Act Normal, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 9

by William Manchee

nothing to stop them from arresting you."

  He looked at me skeptically. I wondered if I should tell him to close his eyes or his memory would be erased. But then how would I explain how I was able to leave the bank without being intercepted? No. I couldn't tell him. It would be too dangerous.

  "Where are you going to take the money?" he asked.

  "I don't know yet. It will depend on how things go. You'll just have to wait and then follow me to find out."

  He nodded but didn't look thrilled with my plan. I slapped him on the shoulder, smiled, and said "Don't worry. I'll keep your collateral safe." Then I walked into the bank and didn't look back. The safety deposit vault was downstairs, so I went directly to the stairway, descended to the basement level and walked directly to the vault that housed the safety deposit boxes. The same lady who had set up the box for me was there to help me. I told her I needed to get into my box.

  "Yes, sir. Do you have your key?"

  "Yes,” I said.

  She leaned forward, opened a leather bound log book, and pointed to the first empty line. I signed my name and wrote in my box number in the column next to it. She got up and led me into the vault. Once I had my box safely in an inspection cubicle, I transferred the money to my briefcase and took the box back to its place in the vault. On the way out, I thanked the clerk then held my breath as I left the bank.

  When the two men across the street spotted me, they started walking toward me. A cop disguised as a utility worker came at me from another direction. I quickened my pace and made it to my car just before the two men intercepted me. Once inside I lowered my head and covered my eyes tightly. There was a commotion outside and I heard several screams. I could see faint blue flashes of light through the cracks between my fingers. When it was over, I sat up and looked at the scene around me. Some people were lying on the ground moaning. Others were wondering around aimlessly. I started the car and took off narrowly missing a lady staggering across the street. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Kramer scratching his head and Shepard on one knee trying to stand up. Neither seemed to be aware that I was driving away.

  Two blocks down the road Rand picked up my trail and we drove all the way to DFW Airport where I stashed the money in a locker. I was afraid to go straight to another bank as Kramer might have alerted them to be on the lookout for someone renting a box. I figured I'd leave it at the airport for a few days until the dust settled.

  On the way back to the office I turned on the radio. They’d broken into regular programing to report what had just happened in downtown McKinney. “It a very confused scene downtown right now with police cars and ambulances just coming on the scene. We are in front of the First National Bank building and nobody is quite sure what’s happened. There’s obviously been a power outage, but that doesn’t explain why dozens of people fell to the ground unconscious. Speculation is that there was some sort of gas spill or toxic release, but we haven’t seen any evidence of that. Most of the victims on the ground appear to be waking up. They all look rather dazed and disoriented. Hopefully, nobody is seriously hurt.”

  It was a relief to hear that nobody had been hurt. I only wished I could have seen the look on Shepard’s face when he discovered I’d slipped him. I wondered what he made of the chaos I’d left behind. It served him right, though, after what he had done to Bart, telling him there was a snitch knowing he’d obviously tell Paula. The bastard!

  Now apparently there was a snitch, after all, ready to testify against Charlotte. I couldn’t believe Shepard’s gall dangling this witness in front of us but refusing to identify him. A couple of weeks later I was considering filing a motion to compel his identity when I got a manila envelope from the DA's office. After ripping it opened I quickly scanned the two-page pleading designating Son Lee as a witness. Lee's occupation was listed as a financial consultant. That was a pretty vague description and could mean anything from an insurance salesman to a loan shark. I suspected whatever this guy did, he was under indictment and was getting something from the DA for his cooperation. I told Jodie to have Paul Thayer check him out.

 

  32

  Trial Strategy

  Paula Waters

  August went quickly and before I knew it, thanks to the Speedy Trial Act, the Brown family murder trial was less than a month away. Paul Thayer had been working hard trying to find evidence to connect T. Robert Stout or his Almatech security team to the murders, but I hadn't heard from him for a long time, so I had Maria get him on the phone.

  "Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner, but with your two murder trials and our regular workload, we've been up to our eyeballs," Paul explained.

  "I bet you have been and ordinarily I wouldn't be so impatient, but time is running out. Have you been able to figure out who's our explosive's expert?"

  "Yeah. We're pretty sure it's Rich Walls. That was his job on the special forces unit he served in before he retired. He's had the most extensive training in handling explosives and probably would have been the one called upon to rig the Brown triggering device."

  "So, what do you know about Walls?"

  "He's from Connecticut originally, graduated from Boston College with a degree in engineering, and joined the Army directly after graduation. Because he was a college graduate, they put him in officer training school and when he graduated they sent him to Vietnam where he served with the Army Corps of Engineers. When the war was over, he reenlisted and went to special forces training school. His file shows he's been deployed dozens of places around the world. His record during this time was exemplary. When his twenty-year hitch was up, he retired and went to work for a security firm that is now under contract to Almatech.”

  "Interesting," I said. "Do you have a photo of him? Maybe we can show his picture to people around the neighborhood in case someone might have seen him. In fact, get me pictures of the whole team. If we can find somebody who saw any of them, that could be huge to the jury. We don't have to prove they did it, just create reasonable doubt as to Walter Stanley's guilt."

  "We've got photos. I'll get somebody on that task right away."

  "Have them check the diner where the GTE truck was returned too. Maybe someone saw one of them drop it off."

  After I hung up I went into Bart's office to discuss strategy. We had to decide pretty soon what our plan of attack would be. Would we just try to poke holes in the state's case and hope they couldn't prove it or promote our own theory about the murders? And, whichever way we went, should we let Stanley testify? Bart was on the phone with the medical examiner when I sat down in a side chair across from him. He motioned to me that he was finishing up. A couple of seconds later he hung up the phone and smiled.

  "Bad news. The dental records came back and confirmed Chester Brown died in the fire."

  "Was there any doubt of that?" I asked.

  "Well, it was one hot fire and I was hoping maybe the bodies wouldn't be identifiable."

  "But there were dental records?"

  "Yes, I'm afraid so."

  "Good," I replied.

  "Good? How is that good?" Bart questioned.

  "At least we know we have real victims."

  Bart frowned.

  I shrugged. "You know. In our last two murder trials none of the bodies could be identified, remember? It was . . . unsettling."

  "Yeah, well that's why the mob loves to torch crime scenes. A lot of evidence is lost."

  Bart didn't know about the alien involvement in our last murder trial. I didn't know much about it myself other than that they apparently had been living amongst us for some reason unknown to me. Stan was the one who risked his life to find out about them and what they were up to, but I had made it clear I didn't want to know. I was just glad they weren't involved in Stanley's case. I had enough other problems to worry about.

  "So, Paul is sending us some photos of the Almatech security team. He's going to have some of his men show them to the neighbors to see if anyone might have spotted them."
/>   "Good idea," Bart replied.

  "So, if Paul comes up empty, what do you think we should do? We've got to make a decision soon."

  "If we try to prove Stout is the killer and come up short it could make us look desperate. I think we'd do better just to show that Stanley isn't the killer type. We have to let him testify, of course, if we adopted that strategy."

  "I don't know. He's kind of a wimp. Francis might tear him apart on cross examination."

  "We'll just have to prep him thoroughly. Our only hope is that he comes off as someone incapable of murder. That's certainly my impression of him."

  "Still, I have a bad feeling about dropping the whole case into Stanley's lap. It's our job to prove him innocent without risking self-incrimination. I just hope Paul finds us a connection between Stout and the murders.. I'd hate to see an innocent man end up on death row because we couldn't do our job."

  Bart sighed. "We're doing our job. What else could anyone do?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know, but I can't stand the idea of losing. It's not an option. I'm going to talk to Stan. Maybe he'll have some ideas."

  "Sure," Bart said. "Talk to him. I don't want to see Stanley die either, but you can't win them all. Did it ever occur to you that he might be guilty?"

  I shook my head. "Sure. The idea crossed my mind a hundred times, but I rejected it each time. Like you said, I don't think he's capable of murder. It's just a gut feeling, but it's the way I