Attorney at Large (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by John Ellsworth

He had planned to wait until 3:15 a.m. but decided to make an earlier try. If they caught him at the door he would claim to be lost, in need of directions. Under the seat in his van was yesterday’s mail from two doors down. Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Rhodeman. He would say he was looking for the Rhodeman house. They would know the name and that would erase any doubt about his legitimacy. So he punched the code and ever so softly depressed the handle mechanism and held it down, in the open position, until he was certain they wouldn’t hear it click when he released the pressure.

  He listened again. It was a TV program. He moved through the foyer until he could make out the words the actors were saying. He heard no other voices. Retreating back to the stairway, which was just inside the front door, he tested the first step for any creak. The house was new enough the stairs were silent. So he kept going up.

  At the top landing he stopped and listened again. He had the switchblade in his side pocket, just in case he was discovered and there was a struggle. At the very least he would get away and escape the neighborhood in the van. The freeway was but two blocks away and he would disappear. The whole caper would be called off and he would disappear to Costa Rica with the mobster’s advance payment. The money was already there; the only missing ingredient was his smiling face on a long warm beach.

  He counted slowly to 300 and then began tiptoeing down the hallway. This time of day her door would be open. He felt the plastic bag in his hip pocket. It contained a washcloth soaked in chemicals. Sleepy-bye medicine. He smiled. This was unbelievably nervy, but this was how you made the big bucks.

  At the third door he paused. Just the slightest sound, the softest breathing sound possible. He leaned across the doorway and peeked inside. She was face-down in her crib, head turned to the side. She was half-covered with a pink sheet patterned in flying Dumbos. He knew the print. He had had children, before they were taken away and his parental rights severed.

  Ever so quietly he slipped the plastic bag from his rear pocket and removed the damp washcloth. He turned his head to the side and held his own breath. Mustn’t breathe the fumes or they might find two of us unconscious. Now to place the washcloth at her nose and mouth—there we go. Doesn’t move. Big inhale, nose twitching and then slowing the in and out. Very light breathing. He removed the washcloth. Can’t give her too much or the whole trade goes south.

  He quickly folded the washcloth, reinserted it back inside the sandwich baggie, and stuffed it in his rear pocket. Carefully he placed his right hand up against her diaper and slowly increased the downward pressure. She didn’t move. She was lightly unconscious.

  He leaned, taking care not to brush up against the bars of the crib and risk leaving DNA behind, and lifted her bodily from the bed. He cradled her in his arms and looked into her face. Olive skin, wide eyes, mouth that looked like rouge had been lightly applied to the lips.

  She was wearing a T-shirt, diaper, and white socks. Perfect.

  As carefully as before, he made his way back down the long hallway.

  This time the stairs were taken one at a time. This was to make extra sure he didn’t lose his balance or lunge and make some kind of sound.

  At the bottom, he stopped and listened again. Security would still be about on the rear lot line, beating the bushes.

  Then he disappeared out the front door.

  He laid her in the passenger seat and, unlike her doting parents, didn’t bother with a seat belt.

  Ever so slowly he pulled away from the circle drive and started rolling down the street.

  At the secondary street he took a left, went up a half mile, and then entered the freeway on-ramp. The little girl hadn’t stirred. Once he was up to freeway speed he glanced over at her. He wondered if her parents would ever see her again.

  “Twenty,” he said. “I think. Or was the last girl twenty?”

  A flash of anger. He honestly couldn’t believe how many it had been now. Some families had paid up and gotten their kids back; some hadn’t. Some of them had been hookers, some hitchhikers, some he had met in singles bars. Always it was the same. There would be pleading, there would be desperate tears, there would be bargaining, there would be cries of pain. He glanced again at Sarai. This one presented no problems at all. Too young. Just lock her in the cupboard and walk away.

  It was that simple.

  They had until noon tomorrow to wire the money, the parents. If not by noon, Mountain Time, then his job was done. He would be finished with what he had promised. He could leave the desert, climb aboard the Greyhound, and head south, or maybe east. Wherever there was an international airport that accepted forged passports.

  The child would be forgotten.

  “Put you on a milk carton,” he said to his prize.

  * * *

  She came to at North Las Vegas, saw where she was, and immediately erupted into paroxysms of crying. “Mommy,” she sobbed. “Daddy.”

  He refused to look at her. He had smelled her on the stairs and that was all she was going to get out of him.

  He wanted to hit her to shut her up, but couldn’t, because he had his orders.

  Until noon tomorrow she was to be kept alive and free of bruises or other marks.

  After that, anything went.

  53

  Scout was so named by his father, a huge Harper Lee fan.

  Scout was fourteen, honest and trustworthy and all the other characteristics revered by the Boy Scouts of America. Because Scout was one. A Boy Scout.

  The Aviation Merit Badge was almost within reach. After that came the Eagle.

  Aviation Merit Badge Part 3 required that a Scout: “a. Build and fly a fuel-driven or battery-powered electric model airplane. Describe safety rules for building and flying model airplanes. Tell safety rules for use of glue, paint, dope, plastics, fuel, and battery pack.”

  His Scout leader said the plane, in free flight, should cover no less than three miles. Scout looked over the rules, both in the book and online, but could find no such additional requirement—footnote or otherwise. He ran a hand through his tousled blond hair and just for an instant thought reflexively of biting his nails, but remembered again. A Scout does not bite his nails. So, he refrained.

  The plane was a Sky Chief 1001x, built painstakingly from a kit he had purchased with his paper route money. He delivered for the North Las Vegas Herald and cleared $22.50 weekly. The kit was the equivalent of two weeks’ pay, including model airplane engine. The engine was an 0.49 fuel-powered jobbie, that was broken in following thousands of nonproductive cranks on the prop, which resulted, finally, in the engine coughing, thrumming to life, whining like a banshee, only to be tamed by knowledgeable twists of the needle valve. Scout had done all that and more. Now he was ready for flight.

  The tackle box contained a can of fuel, plastic line to connect fuel tin to gas tank, needle nose pliers, and assorted odds and ends that only a fourteen-year-old Boy Scout would think compulsory.

  Together with Rodney, his best friend since second grade, Scout hopped on his Kawasaki scooter and blasted out into the desert. Strapped to the handlebars was the plane; the wing was safely placed bungeed to the luggage rack situated on the very tail of the scooter. The tackle box and equipage were safely stowed inside the rack.

  Rodney clutched Scout around the midsection and hung on for dear life while they roared along the sandy back roads. Rodney was a black kid whose dad had once played for the D League Maine Red Claws, the Celtics’ farm club. Tall for his age, Rodney was also fully developed at fourteen, a young man, but a man nonetheless. In physique. Intellectually and temperamentally he was fourteen and, like Scout, in pursuit of the Aviation Merit Badge. They would be Eagles in about two more years, if they stayed on track. Which they fully planned to do.

  They were dressed alike that afternoon, shorts with cargo pockets, running shoes with no socks, Celtics tees, and hats with the bills backwards. Oakley sunglasses completed the look for each kid, and it was a good thing because the temperature was about to climb past 110
degrees and the sun was blinding. In deference to the rattlesnakes that prowled the desert, Scout wore a .22 pistol in a quick-draw holster cinched around his waist. The snakes were all too common and there was nothing worse than a face-off with an agitated diamondback or sidewinder. There were merit badges about those guys, too, and the boys had nothing but the highest regard for the serpents.

  Finally they motored down a long, sloping mesa and drove onto a flat plain that was a good twenty miles long, north to south. Here they would launch the sailplane, because they would be able to keep eyeballs on it no matter how far it went once it got out the range of the radio controls. RC was only practical for a short distance. If your plane flew beyond that invisible circle, well, good luck, buddy, because your aircraft had a mind of its own from that point on. The earthbound pilots could only helplessly follow behind from the scooter, while the plane wandered away and the fuel tank held out. So, that was the plan. The scooter had an odometer. Follow the plane from launch to landing and diary the miles. At which point they would own Part 3a.

  Scout pulled the caliper brake, applied the footbrake, and slowed to a stop. He dropped the kickstand and stepped off the bike. Rodney had come around and was already taking the bands from around the fuselage, preparing to assemble their machine for flight.

  “Easy!” said Scout. “For fuck’s sake don’t break any spars.”

  Rodney gave him a dirty look. “For fuck sake, have you forgot I own one-half? You think I’m gonna break my own plane?”

  “Our own plane.”

  “Our own plane.”

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Wouldn’t let Mister Eddy hear you cuss like that, dude. You’d find your skinny black ass kicked out of Scouts.”

  “And you’d find your skinny white ass close behind my skinny black ass. You’re the one with the dirtbag mouth. Scuzz.”

  “Scuzz back.”

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  “All right. Let’s do this.”

  Scout grabbed the tackle box and unsnapped the lid. Rodney rubber-banded the wings to the fuselage by pulling an X series of loops around the top of the wing and hooking them into the transverse rod running through the upper portion of the fuselage, at the CG—center of gravity. It was all in the book and it looked good to the boys. “Mother’s gonna fly,” Rodney mused as he worked.

  They put the model on a stretch of hard-packed sand, and attached the fuel hose. Two long squeezes and the model’s fuel tank filled and ran out the overflow. They wiped off the overflow and put the fuel can back in the tackle box. They attached the wires and alligator clips from the twelve-volt battery to the glow plug and ground.

  “Ready?” said Scout

  Rodney pounded the ground. “So cool!”

  With his index and middle fingers of his right hand, Scout flipped the prop through a cycle. Nothing. He flipped the prop again. Nothing. Once again. Still nothing.

  “I smell fuel,” said Rodney. “You got it flooded.”

  “Don’t think so, fool,” said Scout. “That’s overflow you smell.”

  “Isn’t.”

  “Is.”

  “Fool.”

  “Scuzz.”

  Scout retrieved the glow plug wrench from the tackle box and removed the plug. He blew lightly between the points until all fuel was dry. “Happy now?” he said to Rodney.

  “You’ll see,” Rodney replied. He was sitting on the sand now, evidently preparing for a potentially long stay at that location.

  After thirty minutes of cranking the prop, the boys gave up. They repacked everything, climbed on the scooter, and returned to their homes in North Las Vegas.

  They agreed to try it again tomorrow, after Scout’s father checked out the engine that night.

  54

  Ginny Sumners was the branch manager and she responded to the call from the police at 9:03 p.m. Would she mind meeting them at the bank? There was an emergency with one of her customers. She double-backed, making sure it was the police. She wrote down the caller’s badge number and then called the station and gave them the badge number. Yes, he was a detective, a lieutenant grade, and yes, that was him calling with that case reference number. The case number was new, the case having been opened just in the past hour.

  * * *

  They were waiting for her at the branch. Two police cars and a third black car with black tires. He introduced himself as Lt. Koeller and the other man in shorts as Thaddeus Murfee. She thought she recognized the name but could not be sure. The police officer showed her his ID, Thaddeus showed her his driver’s license, and she opened the bank door. “This will take about three minutes,” she said, and went to disarm the night security system. They all three went into her office.

  It was a typical branch manager’s office, complete with industrial carpet and veneer walnut desk with secretary return, struggling ficus plant, computer terminal connected into the bank’s 2,700 locations, and poor nighttime lighting. In the blue neon light, their skin looked translucent and Thaddeus felt he was moving underwater, as if in a dream. She flipped on the terminal and looked up to them. “So. What do we have?”

  Thaddeus spoke first. “They’ve taken my daughter and demanded six hundred million dollars I received when I sold my casino.”

  Her eyes widened and she looked at Lt. Koeller for some sign, some indication of reliability. He nodded. “Checks out. We’ve been over the closing documents online.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I’ve got a hundred million on deposit with your home office downtown. I need to wire that out tonight.”

  “Let me look up your accounts. I need your Social Security number.”

  Thaddeus recited his number and she punched it in to the search field and hit RETURN.

  “My,” she said. “This is a flagged account. The system is warning me that it will record my ID and all activity from my keyboard. This must be big. Ah, here it comes. My. Mister Murfee, there’s a hundred fifty million in this account.”

  “More than I thought. It’s a start.”

  “A good start, I’d say.”

  “I need to wire it immediately.”

  “Do you have the receiving bank’s routing number and the account number?”

  Thaddeus showed her the letter. “It’s all right here.”

  She studied the document. “It says all funds must be received by noon tomorrow or you will never see your little girl again. We can do this with our bank, but I can’t speak for the others. But are you sure you want to do this? That’s an awful lot of money. Maybe calling in the FBI is the better way to go.”

  “He doesn’t have a choice,” Lt. Koeller replied. “Just get it done as fast as possible. Please.”

  “My God, I can’t get anywhere near six hundred million wired out tonight. There’s nowhere near that amount in this account.”

  Koeller nodded. “I put in a call to Lieutenant Ortiz. He’s head of Financial Crimes at the department. He’s on his way in to help.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now, Mister Murfee, I’m going to need you to sign off on this wire transfer authorization. And Lieutenant, I’m going to ask you to place your signature right beneath his, as a witness.”

  Thaddeus signed without hesitation and slid the document to the police officer. He read it over and signed beneath the first signature.

  “All right, then. Give me about five minutes and we’ll have this on its way.”

  “Where’s the account? What’s that number mean?”

  “This is the routing number. This bank is in…Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands. Pretty place. Seven Mile Beach and all.”

  “Please,” said Thaddeus. She returned her attention to her work.

  Thaddeus was sweating profusely. A heavy damp band swathed his forehead. And the air conditioning was humming comfortably in the background. For the moment, he couldn’t even stand to think about Sarai. But he knew he had to. No one else could make this happen; it was go
ing to be totally up to him. What about the money that wasn’t liquid? What to do about that? He began reciting in his head. He thought Fidelity was holding somewhere around $125 million. Another $200 million in real estate investment trusts he had purchased—which presented a huge problem because there was no way those funds could be made liquid by noon tomorrow. He said a silent prayer. He was saying another one when Lt. Koeller’s radio crackled.

  “Koeller,” the officer said.

  “You call for FinCrimes?”

  “We’ve got a 1240 underway. Let me give you the location.”

  The cop spoke rapidly, but very carefully. The voice on the other end acknowledged and said he was on the way.

  Miss Sumners looked up and smiled. “It went through. Here’s your confirmation page.”

  Thaddeus accepted the pink copy out of the printer and stuffed it in is pocket. He looked at Lt. Koeller. “Now what?” he asked.

  “Do you have any other liquid funds?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Anything you can think of anywhere?”

  Thaddeus’ mind was reeling. He felt as if he might black out. He forced himself to slow his breathing, slow his thoughts.

  “I can’t think of anything else.”

  “If we could get a Fidelity office open, then I could get more.”

  “Miss Sumners. Would you please Google and locate the nearest Fidelity office?”

  She did as instructed. “Goodness. Not two blocks away. On Cherry and Blanchard.”

  “I’ve seen that,” said the detective. “Any names on their web page? Branch manager, associates, anything like that?”

  “Branch manager is Hans Mofford. Says call him anytime.”

  “May I used your phone?” the officer asked.

  “Certainly. Here, let me get up and you come around and sit here. Should I make coffee?”

  The police officer nodded. Thaddeus stood helpless by while the officer dialed the phone and then began speaking.

  “Information, this is Detective Lieutenant Nicholas M. Koeller with the Las Vegas Police Department. We have an emergency and I need a phone number. Probably unlisted.”