Claire Gulliver #06 - Carnage Goes Coastal (16 page)

Now Jack was struggling to be patient while the woman at the desk tried to locate Claire’s room. Finally she found the listing under Claire Gulliver and Jack realized with a pang Claire hadn’t even had time to change her name to Rallins on her legal documents.

He followed the woman’s instructions and exited the elevator on the sixth floor made two turns and found a waiting area.

“Jack.” Millie hurried forward and hugged him. “She’s okay, Jack. They’re all okay. We’re so lucky. The doctor was here about a half hour ago. She was awake for a bit, but now she’s asleep again. She broke her left foot and she has a nasty bump on the head.”

Jack gave Millie a bear hug. His eyes smarted as relief washed over him.

“Where are Karen and little Jack?”

“They’re at Mrs. B’s. We thought that would be best.”

Jack nodded. “Good idea. Thank God for Mrs. B.”

“Claire is in that room, over there, if you want to go in and see her. I was just waiting out here for you to arrive. I told her you would be here soon.”

Jack hurried in to see for himself that Claire was in one piece.

When Claire woke she found one hand attached by tubes to a bag of liquid and the other held firmly in both of Jack’s hands.

“Did they tell you I wrecked the Cadillac?” she said softly. She watched his face anxiously knowing how fond he was of that old car.

He tried to control his reaction, but couldn’t prevent his eyes from widening with surprise. She continued, gently, “Someone needs to tell Tony to take a look at it. He will be heartbroken, as will the men who keep hoping I will decide to sell it to them.”

“It’s okay, Claire. You did what you had to do. Do you feel like telling me about it? I just got here and I haven’t heard anything.” He had an anguished expression on his face while he shook his head in disgust. “I’m so sorry I didn’t just turn around and come back as soon as I heard someone else had been checking that film.”

Claire started to shake her head, but an expression of pain flashed over her face and she held her head still as she protested. “No! Jack it wasn’t your fault. They showed up shortly after you called. If I had moved as fast as you told me to, we might have been gone when they arrived. If you hadn’t had the foresight to call and warn me we would have been totally unprepared.” She paused. “In that case, I’m sure we all would have been dead by now. Those guys were not playing games.”

She couldn’t stop the shudder from running through her.

“Take your time, Claire. Just tell me what you remember.”

So she told her story in a monotone, slowly, as she visibly tried to organize her memories of the afternoon. Her brain didn’t seem to be functioning correctly. By the time she got to the part of the story where she came slamming out of the garage into the side of the car blocking the driveway, she was fading. Her voice was very slow and very soft, so Jack had to lean close to hear. And then she just fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.

Jack was alarmed at the suddenness of her falling asleep, but just as he was heading out to find a nurse the doctor arrived. He assured Jack that falling asleep was just a normal reaction when someone has a head injury.

“Really, she’s doing very well. I’m planning to release her tomorrow. The foot is stable and although she will have to wear a walking cast for a few weeks, I expect she will have very little discomfort from it. The head injury will heal itself. We’re going to observe her overnight and then, except for her headaches, which will decrease over the next couple of weeks, she will be fine. Have you talked to the police yet?”

Jack shook his head. “I just arrived from Los Angeles, so I don’t know much.”

The doctor looked at him with sympathy. “Well, the nurse has the card of the officer in charge. Perhaps you’d like to give him a call. He was anxious to talk to your wife and I wouldn’t let him. I think when she wakes up the next time she will be able to handle his interview.”

Then he put the board with his notes in the slot at the foot of the bed and said over his shoulder as he headed for the door, “She’ll be fine, you know. You’ll see.”

With Millie installed back at Claire’s bedside, Jack took the opportunity to find a quiet space where he could put in some serious telephone time. First he contacted the officer in charge and agreed to meet him at the hospital later that evening. Then he called his boss at the Company and wasn’t surprised to find him still at his desk, even though his time was three hours later than California time.

His next call was to his new boss, the local head of the Homeland Security Office in San Francisco. He hated to start the job with a problem. Even though he hadn’t yet reported to work he had to alert him to what was happening. That conversation was longer, the explanation more detailed, because they hadn’t worked together as yet, and Jack wanted to make sure he clarified the reasons for all his actions to date. Finally, they agreed on how to proceed with the local police’s investigation and Jack hung up feeling secure in the support of both agencies.

When he entered Claire’s room again he was happy to see she was awake once more and her eyes looked more alert. He bent over and kissed her gently. “Hey, you’re back. Feeling better?”

She clutched his hand tightly. “Better, but don’t expect me to move my head. I have a pounding headache.” She gave a wan smile. “But at least I’m thinking clearer and I’m wondering what happened to the man on the other side of the car. He was going to shoot me and then somehow he just disappeared. Did the police shoot him? Did I just dream that?”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out soon. The police officer in charge is due to arrive in about fifteen minutes. They’re anxious to talk to you, Claire, but if it gets too much for you just say so. They can come back some other time.”

When Lieutenant Russo from the Bayside Police Department arrived he brought company in the form of Agent Terrence Hu from the FBI Organized Crime Unit. Introductions were made and Millie slipped out to request a couple more chairs be brought into the room and then firmly sat in one of them. Jack could see she had no intentions of leaving until she had heard everything about what had happened to her child.

Jack turned his attention back to Claire just in time to hear her demand to know what happened to the second man, who had disappeared from her sight just as she passed out. Russo was reluctant to answer her, still under the false impression that this was his interview and he was in charge of asking the questions.

“Lieutenant, if I might suggest a way to speed things up?” Jack said helpfully, understanding how impatient the officer was to get the information he wanted after waiting so long to interview Claire. The frustrated Russo nodded sharply already annoyed.

“I think if you would answer the questions Claire has it will help her organize her thoughts and memories of what happened this afternoon and then she can provide you with a better description of what happened and why.”

He could see the Lieutenant didn’t want to do it, so he added, “Claire is not like your ordinary witnesses. Her past experience in being involved in crimes and assisting law enforcement agencies solve them makes her a valuable witness and in order to take advantage of her talents it would be helpful to have her understand the whole picture.”

The doubting look on Lieutenant Russo’s face would have been comical if Jack had more patience. Instead he snapped out, “If you want corroboration of Claire’s value, contact Captain Sean Dixon in the San Francisco police. It will save you a lot of time and frustration.”

Jack could see the Lieutenant wanted to be rude, but as he had examined Jack’s credentials, he probably felt he didn’t dare ignore Jack’s counsel. He excused himself and left the room, Jack assumed he was going to make a phone call.

Meanwhile, Agent Hu talked about the Cadillac. He asked Claire about its history and how she happened to own it, but he dropped the whole subject abruptly when the Lieutenant came back in the room and took his chair again.

“Okay, it seems that Miss Gulliver here, or perhaps I should be calling you Mrs. Rallins, is considered a celebrity by the San Francisco Police. Captain Dixon said he would be glad to tell me sometime later all the stories connected to her, but in the meanwhile I should just listen and respect what she has to say. So, Mrs. Rallins, let’s hear what you have to say.” He smiled wryly, deciding to give up his former abrupt approach.

“I need to hear what happened to the second man in the car I hit. He was pointing his gun at me, and then he disappeared. Did the police shoot him? I heard the sirens...”

“No, that was just one more strange aspect of this case. Mr. Murphy, your neighbor, shot him dead from his front porch.”

“Mr. Murphy shot him?” Claire’s face showed her confusion. “Fred Murphy, the old man who has lived next door for over fifty years, shot and killed that man?”

The Lieutenant nodded, explaining, “I know it seems incredible. The man is in his early eighties, but apparently he’s still a sharp shooter. He said he saw those men walking around your house and he didn’t like the looks of it at all. He got his shotgun, which he keeps loaded and ready incidentally, and went to his front window to watch them. He saw the men pull over in front of your driveway and get out with guns, so he moved out on his porch with his gun. He was standing there when your car shot down the driveway into their car and, by the time the man stood up and aimed at you, he was ready. He said he called out to warn him to drop his gun. The man turned his weapon toward him, so Murphy fired both barrels. He said he was afraid he was a little rusty and didn’t want to take a chance of failing to put him out of commission, so felt he needed both barrels. As it was, the gunman did squeeze off one shot, but it went wild, he was probably dying as he squeezed the trigger. So three shots were fired and that’s just about the time the squad cars arrived.

“It seems besides your call to nine-one-one, two other neighbors called in to report suspicious activity at your house. And after the shots were fired the station said the phones all lit up.

“Yours was not a good neighborhood for those men to pick to commit a crime in broad daylight. There were just too many interested and concerned neighbors. They would have been smart to check it out before taking any action.”

Claire blinked her eyes several times before saying, “You know the Murphy’s are lovely people. They were very close to my Uncle Bernie and have been very kind to me since I moved in, but I had no idea Fred had a shotgun, or that he was prepared to use it. You know, I think I would have slept better had I known he was on guard duty all these years.” Claire gave a small smile. “Isn’t life full of funny little things?”

She looked at Lieutenant Russo. “And then what happened? Are Karen and baby Jack all right? Did Karen tell you her story?”

Russo nodded. “She gave us her statement. The baby is with her at a friend’s home, a Mrs. Bianci, I believe is her name.”

“Did she tell you one of the men said they left a surprise for us in our house? I’m sure it was a bomb. I hope no one went inside before someone checked the house out.” Claire asked with obvious anxiety.

“Yes, we brought in the bomb squad out of Redwood City. Their dogs immediately located the package. It was connected to one of the men’s cell phones, programmed to explode when he dialed a certain number on his phone. The bomb squad told us it was an incendiary devise. Had those men had time to set it off it would have burned your house to the ground. These guys weren’t taking any chances on letting any of you get away.”

The entire room went silent, as everyone considered what could have happened.

“Well, thank God, they didn’t have time to call that number. All right Lieutenant, what can I tell you to help you in your investigation and what is Agent Hu doing here?” Claire looked from one man to the other prepared to answer their questions as best she could.

Agent Hu explained briefly because the men worked out of a New York firm, he was called in to determine whether or not this case was connected to organized crime.

Claire, her questions answered, managed to answer their questions for almost an hour and then Jack could see she was losing the battle again. He interrupted long enough to convince Lieutenant Russo and Agent Hu to continue the discussion with him in the small waiting room outside while Claire slept again. They reluctantly agreed because they could see Claire’s answers were getting increasingly vague with each minute. They packed up their notebooks and followed Jack out of the room leaving Millie to continue her watch over a now sleeping Claire.

There was a large comfortable waiting room near Claire’s room, but as it was occupied by some worried looking people, Jack asked the nurse if there was another room where they could have some privacy. She directed them to a small alcove down the hall. It was empty and as long as they kept their voices low it would be adequate for their purpose.

“Guys, as you probably understand, my main concern right now is about the safety of my daughter and her child. This has been the fourth attempt on her life and I don’t intend that there be a fifth. While she has been unbelievably lucky to this point, I don’t want to test her luck again. I am determined to get her out of harm’s way at whatever cost.

“Claire and I had decided we needed to get a picture of the man who was after Karen. We called him Tan Jacket. We hoped to identify him, thus learn why he was after her. That’s why I was in Los Angeles when all this went down. I was attempting to locate photos captured by the security cameras at the Crown Plaza Hotel at the Los Angeles Airport. Claire had noticed a security camera on her way out the back door of that hotel when she was there to pick up Karen. We thought it was worth a try. Luckily, the hotel uses several cameras and has a fine system of maintaining them and the resulting images. I met with Rafe Seville, their Director of Security, who was very helpful. He was the one who told me two private investigators had been there only a few days previous to my arrival. Of course when I heard that I almost panicked. I called Claire immediately and told her to take Karen and Jack and check into a motel somewhere. I thought I had warned her in enough time, so I proceeded to scan the records for the pictures I needed. I also wanted to check on which pictures the PI’s had printed.