She pointed the semiautomatic pistol at Tharpe and said, “Let him do it.” With her other hand, she gave him a piece of paper with the code written on it. Katie was in control and appeared ready to shoot if she had to. This wasn’t how I imagined a pretty occupational therapist would behave.
Tharpe moved forward, cutting his eyes toward me. When he focused on the box, he paused. Then he unlatched the front and lifted the lid like it was the Ark of the Covenant. We all looked on in silence.
There was a leather-bound notepad and a cloth sack. Tharpe picked up the notepad and thumbed through it quickly. Nothing but page after page of instructions and formulas.
He set the book on the table. Then he pulled the cloth sack from the box. It was fairly large, about the size of a kitchen garbage bag. When he pulled open the draw-string, all I could see as I peered over his shoulder was cash. Bundles of hundred-dollar bills. Lots of bundles. Bundles of dreams.
I had never seen that much money. I would probably never make that much money in my entire life. It annoyed me. How could people have that kind of cash? Suddenly I didn’t like the idea of Tharpe taking it. It seemed wrong, no matter what deal we had made earlier.
Katie read his intentions, too. She said, “This was everything Pete worked for. He gave his life for it. I can’t let it be stolen. Don’t make me shoot you.”
I noticed Tharpe out of the corner of my eye. He was trying to be subtle and get my attention. As Katie gazed into the box, he used two fingers to make a gun sign. Then I realized he thought I really had a gun in my jacket and he wanted me to shoot her. Even if I was armed, I wasn’t going to shoot Katie over this garbage in the box. It wasn’t worth it.
I stayed where I was and raised my hands slightly. Part of it was a show of surrender to Katie, but when I turned, my jacket pulled tight and Tharpe saw that I didn’t have a gun.
And that’s when he decided to make his move.
CHAPTER 31
THARPE LURCHED FORWARD, fast. Faster than I thought a guy his size could. He slapped Katie’s hand to one side, then reached across to grab the gun. It slipped out of both of their hands, bounced off the table, and clattered onto the floor. That’s when things got really rough inside the tiny vault.
I dove for the gun as Tharpe tumbled over the table to get it. We met on the hard tile floor. Each of us had a hand on the gun. We tried to find the right leverage to pry it from the other man’s hands. We rolled on the floor, bumping into the boxes in the wall and the legs of the table. Each bruise made me angrier and angrier.
I was hoping Katie would help me. All she had to do was push the heavy box off the table onto Tharpe’s face. Instead, she stepped forward and started to collect the contents of the box for herself. I managed to gain a hold of the gun and struggled to my feet as Tharpe was hanging on as hard as he could.
He had a weight advantage on me and used it well. He twisted hard and jerked me into the wall of safety-deposit boxes. But no Marine was going to get the better of me. I raised my knee and caught him hard in the abdomen, driving him back. Then his fingers tangled in mine near the gun and he pulled it back before smacking it against my temple.
I quickly regained my bearings, and as soon as I did, the gun discharged. In the enclosed space it was like being next to a thunderclap. My brain scrambled for a second.
I let go with my left hand and threw a punch hard into his face. He staggered back.
The smell of the gunpowder hung in the smoky air and stung my eyes.
That was when I saw Katie. On the ground. The blood pumping out of a wound in her chest. I couldn’t help myself, and let go of the gun. I dropped to my knee to try and stop the blood pumping out through the hole in her leather jacket. It pooled on her chest.
Tharpe wasted no time grabbing the gun, sack of money, and notebook. He slipped out of the room instantly.
Katie tried to say something. It might’ve been “I’m sorry,” but maybe I was imagining it. No real sound came out. Within moments, I felt her body go still underneath my hand and I knew she was dead.
I heard shouting in the hallway as Tharpe tried to get past the security guard. That’s when a shot was fired.
This plan had gone completely to shit.
CHAPTER 32
SURROUNDED BY THE gray walls, I felt my anger rise. I didn’t care if Katie Stahl was the mastermind or criminal conspirator. Someone else was going to pay for all of this shit. Right now, the only target I saw was Mike Tharpe.
I stood up and took one more look at poor Katie. Then I noticed the piece of paper with the room code written on it next to her. I plucked it off the floor and raced out of the small room.
I crouched just outside of the door to figure out the direction in which Tharpe had fled. The maze of hallways made it difficult. I could hear people screaming. Then I heard gunshots around the corner toward the front of the bank.
I sprinted down the long hallway, dodging the body of the murdered guard. As I got closer, I could hear the chaos. In the lobby, a young mother clutched her baby and ran for cover. An elderly man fell and just stayed on the tile, reaching up uselessly, like a turtle on its back. Customers and tellers alike were scrambling past him and shouting. Security had spread around the perimeter of the room.
When I turned to my right, I immediately saw Tharpe crouched behind a heavy planter with leafy branches spreading out above him. This hallway led to the waiting area where we had come from.
Tharpe leaned out from behind the planter and took a potshot at a security guard twenty feet away. Tharpe intended to flee out the front, but this guy held his ground. Good for him.
The security guard was using a column as cover and he had the advantage of time on his side. The police would arrive before long. All he had to do was keep Tharpe behind the planter.
I crept toward Tharpe in his blind spot. When I was about a dozen feet behind him, I tried to signal the security guard by waving my arm. The last thing I wanted was to catch one of his bullets by mistake. Or on purpose, if he thought I was Tharpe’s partner.
The guard looked like a deer in the headlights. I had to risk the chance that he saw me.
I made my move.
CHAPTER 33
I JUST DOVE in. Like I was playing football in school. I led with my shoulder. Tharpe made a humph sound as I drove him into the planter.
I wrapped both hands around his right wrist to keep him from pointing the pistol in my direction. I jerked him away from the planter, expecting the guard to give me some sort of support. I didn’t care if he shot Tharpe while I had him in the open. Instead, I was in dogfight mode. The SEAL mentality was to never lose. This time I wanted to make the loser pay.
I jerked Tharpe closer and head-butted him in the nose. He staggered back, blood already dripping from his nostrils. He managed to hold on to the gun. He even squeezed off a round that kept the security guard behind the pillar.
I stole a peek at the lobby and saw that it was still in chaos. A woman screamed and ran for the front door. I hoped others would follow her.
I focused on Tharpe again and used my legs to drive him into the wall. He crashed hard. The whole building seemed to shake.
Then I twisted and used my body’s leverage to snap his right wrist. He let out a grunt of pain as the bones broke. I could hear them as well as feel them shatter under my hands. The gun dropped onto the tile floor. I kicked it hard with my left foot as if it were a soccer ball. It spun across the floor. I threw an elbow into Tharpe’s jaw and felt it break under the pressure. The big cop stayed on his feet. Incredible.
He was done. I had the upper hand, but this was the best therapy I could imagine. I wound up my right arm and balled my hand into a fist. Tharpe didn’t even know what was coming his way. Then I heard someone shout, “Police! Don’t move!”
I looked to my left and saw two uniformed Poughkeepsie cops with their service weapons drawn and pointed at me. They were both young. A blond woman, who couldn’t have stood at more than five foot one, and a la
nky guy with a military haircut. His pistol clearly shook in his hand.
The security guard pointed at me and said, “That guy stopped the gunman.”
That made the cops focus their attention on Tharpe. Then I delivered my punch. It was a wild haymaker that felt like it came from across the Hudson and landed squarely on Tharpe’s nose. He stumbled back and hit the wall again. This time he fell to the ground. That’s when I gave him a good, solid kick in the ribs. He grunted and blood poured out of his shattered nose as if it were a garden hose.
The tall cop stepped forward and yelled, “Cut that shit out. Now.”
I was already in a stance to kick Tharpe again when I looked over at the cop. He could see I had nothing in my hands and I was no lethal threat. At least not to him. I winked and threw my kick anyway. Tharpe made another satisfying grunt as I felt one of his ribs crack beneath my foot.
I immediately held up both hands and stepped back, mumbling, “Sorry, Officer.”
The young patrolman dropped to his knee and started to search Tharpe. The other cop kept her gun trained on me. She had more tactical sense than her partner and didn’t step forward.
The cop cuffed Tharpe behind his back, then stood up to face me. He was holding Tharpe’s ID case with the Newburgh detective’s badge on the outside.
He said, “What the hell is this?”
“That’s something he doesn’t deserve to carry.”
CHAPTER 34
THREE HOURS LATER, I found myself back in Newburgh. I tried to process everything that had happened. The Poughkeepsie police had a lot of questions. They weren’t particularly happy with me. There wasn’t much they could do. It was a mess and there was no chance to spin it in a positive way. A cop had gone bad, and because of him, there were bodies in both Newburgh and Poughkeepsie.
I didn’t knock when I entered the law office of Lise Mendez. There had been some vague reports on the news from Poughkeepsie. I figured she didn’t have any of the details yet.
She didn’t seem surprised to see me as I stood in her door. She looked up from her desk and gave me one of those dazzling smiles. “Hello, Mitchum. What are you doing here?”
“I just came from Poughkeepsie.”
“What’s going on in Poughkeepsie?”
“You can try and play this cool, but I think we’re past that.”
She elected to remain silent.
“I know you sent Katie Stahl to collect the money.”
“I have no idea what …”
“Save it.” I held up the piece of paper that Katie used to read the code for the safety-deposit-box room. It was a blue Post-it note with the logo across the top that said Adirondacks are not only chairs.
Lise froze in place.
“When I saw this Post-it with the security code, it took me a minute to remember where I’d seen this logo before.” I started walking across the room, slowly.
Lise didn’t move. She followed me with her eyes.
I said, “You were the perfect partner for drug dealers. If the cops ever had questions, you could’ve claimed attorney–client privilege. And Pete trusted you.” I stopped at her desk. I saw the Post-it pad with the same logo near her pen in the corner of her desk.
I stared at her, waiting for some sort of response.
She finally said, “That’s hardly a basis for an indictment, let alone a conviction.”
“Not by itself. Phone records will help. Maybe your handwriting on the pad. Who knows. Good cops can be persistent.”
There was no panic in her voice when she said, “I suppose the money is still at the bank.”
Now it was my turn to keep quiet.
She said, “What can we do?”
“You think you can make some kind of deal?” I took a step back so I wouldn’t be tempted. “It’s a great idea. Make Katie do the dirty work. You get a big wad of cash and get to remain Newburgh’s top criminal defense attorney. Pretty sweet deal.”
Then the front door opened and Sergeant Bill Jeffries walked in with three other Newburgh police officers. One detective already had handcuffs ready.
I looked at Lise and said, “The problem is there are still a lot of good cops in Newburgh. For your sake, let’s hope there’s at least one other good attorney.”
CHAPTER 35
THE GRAY CLOUDS that hung low in the sky over Woodlawn Cemetery in New Windsor matched my mood exactly. The cold crept into my bones as I stood next to my brother. The crowd of friends and family listened to a Presbyterian minister say a few words over Katie Stahl’s grave. Her family wanted nothing to do with Natty and that suited him fine.
It had been six days since the “shootout in Poughkeepsie,” as the newspapers called it. Katie had been listed as a victim of a cop gone bad. That was better than I had hoped she’d be represented. The media tended to focus on the more sensational aspects of a case like this, so naturally, they wanted to talk about the corrupt cop in this sting. That caught people’s attention. Not the fact that other cops jumped to make the case against Mike Tharpe and set things right as soon as they found out about it. All anyone talked about was a single bad apple.
If I was mentioned in any story, it was always as someone trying to help his brother who’d been charged with a murder. I was worried someone would use the phrase “private investigator,” and I’d have to explain myself to the New York Department of Business and Professional Regulation. There may not have been a specific charge about impersonating a private investigator, but I’m sure someone would have charged me a decent fine, and my days of helping the residents of Marlboro might be over.
Some of the news stories liked to show photos of Lise Mendez and talk about the pretty attorney who’d been involved in a drug conspiracy. She was now being held without bond on a slew of charges.
As for Mike Tharpe, he pled guilty to the murders of Alton Beatty and Katie Stahl, after I’d handed in his confession tape for Pete’s murder. That would help reduce his sentence, but he’d still be away for a long time.
After the service, we walked to Natty’s leased red Chevy Camaro with its extra-wide twenty-two-inch rear wheels. It looked like something a seventeen-year-old would drive.
As I slipped into the passenger seat I said, “You know, I could’ve driven.”
Natty let out a short laugh and said, “I can’t be seen in a car like yours. Sorry, no offense.”
We drove through Newburgh on 9W in silence. I noticed Natty was pushing it and we were cruising at over seventy.
I said, “We’re going a little fast, aren’t we?”
“I thought you were a fake private investigator, not a fake cop.”
I chuckled and mumbled, “Funny.”
Natty pushed the sleek car a little harder and took it up over eighty as we left Balmville. Then he said, “I really did love her.”
It was the first time he’d talked about Katie since he’d gotten out of jail the day after she was killed.
I said, “I know. She was a great girl. She just got caught up in something she didn’t understand.”
“It makes me think about my profession and lifestyle. I never knew what it was like to lose something as precious as Katie.”
I did know, but I kept quiet. I liked seeing my brother grow up right in front of me, even if it was a dozen years later than everyone else usually did.
Natty said, “Who would’ve thought that after all these years, you’d be the one to understand what I’m going through? You’re the person I can count on the most.”
I shrugged and said, “I figured I’d have to bail you out of trouble sooner or later.”
Now Natty smiled and said, “You’re an asshole, but I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Then the car hit ninety and I added, “Asshole.”
MALEVOLENT
* * *
JAMES PATTERSON
WITH JAMES O. BORN
CHAPTER 1
I PAUSED FOR almost a full minute on the porch of the house on Kerry Street near the town of We
st Nyack, New York. I was here as part of my private investigation business, but it wasn’t like my usual chasing down drunken husbands or figuring out why elderly women were charged three times too much for air-conditioning units. This had the potential to be a real case. With a real payday.
Ellen Guidry had paid me $500 up front to find her daughter, Elizabeth. She also promised me another thousand if I got her out of the crack house where she’d supposedly been living and back home to Marlboro, about twenty minutes north of Newburgh.
My brother, Natty, offered to come. Although we’d had our differences as adults, he’d really matured in the last year. He’d given up his shady employment—selling dope from a bar in Newburgh—and was currently enrolled in paramedic school. I didn’t want him missing any class time to come on some crazy adventure like this.
So here I stood. A pistol tucked in my waistband. Another first for this job. I was hoping I took this assignment for the right reasons. Save a girl stuck in a drug den. Reunite her with her mother. But in reality, I was starting to hurt for money. My job delivering newspapers had spiraled downward in the last few months. Everyone wanted their coupons and information in electronic form. Even my eighty-two-year-old neighbor started getting her local news on her iPad. I needed a reliable, secondary source of income.
I looked out over the patchy grass and clumps of weeds scattered around the dirt yard. There was an abandoned shopping cart with no wheels stuck in one corner. A couple of trees looked like they hadn’t been trimmed in years. Their limbs grew out to unusual lengths and dipped so low they brushed the earth. A giant oak stump loomed like a barricade in front of the house.
The River Murders Page 14
