Choices, p.29
Choices, page 29
They ended up on a street of bigger houses set back from the road behind well-tended lawns. Sam said, “This one. Pull ’round back and wait in the car for me.”
Charlie answered, “Nice place. I like the flagpole,” by which Nick was able to pinpoint the right house as he passed it, even though Charlie’s car was out of sight. He drove a few doors down, then took the chance of turning in at the driveway of a dark neighboring home. He stopped and cut his headlights. Executing a careful and quiet about-seven-point turn on the narrow drive, he reversed the car to face toward the road again. As he maneuvered, he listened.
“Who lives here?” Charlie’s voice was clear over the earbud.
“None of yer business.” Sam sounded less drunk and more nervous. “Stay here. I’m gonna talk to a guy about a dog.”
“Yeah, right.” Charlie’s grumble was muted. There were some rustling and clicking sounds, a thump, then more raspy crackling.
Then eventually, the sound of knocking, a pause, more knocking. A voice, deep and unfamiliar, surprisingly loud and clear— “What are you doing here?”
And Sam, slightly muffled— “I need to talk to you.”
There was a long pause, then, “Get inside and make it fast.” A door slammed.
Nick’s phone lit up silently with a text. Charlie. Nick opened it.
~I put the transmitter in Sam’s pocket
WTF? Nick frowned as he pressed the earbud deeper into his ear. It was a risky move. If Sam found the device, he’d be bound to suspect Charlie. ~Make sure you get it back
Nick’s worries were sidetracked by the unfamiliar voice saying, “You better have a good reason for showing up here at this hour.”
Sam answered, “I’m here for my money.”
“What money?”
“What you owe me.” Sam’s tone took on a whine. “Reggie ain’t paid me shit for the last two jobs. I got bills.”
Nick hoped like hell the recorder was also picking this up. It was hard to make out details, but he had the impression of icy chill as the deep voice said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. The antique store and the Farris place.”
“Read my lips.” The man’s words went slow and heavy. “I. Have. No. Idea.”
“Come on,” Sam wheedled. “It’s working, right? Farris paid his Watch subscription after all. Reggie said so. It’s all working, but I’m the one doing the hard stuff and I deserve my money.”
“If you and Reggie have something going, you talk to him. I have nothing to do with it. Now get out.”
“The hell you don’t. You sat right there, telling us what to do while we picked the targets. The store, and Farris. You—”
“Watch your tone.”
Sam must have still been pretty drunk, because he rambled on despite the warning Nick could hear over a tiny speaker. “You did. You said, not Claussen, ’cause he’s a friend of yours, but Farris was a good bet. You told us—”
“Stop. Shut up!”
There was a silence, then the stranger said, “Right. Where’d you park?”
“Back at the bar.”
“Wha— how’d you get here?”
“M’friend. Charlie. Charlie something.”
The deep voice went arctic. “What did you tell this Charlie? Where is he?”
Sam must have finally got some sense because he sounded nervous and apologetic. “He’s parked out back. He stayed in the car. I didn’t tell him nothin’, just that I was owed some money and was gonna collect. I’m broke.”
“You’re sure that’s all you said?”
“Yeah, positive. I’m not stupid. Look, gimme forty bucks and I’ll get outta your hair. I can wait on the rest. It’s okay.”
“Really?”
“Thirty? Gas ’n’ beer money? Reggie wouldn’t give me any. Fuck. I shouldn’t’ve come.”
“Damned right, but you did. This guy Charlie. Who is he?”
Nick gritted his teeth, made sure the receiver was settled in his shirt pocket, and grabbed his gun from under the seat.
Sam’s voice came clearer. “Just a guy, from the bar. He’s broke too. His old lady had a baby.”
Nick eased out of the car, locking the door behind him. He held the Glock hidden in his jacket pocket and jogged to the edge of the road. In the dark, it’d be safer than cutting through side yards.
“Just a guy.” He could almost hear the unknown man weighing the risks. “You’re sure you said nothing about the job?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay. Listen up, meathead. You’re drunk and confused and— no, wait. Here’s what you do.” There was some rustling. “Here’s forty bucks. Take it.”
“Um. Thanks, I—”
“Shut up. You tell him you did some landscaping work for me. Those brambles I cut down out back. You tell him you did that on the weekend and now I paid you the forty bucks for it. Got it?”
“Sure. Yessir. Brambles.”
“Got a thorn in your hand through the gloves but you made forty bucks.”
“Okay. Yeah. Brambles.”
Nick crossed the ditch to the trees beside the road, listening, hoping he had enough light to keep from tripping over brambles himself.
“Then you get out of here. You have him drive you back to the bar and you sober up, then get in your truck and you go home. You hear me, Sam?”
“Yessir.”
“You stay there. You go to work tomorrow and you go back home, you don’t do anything else. Nothing. No bar, no booze, no friend’s place, nothing unless Reggie or I say so. Got it?”
“Aw, c’mon.”
“No!” There was a loud thump, someone hitting something, though probably not Sam getting hit because he didn’t make a sound. “You’re a fuckup to end all fuckups. You want to get paid for Farris? Seriously? You and your stupid brush fire just about blew the whole game.”
“I didn’t think—”
“You’re not supposed to think. You’re supposed to obey orders. Well, that’s your new orders. Shut up and stay home.”
“It’s not fair.”
Nick reached the driveway with the flagpole. The lawn was an open, manicured stretch of grass, but there was a cedar hedge between it and the next property. He turned in beside the evergreen bushes and headed down toward the house in the deep line of shadow.
The boss guy said, “Get out of here, you moron. Tell your buddy Charlie about the brambles, and then you ditch him and go home and stay. And you toe the damned line from now on. Which means you never, ever come here again. Because if you do, you know what?”
“Yeah, what?” Sam’s bravado rang thin. “You’re gonna kill me?”
There was a long, long silence.
Nick edged down the property toward the house. No lights showed in the front, so the men must be in a room in the back. He hesitated, then dashed across the gap from the hedge to the house. No one shouted. No dog barked. With his shoulder inches from the siding, he eased his way along the side wall, squatting to duck below a tall window.
The deep voice came through the earbud flat and hard. “Can you follow orders? Or not.”
“Yessir.” Sam sounded cowed.
“Good. Now, get out.”
Nick heard the sound of the door, then what might be footsteps, a car door, and Charlie’s voice, cheerful and bland. “So, d’you get any money? ’Cause I sure could use another beer tonight.”
Sam muttered, “Got the fucking money for the fucking brambles, and can we get the fuck outta here?”
Nick heard Charlie’s car start up and saw a flicker of headlights behind the house. He ducked down behind a trash can as the lights swept up the side drive. Charlie’s car came past him, up toward the road, and was gone.
Nick heard Charlie and Sam exchange a few casual words about heading back to the bar as they drove. The reception began to crackle and break up. Charlie should be safe, though. Even with one arm out of commission, he could handle a drunk Sam. Nick holstered his weapon. Switching off the sound from the receiver, he tucked the ear bud in his pocket and turned his attention to the house. We need to know who’s in there.
One careful step at a time, he worked his way around the corner to the back. Two ground-floor windows spilled enough light to show a graveled yard fronting a garage, a shed, and some kind of carport over a big four-wheeler. One illuminated window was set high in the wall, possibly a kitchen. The other was larger and lower. Nick crept along the wall and was able to stand on his toes enough to peer in at the bottom corner.
A big man in gray sweats stood in front of a desk, turned away, holding his phone to his ear. Nick strained to hear, but the voice came through the glass as an undecipherable rumble. After a moment, the man paced a couple of steps and began to turn. Even as Nick quickly dropped out of sight, he felt that zing of a case coming together. McNaught. Nick had studied his picture and there was no doubt at all. Yes!
Nick huddled below the window, wishing he dared take another look. After a moment’s thought, he got out his phone, began video recording, and slipped it along the window frame until the camera lens cleared the sill. Inside the room, McNaught paced and gestured, talking on the phone. Nick kept filming for several minutes, until McNaught set his phone down, slammed the flat of his hand loudly on the desk, and strode out of the room, switching off the light as he went.
Now what? Nick crouched and looked up at the house. The other ground-floor light went out, then a new one lit up on the second floor. McNaught was probably going to bed.
I could break in and search that desk.
Nick shook the crazies out of his thoughts. He’d bet McNaught hadn’t gotten to be chief deputy to Sheriff Gannet by being either stupid or careless. There was probably an alarm, and he was damn sure to be armed. Breaking into his house without a vital reason would be nuts.
Time to jot down the details before he forgot them and then meet up with Charlie. Now they had some evidence, they could put their heads together and make more plans. He eased away from the window and crept silently back toward the road.
Chapter 21
Brian heard two cars pull up to the house and stopped pretending to work on his reading assignment. He kept it up on the screen in front of him, though, as proof he hadn’t been sitting around waiting for his man to get home. Even if he had.
Nick strode in the door with Charlie close behind him. Charlie looked tired, but Nick’s eyes glowed and there was a bounce in his step. He ruffled Luger’s ears vigorously, shoving the dog’s head aside as Luger nosed at them both. “Get off, you hairy mutt. Charlie doesn’t need you knocking him over.”
“I need a cup of coffee, after all that beer.” Charlie shrugged out of his jacket. “But I’m not too lame yet to handle your dog.”
“Sorry.” Nick’s grin dimmed but didn’t go away. “Luger, go lie down. I’ll make coffee.”
Since Brian clearly wasn’t going to get to give Nick the sexy welcome home he’d been imagining, he pushed up off the couch. “I’ve been sitting for hours. I’ll make it. You can tell me how things went.”
“Thanks.” Nick dropped on the other end of the couch and waved Charlie to the recliner. “They went good. We tied Sam to McNaught and the vandalism.”
“We hope.” Charlie lowered himself stiffly into the chair. “Depending on what you got recorded, Nicko.”
“Yeah.” Nick tugged out his gear. “Let’s check it.”
“Hang on, wait for me.” Brian put the kettle on, then hurried back to sit beside Nick.
The first part was an audio recording. The voices were pretty clear, the deeper one cold and angry. Charlie said, “That’s McNaught talking to Sam?”
“Yeah.” Nick frowned as the recording cut off.
“It’s not great evidence, is it?” Brian reached over to play it again. “Sam accuses him of ordering the vandalism but he never really admits it.”
“No, but it’s pretty damned suggestive. What I really wish I had was audio of the phone call he made afterward. My video won’t tell us much.”
Charlie said, “Phone call? Video? You were there?”
“I hiked over to the house with my gun to make sure you had backup, in case McNaught decided to do something drastic about our Samuel. I was hiding behind the trash bin when you drove away.”
Of course he was. With his gun, ready for action. Brian didn’t let himself so much as sigh. You fell for him when he was a cop. No complaints now. It was his rule. He’d talked it over with Dr. Murphy, aware that he had to let Nick be Nick, as long as he wasn’t being crazy. He couldn’t be treated as an equal himself if he tried to fence his partner in, and this was totally Nick, making sure he had Charlie’s back against the second-ranking cop in the county.
Charlie said, “What we have isn’t bad.”
Nick sighed. “Everything from when you planted the device on Sam is inadmissible, though. Illegal recording inside a residence when neither party gave permission. The last thing I want is to show Gannet I’m happy to break the law to move a case. Especially when she’s been draining her swamp. She might bust my ass just on principle. So we can’t share that part with her.”
Charlie said, “Sorry, Nicko. It was an irresistible impulse.”
“Well, it worked, but we can’t admit it.”
“It sure looks like McNaught and Reggie are working together. Maybe for more than one goal. McNaught doesn’t seem to be focused on the money.”
“The sheriff job for McNaught.” Nick pulled out his phone. “Money for Reggie. Or influence, down the line. He’d own McNaught.”
Charlie nodded. “So we don’t go to Gannet yet. It sounds like McNaught was pissed, and maybe worried. What do you think he’ll do next?”
“He called someone.” Nick keyed up a video. A tall, broad-shouldered man with a brush cut stood talking to someone on his cell phone, gesturing emphatically in a wood-paneled room.
“That’s McNaught,” Charlie agreed. “Wonder who he called.”
“Reggie,” Brian pointed out.
“Probably,” Nick said.
“No, I mean, he said ‘Reggie’ back there.”
Charlie said, “There’s no sound.”
“I lip-read it.” Brian squinted at the guy on the screen. “I’m pretty sure I’m right.” He glanced up to see Charlie and Nick looking at him. “What?”
“Can you read anything else?” Nick asked.
“Can’t you?” Wouldn’t that be a skill cops are taught? But both of them shook their heads. “Oh, well, I can try. It’s hard on the small screen.”
“I can download it.” Nick jumped up and began hooking the phone into Brian’s open laptop.
He became aware of a noise on the stove. “Oops, kettle’s boiling. Hang on.” It was steadying to be doing something simple, pulling the steam-blasting kettle off the heat and making the coffee. He wasn’t sure why he needed the break, but by the time he carried three mugs back over, he felt more solid. Nick had the laptop set up on the worn coffee table in front of the couch. Luger had jumped up beside Nick on the cushions and was peering at the screen, doggy head cocked. Brian set the mugs down and snapped his fingers. “Bed, Luug.”
When the dog had gone to his mat, Brian sat down in the space he’d vacated. The squished seat tilted him toward Nick, so he went with it, letting his shoulder press against Nick’s. “What do you want me to do?”
“Tell us anything you can get from this.” Nick started the footage from his phone running.
Brian frowned, staring at the big guy. “He says, um, ‘damn it, Reggie.’” The parts where the guy obviously got loud and hand-wavy were easier to figure out. “I can’t tell that bit ’cause he turns away. Um. ‘If he tries…’ Something. ‘Stick with…’ Can you run it again?”
“Sure.” Nick started it again.
“‘Damn it, Reggie… If he tries to…’ I still can’t get the rest of that. ‘Stick with…’ I think that’s got to be ‘Stick with the plan.’ And then ‘No’ and he hangs up.” Brian rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. I’m not very good at it.”
“Better than we are,” Charlie said. “You’re positive he said ‘Reggie’?”
“Eighty percent sure?” Lip-reading was something he’d worked on, for fun and because knowing what people were saying at a distance across a noisy bar had sometimes been very useful. He’d practiced with movies and gotten pretty good at it, but people in real life mumbled more and didn’t have useful close-ups of their face. It was always guesswork.
Nick said, “Question is, what next?”
“We can keep pushing Sam,” Charlie suggested.
“You don’t think McNaught put the fear of God in him tonight?”
“Maybe, but Sam was real drunk, so his memory of it may be blurry. He’s really not smart. And he’s greedy. And probably a firebug who wants to do it again.”
Nick nodded. “Or we could skip the middleman and make McNaught think Sam’s double-crossing him.”
Brian saw their eyes meet, and a similar, evil-tinged smile spread across each face.
“We could,” Charlie agreed. “And what would McNaught do then?”
Brian said, “He’d go after Sam, don’t you think? One way or another. He has too much to lose not to.” If Marston had thought someone like Sam was double-crossing him, Sam’s lifespan would have been measured in days, or possibly hours. Brian realized that Marston would have called on Damon, and on his pet Finder, to get the job done. He gritted his teeth against bile. “He wouldn’t do anything himself, would he? He’d have people.”
“Maybe, but Reggie and Roy are related to Sam. Could he trust them?” Nick’s forehead creased, hazel eyes narrowed. “He might take care of the problem himself.”
“We can’t let him murder Sam,” Brian protested.
“Of course not,” Charlie said. “Sam might be a slimeweasel who likes setting fires, but he hasn’t killed anyone yet. We’d have to keep him safe.”
“Anyway,” Nick pointed out, “we don’t know McNaught would go that far. Murder’s pretty extreme, even for a crooked cop.”
