Dead Simple (14 page)

Authors: Jon Land

BOOK: Dead Simple

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“
I
don’t know exactly what I can tell you that I didn’t tell the other fellas who were here,” the head groundskeeper at Crest Haven Memorial Park told Will Thatch.

“You were the only one who got a look at the killer,” Will said. “Am I right?”

“Apparently. But that was over a month ago now. I don’t see why I got to go through it again,” the man said impatiently. His name was Sunderwick, and his gaze kept drifting over the grave sites, eager to get to the day’s work. Will wondered if funerals were being held up on his account.

“Just routine.”

“I see your ID again?”

Will produced it from his pocket and forced himself not to look away, not to do anything that might betray the sham that had started when he retrieved his old FBI identification and badge from a dresser drawer in his hotel room.

The picture inside had made him gasp. He’d forgotten what he looked like all those years before when he still believed in hope and justice. Losing that belief was what had torn him away from his career and deposited him in a bottle. And the bottle had conspired with the years to turn his face into a patchwork quilt, slabs of flesh separated from each other by valleys deep enough for birds to roost in. His face had the lived-in look of a man about to move.

He’d had a passport-size picture of that face taken at the Kinko’s around the corner from his hotel. Then he trimmed it to the proper specifications and glued it over the face of the man he’d forgotten a long time ago. He worked on the ID’s issue date next with a Bic fine-line marker, trembling hands preventing him from getting the job done as fast as he would have liked, but it looked decent when he was finished. Good enough to fool anyone who didn’t take a second look, like Sunderwick. The only thing the disguise lacked was a gun; Will thought it a good idea to leave his old .38 under the mattress, where it wouldn’t do anyone any harm.

The groundskeeper handed the ID back to him. “Not the same as the other guys who were here.”

“Well, the FBI’s got lots of departments.”

“I say they were from the FBI?”

“No. I just assumed … Who were they from?”

“Somewhere I never heard of. Don’t remember the initials. They were official enough, though.”

“Sure,” Will said, his curiosity piqued. “And they wanted to know about the killings?”

“They came for the bodies. I practically had to force them to listen to what I knew.”

Will pulled a copy of the composite sketch from the newspaper out of his jacket. “You told them this was the man you saw do the killing.”

“No. I saw the man. Saw the bodies. I made the connection for myself later on.”

“Get a good look at the bodies?”

Sunderwick almost laughed. “You kidding?”

“How’d you know they were dead?”

Sunderwick looked at Will as if he had missed the punch line of a joke. “They were dead, all right.”

“And the killer …”

“I wouldn’t have given him a second look if he wasn’t holding one of my shovels. Since he doesn’t work here, that’s a problem. I’m about to head over and make my point, when I get called away. I check to see if he’s still hanging around later, I find the bodies.”

“And these men who came to pick the bodies up, they didn’t ask you anything?”

“Didn’t care what I had to say, either. Just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“The man you saw,” Will started. “What do you think he was doing?”

“Doing?”

“With the shovel.”

“Leaning on it.”

“Besides that.”

“You mean, in the cemetery?”

“Yes.”

Sunderwick frowned. “What do people come to cemeteries for?”

Will nodded, the man’s point taken. “How many funerals were there that morning?”

“Seven or eight, I think. We were busy. The murders really messed up the afternoon schedule. We had to hold the Masterson funeral at a temporary site.”

“Why?”

Sunderwick leaned in closer to Will. “Because that man with the shovel, he buried the four men he killed in their plot.”

TWENTY-TWO

“
Y
ou come very well recommended, Mr. Dobbler,” Rentz greeted.

The man whom Donovan had escorted into his office first thing that morning was built like a fireplug and looked extremely uncomfortable in a suit. He was sweating heavily, and Rentz could see the material straining as he shifted his shoulders.

“Thank you, sir,” Dobbler responded.

“I have a problem.”

“You wouldn’t have called me if you didn’t, sir.”

“A
different
one than that which led me to seek out your services initially.”

Dobbler cocked his square head to the side like a confused dog.

Rentz cleared his throat. “This is a very delicate matter. Last night some men I retained failed completely to perform what should have been a simple task—”

“I understand.”

“I haven’t finished explaining.”

“It’s not necessary, sir. There’s usually only one thing I’m called on to do. Normally I don’t work for strangers and almost never involve myself in personal squabbles.” Dobbler leaned forward. “But, sir, you come very well recommended too.”

Rentz nodded. “Someone else showed up on the farm yesterday, someone my information leads me to believe will require someone of your …
expertise to deal with,” he explained, thinking of the man Chief Lanning had run into twice the day before, who on both occasions thwarted Rentz’s plans for Liz Halprin.

Dobbler removed a thick, folded wad of papers from his inside suit pocket and rose stiffly to hand it across the desk. “My complete file, sir.”

Rentz started reading. “You were dishonorably discharged from the army?”

“Yes, sir, I was. The only officer to be so disciplined after the Gulf War. I served eighteen months in the stockade.”

Rentz flipped one page, then another, looking up as he read. “You turned a flamethrower on the inhabitants of an Iraqi village?”

“Yes, sir.”

Rentz just skimmed the rest. “Why do you want me to know all this?”

“I like my potential employers to be aware of exactly what they’re getting.”

Rentz considered the prospects. “I’ll need a few bodyguards as well; say, three. The best men you can get on short notice. Price is not an object.”

“Not a problem, sir.”

“And you can start right away?”

“I always carry everything I need with me.”

Rentz stood up. “Then I’ll let Mr. Donovan fill you in on the specifics of the assignment.”

Dobbler stood up, almost to attention.

“One more thing,” Rentz said, as Dobbler started to turn around.

“Sir?”

“These Iraqi civilians you burned …”

“Their village was hiding Scud missile launchers. I wasn’t leaving until I found them.”

“And?”

Dobbler’s expression was utterly flat. “I left, didn’t I?”

TWENTY-THREE

B
laine was waiting outside when Sal Belamo pulled his cranky old sedan to a halt in front of Liz’s house just before eight A.M.

“Welcome back, boss.” Sal greeted him matter-of-factly, moving around to the trunk.

“What have you got for me, Sal?”

“Some new toys to play with. Christmas came early this year.” He reached for the trunk but looked over at Blaine again before opening it. “Best present may be the dope I dug up on this Maxwell Rentz.” Sal frowned. “I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“He the one behind Buck Torrey’s disappearance?”

“There’s a good chance of that, yeah.”

Sal’s eyes narrowed. “Glad you called.”

In many ways Sal Belamo was a twin of his car: scuffed and scarred on the surface, but sharp and tight as ever underneath. As a boxer, he’d fought Carlos Monzon twice for the middleweight championship of the world and had his nose busted each time for the effort. That nose still dominated an angular face that looked like a neat wedge carved out of weathered granite. His hair had begun to gray, but beyond that Sal Belamo seemed ageless.

Sal had saved Blaine’s life the first time they met, over a decade before, something of a change for a man who had served the government as a contract assassin following two tours in Korea. He had more sources and
contacts than any man Blaine had ever known and, just as important, a deep reserve of favors to call in when needed. Pushing sixty now, Sal had become as adept with a keyboard as he was with a gun, and Blaine made sure he got plenty of opportunity to use both.

He started to rummage around the trunk, shifting equipment about. “I picked this stuff up at the SEAL training facility outside Washington. Guy in ordnance is ex-intel. I told him who it was for, and he laughed. Said he heard you were dead.”

“I was.”

“This is a funny world, boss. People judge you on how good you were yesterday, and yesterday was a long time ago for you.” Sal stood up again. “It’s like this. You got lots of enemies always wanted to take that shot at you who were scared off by what they knew and heard. Now they’re hearing different shit. You ask me, there’s plenty of young bucks out there like nothing better than to make their bones by taking you out. And plenty of important types you pissed off over the years like nothing better than to give them the okay.”

“You worried they’ll be coming?”

“Fuck, I know they’ll be coming. I’m worried about what you’ll do when they show up.”

Blaine saw something unfamiliar flicker in Sal’s eyes before he looked down into the trunk again. Doubt, maybe; hesitation. Belamo’s surly cockiness was gone; he, too, didn’t see Blaine the same way anymore. Blaine wanted to tell him not to worry, that all one hundred percent of him was standing here right now thanks to the magic Buck Torrey had worked in Condor Key.

As Sal carefully removed the first of the SEAL ordnance from the trunk, Blaine thought back to Liz’s insistence that ghosts, or monsters, or
something
, lurked beneath the lake. He hoped she was right, couldn’t wait to dive. Face the monster and kill it.

Make Sal Belamo look at him the old way.

“
I
t’s like this,” Sal said to Blaine and Liz at the kitchen table over coffee. “Maxwell Rentz ain’t everything he’s cracked up to be. He’s lost his shirt on a bunch of bad investments and he’s facing more foreclosures than Reese’s got pieces. He’s in debt up to his eyebrows, leveraged to the absolute max. Everything he owns is mortgaged out, and from what I hear, he’s got maybe a couple months to make good on some short-term notes or he’s a memory.”

“What about the financing to cover the resort he’s planning to build up here?” Liz wondered.

“That’s the kicker, ’cause I couldn’t track any down. Just a paper trail leading to the farms that used to belong to your neighbors. Rentz squeezed them all into his portfolio with low-interest six-month balloon notes. Means
he doesn’t plan on holding on to them long, or he’s expecting some sort of windfall. Don’t ask me from where, though.”

“But I’ve seen the plans!” Liz insisted, befuddled. “There’s a scale model of the resort on display in the town hall.”

“About as much of it as Rentz can afford to build, probably. This guy’s got himself so overextended you could knock him down with a sneeze.”

“Then what’s he doing here? What’s he want my land for?”

Blaine stood up. “I think it’s time we had a look at that lake.”

“
W
ireless underwater communicators?” Liz asked incredulously, after Sal Belamo had handed her a headset forty minutes later.

“Only the best,” McCracken told her, fitting his into place.

“Forgetting something, though, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

“I don’t see any of those high-tech halogens around, like Rentz’s divers used.”

“Didn’t help them much, now did it? I don’t want to be lugging anything bulky around once I’m under. Besides, artificial light only works until something gets in its way. Much better to make use of whatever light is already down there.”

“You’re talking night vision.”

“Exactly,” Blaine said, and lifted an oversize diving mask from the supply bag, complete with shaded recessed lenses at eye level in the opaque plastic. “Won’t even need a flashlight with this baby on.”

Blaine rose and accepted a portable air bazooka from Sal Belamo; no compressor hose to worry about dragging. His diving belt had a huge knife cloaked in a sheath that extended well below his hip. He wore a second knife strapped to an ankle.

“What about that metal detector Rentz’s divers brought down with them?”

“Based on your description, I’d say it was a state-of-the-art spectron magnometer,” Blaine told her, “used by salvage teams and treasure hunters to find precious metals; not by underwater surveyors.”

Liz gazed out over the water. “The legend says the soldiers down there died protecting something.”

“Now let’s find out what.”

D
obbler lowered the binoculars to the ground beside him and lifted a camera to his eye in their place. It didn’t look like a camera really, more like a flat four-inch-square slab with the controls painted on. The lens was recessed until Dobbler focused on the big, bearded man strapping on his flippers. He heard a mechanical whine and felt the thing extend outward, making Dobbler think of a dick going hard.

The camera took a digital impression, not a picture, which would be
decoded by a special machine made by the same manufacturer. All Dobbler had to do was slip back to his nearby car, slide the thin plate out, and send it via the fax machine the car came equipped with.

“
T
est one, two. Test one, two,” Blaine said into his headset, after wading out past his waist.

“Got ya, boss,” Sal Belamo said, from Liz’s small outboard floating in the middle of the lake.

“Loud and clear,” Liz followed, loud enough to make Blaine flinch.

“My ears weren’t one of the things that got wounded,” he reminded.

“My father would have fixed them, too, if they had been, soldier.”

Blaine gazed toward the outboard and flashed Sal a thumbs-up sign. Belamo had also obtained from the SEALs a sophisticated range finder based on passive sonar. He had rigged the sensors to the bottom of the outboard and was monitoring the grid that encompassed the better part of the lake’s center, where the disappearances had all taken place. If anything bigger than a trout so much as breathed, Sal would know it.

Blaine took one final deep breath, secured his mask over his face, and dropped into the water.

M
axwell Rentz held the digitized picture at arm’s length before him, cellular phone in his other hand.

“It’s definitely the man described to me yesterday, Mr. Dobbler. Now I’ll see if we can get him identified … .”

“Don’t bother, sir,” Dobbler said, the words emerging through clenched teeth. “I know who he is.”

T
he waters darkened almost instantly, the lake’s black bottom discouraging most light from coming down. Blaine swam slowly, falling into an easy rhythm as he kicked with his flippers, angling himself for the bottom. His high-tech mask gave the black waters an almost translucent greenish glow. The lake was known to be forty feet at its deepest point, and Blaine had covered about half that before he spoke into the microphone squeezed inside his mask.

“I’m down twenty-five feet. Nothing so far.”

“How’s the view, boss?” Sal asked, voice marred a little by static.

“Crystal clear. How’s yours?”

“Zero. Zip. Nada. Only thing moving down there on my scope is you.”

“You should see something now,” Liz said nervously. “There should be something in view.”

“Not—Wait a minute … !”

“What? What is it?”

Silence.

“Blaine, can you hear me?”

It seemed for an instant that Blaine wasn’t there anymore. Then his voice returned, a bit shaky.

“You’re not going to believe this … .”