Pros and Cons (7 page)

Yeah, if Doug and Heather forgot that the authorities would already have a viable witness in me, plus video evidence that probably made
any
witness testimony a bonus rather than a necessity.

Jack must have seen my doubt. “Desperate people don't think things through, and these two are desperate. But let's not give them a lot of time to consider other options. We should do it tonight, after we're sure Fowler has turned in and won't have a good alibi to confuse things.”

Despite all my misgivings, I agreed. Having pulled a similar switcheroo with Jack before, I should have known better than to think he'd told me everything that was going on in that twisted mind of his.

E
IGHT

Time was of the essence, so Jack and I set up our sting for just after midnight the very same night. Talking Douglas and Heather into playing the bait was every bit as difficult as I'd thought it would be. I told them I'd called Fowler and arranged for them to turn over the video in return for a promise that he would let bygones be bygones. Since no one in their right minds would believe Fowler would actually go for such a deal, I acknowledged that Fowler was more likely to show up with the intention of killing them once he got hold of the video.

Not having enough money to fund herself if she tried to run away and create a new life where Fowler couldn't find her, Heather was desperate enough to take the risk, even if it meant having to confess to her blackmail. Douglas was another matter. He was scared, but he was also an arrogant bastard who thought he was smarter than everyone else, that he was such a good crook he could disappear himself so thoroughly that even Fowler couldn't find him. Of course, I don't know if he'd have been quite so confident if he didn't also believe I could pull off my sting without him. He figured he'd let me and Heather take all the risk. If everything went as planned, he'd be off the hook without any consequences, and if it didn't, he'd go to his Plan B and make a run for it.

He was right that I could have done the sting without him. All I needed was someone to play the helpless victim so Jack could incriminate Fowler both on video and with eyewitnesses. But I wasn't about to let Douglas off so easy. I wanted to save both his life and Heather's, but I also wanted them to pay for their crimes. Maybe they would learn a valuable lesson from this whole nightmare and turn over a new leaf when they got out of jail. So I might have played a little bit dirty. I might have been wearing a wire myself when I talked to Douglas about the plan, and I might have manipulated him into making a number of confessions that could get him in trouble if the police ever got hold of the recording. If that put me in some kind of moral gray area, well . . . I was okay with that.

I arranged for our meeting to take place on a wooded running trail that would see little or no foot traffic late at night. The last thing I wanted was innocent—or not-so-innocent—bystanders getting in the way and screwing things up. Besides, Heather and Douglas would expect Fowler to meet them somewhere spooky, and a running trail in the middle of the night definitely fit the bill. The spot was just isolated enough to give us a modicum of privacy but not so much that we couldn't park nearby. Best of all, it was outside the D.C. city limits, so I could legally carry my .38 Special. Not that I intended to
use
it, mind you, but it was an important prop for when we sprang the “trap” on “Fowler,” and since the police would be hearing all about it, I didn't want to find myself up on firearms violations.

I wanted someone to keep an eye on Douglas in case he had second thoughts, so I took him to Heather's house. I was prepared to intervene in the event that feathers started flying. Luckily, Heather was too scared to do more than call Douglas a few unflattering names, and he seemed to be mortally embarrassed by coming face to face with her after what he'd done. I suspected he was used to being long gone before his marks ever knew they'd been conned, and that meant he never had to see the damage he'd caused.

I gave Heather strict instructions to call me if Douglas made a break for it so I could sic the cops on him. Then I did a quick drive-by of Fowler's house to make sure he was alibi-free. A peek into his garage showed me his car was there, and the lights were all off in the house. When Jack had stopped by Fowler's office in the afternoon, he'd learned that Fowler's wife and kids were off visiting her mother, so unless he'd brought some other woman home, he was alone in there, probably asleep.

Satisfied that there would be no one who could truthfully say Fowler had been with them all night, I headed out to the rendezvous point nice and early to set up my surveillance cameras.

You never experience true darkness in the heart of a big city, and there was enough ambient light that, after my eyes adjusted, I could walk without tripping over my own feet. The images my cameras would collect would be darker than optimal, but since Jack knew he was being recorded, he'd make sure to position himself in the best light so that the jury would have no trouble identifying Fowler when the prosecution showed them the video. And to make sure we got a good, incriminating view of his face, I had an industrial-strength flashlight with me that I would shine right at him when we sprang the trap.

When I was sure all my equipment was ready, I hunkered down behind a clump of bushes to wait. I almost laughed to think how perplexed the real Fowler would be when he saw the video from tonight. He would think he was either insane or sleepwalking, or maybe even both.

Heather and Douglas, both wired for sound, showed up right on time. Whatever anger Heather might have felt over being conned, she seemed to have gotten over it. I noticed she was clinging to Douglas's hand as if it were a lifeline. I felt a little bad for terrifying her so badly, but it wasn't like I could tell her she wouldn't have to face the real Fowler tonight.

While Heather looked scared to death, Douglas looked grim and determined. I'd made it very clear that his only choice was to show up, and he was making an appearance even though it went against every one of his con man's instincts. He hunched his shoulders against the chill of the January night, and one hand was tucked into the pocket of his brown leather bomber jacket. He made a slight motion as if to pull his other hand free of Heather's grip—it was pretty nippy out, and he wasn't wearing gloves—but she held on tight, and he relented.

The three of us waited in nervous silence, our breath steaming, our extremities freezing. Jack was late, which, considering his determination to be annoying, wasn't much of a surprise. Douglas and Heather became progressively edgier as every minute ticked by. Douglas finally wrested his hand free of Heather's and shoved it into his pocket while she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. I entertained myself with visions of murder, wishing I had come up with something,
anything,
that didn't involve relying on Jack.

It was almost fifteen minutes after the scheduled rendezvous, and I was beginning to worry that Douglas and Heather were going to lose their nerve and bolt, when finally a figure appeared at the other end of the trail. He was wearing a dark, full-length coat and a hat tipped over his eyes, and I worried for a moment that he was some stranger stumbling into the middle of our sting. After all, Jack should be trying to make himself as recognizable as possible, not obscuring his face with a hat. Then again, this is Jack we're talking about, and expecting him to be practical was like expecting the sun to set in the east.

Heather and Douglas both noticed Jack at the same time, going visibly tense and stiff as he made his ponderous way toward us, each slow footfall echoing in the quiet of the night. One thing I'll give him: Jack has a flair for the dramatic. His approach was ominous enough to send a chill down my spine. Heather and Douglas were both visibly breathing faster.

He was almost on top of us before Jack finally raised his head enough to let the light hit his face.
Fowler's
face, that is. I'd never seen the man himself in person, but I'd seen enough pictures to know that Jack had managed a convincing likeness.

“Where's the video?” Jack/Fowler growled.

Heather and Douglas looked at each other nervously.

“We don't have it on us right this minute,” Douglas said, just as we'd planned. His refusal to turn over the video immediately was supposed to be our fake Fowler's opportunity to start making threats. He would then attack Douglas and try to choke him to death, at which point I would burst out of hiding with my gun drawn and save the day. We'd have video, audio, and eyewitness evidence that Fowler had both threatened and attempted murder. We'd stage an escape so that Jack could shift back into his real form, and then we'd send the police after Fowler.

That was the script I'd written, and for the record, I still think it was a damn good one. We'd have kept the entire transaction entirely within our control, and no one would have been in any danger. Unfortunately, neither Douglas nor Jack seemed inclined to follow my carefully constructed script.

“That's too bad,” the fake Fowler said, drawing an enormous handgun from his coat pocket.

Heather took one look at that gun and, quite sensibly, screamed and started running away as fast as her feet could carry her.

“Oh, no, you don't!” Jack shouted, adding a maniacal laugh that if you ask me was over the top. He then fired off three quick shots in Heather's direction. None of them hit her, thank goodness, and she leapt off the path and into the trees, using them for cover.

While Jack was busy shooting at Heather, Douglas ducked for cover behind the nearest tree. Unfortunately, unlike Heather, he didn't run away. For the first time since he'd arrived at the rendezvous, he took his hand out of his jacket pocket, and I saw that he, too, had brought a gun. I had thought of him as a con man and therefore not particularly dangerous. Obviously, I had miscalculated.

“Look out!” I yelled, breaking cover and cursing both men under my breath. Douglas couldn't kill Jack, but our carefully laid-out trap was going to fail if Jack ended up with a gunshot wound. The fact that the real Fowler had no such wound would make it a lot easier for his defense attorney to convince a jury that the man they saw in the grainy nighttime video was not Wayne Fowler, no matter how close the resemblance.

Jack fired off another shot in Heather's direction, then, at my shouted warning, dropped to the ground just as Douglas fired.

“Douglas!” I shouted. “No! Stay behind the tree. Let me take care of this!” I held my gun up so that Douglas could see I had the situation under control. Maybe if Douglas had brought his gun for self-defense, he'd have listened. But it seemed he'd never truly been on board with my plan and had come prepared to eliminate the Fowler problem in the most final way possible.

Douglas ignored me and took aim at Jack again. Jack lurched to his feet and dove toward a clump of bushes on the far side of the trail just as Douglas fired. The bullet ricocheted off the pavement about a millimeter from Jack's head.

Jack fired a couple of shots from behind the bushes, then shifted position so he had a tree between him and Douglas. In the distance, I heard sirens wailing. We weren't so far off the beaten path that people wouldn't hear the gunshots. Because the boys with guns hadn't screwed everything up enough already, and we needed to have the police breathing down our necks. I glared at Jack, who crouched behind the trunk of his tree and grinned like an idiot.

Across the path, Douglas was visibly trying to decide between finishing his shootout with “Fowler” and getting the hell out of Dodge before the police arrived. Jack helped him along by firing at him yet again, the bullet slamming into the tree behind Douglas and taking out a fist-sized chunk. At which point, Douglas decided Heather had made the smart choice when she ran for it. He plunged into the woods, bobbing and weaving through the trees, his body hunched over to make a smaller target. The sirens were much closer now, and I could see the flashing lights even through the cover of the trees. I gave Douglas at best a fifty-fifty shot of making it to his car without being arrested.

Our own chances, however, might not be as good.

Still grinning like a maniac, Jack threw his gun to the ground between us, getting down on his knees and putting his hands behind his head.

“Damn,” he said, with mock regret. “You got me.”

I gaped at him. “What are you doing? We have to get out of here. Now!”

“I suggest you drop the gun and do exactly what the nice officers say when they get here,” Jack said. “Don't forget to tell them about your video cameras. And remind them that Heather and Douglas were wired for sound.”

“You can't let them arrest you!”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

Was this just another one of his jokes? Any moment now, he was going to jump to his feet and start running. Right?

But he just knelt there placidly.

“You'll ruin the whole thing,” I said. How could he not understand that? “They'll put you in jail. And they'll take your fingerprints. And they won't be Fowler's prints.”

Jack frowned at me. “They won't?” He gasped dramatically and put his hand to his chest. “Oh, my God! You're right! I didn't think of that!” He rolled his eyes and put both hands back on his head.

My understanding of the situation took a disorienting step to the right. “Wait. You
will
have Fowler's prints?”

Even in the darkness, his eyes twinkled with amusement. “I don't do things by half measures, Nikki. That's why I told you earlier I had to meet Fowler. All I had to do was shake his hand so I could get his prints. Now I'm an
exact
duplicate of Wayne Fowler. And I feel an irresistible urge to clear my conscience. I have been a bad, bad man.”

I'd have had a few more choice things to say, except at that moment, the police arrived. I dropped my gun and held my hands up before they got anywhere near me, hoping they weren't the kind to shoot first and ask questions later.

“You'll get out before me,” Jack said calmly, as if there weren't a herd of adrenaline-pumped police charging our way. “Go to Fowler's house, and wait for me there. And make sure he doesn't leave before I get there.”

“How the hell are you planning to get out?” Even if some judge would grant bail in a case like this, it wouldn't happen
tonight
.

Jack just gave me a droll look as the police converged.