Deadline (15 page)

“Yeah, this is Detective Chandler, calling from city police. We need to locate and possibly impound a vehicle towed to your yard week ago Sunday, from an accident on the Northwood Highway. Yeah, I’m sure that’s the one. Hang on. Red Suburban?” Jake nodded. “Yeah, that’s it, the Suburban. Anything been done to it since it came in? No? Good. Don’t touch it. That’s official—I don’t want anyone near it, okay? I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Ollie listened. “Yeah, I hear you. Yep, one survivor. In fact, I think he’ll be coming with me. Okay thanks.” Pause. “No kiddin’? See ya soon.

“Guy’s a real talker once you get him goin’. Ready?” Jake nodded, knowing Ollie must be dropping a dozen important things to help him.

“He says when we see the car we’ll think it’s a miracle you’re still alive.” Ollie swung around the front desk to sign out and get some car keys, without breaking stride. Jake could barely keep up as Ollie charged in the elevator, and again as he marched out into underground parking. His acceleration from zero to maximum walking speed was remarkable, Jake thought, especially for a guy so…round. They hopped in a plain brown, two-door sedan that looked civilian on the outside and cop on the inside, complete with police radio and a few high-tech gadgets Jake didn’t recognize.

The drive to the wrecking yard seemed twice as long as it was. Neither man spoke much. When they pulled in, Jake immediately noticed a familiar cherry red hue on a crumpled wad of metal off to the left. It looked even less like Doc’s car than Doc looked like himself in the hospital. But in the middle of the wad Jake saw a curled but legible personalized license plate that said, “Gusto.” Doc’s. This looked like a car that didn’t just roll, but fell from the sky. Jake felt queasy.

Ollie followed Jake’s gaze and hopped out, heading straight to the mangled car corpse. Out of the “main office,” a shack with a sign, emerged a chubby, grease smeared bearded man wearing a blue striped shirt with a white patch that said “Ed Maxwell” in red script letters. He rubbed his hand on a towel. “You the cops?” He sounded skeptical, eyeing Ollie’s non-uniformed attire.

“Yeah,” Ollie flashed his badge as second naturèdly as a teenage boy runs a comb through his hair. “Let me take a look under the hood.”

Ed reached in the driver’s side window, now half its original height, with no glass left at all. He pulled the lever, which didn’t pop.

“‘Fraid of that. Gonna need a crowbar.”

Ed marched over next to the office to a huge metal rack and examined three crow bars, selecting just the right one, like a dentist choosing the perfect instrument for the job at hand. Ed carried the chosen crow bar like it was an extension of his big right arm, placed the end between hood and body, and pushed downward, to the sound of rippling metal. He did this in three places before it released and they could get a good look at the engine.

Ollie worked his right hand into a skin tight plastic glove, then ran it over the engine, distributor, fuel line, wiring, everything. After a few minutes he said, “Everything seems okay up here. If there’s a problem, we’ll find it underneath.”

He got down on both knees trying to get a look under the car, but it was smashed down too low to the ground.

“Ed. Any chance you could raise this thing up for me?”

“Sure. We could jack it up. Or I can just pull over the crane.”

“Whatever you think’s best.”

“Crane.

Ed was already on his way, enjoying every minute of this and thinking about the story he’d have over tomorrow’s breakfast for the guys at the truck stop diner.

Ed pulled over the mini-crane, swung the huge hook in where the front windshield used to be, then hopped back up on the seat and pulled a lever. The taut cable raised the car inch by inch, so it looked like a dog moving up on its back haunches in slow motion. He locked a lever and hopped off again, walking right up to the underside with no visible fear. The huge misshapen vehicle hung at a forty-five degree angle, looking like a trap, eager to drop on anyone dumb enough to get under it.

Jake looked at Ed skeptically.

“It’s okay. It’ll hold fine.”

Famous last words.
Ollie was already standing underneath.

“I could use your advice here, Ed. Bottom line, was this driver error or a problem with the vehicle?”

“A year-old Suburban? This was a solid vehicle. I’ll tell you right now it wasn’t the car’s fault.”

“Maybe. Take a look with me anyway, will you?”

Ed went over everything, grabbing this and pulling on that. The search seemed routine and predictable when all of a sudden he said, “What the…?”

“Yeah?” Ollie was right there.

“A broken tie-rod. Broke right here on the thread, next to the adjusting sleeve.”

Ollie took a closer look, then quickly went over to the tie-rod on the other side. “Look at this.” Ed was already beside him.

“Two broken tie-rods? No wonder this baby lost it. Never seen anything like it. One maybe, but not two.”

“Take a closer look, Ed.” Ollie pointed at the clearly exposed surface of the broken tie-rod. Jake looked over Ollie’s other shoulder with no thought now of the precarious hanging vehicle.

“Look how smooth this rod is, three-fourths of the way through. But the last quarter is rough, like you’d expect a break to look. Same thing exactly on the other side.”

Ed’s jaw slackened and he went back to the other side to look. He let out a low whistle.

Only Jake was in the dark. “Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is a tie-rod? And what are you saying?”

Ollie looked at Ed. With the simple eloquence of a man who knows his trade, Ed said, “The tie-rods connect the wheels and the steering box. They’re what give you control over the car.”

“What we’re saying is,” Ollie added, “the rods broke all right, and that’s why the car crashed and rolled. But they only broke because they’d been cut three-quarters of the way through. With a plain old hacksaw I’d guess, though it could have been an electric saw, maybe a reciprocating saw with the right blade?”

Ed nodded his agreement.

“With slow driving, and no sudden turns or stresses on the tie-rods, the car would be okay. You wouldn’t notice anything different, maybe just a little shake or something,” Ollie said. “But once it got up a lot of speed, then had to make a sudden turn or swerve or hit a bad bump…”

Jake’s brain went numb. A little later, in the distance he could hear Ollie telling Ed to keep this thing under his hat until further notice. Ed was disappointed he’d have to sit on this story for the moment, but gratified he was on the inside of something worthy of the Sunday night movie of the week.

Jake came back to reality when he felt Ollie’s hand on his shoulder. His voice got a little raspier when he was making an important point.

“Don’t know who wrote your little note, Jake, but whoever it was knew what he was talking about.”

Jake stared at Ollie.

“The boys in the lab will have to confirm it, but I don’t need an electron microscope to know the difference between a break and a cut. There’s no doubt about it. It
wasn’t
an accident. It was murder.”

“We are not captives to time here, but your friend still is,” Zyor explained. “Elyon permits us to enter his time and observe his most important and strategic moments. That is why we can see him now. He prides himself on being brave and in control, but he is confused and frightened.”

“You seem to know Jake well.”

“Remember, I stood by you. Whenever you were with him, I was there too.”

“Of course. I still can’t get used to the idea.”

Zyor gave him an uncomprehending look as if he couldn’t understand what was so difficult about a concept so basic to him and so clearly taught in Scripture—that angels surround and minister to the redeemed. Finally he said, “Your friend needs your prayers.”

“I can pray for him here?”

“Of course you can pray for him here.”

“I’ve never thought of praying from heaven.”

“Does not Elyon’s Book say Christ himself prays for Adam’s race from heaven? And that the martyrs of the end times watch and react to the events on earth? And that the bowls of heaven are filled with the prayers of the saints?”

“Yes, but I thought those were just prayers offered on earth.”

“The prayers of heaven and earth merge into one. God’s people are God’s people no matter where they are, and their prayers are prayers no matter where they are. Does not the Book say the prayer of a righteous person is effective?”

“Sure. I know that verse. I even taught a class on it once.”

“I know. I was there.”

Finney nodded sheepishly. “Right. I won’t ask you to evaluate my lesson plan.”

“But if the prayers of righteous imperfect ones on earth are effective, how much more the prayers of righteous saints made perfect in the very presence of Elyon? Your prayers have no more ended than your life has. You have been praying ever since you arrived. With every thought and word of gratitude and wonder expressed to Elyon you have prayed. Now it is time to intercede for those below.”

Zyor paused, taking on the look of the tutor.

“In the dark world there were theological discussions about whether or not to pray for the dead.”

“I remember.”

“I often wanted to speak through the veil and say, ‘There’s a much more important subject you’ve never considered—whether or not the dead pray for you.’”

Finney grinned at the thought.

“It is not that men need ask those in heaven to pray for them. But they do pray, as Elyon allows them, the cloud of witnesses, to see the drama acted out on earth. Pray for your friend Jake. There is more facing him than just the disturbing circumstances he has now discovered, though they too will play a part in whatever is to come. He is being pursued by Elyon, and is under great attack from the powers of darkness. Two divergent paths lie before him. I do not know which path he will choose.”

No sooner did Finney turn his thoughts to Jake than a window opened up and he saw him again, still sitting in that unmarked police car in the wrecking yard. Jake! Finney loved this man now more than ever. Never had he felt so sorry for Jake, confined to that world of death while Finney was here, breathing in life itself. It was difficult enough to be in the dark world at all—but the thought of Jake being so alone, without God and therefore without hope, was unimaginable.

“Your friend is like every man,” Zyor said. “All that is within him cries for certainty, for purpose, and for truth. For life eternal. Yet all that his world offers him is uncertainty, purposelessness, deception. He walks in darkness, groping for the light. For a moment he sees it and is drawn by it, but as he moves toward the light, it hurts his eyes and he retreats back to the soothing but deadly comfort of the darkness. He listens to the voices of those who have lived so long in darkness that they believe man was born to be blind, that light is a myth, that darkness is all there is, and nothing lies beyond. They believe the lie, and they teach it. They try to create their own fires, with all the success of a man rubbing two sticks together in pouring rain. Your friend needs your prayers. Perhaps part of Elyon’s purpose in bringing you here now is that your prayers for him may accomplish even more.”

Finney turned toward the throne and dropped to his knees. Zyor did the same, piggybacking his requests on those of the believer-priest he had guarded in the Shadowlands.

CHAPTER EIGHT

J
ake and Ollie sat quietly in the police car, overlooking the rusted metallic panorama of the wrecking yard. The crumpled mass of wreckage seemed to Jake an all too vivid picture of how life was destined to end.

“As soon as we get the car over to the police storage lot, I’ll have the boys in criminology take a look. I need their corroboration; the rods were cut, so I can go with a murder investigation. I’ll have a couple of guys go over the car, every inch of it. Now that we know this isn’t a hoax, I’ll have them take a close look at that yellow note card and envelope from our informer, and… Are you with me, Jake?”

Jake was lost in thought. “Yeah, Ollie, sorry. This is just so…bizarre.”

“Yeah. Guess I’m used to the bizarre, but I admit this one’s a little creepy. There’s something straight forward about blowing somebody’s head off or burying a knife in them in the heat of the moment.”

Jake shot Ollie an incredulous look he missed completely.

“But when somebody plans it out like this, gets under a car and cuts away…I mean, children could have been killed, other motorists, all kinds of people. You get callused in this job, you have to, but this is pretty scary stuff. And it leaves us with a lot of guess work. Anyway, I’ll have the boys pour ninhydrin on the envelope and the card and see if we can get anything.”

“Ninhydrin?”

“To check for fingerprints.”

“Fingerprints? On an envelope that went through how many hands at the post office and the
Tribune
and…?” Jake felt a little stupid as he considered for the first time how much he had handled the letter.

“It’s a long sho—most things are—but we have to try. If we could match the same print from envelope and note card…Only you and the person who sent it would have your fingerprints on the inside and outside, right? Sometimes we get a good print inside the envelope where they hold it to lick the glue. If we get an inside print, it could be the key to everything. Of course, the tip may have come from someone with no prints on record. On the other hand, if we could find prints under the car…Again, it’s not likely, but you never know. If we get anything, AFIS can do miracles.”

“Afis?”

“Automatic Fingerprint Identification System. It’s all computerized. In the old days, even when we had good fingerprints, it was worthless unless we had a suspect. Then, we’d pull their fingerprint files, if we had them, and we’d manually compare the suspect’s prints with the ones found at the crime scene.”

“And now?”

“Now, and I mean only since 1990, if we get a good print or two, or even partials, we run them into AFIS, and it has every print on file in Oregon, Washington, California, and Nevada. We can get into other states too, but it’s kind of a hassle outside your region. Now we don’t have to have a suspect.

“We scan our prints fresh from the crime scene, and all of a sudden AFIS calls up Fred Swartz, arrested only one time for burglary in Reno in 1989, and we’ve got the creep. Of course, the print doesn’t establish guilt, but it makes a definite link, and at least we know who to question.” Ollie started to go on, but stopped when he looked at Jake, who seemed lost in himself.

Jake was watching Ed light up a cigarette, but his mind was forty years removed, in the old gray shed back behind his house, where Dad kept the lawnmower and garden tools and a secret bottle of whiskey that tasted like gasoline. Doc and Finney were with him. Each had swiped a pack of cigarettes from his parents, Doc his mom’s Kents, Finney his dad’s Camels. Jake contributed some Lucky Strikes he’d found on the school playground and hidden two weeks earlier at the bottom of his box of Superman comic books under his bed. They’d planned this for ten days. The three cronies smoked and choked and compared brands and said they liked one better than the other, though the truth was they all made Jake nauseous. But it was doing something with his friends, and that made it worthwhile, even when Mom smelled the smoke in his shirt and confronted him.

He denied the obvious truth and swore he’d never smoked, and the more she accused him the more stubborn and adamant his denial. She spanked him and for three whole weeks wouldn’t let him play with his buddies, who were busy being punished themselves now that Jake’s mom had called theirs, figuring it all out even though he’d refused to squeal on them.

“Jake? You there?”

“Yeah. Sorry, Ollie.”

“I know this isn’t easy.”

“Ollie?”

“Yeah?”

“Who would want to kill Doc?”

“You’re one step ahead of me, buddy. That’s where you’re going to help. I want a list from you tomorrow. Can we meet at your deli? One o’clock work for you? Okay, I want a list of every possible person or group that might hate your friend enough to do this. Somebody he ripped off. Somebody he made angry, real angry. Maybe botched a surgery and left somebody crippled?”

Jake shrugged his shoulders.

“Ex-wife? No? Present wife? Girlfriend he won’t dump his wife to marry? Scorned women? Outraged husbands? Did he ever have an affair?”

Ollie saw Jake wince.

“He did, didn’t he? More than one?”

Jake nodded, feeling as if he was betraying a friend.

“I want anybody he posed a threat to, anybody who didn’t like him. Somebody he was costing money. Anything. Everything. Old grudges or new ones.

Doesn’t have to be personal, either. Who stood to gain from his death in any way? This is brainstorming—everybody’s fair game. If someone comes to mind and you think ‘no, that’s crazy’ put ‘em down anyway. We can always cut people off the list, but we pare it down later, not now. I want every possible suspect you can think of. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it, chief. You sound like Winston dishing out an assignment. Ollie, listen, I really appreciate this. I know you must have a dozen cases that—”

“A half dozen on the back burner, one I can finish within a week. None as important as this one.” Ollie put his hand on Jake’s arm. “Listen, Jake, I’m not Mister Sentimental, okay? But if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t even be a cop anymore. For all I know, I might be doing time with all the guys I put away. I owe you. Maybe now comes the pay back. Besides, it’s my job. I’ve got a terrific sergeant who gives me first crack at the really good stuff. He gives me lots of latitude to choose what I really go after, which ones I do hands on, and which leftovers get fed to the new guys. Steve’s a great partner. He’ll cover for me, free up some extra hours. I don’t know where it’ll take us, but I’m going with this one. I want to get on it before the trail gets any colder. I’m going to expect you to do some stuff too, where you already have the contacts and might get better cooperation. Unless the physical evidence delivers more than I think it will, this isn’t going to be a narrow investigation. We’re going to have to go out there with a big net to catch this fish. You got the time to work with me?”

“The time? This is all I’ve got the time for. It’s all that matters to me right now. I’ve lost the best friends I’ve ever had. I’m going after whoever did this, Ollie.” Jake’s face showed a visceral anger and determination, as if the warrior and hunter within had been awakened. “And when I get my hands on ‘em, I swear I’ll…”

“Wait a minute!
We’ll
get ’em, okay, Jake? My badge gives me just a teensy more freedom to nail the bad guys, remember? ‘Stop in the name of the
Trib
’ just doesn’t cut it, okay?”

Jake caught himself. Maybe he’d seen a few too many Eastwood and Stallone movies. But this was the only thing he could do for Doc and Finney. He was determined to do it.

“Listen, Jake, officially I can’t work with you, but as long as we’re discreet we can cooperate and share information. I’ll give this everything I can, but murders don’t take a holiday, so you’ll have some time I won’t. I trust you. You can investigate and interview, you know how to dig stuff up. You’ve got guts, contacts, and know-how. And pretty good instincts, although you drive a Mustang and I was never really a big Ford man. It goes without saying you’re not the pro I am, so leave the heavyweight stuff to me, okay? But you’re gonna have to be careful. It’s too personal for you. That gives you energy, but it can mess you up. Show some restraint. Talk to me before you pull out an M-14 or a grenade launcher, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s just coordinate our efforts, touch base, and go for it. And don’t thank me anymore, Jake. I don’t have to wonder whether you’d do it for me.”

Jake nodded, and his eyes said the “thank you” Ollie had just waved off.

Big Ed lumbered across the yard like a grizzly bear, turning his head from side to side hoping someone would see him, so when they asked what he’d been doing he could say, “Police business. Can’t discuss it. Investigation’s in process.” Hooked to his tow truck was a trailer with Doc’s Suburban on it. Ed wore gloves now—Jake assumed this was at Ollie’s request, at least he hoped so. Somehow it wasn’t an encouraging thought to consider Ed might know better than Jake the importance of keeping his prints off evidence.

Ed reported directly to Ollie’s window, like a waitress taking an order at an old A & W. He had the look of a man whose years watching Perry Mason and Matlock were finally paying off.

“Ed, you’ve been a terrific help. Just follow me over to the police vehicle salvage lot, on 23rd. You’ll need my clearance to pull in your truck. Remember, not a word to anyone till I free this one up, okay? We’re counting on your full cooperation.”

Ed nodded eagerly, like an Old West saloon sweep who’d been deputized by the marshal to go get the Dalton gang. As Ed strutted off, so full of himself he could burst, Ollie started the car, waited for Ed to follow, and turned onto the freeway to head back downtown.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“How come you guys drove Doc’s car Sunday?”

“No particular reason. Usually just one of us goes out to get pizza. We flip a coin to decide. This time we ended up all going because…” Jake decided not to mention the quarter that didn’t fall. It sounded too weird. “Well, we just decided to go together.

“So…say Finney had lost the flip. He would have driven his car to the pizza place?”

“No, probably not. See, we were at Finney’s house, we usually are, so his car was blocked in. Same thing every Sunday. Doc usually pulls in last. If he doesn’t, he parks in the front, so his car’s free. Usually if Finney or I lose the flip, Doc tosses us his keys. He’s so proud of his rig he likes us to drive it. I’d lost the last three coin flips, so I’d driven Doc’s suburban three weeks in a row. One of us drove his car nine times out of ten, I suppose. Why? What are you thinking?”

“Just wondering. We’ve been assuming whoever did this was trying to kill Doc. But could he have been going after Finney?”

Jake started to shake his head no, then suddenly remembered.

“Wait a minute. Finney borrowed Doc’s Suburban to move a photocopy machine to one of his stores. I hadn’t thought of that. Yeah, Doc and Finney had switched cars for a day or two that week. Doc drove up in the Suburban Sunday, so Finney maybe got it back to him Friday or Saturday?”

Ollie nodded. “Okay. It’s possible the tie-rods were cut when Finney had it, but they held together till Sunday. If he wasn’t driving fast and making sharp curves there might not have been enough stress to break them.”

“Yeah, okay, Finney wasn’t that fast a driver, and if he was moving office machines…maybe he wouldn’t have been taking hard turns.”

“All right, rule number one in an investigation. Don’t blind yourself to other possibilities just because your first assumption is more likely. The murderer could have been going for either of your friends, or both of them.” Ollie hesitated. “And, of course, he could have been going for you.”

“Me? If they wanted me, why not do their thing to my car? Why Doc’s? And why not a bomb hooked up to the battery? Why a car at all? Why not poison my latté at the deli or knife me in the restroom…or send me a letter bomb?”

“Maybe because they wanted it to look like an accident. And because people are different. A pharmacist might poison someone. A mechanic might do something to a car. A chemistry major might send you the letter bomb. People think differently. That’s why they kill differently.”

Ollie pulled into the police salvage lot on 23rd, got out, showed his badge, and talked to the gate officer, who waved in the proud driver from Brownlee Towing. Ollie said a few more words to Ed, then hopped back in the car and headed downtown with Jake.

“Keep your car in a locked garage?” Ollie followed his line of thought as if he hadn’t skipped a beat.

“My apartment has private parking. It’s enclosed.”

“Secure?”

“Yeah, I guess. They had some problems maybe a year ago, so there’s a security guard who makes the rounds. He’s not the Terminator, but he carries a gun and almost looks like he knows what he’s doing. I don’t think there’s been a break in since he was hired. I’m on the ground floor, so sometimes I just pull in to the curb, twenty feet from my front door. But if you’re talking about getting to my car, you know my M.O. I park all around the
Trib
during the day, usually on Morrison. My car’s easy enough to spot. Anybody could get to it.”

“Nobody’s going to walk down Morrison carrying a saw and crawl underneath your car. This took some time. Had to be done some place that wasn’t too conspicuous, not downtown curb parking with a gazillion people walking by. The high suspension on the Suburban would be easy to crawl under. In a residential area, could be done right in a driveway if someone had the guts. Say they staked you out on weekends, saw that three Sunday afternoons in a row, about the same time, you’d been driving Doc’s Suburban by yourself. Maybe they assumed this was normal. It’s hard to believe they would have done it right there in your friend’s driveway, but it’s possible. Busy neighborhood?”

“No.”

“Much foot traffic on a Sunday afternoon?”

“Hardly any.”

“Car easily visible from where you were watching the game?”

“No.”

Ollie nodded. “Do-able. Whoever they were going for, they probably didn’t care what happened to anybody else. Or maybe they were going for all of you, and were willing to take one or two or three at a time, whatever they happened to get.”