The Thrill of the Chase (Mystery & Adventure)

by Jack Parker

  Several minutes passed and I was still staring at the uneven stitching of the white pillowcase. Impatient, I flopped over onto my back and lay still, trying to think nothing. Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking to come inside. The heater was rattling tonelessly in the hallway, a harmless metal monster. The lights of a semi waxed and waned across the ceiling, there and gone, a fleeting spirit of companionship. My body ached almost everywhere, spitefully determined to keep me conscious after the beating it had just undergone.

  Sleep had been driven far from me.

  I blew out a sigh of painful recognition. Well, now what?

  It was only 2:34 in the morning. There would be nothing good on TV, I had no current novels to dust off and resume, I wasn't about to take the opportunity to go jogging, and the paperboy wouldn't come to deliver until four.

  How convenient, I thought, rolling over onto my side. Awake in time for nothing.

  The curtains over the window drifted lazily in the draft from the floor vent, sympathetic to my plight. They had witnessed my suffering and understood what it was like to be trapped and impatient.

  And speaking of suffering…

  I threw open the bathrobe and gently prodded my knee with a finger. The pain was still fresh and sharp, although hobbling around in the kitchen seemed to have reduced the initial agony to a dull throb. Hopefully I hadn't really shattered the bone. Nothing would be gained from a broken limb – especially not in the middle of a case.

  How would I explain that one to Slyder? "Sorry, Chief – I was attacked in my sleep. Yeah – that's right, Kev. Attacked by the goddamn floor."

  I sighed, rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. "Sleep, sleep, sleep…"

  But it was obvious that sleep was no longer an option. I would have to occupy my time in another way. Groaning, I sat up and stared around at the room, discerning nothing but shadows dappled with silver moonshine. I looked down at the floor and saw faintly the scraps of paper I'd scattered over the carpet with my fall. Index cards and shreds of paper had scattered everywhere.

  And I just organized those no more than two hours ago, I thought, simultaneously enjoying and despising the irony.

  Now that I was seated comfortably, my mind rejected the idea of getting up again, but I growled low in my throat and swung my legs over the edge of the bed anyway. I staggered to my feet, putting most of my weight on my right leg. Thankfully, the pain wasn't as bad as I'd imagined, but it still took a minute for me to screw up my courage and finally kneel down on the floor. Once I was seated on my haunches, I began snatching up the crumpled notes and scattered pages. I gathered it all into my lap, then stood slowly and laid the pile back on the surface of the desk. Nothing was organized anymore, but that was alright because I wasn't planning on doing anymore thinking just then. As a matter of fact, I'd just begun to feel sleepy again, so I figured that I would just quickly separate my things from the evidence belonging to the SPD and then crawl back into bed for another attempt at sleep.

  I reached out and clicked on the desk lamp to shed some light on the situation. After quickly scanning the floor to be sure I'd picked everything up, I looked down miserably at the pile I'd gathered together and my eyes fell on the two slips of paper that had ended up on top. It was either a stroke of fate or divine intervention that I didn't simply gloss over them in my groggy state. It was a miracle that my eyes focused, that my brain devoted all due attention.

  I straightened sharply, blinking rapidly, wondering if my eyes had focused or if they were just playing cruel tricks on me.

  The two slips of paper – crumpled, but intact – were the note Slyder had found in Finigan Thawyer's bedside table and the scrap of napkin bearing Robert Mendoza's phone number and the simple words, "Good luck". There was no apparent similarity at first glance, but upon closer investigation, one noticed an interesting fact.

  The handwriting on each was identical.

  I sat down hard in the desk chair, staring at the two pieces of paper as though trying to burn holes though them. My mind was racing beyond my ability to process the information. Forgetting about the pain in my knee, forgetting about my sudden weariness, I fought to sort the jumbled pieces of ideas and thoughts and possibilities all swirling in my head into something comprehensive. In the end, I focused on one word – one name – and in the end that was the only thing that concentrated my thoughts on a singular goal.

  Mendoza.

  The handwritten messages were composed of the same uneven, chicken–scratch prose. The d's and g's were identical. The writing on each note slanted to the right.

  Mendoza. Robert Mendoza. Robbie.

  I stood abruptly, so deep in thought that I failed to notice the way my injured knee trembled involuntarily. It didn't all make sense, yet at that moment I knew beyond any shadow of doubt that Mendoza was the one behind the whole thing – the robbery at Miles', the murder of Ruby Daniels indirectly, the theft of his own car.

  But why? I thought, frowning. What could he possibly gain from robbing middle class? Miles is at the low end of the totem pole financially, and Daniels wasn't that much better off. And on top of that, Robbie went all out, hiring criminals and covering all his tracks…

  Unless he had a grudge against Miles, I couldn't piece together a motive. I didn't even know how they knew each other – if they did at all – which meant I couldn't safely assume anything, which also meant that I couldn't rightly accuse the man on any charges. His fingerprints weren't even on the note Slyder had found, although I was willing to bet that the partial the Chief had mentioned belonged to the hunter.

  But it wouldn't be enough for a warrant – or a conviction. There's just no legitimate proof.

  I stared hard at Mendoza's uneven scrawl. Now that I really thought about it, everything in the case pointed to him, from circumstance to location to means, and regardless of how unlikely it seemed, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was his handwriting on each note.

  Okay, okay, I said to myself, trying to order my thinking. Robbery is definitely conceivable for Robbie. He told me himself he was having money problems. But if that's so, how could he afford to pay off the criminals he hired to hit Miles? Why not just rob Miles himself? And he only got a few grand from Mile's safe anyway. I saw the bank notes – Miles has got problems too. So Mendoza shelled out twenty-six thousand for practically nothing.

  I scratched at my scalp and studied the floor.

  And where does the Ruby Daniels murder fall into place? According the Thawyer and Harris, they acted on their own initiative, but what if they were lying? Robbie doesn't get what he wants from Miles, but he's still in the game, so he sends his cronies to hit the Daniels house too? But how is he connected to either of them – Miles or Daniels?

  I came to stand before the bulletin board and gazed up at the pictures I had tacked there, searching for the answer to my question.

  C'mon, I growled in my head, there's gotta be something here…

  The silence in the room was accommodating but largely unhelpful.

  Okay, new scenario, I thought abruptly, turning away from the board. In my mind, I began laying out the scene. Robbie obviously knows Miles somehow – most likely he knows that they're both struggling. But why does he hire criminals to do a job he could do himself – more simply and cheaper? Mendoza has a personal vendetta against Miles? Any amount of money he'll pay to make Miles pay for whatever happened in the past. And Daniels too?

  I shook my head. Scratch that – too melodramatic. I need something concrete for a warrant. Slyder and Dempsey aren't going to accept late–night speculation as "reasonable suspicion". Focus. You need a motive, but to get a motive you need a link that connects all three of these people. If only I'd known them all before this whole thing began – it might have helped now.

  Something in the back of my mind prodded me – a thought that had almost caught on, but then it was gone just as quickly. I'd almost had something credible, I could tell. My internal clue detector was beeping frantically
.

  So, sticking with that line of thought… Do I know either of them from somewhere? Maybe I met them in a deli together or at a party someplace?

  It was unlikely because I wasn't a partier, and the only person who lived close to the deli I frequented was Miles. Perhaps involuntarily, I again searched the photos for an answer. My gaze fell upon a photograph of Rick Miles and his wife standing in their living room. It was nothing unusual: a cop had apparently snapped the shot while I'd been examining the safe – the tails of my long coat were actually visible in the corner of the image.

  My thought clicked suddenly, and not for the first time my memory surprised me. I had seen Mendoza before all this mess – before taking up his "case", at any rate (which was obviously a complete sham). It had only been for a moment, a moment that must have lasted no more than a second, and that made it all the more noteworthy that I remembered his face.

  Rick and Sandy Miles had a picture of Robert Mendoza on their wall – in the hallway leading from the front door to the kitchen. If memory served, he was manning a grill with Rick, and Rick's son was standing in the foreground of the portrait.

  I was sure of it.

  My excitement grew as I quickly removed all the photographs from the board except for the one of Rick and Sandy Miles and one of Robert Mendoza. I can definitely connect them, then. So, were they friends? Relatives – maybe even step–brothers? Well, Robbie mentioned a cousin that lived in the same apartment complex as my mother at one point, so let's stick with that for the time being.

  I moved the picture of Mendoza next to the one of Rick and Sandy and drove the tack directly through the hunter's eye – out of pure spite. I stepped back, cupping my chin in my right hand, my right elbow in my left hand.

  So they know one another, I thought carefully. I'll assume they're cousins. What in the world would motivate Mendoza to hire men to rob his relative? Family feud?

  Somewhat of an unusual factor arose in my mind – something that denied that possibility. When my uncle had served time for domestic violence charges and later on divorced my aunt, half of the Stikup family had sided with him while the rest had remained loyal to my aunt. My mother had always believed in her younger sister, and in a fit of righteous fury, she had torn a picture of my uncle from the wall and thrown it directly into the garbage bin.

  So unless the Mileses are the forgiving type, they probably would have taken Robbie off their wall. So what am I left with, if not that? Cousin robs bankrupt cousin because he himself is going under financially? To bring Miles down with him? Misery loves company?

  I thought back to Mendoza's nonchalant mention of his cousin – still assuming that unnamed individual to be Miles – and figured that, had Mendoza planned ill or simply disliked his cousin, he wouldn't have brought Miles up in the first place – even casually.

  And they seemed pretty happy together in that picture. Of course, it could have been taken years ago, but it had looked very recent in comparison with other photographs. I was still assuming a lot, but it was the most logical bet I had, so I decided that the best thing to do would be forging on.

  Okay. So Mendoza isn't trying to bring his cousin down. He's just flailing and doesn't know what to do, so he does the first thing that comes to mind?

  Maybe if it had been Miles who had hired the con artists. He didn't seem like the type to think things through before acting, and besides – Mendoza wasn't to the point of desperation yet, even assuming he wasn't still making minimal profit from the Shootin' Shack.

  I smiled in mock humor. But judging from that car he "rented" out, maybe he is in as deep as Miles. But what about Miles? I mulled the thought around in my head, liking the direction my reasoning was going, but not the implications. Could Miles have been involved in the crime? But if he was, why rob his own home?

  Unless it wasn't a real robbery.

  At that suggestion, my mind exploded with possibilities – so many that I sank back onto the bed, trying to weed out the good from the bad and both of those from the ridiculous. And now that I knew that Mendoza had staged the robbery of his own car, the possibility of Miles faking a robbery of his own home didn't seem so unrealistic.

  But, for what cause? What could they both get out of it?

  I drew my brows together, trying to think as Miles might have: a fake robbery to cover up his involvement with Mendoza and the thugs in order to obtain… what? I thought back to my first and only encounter with Rick Miles. He had seemed sincere, but I knew better than to put my faith in that alone.

  Just because he's not a Broadway performer doesn't mean he can't act. I wonder if Sandy knew anything about all this? Obviously she had to have been concerned with the money situation. I'll have to take a ride over to 264 tomorrow to ask. Miles clearly wasn't making enough at his business to support them – he probably couldn't afford to keep sending money to his son either.

  "So he turns desperate," I said, rising to my feet with much popping from my knees. "He and his cousin decide to start a secret crime circle – one that could benefit them both. The robberies at their own homes were to eliminate suspicion – draw police attention away from them so they would be free to act. And maybe that's why they hit Daniels when they did – once we were all tied up trying to find the criminals that had robbed the both of them it was safe to start the real operation."

  Of course, that would only make sense if I was still assuming that Thawyer and Harris were lying about the circumstances of the Daniels murder. Thawyer had said that they'd received no instructions to hit 4 Whitefield – in fact, they'd been told to lie low and wait. As previously stated, I had no reason to believe the thieves, but also no reason not to. After all, Mendoza had kept them in the dark about his intentions, and everything else they'd told me fit so far.

  "This explains the 'multiple teams of thieves'," I said aloud, talking now to my curtains. Obviously there had never been several groups of thieves – just several lies. "The robbery at Mendoza's never took place because there was only one group doing the dirty work. Besides, neither Mendoza nor Miles had enough money to hire any more criminals. So Mendoza fed me that bullshit to frame the thieves – so that it looked like they were responsible for everything and to simultaneously throw us off the trail."

  But even though it made perfect sense to me, I really had no proof for any of it. Miles' involvement was purely speculation on my part. I only had the evidence I needed to show Mendoza's connection to the boys we'd apprehended. I couldn't prove that Miles had had any contact with Mendoza in the last two weeks. In fact, I couldn't even prove they were cousins or in any way affiliated – unless I subjected them to a blood test, and that would require reasonable suspicion as well. All things considered, the only thing I could prove was that at some point in recent history, they had had a barbeque together in the Mileses' backyard.

  Those must have been some damn good burgers for them to blow up that picture and put it on their wall. I wrapped my arms around my chest, hugging the bathrobe close to my bare flesh. I found myself frowning as I suddenly recognized the other chinks in my theory. I'm still not sure about the Daniels family. Assuming Miles and Mendoza were behind that murder, how did either of them know Jeff or Ruby? And there's also the possibility that that whole thing was intended as a sham. Except for the fact that Ruby Daniels is dead. Did things simply get out of hand?

  I tucked my hands into the pockets of my robe and stared hard at the floor. So let's assume, for the moment, that Thawyer was telling the truth. Mendoza and Miles didn't actually have anything to do with the murder. Harris and Thawyer both mentioned insufficient payment. So they acted without permission and did what they do best. But wouldn't that mean Mendoza and Miles didn't actually get any bam for their buck?

  And it was at that moment, at 2:56 on the morning of Wednesday, December the 8th, that I suddenly came upon a possibility, something that struck me as ludicrous yet brilliant at the same time. Suddenly, in a manner classically attributed to Dick Tracy and Sherlock Holmes lore, e
verything fell into place: seamless, complete, and – in some twisted way – beautiful.

  Maybe they had gotten their money – right under all our noses.

  "It's perfect," I breathed, winded by the stunning conclusion. "They didn't have any direct involvement with the thieves so the hiring couldn't be traced to them easily, and nothing was really stolen at all…"

  So really it had been the thieves and – of course – the cops who had been fooled.

  But not me.

  Jaw set, I strode down the dark hallway and grabbed up the telephone from its hook on the wall. I punched in the number for the Swedesboro Police Station and asked the sleepy woman who answered for Kevin Slyder. She told me that he had obviously gone home for the evening, but when I told her who I was, she gave me the Chief's home phone number. I wasted no time in hanging up and dialing this other number. I was immensely grateful that he actually woke up and answered the phone rather than letting the answering machine field the call.