Found money

by James Grippando

  Norm asked, “What do you make of that?”

  “Could be a lot of things. She could have been drunk. Could have been tired. Or — it could be something else.”

  “Like what?” asked Ryan.

  “This is a wild guess. But you take the shaky handwriting and combine it with the awkward phraseology, and I can offer one theory. She wrote the letter to your father, all right. But not of her own free will.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying somebody could have told her what to write. Forced her to write it.”

  “You mean someone had a gun to her head?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Quite literally.”

  There was silence in the truck. Ryan glanced at Norm, saying nothing. Norm picked up the phone.

  “Thanks, Bruce. If you can, stay by the phone tonight, just in case.”

  He hung up, then looked at Ryan. “That sure opens some new possibilities.”

  “Not really. It’s a wild theory, if you ask me. And even if she was forced to write it, that doesn’t mean it’s false. Seems to me I’m in the same place I’ve always been. The letter isn’t dispositive. Only Marilyn Gaslow can tell me if my father raped her.”

  “I’m thinking beyond rape.”

  “Huh?”

  “Take a worst-case scenario. Let’s say Debby Parkens was forced to write a letter saying Frank Duffy was innocent. Say the letter was false, which means your father really was a rapist. Say her death wasn’t a suicide, meaning that somebody conveniently got rid of her. There’s only one person who had motive to make her write that letter. And in my book, that leaves one prime murder suspect.”

  Ryan stared blankly, stunned at the thought of his father as a murderer.

  Norm asked, “You sure you want to go down this road tonight?”

  “Now more than ever.” He opened the door and stepped down from the truck.

  Norm stopped him. “Take this,” he said, offering his cell phone. “You get into trouble up there, you call.”

  Ryan gave a mock salute, then started toward the dam.

  65

  Nathan Rusch was lying in wait. A cluster of gray boulders offered protection and concealment. A black Nomex body suit made him part of the night. Perched on a rock formation that overlooked the dam, he had a clear view of the entire area. He could see the parking lot and both entrances from the north and south ends of the dam. With a crest length of 670 feet — 1,100 including the spillway — the dam connected the steep canyon walls that had been separated by thousands of years of erosion. Behind it was the Cheesman reservoir, a man-made vessel for over 70,000 acre-feet of rain and melted mountain snow. The glowing moon glistened on the mirrorlike surface. Rusch was close enough to hear the water flowing into the South Platte River hundreds of feet below. No water ran through the dam. Foresighted engineers had instead tunneled through the natural canyon walls adjacent to the dam to preserve the structural integrity of their man-made wonder. The highest opening was more than 150 feet above the stream. With the valve open, water shot from a hole in the granite wall like water from a hydrant, cascading down into the river. From above, it was a peaceful background noise, like a running stream in the forest.

  His weapon was fully assembled. The rifle was the sleek AR-7, lightweight and accurate. It wasn’t cut for a night scope, but with a little ingenuity the ridge on top easily accepted one. The thirty-shot clip was filled with hollow-point ammunition. The silencer was his own creation, made from a ten-inch section of an automobile brake line, common PVC tubing, fiberglass resin and a few other materials that could be purchased at any hardware store. It was cheap and disposable, two priorities in a profession where ballistic markings made it advisable to use your equipment only once and then grind it into dust.

  He checked his watch. Phase one of his plan should already have unfolded. Considering the short notice, the exploding briefcase had been a stroke of genius. Setting the lock to the same combination Liz had testified to in court was an especially convincing touch. His only regret was that he couldn’t be the fly on the wall when Liz and her greedy lawyer popped it open and blew themselves to bits.

  Now, phase two was only minutes away.

  He raised his infrared binoculars and canvassed the parking lot. Only one car in sight. Marilyn’s Mercedes. He estimated it was forty yards away, exactly where he had parked it, well within range with his three-to-six-powered scope. He lowered the infrared binoculars and looked through the scope, running the plan through his mind. He found success more achievable if he imagined it first. This close to a kill, however, he more than imagined it. He relished it.

  In his mind’s eye, he could see it unfold. The target approaching the car, taking the bait. The cross hairs in the night scope converging behind his ear. One squeeze of the trigger. The head snapping back. The knees buckling. The lifeless body falling to the ground.

  Rusch would approach and finish the job with a double-barreled, twelve-gauge shotgun. The boss wanted it to look like a suicide — Duffy blows up his wife and her lawyer, then blows his brains out. The barrel would go into the mouth, and a simple squeeze of the trigger would unleash enough buckshot to make it impossible for any medical examiner to determine that a sniper’s bullet was the actual cause of death. The Mercedes would be his getaway car. He’d try to position Duffy at the perfect angle, so the blood, shattered skull, and flying bits of brain didn’t splatter on the paint job. But neatness wasn’t essential. He would have to dump the car at a chop shop anyway.

  Especially with what was already inside.

  He saw someone coming up the road, heading toward the Mercedes. The fantasy was over. Back to reality. He got in position and braced his rifle for the kill. He peered through the scope. Locked in the crosshairs, the target crossed the parking lot. Sixty yards away, now fifty. His finger caressed the trigger. Forty yards and closing. He could fire anytime. He had a clear head shot. Then he froze. He lowered the rifle in confusion and grabbed the binoculars. His instincts were right. The scope hadn’t lied.

  It wasn’t Ryan Duffy.

  Marilyn approached the Mercedes cautiously, one step at a time. Loose gravel crunched beneath her feet. Water running beneath the dam was like static in the background. Or maybe that was static from the radio. She was so nervous that it was hard to tell if her earpiece was even working.

  “Jeb, you there?” She spoke like a ventriloquist, trying not to move her lips.

  The reply buzzed her ear. “Stay calm, Marilyn.”

  “I’m almost at the car.”

  “Then stop talking. If he thinks you’re wired… well, that won’t be good.”

  She swallowed hard. Jeb was a master of understatement.

  She stopped a few yards from the driver’s door. Dark-tinted windows made it impossible to see inside. She checked around the car for footprints in the gravel. She noticed none. That meant one of two things. Either someone had meticulously swept them away. Or he was in there, waiting. She waited, too. She glanced toward the reservoir, beyond the outer ridge of the dam. The trees had grown, but the slope of the land and rock formations brought back memories. At first it was a trickle. Then the emotional dam burst.

  The Mercedes was parked in the very same spot — exactly where the rape had taken place, more than forty-five years ago.

  It suddenly didn’t seem that long ago. Her hands began to shake. She drew a deep breath to calm her nerves. She knew the car couldn’t have been positioned there to taunt her. Rusch had had no way to know Marilyn was coming. It was there to fool Duffy, to give him all the more reason to think Marilyn was inside. That, however, was little consolation. Whether she’d been targeted or not, the past was staring her in the face. Though she had few memories of that night, returning to this place had torn open the wounds. She had been raped. It had started that night, and it had lasted forty-five years. He had physically assaulted her. Made her accuse the wrong man. Deceived her into marrying him. Kept her under his control to this very day.
r />   And if her suspicions were correct, he might have killed her best friend.

  The wave of fear turned to anger. She had a wild thought — but one she had to act upon. She had an overwhelming instinct that it wasn’t Rusch inside the car. It was Joe Kozelka.

  On impulse, she charged toward the car and tried the door. It was locked. She dug her keys from her coat pocket. She still had the remote. With a push of the button, the lock disengaged. She pulled open the door.

  The front seat was empty. The rear made her gasp.

  A young woman lay across the seat. Lifeless. Her hand draped limply onto the floor. A trail of blood ran from a bullet hole in the left temple, having spilled onto the carpet.

  Marilyn tried to scream but was mute, paralyzed with fear. Images flashed through her head. She saw herself as a teenager passed out in the back of Frank Duffy’s Buick. She saw Amy’s mother on her deathbed with a bullet in her head. She took a step back. Her voice was suddenly back.

  Her scream pierced the night as she ran toward the dam.

  The scream rattled the van, sending the decibel meters on the tape recorder well into the red zone. Jeb Stockton called frantically on the radio, but he got no response. “Damn it, Marilyn, where the hell are you?”

  “Don’t lose her!” said Amy.

  “It’s pure static.”

  “Rusch must have her. He must have ripped off her headset.”

  “Don’t panic on me. She could have just run into a low tree branch or something that knocked off the headset.”

  “Keep listening,” said Amy as she leaped into the driver’s seat. The motor was already running.

  “Can you drive this?” asked Jeb.

  She slammed it into gear. Tires spun and gravel flew as the van shot from the turnout. It leaned left, then right, squealing around corners at three times the speed limit, barely gripping the road.

  “Guess so,” he said, holding on for dear life.

  She skidded through the last turn, which was sharper than expected. Amy momentarily lost control. The headlights seemed to point in every direction, then finally locked onto the Mercedes straight ahead. A man was running away from the car. Amy steered the van around the back of the Mercedes and slammed on the brakes. The van fishtailed, nearly knocking the man to his feet.

  Jeb jumped out, gun drawn. “Freeze! Hands over your head!”

  The man raised his hands. Amy hit the emergency blinkers for better light. In the intermittent blasts of orange light, she could see it was Ryan Duffy.

  “What did you do to Marilyn!” she shouted.

  Ryan kept one eye on the gun, the other on Amy.

  “I never saw Marilyn. I just heard a scream and ran over here. The body was already in the car when I got here.”

  “Body?” Amy’s voice was filled with panic. She hurried toward the Mercedes.

  “Don’t look,” said Ryan.

  It was too late. The sight of the body sent Amy back on her heels. “Who is that?”

  “It’s a woman I met in Panama. She was supposed to meet me here tonight. Apparently somebody got to her before I did.”

  Jeb moved toward the Mercedes, took a quick look for himself. “You’re lying. You killed that woman.” He took aim at Ryan’s forehead, cocking the hammer on his revolver.

  Ryan swallowed hard. “What the hell are you doing, old man?”

  “Pat him down, Amy. Check for a gun.”

  Ryan said, “It’s inside my jacket. Check it, please. You can tell it hasn’t been fired. I didn’t shoot this woman.”

  Amy cautiously stepped forward, unzipped the jacket, and pulled out the pistol.

  “Bring it here,” said Jeb.

  She handed it to him. His gun aimed at Ryan, he sniffed the barrel for fresh powder and checked the ammunition clip. It was still full. “He may be telling the truth.”

  A scream echoed from somewhere near the dam. All three of them froze, trying to pinpoint the exact location. It had been deafening and shrill — the kind of scream Amy had heard in her nightmares about the night she’d found her mother.

  Another scream followed, even louder than the last. It seemed to have come from beyond the hill, along the hiking path that led to the dam.

  “It’s Marilyn!” Amy grabbed Ryan’s gun from Jeb, then turned and ran toward the opening in a stretch of woods at the edge of the parking lot.

  “Amy, wait!”

  Ryan watched as she faded into darkness, then looked desperately at Jeb. “If one of us doesn’t go after her, she’s going to end up like that woman in the car.”

  Stockton tightened his aim. “Just stay right there!”

  Ryan thought fast. Even in the heavy ballistic jacket, he could probably outrun the old man. On impulse, he turned and ran in Amy’s footsteps.

  “Stop!”

  Ryan only ran faster, never looking back.

  66

  Nathan Rusch was angry, not about to be outrun by a woman ten years his senior. He had come down from his hiding spot in a matter of seconds, chasing down the wooded path that led to the dam. Her sixty-yard lead had closed to less than twenty. He’d tried to make verbal contact, but his shouts on the dead run had only made her scream.

  His lungs were beginning to burn. The hills and thin mountain air were taking its toll. He wondered if the drug Sheila had given him back at the hotel this morning wasn’t still affecting him, making him fatigue faster. Lucky for him she’d lacked the nerve to kill. Unfortunately for her he didn’t have the same qualms.

  He stopped at a fork in the footpath, unsure of which way to go. A canopy of trees completely blocked out the moonlight. He’d lost sight of Marilyn. He listened for footsteps cutting across the woods. All was silent, save for the water flowing beneath the damn.

  “Freeze!” The voice had come from behind — an older man’s voice.

  Startled, Rusch wheeled quickly. Jeb Stockton was standing behind a rock, his gun aimed at Rusch. “Put the gun down,” said Jeb, “hands over your head.”

  Slowly, Rusch obeyed. The gun dropped. His hands went behind his head. Jeb was obviously having a hard time seeing in the darkness, particularly with Rusch’s black clothing. He stepped out from behind the rock and took five steps forward. He closed to within ten yards. “Lay on the ground, face down. Nice and slow.”

  Rusch lowered himself to one knee, his eye on Jeb’s chest. In one blinding motion his hand snapped forward from behind his head, releasing a titanium throwing knife from the sheath on his wrist. The sleek blade whirled through the air and struck the target, parting Jeb’s ribs. He groaned as the wound dropped him to his knees. He fired two erratic shots, then fell to the ground.

  Rusch grabbed his gun and came to him quickly, checking the pulse. It was weak. He gave a moment’s thought to finishing him with a bullet, but it wasn’t necessary. He’d let the old man suffer. He yanked the knife from his ribs, cleaned it on Jeb’s shirt, and tucked it back into his wrist sheath.

  “Don’t feel bad, old man,” he whispered smugly. “No one ever looks for the knife when they think they’re in a gunfight.”

  Stockton’s left arm jerked forward. A loud crack erupted as he fired off a round from a small palm-sized revolver. Rusch was hit square in the chest and fell over in a heap.

  Stockton collapsed, exhausted. “Don’t feel bad, jackass. Nobody ever looks for the second gun, either.”

  The gunshots echoed like thunder in the canyon, drawing Amy and Ryan to the fork in the footpath. Amy arrived first, barreling down the hill. Ryan was close behind. Breathless and scared, she stopped at the first sight of the body on the ground. The boots she recognized as Jeb’s. In the darkness, she hadn’t noticed the man in the black body suit, but finally she did. He was completely still. She felt a wave of relief till she noticed the blood at Jeb’s side. She ran to him and knelt close.

  His eyes were glazed. He was barely conscious. Blood had soaked his shirt, covering his chest. He coughed, trying to speak. “Bastard, got me with a knife.”


  “Who is it?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  Amy quickly went to the body, checked a pulse. Nothing. “He’s dead.” She pulled the hood off his head. The face was unfamiliar, but she knew it had to be Rusch. She came back to Jeb’s side.

  “Did you see Marilyn?”

  He shook his head.

  “Which way did he come from?”

  “The dam.”

  Amy started at the pounding footsteps behind her. She rose and aimed her gun. Ryan stopped short and backed away.

  “Easy,” he said. “I’m on your side. I think.”

  Amy jerked her gun, directing him toward Jeb.

  “Other guy’s dead. He stabbed my friend here. You’re a doctor. Help him.”

  Ryan went to his side and checked the wound. It was a clean hole from an incredibly sharp knife. Air and foamy blood appeared around the edges with each expiration. “Thankfully it missed the heart. But definite signs of pneumothorax.”

  “Numo-what?”

  “A sucking chest wound. I think the knife punctured a lung. This man needs a chest tube. We have to get him to the ER.”

  “I can’t just leave Marilyn. What if this dead guy has a partner out there somewhere? She’s wearing a wire. They’ll kill her if they find it on her.”

  “Who is they?”

  “The people who would have killed you if Marilyn hadn’t intervened. They may have killed my mother.”

  For Ryan, it was a relief to hear that someone other than his father might have killed Debby Parkens. Jeb groaned. Ryan dug Norm’s cell phone from his coat pocket. “I’ll call Medevac. Somebody has to wait here with him.”

  “You’re the doctor,” she said. “I’ll find Marilyn.”

  Jeb raised his arm, as if he wanted to say something. Amy leaned close but couldn’t hear.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Ryan.

  “I don’t know. He’s delirious.”

  “I can’t leave him. He’ll go into shock. But don’t you go charging off by yourself. This is too dangerous.”