Shell Game (Stand Alone 2)

by Badal, Joseph

  She returned to the car and drove back to the Marriott Hotel. As she entered the lobby, she spotted Paul Sanders waiting for an elevator. She caught up with him and he asked, “Out sight-seeing?”

  “Sort of.”

  They entered the elevator. When it began to ascend, Paul asked, “Do me a favor. When you find out who hired that woman to kill Wendy, call the police. Let them deal with it. Don’t do something stupid.”

  Carrie smiled back at Paul innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Paul.”

  They walked out of the elevator and down the hall to the suite without another word. In the suite, Katherine took everyone’s order and called room service. It took almost an hour for the food to arrive. They were finished eating by 8:45.

  Wendy retired first; Carrie followed shortly thereafter. Paul and Katherine sat on the couch with their glasses of wine.

  “How do you think this is all going to end?” Katherine asked.

  Paul reached over and placed his hand on Katherine’s. He was surprised when she didn’t remove her hand after a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you everything would end happily ever after,” he said, “but I don’t have any idea. There is one thing I can tell you. I have a sense that events are tying together.”

  “That’s good?” she said.

  He raised his shoulders. “Who knows? The way the bank is treating Winter Enterprises isn’t illegal. Unethical, but not illegal.”

  “The spirit of the law versus the letter of the law?”

  “ ‘No man has ever yet been hanged for breaking the spirit of the law.’ Grover Cleveland.”

  “What if it’s the federal government breaking the spirit of the law?” Katherine asked.

  “Louis Brandeis wrote, ‘Crime is contagious. If the federal government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.’ I contend this goes with breaking the spirit of the law as well.”

  “You spend a lot of time reading, don’t you?”

  He looked at her and tried to keep the sadness he suddenly felt from his face. “It’s what you do when you’re waiting for a woman to pay attention to you.”

  Katherine shivered as though she was chilled. She withdrew her hand from Paul’s and placed her wine glass on the coffee table in front of them. She moved closer to him and kissed his lips. “I think I should start paying more attention to you.”

  “ ‘Thou art to me a delicious torment.’ ”

  “Ralph Waldo Emerson,” she said. “Now shut up, Paul.”

  SUNDAY

  JULY 24, 2011

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Edward had always been more than a big brother to Carrie; he’d been her best friend. Despite their seven year age difference, they had always had a connection beyond being siblings. Even though she’d followed him around as much as she could, Edward never resented her hanging around. Since his father died, he’d felt responsible for Carrie.

  But Edward realized Carrie was no longer a dependent little sister. She was a confident woman who obviously had developed skills beyond the average Army officer. The way she handled the killer who broke into Katherine’s home was evidence enough. He also realized Carrie was up to something. He could always tell.

  He’d called Carrie’s cell the night before and asked whether she might want to get together for an early morning run and then breakfast. She’d answered, “Sorry, but I’m getting together with a couple old friends. How about dinner tomorrow?”

  Edward sensed something sinister behind his sister’s seemingly innocent words. He knew Carrie was aware of what he meant by an “early morning run.” They used to take these runs together at 6:30 a.m. Why would she be meeting with friends that early in the morning? He got up at 6, leaving Betsy dozing and wrote her a note, saying he needed to go out for a few hours and would call her later. He drove his Corvette to the Marriott Hotel and circled the parking lot finding where his mother’s SUV was still parked. He found a secluded spot under a willow tree, behind a huge RV, and parked. And waited.

  At 6:30, Carrie exited the hotel. She fast-walked to the SUV, got in, and drove off. Edward followed at an eight-car distance, keeping at least two cars between Carrie and him. Carrie drove to Chestnut Hill, to Bethlehem Pike, and then followed it northwest for a few blocks to a bakery shop. She parked in front of the shop and walked inside. It was now 6:40 a.m.

  A couple minutes later, two men arrived and entered the shop. They were medium height and wore their hair short. Edward thought they looked military, with solid, athletic builds and a way of walking that exuded confidence and readiness for action. They both wore light-weight jackets despite the warm summer temperature.

  Edward sat in the car for thirty-five minutes, until Carrie and the two men exited together. She went to the SUV with one of the men and drove off. The second man got into a late-model Pontiac and followed the SUV.

  Trailing the Pontiac, Edward drove through Chestnut Hill to Germantown Avenue, down to Hartwell Lane, and then over to Pastorius Park. Carrie parked the SUV on one side of the park; the man in the Pontiac found a space one hundred yards away on the same side. Carrie carried a couple magazines as she and the two men walked into the park and leisurely strolled around the perimeter. But Edward could tell the three were doing more than taking a Sunday stroll. They seemed to be checking the grounds, performing reconnaissance.

  The three returned to where they had started fifteen minutes earlier. It was now 7:45 p.m. Carrie handed one of the men a magazine and then walked away. She went to a bench, another magazine in hand, and sat down. One of the men skirted a slight rise behind the bench and disappeared behind a copse of trees. The man with the magazine walked toward the pond, passed it, and sat on a bench there.

  From the way the men had positioned themselves, with Carrie in between, it appeared to Edward they were providing security.

  There were few parking spaces on the streets fronting the park as the residents in the area parked on the street. Driveways and garages were few and far between in this neighborhood. There were a few parking spaces available in a parking lot on the southeast side of the park. Edward drove his Corvette in that direction. He pulled into a space and remained behind the wheel. A few people came and went—mostly morning walkers and joggers—but the park was generally empty.

  At a couple minutes past 8, a black Cadillac sedan with tinted windows pulled into the parking lot two spaces from Edward. Three African-American men got out of the vehicle with a fourth man remaining behind the wheel. One of the men was huge, grossly obese. Just as the assassin had described him. He moved away from the car, stopped at the edge of the park, and looked around, focusing in Carrie’s direction. Edward saw her raise a hand and then the man walked across the grass toward her. The two other men followed but, after twenty yards, separated, one circling left in the direction of the trees behind where Carrie was seated; the other moving right to a spot about fifty yards away from Carrie. The fourth man from the Cadillac got out, leaned against the car’s left front fender, and lit a cigarette.

  The obese man was slowly approaching Carrie. The other three men were alert, seemingly on edge, expecting trouble. Carrie’s man on the bench between her and the parking lot was leafing through the magazine on his lap and, at the same time, keying in on the stranger off to his right. Carrie’s other man, along with the man from the Cadillac who had circled the park toward the trees, were out of sight.

  The fat man arrived at Carrie’s bench and sat down.

  Toothpick Jefferson eyed Carrie. “You’re one gutsy broad,” he said.

  Carrie smiled at the man. “How gutsy do I have to be to meet a man who’s so out of shape he’s wheezing like he’s got emphysema?”

  Jefferson laughed. “You got a point.”

  “I’ve got another point to make. I told you to come alone. So far, I’ve seen three men with you.”

  “Can’t be too careful. What happened to Philippa Gonzalez?”

  “Who?”

  “The woman you
say I hired to kill someone.”

  “I subdued her.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She paid for her arrogance.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach her on her cell phone since you called me. She’s not answering the phone. She’s disappeared.”

  Carrie shrugged. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what she does, as long as she stays away from people I care about.”

  “So, what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve got one question,” Carrie said. “You answer my question; you get to go on your way. You don’t and I’ll hurt you.”

  Jefferson’s eyes widened as he laughed uproariously. The laugh devolved into a phlegm-rattling cough from deep in his lungs.

  “Smoking’s bad for you,” Carrie said.

  Jefferson finally stopped his coughing and said, “Little bitty thing like you? You’re going to hurt me?”

  Carrie shot him an angelic smile and shrugged.

  “You think I’m stupid?” Jefferson asked.

  Carrie continued beaming. “I don’t think anything about you, Mr. Jefferson, other than you’re a low-life scumbag who’ll do anything for a buck, including paying an assassin to murder Wendy Folsom. Now, I think I know who paid you. I just need you to confirm my suspicion.”

  “That kind of information is worth a lot of money, Missy.”

  “Maybe in your world, but not in mine. No more fooling around. One name; that’s all I want.”

  Toothpick ignored her words. “I came here to find out who you are, see what you look like. I’ve done that. Now I’m going to leave and you should go someplace far away from here. Because, if I ever see you again, I’ll turn you into one of my bitches and have you working the streets as a $50 hooker.”

  Carrie smiled and leaned closer to Jefferson as he tried to heft his enormous bulk off the bench, placing her left arm on his right shoulder and, the fingers of her right hand acting like pinchers, grabbing his sternocleidomastoid muscle on the right side of his neck. She squeezed the muscle with incredible force, at the same time pressing against the man’s carotid artery. She knew what would happen to Jefferson: Inability to flex his neck, his head frozen in place, dizziness. Jefferson sagged back against the bench and moaned.

  Edward saw Carrie’s move against the man. Carrie’s man by the pond immediately came off his bench, dropped his magazine, and moved toward Carrie. But Edward noticed he wasn’t moving with any apparent urgency.

  Edward anticipated the reactions from the men who had arrived in the Cadillac. The guy in the park off to the right, his hand under his jacket, had apparently seen that the large man was in distress and ran towards Carrie. Her man from the bench began moving more quickly, but it suddenly became apparent to Edward the guy was intercepting the on-rushing African-American man. Moving in an unthreatening manner, the man from the bench tripped up the other man, taking him down to the ground with almost no sound or fuss. The man lay still on the ground. Carrie’s man reached under the other man’s jacket, pulled something away, and pocketed it.

  Movement to Edward’s right caught his attention. The driver had dropped his cigarette and was now moving toward Carrie. Carrie’s man from the bench was preoccupied with the man he’d taken down to the ground and didn’t appear to see the driver coming. Edward knew he couldn’t exit his car and catch up to the man in time. He started the Corvette and threw it into DRIVE, gunning the motor. The car leaped forward, spewing gravel behind it, and rode over a two inch high concrete lip between the parking lot and the grass. The car slued on the grass before the tires bit into the soft grassy loam of the park and raced forward like a hungry predator.

  The Cadillac’s driver must have heard the roar of the engine and looked back while still running towards Carrie. Edward saw the terror on the man’s face as he tried to veer away, but he lost his footing and almost fell just as the nose of the Corvette clipped the man’s legs, cartwheeling him into the air. The guy landed on the ground with a thud and a shout. Edward stopped the car and climbed out. He kicked the scrambling man’s gun hand, sending his pistol flying before leaping on him to pummel his face until he felt the man sag beneath him. He retrieved the man’s weapon, pocketed it, and ran over to where Carrie’s man from the bench was standing next to the man he had subdued. The man was wary, reaching inside his jacket at his approach. Edward threw up his hands, showing his palms.

  “I’m Carrie’s brother Edward Winter.” He pointed at the driver from the Cadillac. “I’d keep an eye on that one. He’ll be coming around soon.”

  Edward sprinted to Carrie, who looked at him with a mixture of amusement and surprise. She was still squeezing the fat man’s neck. He was in obvious pain, moaning, his head tilted to his left as though permanently set that way. Edward glanced around and for the first time noticed that the few visitors to the park were doing one of two things: Running away as though their lives depended on it, or frozen in place, watching the action. But then he noted a couple of people talking on cell phones.

  “I think it would be a good idea if you got out of here,” Edward said. “Someone’s probably already called the police.”

  “Get that Corvette off the lawn before someone takes down your license plate number,” Carrie said. “I’ll be along in a second.”

  Carrie turned to look at Toothpick Jefferson. She shifted her grip from the side of his neck to his throat. She dug her fingers around the man’s windpipe and slightly pulled on it. Jefferson’s eyes bulged.

  “One name, asshole. You have one chance.”

  He tentatively nodded his head, groaning with the effort.

  She released her hold on his windpipe and waited while he swallowed once, then twice. Finally, he mouthed something, but the words came out as a squeak. He tried again. This time his throat muscles and his voice box worked, although he sounded more like a crow than a man.

  “Fuck you!”

  Carrie shook her head slowly from side to side. “I didn’t want to have to hurt you,” she said.

  Jefferson’s eyes bulged. He opened his mouth as though to say something more, but Carrie struck him full force with her fist against his right temple. He sagged like an empty sack and collapsed sideways onto the bench.

  Carrie looked over her shoulder and whistled.

  Darren quickly emerged from between the trees on the knoll behind her.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “There’s a guy sleeping in the trees. He’s going to have a real bad headache.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Gerald Folsom, having been up all night, watched the sun come up through his living room window. His mind was whirling like a pinwheel. He hadn’t heard a thing about Wendy, no call from either the police or Toothpick Jefferson. Nothing. He’d agreed to pay the man an extra $10,000 if he took care of business within a week. That week wasn’t up yet, but Folsom assumed Jefferson would work as quickly as possible. He didn’t care about the money; he cared about getting rid of that bitch, and soon. He would have paid almost anything to eliminate her.

  He walked outside and looked at the expansive lawn, punctuated by shrubs and trees, flowing from the house down to the front gate, thrilled by the view. He walked down to the entrance and collected the Sunday paper. Removing the rubber band, he opened it, his stomach tense, expecting to see his name blasted across the top of the front page. He was relieved to find nothing above the fold about his arrest. But, turning the paper over, he found an article headlined Spousal Abuse: A Growing Problem. He read the introduction to the article quickly. There was no mention of him on the front page, but he suspected his name would come up in the continuation of the article. He dropped the rest of the paper and searched for the continuation page. Scanning down the article, he found his name, immediately followed by a paragraph where a psychiatrist detailed the personality traits and psychological make-up of men who abused women. Folsom’s eyes grasped words at random: misogynist, low sel
f-esteem, inferiority complex, insecure, family history of abuse. The words were like blasts from stereo speakers and he seemed to hear them more than see them. Folsom ripped the paper to shreds and threw the pieces on the ground, screaming his anger to the heavens.

  He raced back to the house and climbed the stairs to his third floor office, trying to imagine all of the alternative events that could have occurred. Was Wendy hiding where Jefferson couldn’t find her? Had she been killed? Had she been wounded and somehow escaped? Folsom knew none of the realistic alternatives were good for him. The only event that would free him of the assault and battery charges was Wendy’s death, and if that had occurred, someone would have called him by now.

  Folsom roared like a wounded grizzly bear, echoing his anger and fear through the cavernous rooms and halls of his mansion. “Where are you, bitch?” he screamed.

  By 9 a.m., he went down to the living room on the first floor and was calm enough to think critically about every person his wife knew well enough to go to for help. Her parents were old and decrepit, and living in New Hampshire. He didn’t think she’d take her problems to them. She used to have a couple tennis friends. But, as far as he knew, she hadn’t seen them in a couple years. She’d been at the college in Chestnut Hill, but he’d called and they’d told him she’d left. That woman lawyer who represented her; Wendy might be staying with her. He was trying to expand the list of Wendy’s contacts when his telephone rang.

  “Hello,” he snapped.

  “Gerald, it’s Sanford. I haven’t heard from you since you were arrested. I’m just checking to see how you’re doing.”

  “Not worth a shit, Sandy. As you can imagine, being arrested and thrown in jail is no fun. Especially when the charges are based on lies.”