This case has everything: red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
…
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone, one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much; it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there were several sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and a costly mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt, he would soon find out.
His mother and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time, he couldn’t help himself, and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation that ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days, he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, it literally made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head, trying to prevent a recurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact that his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall, cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile that Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticised trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
The sheriff calls
…
It’s not often a patrol car stopped outside your residence without a reason for doing so.
I just happened to be looking out the windows when it pulled up, and I first thought it was the sheriff here to visit my mother.
It was hard to imagine my mother being the object of men’s attention, particularly one the top lawman in the county, and the other, a top criminal.
Both were charming in their own way, but it was the baggage both brought with them that bothered me. I tried not to think of the ramifications if she married either one. At worst, I could not see Alex as a brother, nor Charlene as a sister, not after what we had done at the last school summer camp
The pounding on the door interrupted that thought. I heard my mother’s muffled voice from upstairs telling me to see who it was, and when I opened the door, it was one of the sheriff’s deputies, Anderson, big brother to a school friend, and the most unlikely to become a lawman. I guess he turned his life around.
“Sam.”
“Joel.”
“The sheriff would like to see you.”
“He could have rung.”
“He likes the personal touch.”
It must be serious if he sent a deputy. “When?”
“Now.”
“And if I can’t come now?”
He took a pair of handcuffs out of his belt. “There’s the hard way and there’s the easy way.”
Serious enough then. “Why?”
“I learned a long time ago to follow orders, not question them. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Did you do anything wrong?”
“No.”
I heard my mother coming down the stairs behind me. “Who is it?”
“Deputy Joel.”
“What can we do for you?” She asked.
“The sheriff would like a word with your son, ma’am.”
“Why?”
Was that a look of exasperation on his face?
“He didn’t confide in me, ma’am, just asked me to escort him down to the station.”
“This’ll be to do with that Nadia,” she muttered. “I told you she is trouble.”
I shrugged. “Let’s go.” Time to escape a lecture.
I had time to think why the sheriff would want to see me, and remembered that I’d spoken to Charlene, and it had to be that she had as I suggested, spoken to her father and it must have something to do with that.
Anyone outside the sheriff’s office seeing Deputy Joel and I arrive might have got the impression I’d just been arrested, except I was not in handcuffs. There was no doubt Joel had wanted to use them, all the more reason to be co-operative.
We walked through the foyer towards the rear where the sheriff’s office was, and he sat me down on an uncomfortable bench. At the other end was a girl in a party dress looking hungover. The foyer was a hive of activity.
The sheriff put his head out the door. “Sam, come in.”
It was the first time in his office, not the first time in the station. My father had a few run-ins with the law, in the early years of the current sheriff’s tenure, as part of the alumni group of my mother, father, the sheriff, and Benderby. It was the fact he was a friend of and worked with Benderby that he found himself under suspicion so often, and my memories of him were when my mother and I came to bail him out.
It was probably one of the reasons why I couldn’t understand why she let Benderby in the door.
The room was small and it felt crowded surrounded by files and papers. His desk was a mess, with two half-drunk mugs of coffee sitting to one side.
He looked like a man under great stress.
He picked up the phone and pressed a number, then said, “Can you join us?”
A minute later Charlene came in and closed the door behind her. She then sat in the chair next to mine, and rather close.
Was it a form of intimidation?
The sheriff leaned back in his chair and it creaked under his weight. “Charlene tells me you think young Benderby is involved in what happened to the professor. How did you come to this conclusion? You should realize that making accusations such as this against a member of an influential family such as the Benderbys could afford you some unwanted attention, and not only from their lawyers.”
I had considered that but had expected the sheriff would be more proactive in his investigation. It seemed he was taking a more cautious approach.
“You said you overheard Alex at work,” Charlene added a nail in the coffin.
“It seems unlikely that Alex would be that stupid, Sam, so it leads me to believe you either have some other means of identifying him as being involved, or it’s just a petty act of revenge, which, knowing you as I do, is unlikely. Which is it? The fact you know about this so-called room where mall cops were located, the location of a safe, and where the combination is, is very specific.”
Was this a version of good cop bad cop? I hadn’t thought it through, thinking Charlene might want to take a win. It didn’t take in the possibility the sheriff would be overly cautious in taking on a Benderby.
Except that I forgot it was an election year, and there were a few younger and more qualified candidates in the mix. Age and experience were not going to cut this year. He was going to need a win and taking down a Benderby would put him firmly in the public eye.
“You can’t tell me that Rico was responsible for the professor’s death. He wasn’t killed on that boat, despite the way the body was left. I was there, that crime scene was staged.” Time to come out fighting.
“So you’re a crime scene expert now?”
“Keen observation, no indication of blood spatter from the look of the wounds, which to me looked like torture. I did some research, and the professor apparently had a diary that belonged to the pirate that everyone believes hid the so-called treasure somewhere along this coastline. Did you think to find out why the professor was here, certainly his last movements, and whether or not Alex Benderby contacted him?”
I’m sure they did, not that they would probably tell me.
Charlene glared at me. Perhaps insulting her ability put an edge to her tone. “A timelineof the victim’s last movements was done.”
A reproving look from her father, she should not be discussing case details with the public.
She glared back at him. “Damn it, I will not be insulted.”
The sheriff gave me a rather curious look. Perhaps I was not so off the mark, so I said, “He’s been here before, you know when those coins were pulled out if the cove. He came down to identify them. I think he had the diary then, which was why he came back.”
“How is it you know so much about this professor?”
“Unlike Boggs,I have an interest in historical detail, perhaps Boggs should not have asked for me to help him, but if I’m going to do something I like to be thorough.”
“Yes, it’s been noticed. A session at the library, and surprisingly, a stash of documents scooped up from Ormiston. I know you read his diaries. Then you hit the newspaper office and looked at back issues of the paper.”
She or one of the deputies had been following me around. I wondered briefly whether they’d been following Boggs around too.
“And we know you went to the mall with Nadia Cossatino. So, your information was not gleaned from overhearing conversations, you’ve actually been in that room.”
Guilty as charged, but silence might be the better option here until their objective came clear.
“Knowing you as I do, Sam, I doubt it was your idea to go sneaking about that mall. Your association, for want of a better word, with Nadia is going to lead you down a dark path, and I know your mother is worried about you. The Cossatinos and Benderbys are sworn enemies, and you do not want to get caught in the crossfire. She was obviously motivated by causing trouble for the Benderbys.”
Possible, but unlikely, yet what had she hoped to gain by taking me there? And it was clear my mother was using the sheriff to get me to stay away from Nadia.
“I’m not interested in charging you with trespass, or lecturing you on the dangers of wandering around a place like that, but there may be something to the allegations. We managed to get a stay on the demolition for that room, and it’s now an active crime scene. How long have you known about this.”
Google Maps: More Than Just Directions – A Portal to Phantom Mysteries?
We all use Google Maps. It’s our trusty co-pilot, guiding us through unfamiliar streets, helping us find the nearest coffee shop, and even letting us snoop on our old childhood homes (admit it, you’ve done it!). But what if I told you that sometimes, beneath the familiar satellite imagery, Google Maps offers a glimpse into something far stranger than your aunt’s meticulously manicured lawn?
Lately, chatter has been building around peculiar anomalies popping up on the platform – digital specters appearing where they absolutely shouldn’t. Imagine panning over a dense, untouched forest, far from any airport, only to find a colossal Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 perfectly intact, sitting in a clearing. No missing plane reports, no emergency landings, just a commercial jetliner chilling amongst the trees. How did it get there? And more importantly, why?
This isn’t an isolated incident. There are numerous reports of cars, sometimes multiple vehicles, resting eerily at the bottom of lakes, visible from above. While many of these are indeed phantom images, some chillingly prove to be real. You might recall the story of the car discovered in a lake in Florida, which, upon investigation, contained the remains of a man who had been missing for over two decades. The digital anomaly led to a very real, very tragic discovery.
So, before we reach for our tinfoil hats, there’s a rational explanation for most of these ghostly appearances. The phenomenon is often an instance of image overlay or “ghosting.” Google Maps stitches together countless satellite and aerial photographs taken at different times. When an object, like a low-flying aircraft, is captured in one image over a particular spot, and a later, object-free image of the same spot is layered on top, a faint “ghost” of the original object can remain visible. The plane in the forest? It’s highly probable it was just flying incredibly low when the initial photograph was taken, leaving its digital imprint on the landscape.
Mystery solved, right? Well, mostly.
But what if, just what if, these digital echoes aren’t always mere glitches? What if, sometimes, they are whispers of something more, waiting to be heard?
Mick knew all about those lonely leisure hours when there was nothing else to do. He wasn’t one for idly scrolling social media; Mick was a tramper, a genuine trailblazer. His idea of relaxation was poring over topographical maps, looking for untouched corners of the world, sketching out potential new paths through forests, and dreaming of odd discoveries. Years ago, one such expedition had led him to uncover a lost village of significant archaeological value. He had a knack for finding things.
One drizzly afternoon, with the rain drumming against his window, Mick found himself drifting through Google Maps, exploring remote stretches of a national forest known for its dense, ancient foliage. He zoomed in, panned around, his cursor tracing imaginary trails. He wasn’t looking for glitches, but for inspiration, for the subtle hints of untamed beauty.
Then he saw it.
Not a ghost, not a blur, but what seemed to be distinct wreckage dispersed in a clearing. Glimpses of what looked like metal fragments, incongruous against the deep green canopy. It wasn’t the clean, whole plane of famous internet anomalies, but a scattering, undeniably man-made and out of place. He noted the date of the photograph – nearly a year prior.
A chill ran down his spine. He immediately checked local news archives, aviation reports, anything about missing small planes or crashes in the area. Nothing. Not a single mention. It was too remote for a simple crash to go unnoticed, yet too significant to be naturally occurring.
He kept the location saved, revisiting it over the next few days. It gnawed at him. Was it a trick of the light? A bizarre anomaly of the photo processing? He called a friend, an equally seasoned bushwalker, and explained his digital discovery, asking him to verify it on his own map.
“Right, mate, I’m looking,” came his friend’s voice over the phone a few minutes later. “Where exactly did you say?”
Mick guided him, pixel by pixel. “See it? Right there, by that cluster of three oaks…”
There was a pause. “Uh, Mick? There’s just… trees.”
Mick’s stomach dropped. He clicked back to his own map. The wreckage was gone. The clearing was pristine, just an unbroken expanse of forest. He felt a wave of self-doubt. Had his mind been playing tricks, wanting to find something remarkable, perhaps fabricating the whole thing?
But then he noticed it. The date of the photograph displayed on his screen had updated. It was no longer the nearly-a-year-old image. It was a new one, taken just a few weeks ago.
The digital ghost had vanished, but the seed of a real-world mystery had been planted. With the rain still falling and nothing better to do, Mick knew exactly what his next walking holiday would entail. He wasn’t just going to look at maps anymore. He was going to see what was really there.
There was something about this one that resonated with me.
This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.
I’ve been guilty of it myself, as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.
For the main characters, Harry and Alison, other issues are driving their relationship.
For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.
For Harry, it is the fact that he has a beautiful and desirable wife, his belief that she is the object of other men’s desires, and, in particular, his immediate superior’s.
Between observation, the less-than-honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.
When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, and she realises only the truth will save their marriage.
But is it all the truth?
What would we do in similar circumstances?
Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.
And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, is that nothing is ever what it seems.
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from the eye socket to the mouth, and he was wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologised as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognise later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side, and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I went towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tyres.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high-powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed, and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
Next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realised I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger was a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long, cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave through the back door if there were one.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And the story:
…
It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.
The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.
He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.
The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent. We were following the car he was in, from a discreet distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.
There was nowhere for him to go.
The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road we were now on. Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.
Where was he going?
“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter. He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.
“What?”
“I think he’s made us.”
“How?”
“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing. Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain. He’s just sped up.”
“How far away?”
“A half-mile. We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”
It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”
“Step on it. Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”
Easy to say, not so easy to do. The road was treacherous, and in places, just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three-thousand-foot fall down the mountainside.
Good thing then, I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.
Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster. We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.
Or so we thought.
Coming quickly around another corner, we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.
“What the hell…” Aland muttered.
I was out of the car and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility. The car was empty, and no indication of where he had gone.
Certainly not up the road. It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit. Up the mountainside from here, or down.
I looked up. Nothing.
Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”
Then where did he go?
Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.
“Sorry,” he said quite calmly. “Had to go if you know what I mean.”
I’d lost him.
It was as simple as that.
I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.
I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.
It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.
As we all know, writing by the seat of your pants is almost the same as flying by the seat of your pants, a hazardous occupation.
As it happens, I like writing this way because like the reader, I don’t know what to expect next.
And equally, at times, you can write your self into a corner, much like painting, and then have to go back, make a few changes and//or repairs and then move forward.
It’s part of the writing process, only in this case, the changes occur before you’ve finished the novel, if you finish. Quite often a lot of writers get only so far, then the manuscript hits the bottom drawer, to be brought out on a distant rainy day.
Or your cat has mocked your writing ability one too many times.
Therefore, we’re winding back to Episode 16, and moving forward once again, from there. This is episode 18 revised…
…
Ever had the heart-stopping feeling when you’re in the wrong place, and someone has interrupted you? Especially if you shouldn’t be there, or that you have no right to be there.
I stood quietly on the inside of the door and hoped whoever the visitor was would go away. No answer meant no one was home, didn’t it?
Unless…
I heard a key in the door, and it turn in the lock.
I moved quickly to the other side of the door so I would be shielded when the person came into the room. Too late to get out, I was of two minds what to do. Hit the visitor over the head and flee, or ask them what they were doing, before they asked me that same question.
Then nothing.
Until a few seconds later I heard a voice, a man, say, “Jan, you’re back. How was the visit to Philadelphia?”
I heard the slight rattle of Jan taking her hand off the handle and moving away from the door. “Sad, as all funerals are. Now, we are left with the house, and my father’s stuff; a huge collection of mostly junk over a long period of time. Seems he never threw anything out.”
Jan? Did she live here, with O’Connell?
“Yes, “I’m a bit like that.”
Another tenant, or the building super?
“I made sure Herman was looked after while you were away. I don’t think he missed you at all?”
She laughed. “He’s a cat, Fred. We belong to them, not the other way around.”
“True. Your friend has not been in for a week or so.”
“I know. The last message I got from him, he was in Prague, lucky bastard. He was going to take me with him, but at the last moment, they changed his itinerary. Perhaps next time. I was just going to make sure everything was OK, before going home myself.”
“I could look in if you want?”
“No. Thanks anyway, but last time I was here I left a jacket behind. Thanks, Fred.”
A moment later I could hear his footsteps heading away, and Jan moved back to the door, and opened it.
I heard the light switch, and then, suddenly, the room was filled with bright light.
The girl was unassuming, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind her. Before she could take a step, I put a hand over her mouth and an arm around her neck and started squeezing.
Instinctively she started to struggle and call out for help.
I whispered in her ear, “I mean you no harm, but if you struggle, or yell out, it could turn out very bad for you.”
We had been taught how to subdue people without killing them, but that always didn’t go to plan. There was that instinct to fight back in everyone, and it was sometimes hard not to apply excessive pressure which could, depending on the severity of resistance, see the target asphyxiated, or end up with a broken neck.
She was still struggling, which mean I had to exert more force.
“Stop fighting me or you will harm yourself,” I said, this time in a more forceful whisper.
It had an immediate effect, but I don’t think it was her obedience that caused it. I gently lowered her to the floor and felt for a pulse. Unconscious, not dead. I sighed in relief. I took a good long look at her so that I would remember what she looked like. At some point, I was going to have to talk to her.
Then footsteps outside the door. What else could go wrong?
Then knocking on the door. Short and sharp. Followed by, “Jan, are you in there?”
Fred, whoever he was. What did he want?”
Another knock on the door, this time more urgent. Damn. O’Connell’s flat was like a busy store.
I looked around for an escape now there would be no going out the front door. Not unless I had to disable another person, and assuming if he was the building super, he would not be a small man, so it would take a greater, and noisier, effort to subdue him.
A fire escape, all buildings usually had one down the side of the building, in case of fire. I went over and checked the windows and found it. The window needed a little force to open it, but the sound of a key in the door motivated me.
Out the window, close the window again, I made it down the stairs far enough that when I looked up, no one was following me.
Revenge is a dish best served cold – or preferably so when everything goes right
Of course, it rarely does, as Alistair, Zoe’s handler, discovers to his peril. Enter a wildcard, John, and whatever Alistair’s plan for dealing with Zoe was dies with him.
It leaves Zoe in completely unfamiliar territory.
…
John’s idyllic romance with a woman who is utterly out of his comfort zone is on borrowed time. She is still trying to reconcile her ambivalence after being so indifferent for so long.
They agree to take a break, during which she disappears. John, thinking she has left without saying goodbye, refuses to accept the inevitable and calls on an old friend for help in finding her.
After the mayhem and being briefly reunited, she recognises an inevitable truth: there is a price to pay for taking out Alistair; she must leave and find them first, and he would be wise to keep a low profile.
But keeping a low profile just isn’t possible, and enlisting another friend, a private detective and his sister, a deft computer hacker, they track her to the border between Austria and Hungary.
What John doesn’t realise is that another enemy is tracking him to find her too. It could have been a grand tour of Europe. Instead, it becomes a race against time before enemies old and new converge for what will be an inevitable showdown.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
Charlene after talking to Boggs
…
Charlene was standing in the elevator lobby, with the look of a person who was waiting.
Perhaps she was expecting Boggs to make a run for it, but that was hardly likely since there was a deputy outside the door to his room, a new addition after Charlene had been asked to leave.
“Have you got a few minutes?” It was a question where the only answer was yes, or else.
I was not going to push the ‘or else’ button.
“Of course.”
She led the way to a room that looked to me like a consulting room for doctors, ushered me through then closed the door. She sat behind the desk and left me to sit in an uncomfortable patient’s chair.
While she consulted her notebook, I took the time to think back to school days and the motley group that had been in my graduation year, of which Charlene was one. She too had chosen to stay, despite the lack of post-graduation opportunities, and it was no surprise she ended up in the police, having once had the ambition of becoming an investigative journalist. It was no surprise then she was now a detective in training.
She left the notebook open on a blank page and gave me her attention. “So, what have you been doing with yourself since school?”
An odd question to ask, but in her mind, I suspect it was an opening gambit to set the interviewee’s mind at rest, a veritable calm before the storm.
Odd also because she knew what happened as well as anyone, her father, the Sherriff, Being an occasional visitor at my mother’s house, an obligation he felt after my father passed.
Other than that, we had run into each other from time to timesince leaving school but she had never shown any interest on any of those occasions.
“Relevance?”
“Just curious.”
“I’m sure your father may have mentioned our family circumstances, so if you’re looking for information on Boggs, come out and say so, don’t try to feign interest in my welfare.”
Perhaps that was a little harsh, and certainly not how I wanted it to sound, but she had written an op-ed in the town newspaper reviling her contemporary’s lack of enthusiasm to get a job, and rather become the problem, not the solution to the counties economic woes.
She looked taken aback, not expecting such a response. Her expression changed, more resolute. “Boggs is looking at an array of charges. What was he doing there? You’re his friend, I’m sure he confides in you.”
“Hoe little you know what bring a friend means, but for the record, we were once, but like he said, my cavorting with Nadia put an end to that.”
“Before that, then.”
“You know as well as I do what the Boggs’s are about, father and son alike.”
“He was looking for fabled treasure.”
“Scaling a rock face? I hardly think so. He does rock climbing, caving, and a variety of things I have no interest in. The Grove shoreline has some of the best rock climbing in the state. The question you should be asking is how did such an experienced climber finish up half-dead on the beach.”
I wasn’t going to make it easy for her.
“What were you doing on the beach when you discovered him?”
“Cavorting with Nadia.”
It sounded salacious, and I wished on that moment it had been. It provided the distraction I needed and mademe consider her next gambit because I think I knew why we were in that room.
After a moment or two of silence, I added, “No chance of pinning a trespass charge on me then.”
She took a deep breath, a sigh from a person who knew she was not making any headway, or however she thought this conversation was going to go, it had been blown off course.
“Look, I’m not the enemy here. I’m just trying to do my job and find out what happened. We have no problem with Boggs’s conducting a treasure hunt, so long as he doesn’t break the law. Old man Cossatino said Boggs was trespassing, which technically, he was. Do you know why Boggs would think the treasure is located on The Grove?”
“It’s not.”
Time to diffuse this line of questioning.
“You know this or you’re just guessing?”
“There is no treasure, just the Cossatino’s promoting a myth. Pirates may have sailed by, but I’m sure this wasn’t the place to leave their booty. There’s plenty of once uninhabited islands in the Caribbean they could have used.”
“In other words, you really have no idea?”
“I’m a realist, and I’ve told Boggs he should be one too.”
“I hope that will include telling him that trespass is a crime, and if he keeps doing it, we will be forced to arrest and charge him.”
“I’ll tell him anything you want me to.”
“Just that.”
A thought popped into my head, one I probably should have thought of earlier, or perhaps it was because an opportunity presented itself.
The mall, and Alex.
“I have a tip for you, one that might help the case of the dead professor on Rico’s boat. First of all, Rico didn’t do it.”
“He has form and he’s done something similar before.”
“Kill a professor?”
“Shakedown a mark with violence. Only this time he went too far.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t do it. No, that more in Alex Benderby’s department.”
“Alex. You must be kidding. He just acts tough.”
I shrugged. “Being naive about Alex will get you into trouble. Alex is anything but harmless, and I can attest to that, school days and beyond. But, here’s some advice you might want to act on before the evidence is destroyed. There’s a room in the mall on the second level where the mall cops hung out. Back of the second one along there’s a safe. At the back of the top desk drawers, there is a post-it note with the combination. I think that’s where you will find a diary that the professor had before it was taken off him.”
“How do you know about this.”
“I overhead a conversation, remember I work for the Benderby’s and in Alex’s domain, the warehouse.”
“You know what they say about eavesdroppers…”
I shook my head again. “Did the professor’s autopsy and the analysis of the boat show he was killed there?”
That question was met with a furrowed brow, but there was enough expression change to tell me he wasn’t killed on the boat.
“You know I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”
“Don’t have to. You’re going to need to work on your poker face. I think that Alex lured the professor down here with the pirate’s diary perhaps offering a large sum of money as an incentive to share, and when he wouldn’t play nice, they encouraged him to change his mind. I suspect they tried too hard, and the old professor had a heart attack. Alex never was the patient type.”
“It makes a good story.”
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. I’ll have a go at trying to dissuade Boggs from anything illegal, but you know what the lure of fabulous riches can do. Is the case of Boggs’s father still open?”
“If you mean, is it a cold case, yes, but there’s very little to go on. The evening before he disappeared, he proclaimed he’d found the final resting place of the treasure trove, though he didn’t exactly say where. At the time he was working for Cossatino, making treasure maps for the gullible. Later, outside the hotel in the car park, he was confronted by one of those gullible people, who demanded his money back, a scuffle then fight broke out. By the time the fight was broken up by a passing patrol, we believe that Boggs had sustained severe injuries, serious enough that it’s possible he died of them after blacking out or falling to his death. They dredged the river from the hotel to the sea, but it may have been too late, and he’d been swept of to sea on the tide. The other guy was charged, held in connection with Boggs’s disappearance, but ultimately released through lack of evidence or a body. There may never be a resolution, nor Boggs ever being found, a sad state of affairs for the family.”
It was a sad tale, but one with some information I’d not heard before, and I didn’t think Boggs knew, or I’d he did, had failed to tell me. The fight in the car park, and the fact it could have led to his death. I guess that didn’t fit well with the treasure hunter myth that Boggs junior had built up about his father.
Being killed by a disgruntled punter was not exactly fit the Boggs ethos.
“Not exactly a fitting end, was it?”
“Defrauding people is not exactly going to make you friends, especially when the maps are fake, and they’re all different, purportedly made by the same pirate. He knew what he was doing, and ultimately paid for it.”
Cold, but true.
“Then let’s hope Boggs doesn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. I hope you consider investigating the mall room because I think you’re going to find something there, even if it doesn’t directly point the finger at Alex.”
“I’ll tell the sheriff, it’s ultimately his decision, not mine.”
“Good. Now, if you have finished, I have a job to go to.”
It was in darkness. I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door, so I could see to unlock it.
I looked up and saw that the globe was broken.
Instant alert.
I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there. I went to the backup, and it wasn’t there either. Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.
Who?
There were four hiding spots, and all were empty. Someone had removed the weapons. That could only mean one possibility.
I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.
But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbour and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.
Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.
There were three entrances to the villa: the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch. One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage. It was built in the late 1700s by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief. It had a hidden underground room, which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.
It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were in the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely. It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.
The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa, behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground. I moved aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side. After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks. It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that. I’d left torches at either end so I could see.
I closed the door after me and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch. I traversed the short passage, which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end. I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door. It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.
I stepped into the darkness and closed the door.
I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.
Silence, an eerie silence.
I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting. There wasn’t. It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.
I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was. Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.
That raised the question of who told them where I was.
If I were the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan. The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental. But I was not that man.
Or was I?
I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness. My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void. Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly. A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.
Still nothing.
I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job. I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked, and where there would be no escape.
Coming in the front door. If I were not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk in. One shot would be all that was required.
Contract complete.
I sidled quietly up the passage, staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door. There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting. It was an ideal spot to wait.
Crunch.
I stepped on some nutshells.
Not my nutshells.
I felt it before I heard it. The bullet with my name on it.
And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea. I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.
I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me, and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.
Two assassins.
I’d not expected that.
The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part. The second was still breathing.
I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives. Armed to the teeth!
I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian. I was expecting a Russian.
I slapped his face, waking him up. Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down. The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally. He was not long for this earth.
“Who employed you?”
He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile. “Not today, my friend. You have made a very bad enemy.” He coughed, and blood poured out of his mouth. “There will be more …”
Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.
I would have to leave. Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess. I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.
Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally. I was trying not to connect the dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.
A half-hour passed, and I hadn’t moved. Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.
Until I heard a knock on my front door.
Two thoughts: it was either the police, alerted by the neighbours, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?
I stood and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm. I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.
If it were the police, this was going to be a difficult situation. Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.
No police, just Maria. I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.
“You left your phone behind on the table. I thought you might be looking for it.” She held it out in front of her.
When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”
I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”
I looked at my arm and realised it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.
“You need to go away now.”
Should I tell her the truth? It was probably too late, and if she were any sort of law-abiding citizen, she would go straight to the police.
She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity. “What happened?”
I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible. I went with the truth. “My past caught up with me.”
“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss. It doesn’t look good.”
“I can fix it. You need to leave. It is not safe to be here with me.”
The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened. She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.
I opened the door and let her in. It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences. Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge. She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.
I expected her to scream. She didn’t.
She gave me a good, hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous. Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about. She would have to go to the police.
“What happened here?”
“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me. I used to work for the Government, but no longer. I suspect these men were here to repay a debt. I was lucky.”
“Not so much, looking at your arm.”
She came closer and inspected it.
“Sit down.”
She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.
“Do you have medical supplies?”
I nodded. “Upstairs.” I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs. Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.
She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back. I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed, though I was not sure why it might interest her.
She helped me remove my shirt and then cleaned the wound. Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet. It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.
When she’d finished, she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”
No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.
“Alisha?”
“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you. She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”
“That was wrong of her to do that.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Will you call her?”
“Yes. I can’t stay here now. You should go now. Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”
