kill Rachel?"

  "Ah, good!" Chase realized Gavin was more of a loon than York. He was enjoying this. Like Rachel, he was too naïve to realize he’d ventured into the part of the world that on old maps used to be labeled: Here there be monsters.

  Gavin continued. "An open-ended question. That's what psychologists are taught to do. Requires the patient to work harder on the answer and gives more information."

  Chase looked at the gun, but the muzzle was still centered on his chest. It looked like a .357. Something a Clint Eastwood wanna-be would buy. Chase was sure Gavin would try to get his gun when he was ready to try to do him in. Fucking amateur.

  "I didn't pay York to kill Rachel and York didn’t kill her, or so he told me." Gavin laughed at the surprise on Chase’s face. "I had a good business going through my student dealers. Rachel was bringing a big load in every three weeks for me and God knows who else. I was insulated from the supplier. The supplier was insulated from me. Hell, I’m not even sure Rachel knew what she was carrying, although she must have guessed. It was the perfect set-up and Rachel was the key."

  “What about the Barnes?”

  Gavin shrugged. “I wasn’t the only one she supplied. York screwed everything up for all of us who were supplied by Rachel. That bitch should never have asked him to take the damn notes. I would have given her an A if she'd never shown up once. But you know how she was. Or maybe you don't. She really wanted to be a psychologist!" Gavin didn't seem to believe someone could so stupid. "It doesn't matter.

  "Anyway, he learned about the club, but more importantly three weeks before her death he saw her make the drop at the library and he saw me make the pickup. We used one of the lockers on the third floor. We each had a key. He wasn't stupid. He knew she and I were up to something very strange. Maybe, the Barnes had a locker there too. Maybe others. Rachel was the only one who knew how many drops she was supplying and where and how.

  "The next time she did it, he was waiting in his van after class when she got back to CU. He snatched her in the parking lot, short-circuiting the drops. She had a bag full of produce with her." Gavin's voice was harsh. "A lot of high quality produce. Just my cut was worth a quarter million before hitting the street, where I could double that. York looked in the bag and saw the goodies. He got her to talk and she told him about the money she had waiting for her after delivery.

  "She must have thought that would be that. She probably thought she could just walk away from it all. York says he took the drugs and let her out and that was the last he saw of her." Gavin shook his head. "I had split from the library already of course. My alibi was legit. He looked me up in my office the next day."

  It sounded so cold and dispassionate, but for the first time everything was fitting in place for Chase. "Why'd he kill her?"

  Gavin frowned. "Is that one of your questions? As I said, he told me he didn’t. Actually, I kind of believe him. He said he grabbed the drugs and let her go, figuring she wasn’t exactly going to call the cops.

  “I think York was obsessed with her. But he was more obsessed with the money he knew he could get for the drugs. The money was important to him. That’s why I don’t think he killed her. York came to me and I paid him for the drugs. I had people waiting and they weren't the type of people you wanted to keep waiting. Two hundred and fifty thousand in cash. Of course, my link with the supplier was cut with the death of Rachel, but things were screwed up enough as it was and it was time to call it quits anyway. York kept the money and I figured I was safe if Rachel had never told the supplier who I was. Since she'd never told me who the supplier was, that was a reasonable assumption.

  "As you could tell today, I've stayed around long enough to close everything out without raising any suspicions." Gavin caught himself. He grabbed another beer and rolled it to Chase. "That's more than enough of an answer for one question. Next?"

  Chase forced half the can down his throat as he thought. "So York's mental stuff is legitimate?"

  "No. I helped him make that up."

  "What?"

  Gavin looked at Chase like an idiot stepchild. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Detective? We worked out the whole scene just in case. Then you kept me pretty much up to date on everything. I called him after you left my office that day on the way to his place and told him to be ready for you, just in case. He wasn't that crazy. Or should I say he wasn't that smart?" He rolled another beer across. Chase wasn't done with the previous one.

  Chase had to check. "York didn't tell you who Rachel's supplier was?"

  Gavin shrugged. "I didn't ask. I didn't want to know. I don’t know if he knew. Doubt it. Obviously, whoever it was never got paid for their product so they were pissed, but only Rachel knew both ends, so with her dead, her supplier was out in the cold. I did get scared when I read about the Barnes getting killed in the paper, but everyone knew they were dealing. The supplier must have known too. I was more careful."

  "And today? Why this?"

  "I can't let you go to York. I don't think he'll talk, but I can't afford to take a chance on that. My worry is that he does know about me. I don’t think he killed Rachel, but then again, if he didn’t, who did? And there’s a good chance he’ll try to implicate me, making a deal to save his ass. I can’t have that." Gavin waved the gun about, the first time it wasn't centered on Chase’s chest. "You just wouldn't let this go would you?

  "Not even after you found out that Rachel wasn't the little miss innocent you must have imagined her to be." He squinted at Chase. "I asked you the first time we met what was more important: the facts or the personalities. I know the answer now. You were caught up in the personality you imagined Rachel to be. I was too when I first met her. She was most definitely different.”

  Chase thought about Vladislav going to the Barnes. Drilling into their baby’s mouth, looking for his money for the drugs they never got. He was done with this bullshit.

  Gavin continued, still waving the gun about. "I suppose I could tell you how we hooked up on the deal, but that's really not important right now. I think--"

  Chase threw the full can with all his might. It hit Gavin in the forehead with a solid thud. Chase was moving as soon as the can left his hand.

  Gavin fired on reflex as he staggered back, the gun pointing toward the ceiling, the roar echoing through the room.

  Chase grabbed the hand holding the gun and twisted, the sound of the forearm bones breaking filling the silence after the gunshot.

  Gavin screamed and Chase didn’t give a shit as the gun dropped to the floor. He hit Gavin in the throat with the knife-edge of his other hand, holding back from a fatal strike at the last second. The psychologist dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. Chase grabbed his hair and twisted his head.

  “Did you kill Rachel Stevens?”

  Gavin tried to speak as Chase pulled out his Glock and shoved the muzzle into the soft part under the professor’s jaw. Gavin shook his head, still trying to speak through his damaged throat. A wheeze came out.

  “Did York?” Chase put pressure on the gun and Gavin’s eyes widened.

  Gavin shook his head and tried to speak again. He managed to gasp some words out. “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t think so either,” Chase said. Then he rapped Gavin on the side of the head with the gun, and the man keeled over to the floor unconscious.

&nb
sp; CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Chase had had the shift sergeant come and take Gavin into custody. He was supposed to go to the station and fill out forms. but screw them. He was suspended. He’d walked away and uniform cops gathered had parted like the Red Sea.

  Fuck it , Chase thought as he walked in the backyard toward his apartment. He was going to stay and fight before he went off into the rising sun. If he did go down the tubes, he was going to make as big a stink as possible. Then he could get a job delivering pizzas or something in South Carolina and check out his mother’s legacy.

  Chase threw a cup of cold coffee into the microwave, turned on his laptop and slid the DVD into the slot. The microwave dinged as the screen booted up and he grabbed the mug.

  The screams came a second before the screen came alive with an image that made even Chase flinch. An Afghan man was tied to a post, naked. A Caucasian soldier in un-marked camouflage fatigues was using a blowtorch on the man’s skin, picking skin to seer into blackness and then red. There was a voice off-camera, urging him on, giving directions. Chase’s Russian was very rusty, but he could make that much out from the intent in the tone.

  Whoever was holding the video camera wasn’t very steady on the job. Whether it was from disgust at what he was seeing, or excitement, Chase didn’t know. The soldier appeared to be a ‘snuffy’. Someone from the lower ranks, being used as a blunt object to torture by the off-camera commander. There was no questioning of the man tied to the stake. This wasn’t interrogation, Chase could tell, which meant it had one of two objectives. Either it was a warning designed to scare others from doing whatever the man had done, or the torturers were getting their rocks off. Or from what Chase had seen done in some of the cesspools he’d traveled to in Special Operations-- both.

  The screen went blank. Then a new scene. This one inside what appeared to be a one-room schoolhouse. An older woman and a half-dozen young girls in blue skirts and white blouses were cowering in a corner.

  Chase hit the fast-forward button, knowing what was coming next. He did it because he didn’t want to see the faces of the girls and their teacher as they were raped. It went on for a while, even at fast-forward speed. Chase was beginning to empathize more and more with Colonel Rivers. Chase had known what Cardena was talking about at the airport, but seeing it was a different story. Especially when one of the satisfied soldiers replaced his penis with a bayonet.