Atonement (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

Vicente
drove past the driveway that he knew Horton had turned into.  The tracker signal remained static.

Another third of a mile and Vicente slowed and made a right between two broad cedar gateposts and parked in front of a two-car garage that was integral to a stone built bungalow.

Marvin Crenshaw was surprised to hear the small, bronze bell that was fixed to the wall at the side of the front door being rung.  He was not expecting company, and so with the weather closing in, thought that it must be a motorist in trouble.

“Yes, can I help you?”  Marvin said as he opened the door to be faced by a slim man wearing a suit, necktie and thin windcheater, and was therefore ill-prepared for the extremely low temperature and the blizzard conditions that were fast approaching.

“I know you can help me,”  Vicente said as he drew the .45 caliber P220 Sig Sauer from its shoulder holster and pointed it at the man’s chest.  “Back up a couple of steps, nice and slow, and sit down on the floor.”

Marvin did as he was told.  His eyes were locked on the black hole of the gun’s muzzle, and his mouth was hanging open.

Vicente closed the door behind him and locked it, withdrawing the key and putting it in his coat pocket.  “What’s your name?”  he asked the old guy who was sitting with his gnarled, shaking hands on his knees.

“Marvin Crenshaw.”

“Pleased to meet you, Marvin.  Who else is in the house?”

“Just my wife, Anna.”

“Call her out here.”

“She’s in bed.  She has a lung condition and doesn’t get up very often.”

“Take me to see her,”  Vicente said, grasping Marvin by the upper arm and hauling him up to his feet.

“Please don’t hurt her,”  Marvin pleaded.

“Behave yourself and nobody gets hurt.  I just need some information, a cup of coffee, and some suitable clothin’ for this shitty weather.  Are you expectin’ any company?”

“No,”  Marvin said as he led the gunman through the living room and along a hallway to a slightly open door.

Anna Crenshaw was sitting up in a bed that was fitted with side rails. Plump pillows supported her frail body, and she was wearing a transparent mask that was linked by tube to a large oxygen bottle that was standing next to the night table.  She was fast asleep with an open paperback book in her lap.

“Okay,”  Vicente said.  “Let’s go in the kitchen and have that coffee.”  He was suitably convinced that the old woman could pose no possible threat to him.  She was a skeletal figure, somehow hanging on to life by a thread, totally dependent on the supply of oxygen that was feeding her vital organs and sustaining a life that was slipping away.  Vicente found the sight of combined old-age and terminal illness to be one of the few things that actually frightened him. He was only forty, but had reached a point at which he could not help but acknowledge that he was probably halfway or more through his life, and that his youth was well and truly behind him.  The only solace was that should the day come when he was diagnosed with something incurable, or his quality of life was impaired in any unacceptable way, then he could always choose the easy option and blow his brains out.

Sitting at the diner-style booth in the kitchen, Vicente waited till Marvin had made the coffee before saying anything else.

Marvin sat down opposite the intense-looking man and said, “What kind of information could I possibly have that would interest you?”

Vicente took a sip of the coffee before answering.  It was strong, piping hot, and warmed him.  “Your neighbors to the east,”  he said.  “Tell me who they are.”

“Not they,”  Marvin said.  “Miriam Carmody lives there by herself, since her husband got shot in a hunting accident.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She’s a nice lady.  She’s in her late fifties, keeps to herself, but is happy to help out if she can.”

Vicente got Marvin to make a rough sketch of his neighbor’s house.  Drank a second cup of coffee, and then shot Marvin through the forehead.  He would have liked to have left the couple to whatever it was they called a life, but did not want his description given to the police when they investigated what was in the not too distant future going to take place at Miriam Carmody’s home.  Next stop was Anna Crenshaw’s bedroom.  He sent her on her way with a slug through her left eye.  She had not seen him, but for her to wake up and be alone, or somehow stagger through the house to find the corpse of her husband, would not have sat right with him. It crossed his mind that maybe he had a sentimental side to his nature.  After all, he had loved his mum, and still mourned the fact that she had died as a result of some superbug that she had contracted during a stay in hospital for a minor operation.  That had taught him that life was inequitable, and that you had to squeeze every last drop of pleasure from it while you could.

Searching the closets and drawers, Vicente found suitable clothing to protect him against the cold.  He had a choice, wait outside for Logan to turn up, or knock at the door, tell Horton who he was, and that Wade had sent him to deal with Logan.  He decided to walk back to the Carmody place and keep watch for a while.  When he got too cold he would make himself known to the woman and the runaway deputy.

Logan pulled off the highway into the lot of a motel that could have been owned by Norman Bates.  A single storey block incorporating an office and a dozen timber clad rooms was set in front of a path that led up to a house that looked older than the mountains that surrounded it.  A blue neon sign topped with two inches of snow advertised it as the Travelers’ Rest Motel.

“Why are we stopping here?”  Kate said.

“Because this is as far as you go,”  Logan replied.

“You’re kidding.”

“No, Kate.  I’m not prepared to have you in the line of fire if Horton decides to be stupid.  Nobody knows where we are, so you’ll be safe here till I get back.”

“I’d feel safer with you, Logan.”

“But you wouldn’t be.  I need to deal with this without worrying about you.  I wouldn’t be fully focused if you were there.”

“I don’t like this.”

Logan leaned over and kissed her, then got out of the pickup and went over to the office.  The bald guy behind the counter was chewing gum and listening to some country music station on the radio.  Only his head was visible.  He stood up and placed the magazine he’d been reading down on the worn wood surface and smiled at Logan.

“Hi there,”  Tom Duggan said.  “I’m Tom.  You wanna room?”

Logan had the fleeting urge to say, ‘no I’m here to buy a motor yacht’, but returned the guy’s smile and said, “Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“You alone?”  Tom said.

“No, I’m with a lady,”  Logan said with a knowing wink.  “I just need a room for one night.  And you look the kind of guy that can be discreet, Tom.”

Tom added ten bucks to the rate, but didn’t ask for a name or car registration.  He didn’t see the law up here more than a half dozen times a year, so only put a percentage of his business through the books.  The IRS could go shit in their hands and clap them together.  Tom had paid taxes all his life, to see them squandered on things that made the country a much worse place to live in; where the rich got richer and the poor paid for it.

“Thanks,”  Logan said, taking the key to room eight from Tom and going back out to where he’d left Kate in the pickup.

The door opened straight into the room.  There were two queen-size beds that looked antique with their dull brass rails at head and foot, but Kate assumed that although obviously old, they would be inexpensive lacquered reproductions.  There was a table with a coffeemaker on it and some sachets of all that was needed to make a hot drink.  The small TV was bolted to the wall, and the carpet beneath their feet was slightly tacky.

“What a dump,”  Kate said as she tossed her purse on the nearest bed and went through the door at the back of the room to check out the bathroom.

“How is it?”  Logan said as he got the coffee going.

“Not fit for human use,”  Kate said, returning to stand in front of Logan with a cheerless expression on her face.

He held her.  “Won’t be for long,”  he said.  “I should be back in a couple of hours.”

After making the coffee, Logan checked the door and window locks, and then went into the bathroom.  There was no window in the rear wall, just a small extractor fan in the ceiling to remove steam and unpleasant odors.

He went out to the pickup and came back in with the shotgun and box of cartridges.  “You know how to use one of these?”  he said.

“No,”  Kate said.  “And if you’re so sure that I’ll be safe here, why would I need to?”

“We’re in high country.  A bear or a mountain lion might try to break in.”

“If that was meant to be funny, then you failed miserably, Logan.  Do you really think that I’m in any danger?”

“No, but I aim to cover all possibilities.  I’ll show you how to use this, just as an extra precaution.  When I leave you can wedge the door with a chair, and if anyone knocks, ignore them.  If they break it down, you point this at their torso and pull the trigger, then jack another shell into the chamber and shoot them again.”

Fifteen minutes later Logan was on the move.  He was sure that the fear of violence that she had suffered in the past would ensure that Kate could use the shotgun on any intruder, although he was almost positive that no one had followed them.

As he drove, he wished that he had kept the pistol he’d taken from Wade McCall and dumped in a Denver mailbox. Going up against an armed cop and the massive dog, that was his close companion, would not have been easy even with a weapon, without one just made the job at hand even harder.

The wind speed was increasing, to whip a multitude of small particles of freezing snow almost horizontally into the bodywork on the passenger side of the pickup as he followed the mountain road ever higher,.  Driving at no more than ten miles per hour, Logan glimpsed the metal sign bolted to a slab of rock at one side of a driveway. The raised letters spelled The Lodge, edged in a filigree of snow.

He drove on, looking for somewhere to park, and came to another driveway, so pulled in and stopped.  There was a late model Subaru parked outside the front door.

The house was in darkness.  Logan rang the bell that hung outside the front door, but there was no answer.  Making his way around the side of the property he rapped loudly on the kitchen door, but no one appeared.

Using his elbow, Logan broke one of the nine small windows in the upper half of the door, reached in and turned the key.

The distinctive smell of blood assailed Logan’s nostrils as he entered the kitchen.  He looked around in the gloom and saw a figure slumped on a bench seat, its head down on the tabletop, resting in a pool of blood.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Lyle
got a call from Lieutenant Eddie Bryson of the Denver Police Department.

“Hi, Lyle.  Looks like you’re getting a taste in Sleepy Hollow of what we have to chew on every day up here in the city.”

“Yeah, and I could live without it,”  Lyle said.  “How are you and the family doing, Eddie?”

“Fine.  Marsha has opened a pet store to keep herself gainfully occupied, now that the kids are both in college.  How about you, pal?”

“We enjoy the outdoor life. Barbara and the girls do a lot of horse riding.  They plan on starting up a riding school.”

“Sounds good,”  Eddie said, ending the small talk.  “You gave me the name of one of your deputies to look at.  One of the whiz kids ran him through the computer every which way but loose and came up with something you won’t like.”

“Enough suspense, Eddie, what’ve you got?”

“Larry Horton was born and bred up here.  Turns out that Wade McCall attended the same school.”

“Shit!”

“That just about covers McCall, Lyle.  But that’s all I have.  No other link between them that we can find.   What should I know?”

“That I believe McCall sent a hitman to whack a guy in town that was digging into a murder.  The hitter ended up dead, and McCall subsequently sent another two to get the job done.  You know them; Henry Shaw, now deceased, and Benjamin Dawson, who is in custody.”

“Why do you think that your deputy is involved?”

“I found out that he was in the area at the time that the murder of a teenage girl took place.  I’ve got no proof, yet, but need to talk to him, and he’s in the wind.”

“Have you spoken with the guy that he allegedly arranged the hit on?”

“No, Eddie, he’s missing, too.”

“And what do you gather from that?”

“I think that Logan – that’s the guy’s name – is on to Larry, but has no way to substantiate it so is going it alone.”

“Who is he?”

“An ex-NYPD Homicide cop.  And he’s capable.  Took down three guys that attacked him with baseball bats.”

“Give me his details, Lyle, and I’ll see if we can trace him.”

Lyle gave Eddie all he had on Logan, and after the promise to get together for a beer they ended the call.

Lyle didn’t have a clue as to where Larry or Logan where.  But he surmised that Logan would be in pursuit of the man he believed to be responsible for Tanya Foster’s murder.  All he could do was hope that Logan, Larry, or both men were located before they met up.

* * *

Kate was just waiting, watching the minutes crawl by on the bedside clock.  She had put a chair in front of the door with its back wedged under the handle, and was sitting on the bed furthest from it with pillows plumped up behind her.  She held the shotgun across her lap and even practiced raising it several times and pointing it at the door, imagining it bursting open to reveal an armed stranger.

An hour passed before she heard engine noise outside in the lot.  She hoped that it was Logan, but had no intention of opening the door until she heard his voice.

Forcing herself to take shallow breaths, Kate listened; heard the vehicle’s engine die, and then a door close, followed by the sound of footsteps on the boarded walkway that ran the length of the motel’s frontage.

The heavy steps came to a stop outside the room.  There was absolute silence for a few seconds, and then someone attempted to push a key into the lock, then withdrew it and tried again.  Kate raised the shotgun and took aim.  The weapon was heavy, her arms and hands were trembling, and the barrel of the pump-action was wavering all over the place.

Howard Yardley dropped the key and belched loudly as he bent down to retrieve it.  He had spent a couple of hours at a bar in town called the Saddle Tramp, and had almost driven off the snow-covered road several times as he made his way back to the motel.

Howard was fifty-six years old, felt seventy, and knew that his best days were behind him. He had been married and divorced four times, and was now a lonely drunk; a traveling salesman for a small, quality knitwear company, hoping to sell a lot of stock to the boutiques in Aspen, where tourists with a lot of money congregated for the skiing and other snow sports.

Howard lived in a small apartment on the outskirts of Glenwood Springs, had a heart condition, smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, was a borderline alcoholic, and was a hundred pounds overweight.  He was a coronary waiting to happen, and didn’t particularly care.  His only issue from his marriages was a now thirty-year-old son who had moved east to Boston a decade previously and not kept in touch.

Looking at the key in his hand, and then the door, Howard said, “Shit, wrong room,”  and went next door to number nine, to gain entry at his first attempt.  He put the TV on, retrieved a half bottle of cheap scotch from a bedside cabinet drawer, took a deep swallow from it, and then fell asleep fully clothed on top of the bed within five minutes.

Kate’s heartbeat was pounding in her ears.  She listened as the footsteps receded and the door to the next room was opened and closed.  She heard the TV, and a few other noises, and realized that whoever was next door was not a threat.  It horrified her to think that if the door to her room
had
opened, then she would have most likely pulled the trigger and blown an innocent man to kingdom come.

Two hours of what seemed extremely slow time came and went, and Kate started to conjure up scenarios of what could have happened to Logan.  She decided that she would wait a half hour longer, then replace the battery in her cell phone, switch it on and call Lyle Bumgarner back in the Creek.

Logan confirmed that the old man at the table was dead, and then checked the bungalow and found a woman’s corpse in one of the bedrooms.  The chance of an unrelated double homicide being committed so close to Miriam Carmody’s house was not a consideration.  Someone else knew where Horton was hiding out.  How they could have known did not matter.  The only viable explanation was that Horton had been followed by someone from the Creek.  But who?  Was this backup for the deputy; another hitman sent by Wade McCall?  That would mean that they expected him to have trailed Horton up here.  Instead of feeling safe and a little complacent, Larry Horton would be on guard, and presumably have professional support to deal with an outsider.  That did not explain why this old couple had been murdered, though.  The only other alternative was that Horton did not know that McCall had had him followed, and the killer had not known where he was headed until he arrived.  Calling in at the couple’s house could have just been to garner information, but the purpose was a mystery.

Logan searched the house, wearing gloves that were thick and more suitable for the cold weather, but were necessary if he was to leave no clue to having been there.  It was in a closet on a top shelf that he found a Glock pistol and ammunition.  The now dead house owner had been security conscious, but had not expected to answer his door in a snowstorm to a professional killer.

After checking that the weapon was loaded, Logan left the rear of the house on foot and made his way back towards Miriam Carmody’s place.  From a tree line that was backed by steep, rugged ground, he saw lights on in The Lodge.  The drapes were closed.  It was decision time.  Horton’s Silverado was visible at the side of the property.  He either dealt with it alone, or went back to the other house and made a phone call.

Vicente decided to go in.  He was feeling chilled to the bone.  He broke cover and walked up to the front door and knocked on it three times.

Miriam and Larry just stared at each other for a couple of seconds.

“You expectin’ anyone?”  Larry said.

Miriam shook her head.

“Go and answer it,”  Larry said as he drew his gun.  “I’ll be right behind you.  Stay to the side of the door when you open it, so I can see who it is.”

Miriam did as she was bid.  Opened the door and was faced by a total stranger; a sallow-faced man that bore a strong resemblance to the actor Andy Garcia.

“My name is Vicente.  Wade McCall sent me,”  Vicente said in a loud enough voice to be heard by Horton, who he could see standing at the side of an internal door, holding a pistol in a two-handed grip, and pointing it at his chest.

“Come inside, with your hands linked behind your neck,”  Larry said.  “Any sudden moves and I’ll take you down.”

Vicente did as he was told.  The woman closed the door behind him and locked it.

“How’d you find me?”  Larry said.

“Same way as Logan will know exactly where you are, I followed you.”

“I made sure that I wasn’t being tailed.”

“No, Larry, you didn’t,”  Vicente said, lowering his hands.  “Or I wouldn’t be standin’ here now, would I?”

“Why
are
you here?”

“Because Wade wants Logan dead,”  Vicente said.  “And Logan wants you, so it figures that he’ll turn up here.  When he does I’ll kill him, which will solve your problem, make Wade happy, and be a good payday for me.”

“Take your cell phone out and give it to Miriam,”  Larry said.  “Do it slowly.”

Vicente smiled and complied.  Miriam handed Larry the phone and he called Wade.

“Yeah,”  Wade said.

“It’s Larry.  Who the fuck is Vicente?”

“Your guardian angel, Larry.  He’s the best.  I got to thinkin’ that Logan is a problem we could both do without, permanently.  Trust the guy; he’ll get the job done.”

Larry began to relax. It didn’t harm to have a pro hitman on your team against someone like Logan.  “Thanks Wade.  I appreciate this.”

“No problem, Larry.  Before you know it you’ll be back to life as you knew it, before you croaked the girl.”

Wade disconnected and smiled.  It was nice to know that Vicente was in place and would soon carry out his instructions.

Larry tossed the phone back to Vicente and lowered his gun.  “So exactly how
did
you find me?”  he said.

“There’s a bug under your front fender,”  Vicente said.  “You were a little remiss not checkin’ the vehicle before headin’ for the hills.”

“Okay, but how could Logan trace me?”

“He’s left Carson Creek, so what does that tell you?  The guy is ex-Marine and ex-cop, so you need to believe he can find you, and that he will shoot first and ask questions later.”

“What do you think he’ll do?”

“Hope that you come outside.  If you don’t, he’ll come in.  He’s probably out there now, watchin’ and waitin’.”

“He could have just carried on driftin’.  Could be a couple hundred miles from here.”

“I got a strange phone call just before you arrived,”  Miriam said to Larry.

“Strange in what way?”

“Abigail Clinton, the pharmacist in Leadville, phoned and told me that a guy by the name of Webster had an old photo of me, and that he was looking for an ex-army buddy by the name of Hayes, Brandon Hayes. I told her that I’d never heard of either name.”

“So he is here,”  Larry said.  “Maybe I should let Bama out to scare him into the open.”

“Is Bama the dog I saw you drive off with?”  Vicente said.

“Yeah.  He’s in the kitchen.  He could sniff Logan out and save us a job.”

Vicente thought it over.  Nothing was certain in life.  The art of staying alive in his business was to never underestimate the opposition.  Logan would be armed, and wasn’t some ordinary guy that didn’t have the experience or ability to protect himself and use violence when and if necessary.

“Might be a good move,”  Vicente said.  “You cover the back, I’ll watch the front, and if your mutt flushes him out we’ll be able to take him down.”

Logan watched as one by one the house lights were switched off.  The sky had cleared and the snow reflected by moonlight lent a certain level of luminosity to what would otherwise have been a darker night.

“Go find, Bama.  Kill, boy,”  Larry said as he opened the kitchen door just wide enough for Bama to squeeze through and bound off, zigzagging, trying to pick up a scent.

“You had no right bringing trouble to my door, Larry,”  Miriam said from where she was sitting on a high back wooden chair in the kitchen.  “What have you done?”

“Nothin’ good,”  Larry said.  “Now just shut the fuck up, Miriam, because if the guy that’s after me is out there, then you’re in danger as well.”

“What have you done, Larry?  Tell me.”

“I’ll tell you what he did,”  Vicente said.  “He strangled a girl to death and tried to frame her boyfriend for it.”

“Is that true?”  Miriam said to Larry.

“It was an accident,”  Larry said.  “She started screamin’.  I was just tryin’ to stop her.”

Miriam got up and walked through to the spare bedroom on the first floor and took a small, nickel-plated .32 gun from a dresser drawer, and then locked the door, sat down on the bed and waited.  She decided to stay where she was until whatever was about to happen was over with.

Logan saw the silhouette of the massive dog cross the backyard and vanish into trees just twenty yards from where he was kneeling next to the trunk of a large pine.  He had no doubt whatsoever that the dog would find him.  But he did not want to fire the gun and give away his position.  They did not know that he was here and were just being ultra cautious.

The sound of splintering wood brought Bama in on a dead run, eager to attack whatever he came across.  Ten seconds later the muscular hound was face to face with Logan, intent on ripping him to bits.