You Can’t Stop Me (23 page)

“She’d hate it,” Harrow said.

“Like mine would what I’ve done.”

“And yet you kept on.”

“I did. And you’re here, aren’t you? What our gentle wives would have done is beside the point. You and me, Mr. Harrow, we’re men. Screwed-up men. We do what we can. We do what we have to do. Anyway, the dead don’t get to have opinions. And your opinion is, you’d like to kill me.”

Carmen’s eyes pleaded with Harrow. He wasn’t sure what she was begging him to do. He wasn’t sure she even knew.

“Maybe,” Harrow said. “Maybe not. We both know this much—nothing brings them back. Not revenge, not justice, nothing. I’d guess you know that better than anybody, Mr. Shelton.”

“Sheriff Gibbons was lead investigator,” Jenny whispered in his ear. “Shelton was his only suspect.”

Wondering why the sheriff had omitted being the lead investigator, Harrow said, “Why does Gibbons think you killed Cathy and Mark?”

“He doesn’t—he was in on it.
He’s
part of the conspiracy.”

“I need to hear about this conspiracy. America needs to hear. It’s time to let Carmen go, Mr. Shelton, and get those cameras up here and—”

But Shelton was somewhere else: “They wanted the land, all the land,” he was saying. “The ones that wouldn’t sell, they drove out.”

“But you
did
sell,” Harrow said.

His face flashed from behind Carmen’s and his brow was clenched and his mouth twisted. “Only after they killed my family! That money they gave me, their
blood
money,
that’s
what’s financed my deliveries. Oh, I bought that little crummy shack on the other side of town, but the rest, the insurance money for Cathy and Mark, every dollar and cent’s been used to deliver my message to the world. To let everyone know the kind of greedy goddamn grubbing that’s been going on in the center of America.”

“And what
is
going on, Mr. Shelton?”

“I told you! They want all the land.”

Jenny whispered, “Shelton sold out to Castano Developments.”

“So Castano Developments wants all the land in this neighborhood?”

“Not just here! Everywhere.”

“The whole town?”

“Everywhere, all of it!”

“They want
all
the land.”

“
Now
you’re getting it.”

“And they kill people to get it.”

“Yes, yes, yes—and they’re using the deputies and cops, and maybe even the state police as their hatchet men.”

“The state police?”

“Yes, them too. I went to them after Cathy and Mark were killed. They came back and said they couldn’t find anything either. That meant
they
had to be in on it too. Maybe even the FBI—they listened nice and polite when I drove up to Kansas City, to tell them all about it. But they didn’t do a goddamn thing. Didn’t even pretend to do something, like the state police did.
No one
has…not till you, Mr. Harrow. Not till you.”

Carmen’s eyes begged him:
Stop him…end this….

“When did you talk to all these people?”

“In the weeks and months after the murders, but they didn’t do a damn thing.
That’s
why I started delivering the messages myself. I knew sooner or later
someone
would come to my rescue.”

Harrow knew these were the ramblings of a lunatic mind. Shelton thought the evil developers were after his land, and everyone’s land everywhere, and that all of law enforcement had conspired to kill his family.

At this point, the only remaining question was how to get Carmen away from this crazy, before the man decided to deliver one last message….

“Mr. Shelton, how long have you been after these people? Ten years?”

“Ten years.”

“Well, I’ve been investigating this for only a few months. I did look into my family’s deaths, but it took me all these years, and some corn from this county, to bring me to this porch. So if you want us to stop them, you’ve got to share the information you’ve found. That’s going to take time, and we can’t do it here, not like this. We’ll get you in front of a camera, and you will tell your story, and you will tell it in detail.”

Shelton said nothing. The hand with the gun seemed to be shaking, just a little. Was that good, or bad?

“You can’t stay on this porch with a gun to my friend’s head forever,” Harrow said. “Let her go. I’ll stay with you as your hostage, until the cameras can come in.”

Shelton swallowed. “We could go inside and talk. Where this started. Where they killed them. That would be…dramatic, right? Good for TV?”

The gun dropped from Carmen’s temple, but Shelton’s arm was still looped around her waist as the man shifted, about to ease out from behind the woman, if Harrow was any judge.

And in his right ear Harrow heard: “I’ve got a shot, do I have a go order?”

From the darkness, where he was shouting into his radio, Gibbons’s voice registered for all to hear: “
Go!
”

“Bastards!” Shelton said, and ducked behind Carmen again as the sound split the night and the shot thunked splinteringly into the front door between Harrow and the captor with his hostage.

Shelton’s sudden movement caused Carmen to stumble and the two went down in a heap, Carmen screaming, Shelton making animal sounds as they hit the old wooden slats of the porch. Then Shelton was on his knees, pulling Carmen’s hair as he tried to bring her up as a shield again, his gun-in-hand rising to take its place at her temple.

Looking down at them, Harrow didn’t hesitate—his hand whipped around his back and came back with the nine millimeter, which he aimed and fired in one smooth motion, the bullet punching through Shelton’s forehead, the crack of his skull audible, the gunshot itself a thundercrack that seemed to shake the old house.

The gun clunked from the killer’s hand to the porch as limp fingers released Carmen’s hair, and the self-styled messenger slumped to weathered wooden slats, dead as his family, dead as Harrow’s family, oozing brains that had been damaged long prior to the bullet.

Then Carmen was in Harrow’s arms, sobbing, holding him tight, as they sat on the bottom porch step. For his part, he just stroked her hair and let her cry.

Hathaway and Arroyo were next to Harrow and Carmen, filming even before Gibbons and his men got there.

“Byrnes broke in on
America’s Wackiest Wedding Videos
,” Hathaway said, obviously stoked. “That’s the network’s second-biggest show, you know.”

Arroyo said, “Whole thing went out on the network live—seven-second delay, of course, in case somebody got shot.”

“That’s entertainment,” Harrow said, and Carmen interrupted her crying to snort a laugh, then returned to her tears.

Even as the cameramen spoke, they never stopped shooting. The audio personnel were moving in now, as well.

Laurene and Choi appeared, and managed to each get in the way of a camera as Harrow helped Carmen to her feet. With Laurene, getting in front of a camera was accidental; with Choi, Harrow wasn’t so sure.

Finally he asked Carmen, “How are you doing?”

Her tear-smeared face had a bitter cast. “You talked him down. They didn’t have to take that shot.”

“I know. Bastards risked both our lives.”

“You gonna do something about that, boss?”

“You bet your…paycheck.”

She managed a feeble smile. “You think I could go back to being a PA now? Stardom suddenly doesn’t look so good.”

“No going back, Carmen. We’re both stuck.”

“Are your ears ringing? Mine are.”

“You were close to that gunshot. It’ll ease up.”

That was when Carlos Moreno came up and cornered them, microphone in hand. Apparently Gibbons’s perimeter was as secure as a sand castle at high tide.

Moreno thrust the microphone at Carmen.

Harrow was about to slap the goddamn thing aside when she pulled away from him, stood upright.

Moreno said, “Carmen Garcia, we’re on live on UBC. How do you feel?”

And the former hostage was instantly “on.”

“Well, Carlos, I can tell you this—it’s good to be alive. I owe everything to J.C. Harrow, who has to be the bravest man on the planet.”

“What about the alleged killer who held you captive?”

“Carlos, I feel bad for Mr. Shelton. He was a very troubled soul. He lost his family, much as J.C. did….”

Harrow had heard enough. He moved toward the sidewalk, where various official vehicles were pulling in.

Sheriff Gibbons came up to him. “You did good, J.C.”

“You didn’t,” Harrow said.

The sheriff’s expression might have been the aftermath of a slap. “What the hell…”

“Your goddamned deputy tried to gun him down just when I’d talked him into coming in peacefully.”

Gibbons took a step back. “We didn’t know—we couldn’t hear….”

“Hell you couldn’t,” Harrow said. “You were right next door and heard everything. And the second your guy Wilson had a shot, you told him go for it—risking
my
life, and Carmen’s, needlessly…and robbing us of a suspect who might clear up countless murder cases.”

“Goddamnit, Harrow, he had a gun on the Garcia woman! You would have done the—”

“Same thing? Don’t think so. He was
surrendering
, you dick. Your man, and your
go
order, put the two of us in the line of fire. Then I had to do your dirty work for you.”

“Well, J.C., I’m sorry you feel that way, but I feel we did the right thing. You’ll cool off, and you’ll think about it, and—”

Harrow had heard enough of
that
bullshit, too. He walked away from the increasingly noisy scene, needing some silence. Heading toward the crime lab semi, he felt someone fall in next to him.

Laurene Chase.

She gave him a sunny smile. “Rough day at the office?”

He shrugged. “Same-o, same-o.”

“Carmen’s alive,” she said. “
That’s
a good day at the office, no matter what else went down.”

He nodded, not knowing if he really agreed. He was thrilled Carmen was alive, but he had been so close to bringing in the suspect the same way….

Up ahead, Pall and Anderson were pacing like expectant fathers. Jenny Blake stood off to herself a little, arms folded. They all fell in line behind their boss and his number two, following like puppies.

Harrow’s cell vibrated. Checking the caller ID, he saw:
DENNIS BYRNES
.

Holding out the phone to Laurene, he said, “
You
talk to him.”

She took the phone, and he went up the metal stairs and into the crime lab to be alone.

He closed the door and sat down in a chair. The man who had killed his family was dead, killed by Harrow himself. But Ellen and David were gone forever, and any sense of closure was not revealing itself.

Why did he feel so goddamn empty?

And why did this long journey still feel unresolved?

Once Harrow was tucked away in the semi, Laurene Chase and Billy Choi stationed themselves at the stairs, blocking the way, as the other three team members—Pall, Anderson, and Blake—went off to check on Carmen.

The cell Harrow had handed off was throbbing away in Laurene’s grasp. Finally she took the call.

Dennis Byrnes’s voice exploded in her ear: “Harrow, that was bloody
awesome
! You are the
man
!”

“Mr. Byrnes, this is Laurene Chase. J.C. isn’t taking any calls right now. He’s winding down. You’re obviously aware of what he’s been through.”

“I am, Ms. Chase, and let me share my enthusiasm and delight with you. You tell J.C. that the UBC switchboard is lit up like Christmas, and the website’s crashed, so many viewers trying to get through. This is the moon landing and the final episode of
M*A*S*H
and the Super Bowl with Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby tossed in for good measure.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“It’s a fantastic thing. This goes beyond our network—every other broadcast network and all the twenty-four-hour news channels are breaking into their regularly scheduled programming, and why? To advertise UBC and
Crime Seen!
You tell J.C. that I don’t know how he managed this, but—”

“He didn’t ‘manage’ anything, sir. He did what he promised you he would—he tracked down the murderer of his family and let you broadcast it.”

“Ms. Chase, you tell Harrow I want him back in LA tomorrow. We have to get to work and figure out what we’re going to do for November sweeps to take advantage of this wave of publicity.”

“You do realize, sir, a man is dead, and one of our reporters almost got killed.”

“But she
didn’t
get killed,” Byrnes said. “The star of my show saved her. Christ, Chase, don’t you know a happy ending when you see one?”

Laurene clicked off the call, and turned off the phone. Suddenly the lowlifes she’d dealt with back in Waco didn’t seem so bad.

Glancing in Choi’s direction, she said, “Seems the show’s a hit.”

The young man shrugged. “You know what they say—give the people what they want. All we need to do to stay popular? Shoot somebody every week. We could take turns.”

Laurene didn’t smile at that. “That’s a little dark, Billy.”

“You think? We did something good here, boss lady—we shut down one of the worst serial killers in history. Yet I still feel like I could use a shower.”

“I know,” she said, and shivered. “I know.”

Chris Anderson got to Carmen, with Michael Pall right behind and Jenny Blake trailing. But they all had to wait while Moreno finished his interview with the rescued star.

Hathaway and Arroyo were shooting from different angles, bright lights atop each camera catching their subject in a cross fire, both Hughes and Ingram grabbing sound, with Carmen’s teammates media savvy enough by now not to interrupt.

Distant sirens howled and grew closer, and the darkness was alive with headlights heading their way—and not just emergency vehicles, Pall knew. The media, no matter how far they’d have to travel, would get there so fast you’d think they beamed down from a starship. And there would be gawkers too, from hither and yon. The three hundred souls of Lebanon, Kansas, would be waking to find their hamlet grown by ten times or more, and they’d be in the geographical center of not just the United States, but an international media storm.

“Thank you for your time, Carmen,” Moreno was saying, giving his co-worker his most earnest look. “I know you must be as exhausted as you are relieved that this ordeal has ended.”

Carmen managed a wan smile for the reporter (and the camera), which didn’t fade till Hathaway said, “And…we’re clear.”

Moreno gave her a lopsided grin and shook her hand. “Great job, Carmen. Very brave to come straight out of that mess and be so professional.”

“Thank you, Carlos,” Carmen said, but Pall could tell the weight of it all was starting to settle on the woman. On camera, she’d seemed quietly strong, and her delivery had been halting only when it aided the story she was telling.

But with the camera off, Carmen—in the sweatshirt provided by her late captor—looked battered, as if her legs might give way under her at any second.

This was lost on Moreno, who soon was off in search of the sheriff or Harrow, or some other interview, with Hathaway, Arroyo, and the audio team in the star reporter’s wake. But Pall, Anderson, and Blake ringed their co-worker protectively.

“What do you need?” Pall asked her, touching her shoulder lightly, gently.

“I need,” Carmen said, trying to smile, but Pall could feel her trembling, “out of these awful clothes. Can I
please
get out of these awful clothes?”

“Let’s get you to the bus,” Pall said, and put a hand on her far shoulder and the other hand on her near elbow. To the others, he said: “I’ll take her—you two make sure no one bothers us.”

Uniformed officers seemed to be everywhere, directing traffic and trying to get an ambulance in for Shelton, even though everyone in the United States with a TV knew there was no real rush.

Pall and his charge reached the bus and got up inside, Jenny leading the way, and Anderson staying outside to guard the door.

Jenny had been prepared for this—which impressed Pall—and had a fresh change of clothes ready from Carmen’s own suitcase, underthings, jeans, a Juicy Couture shirt and sandals. Carmen went into the restroom, was in there a while, presumably washing up, and emerged, if not a new woman, a fresher-looking one.

Jenny led the former hostage to a chaise lounge and sat with her, while Pall brought Carmen a bottle of water, which she gulped greedily, twice, then just stopped and seemed to be letting her stomach settle. Pall sat down on the lounge opposite, sitting forward, watchfully.

The three sat in silence for several minutes, Carmen starting to sip the water again. Jenny was rubbing the woman’s arm lightly, as if letting Carmen know she was not alone. Again Pall was impressed with Jenny, whose quiet, loner demeanor seemed to be slipping away.

Finally, her eyes unblinking and almost dead-looking, Carmen said, “You know, he didn’t
have
to die.”

Pall blinked. “Of course he did. J.C. had no choice—the guy was about to shoot you. Harrow saved your life! We all saw what happened.”

“No, I know. J.C. saved me—I owe him my life, I really, really do. But before that? Just ten seconds before that, Shelton was going to give himself up. He’d already let loose of me. He was about to go with J.C. and be questioned. And then they took a shot at him, and everything changed.”

“In hostage situations,” Pall said, “cops make tough calls like that all the time.”

“It feels wrong,” Carmen insisted. “J.C. was talking to him. Settling him down. Bringing him over.”

“Carmen, the man was a—”

“They’d been talking about the company that was buying up the land.” Carmen’s eyes were bright now. “Harrow got him talking about the developer, the company—
what
was it?”

“Castano Developments,” Jenny said.

“That’s it,” Carmen said. “Shelton really wanted to talk about that company. He wanted to open up. All of the killings, they were messages. Shelton was—in his sick, sick way—trying to tell us something. Only, then somebody took that shot.”

“Sniper missed,” Pall said.

Carmen shook her head, firmly. “No reason for him to shoot. Shelton was surrendering.”

“The sniper couldn’t possibly have known that.”

“But the sheriff was nearby,” Carmen insisted, getting worked up. “
He
gave the order.”

Jenny slipped an arm around her and said, “Honey, you need to rest. You’ve been through so much.”

Carmen swallowed and sighed and, finally, nodded.

“Why don’t you stretch out right here?” Jenny suggested. “Just rest and maybe even sleep a little.”

“I’d rather sit,” Carmen said.

“Well, that’s fine, too….”

“I’ve been lying down a lot lately.” She gave them a weak smile and then began to cry. Jenny had tissues ready, and Pall sat on the other side of her and was there when Carmen folded herself to him, sobbing.

Pall told Jenny, “Go ahead and go. I’ll stay with her.”

Jenny nodded. “I have some stuff I need to do anyway.”

She squeezed Carmen’s shoulder and went forward to the little office area behind the front seating.

Really, Jenny had only scratched the surface of Castano Developments, getting Harrow some key facts to use in the showdown with Shelton. But she was not one to leave stones unturned, and was anxious to get back to it.

Castano Developments, it seemed, was really little more than a shell company owned by something called Braun Realty, in turn owned by something called Marron Holdings, itself a partnered company with a firm called Brun Limited, a subsidiary of Kahverengi International, whose CEO was listed as someone named Danyal Braz.

And that was when she figured it out.

Soon she was off the bus and running. On informal guard outside the semi, Choi and Laurene saw her coming, and both wisely cleared her a path.

Within the semi, she found Harrow, sitting at a work station, his head in his hands. He heard her rush in and glanced up.

“Not now, Jenny. I need time to—”

“No time for foolishness, boss.” She fired up the computer adjacent to him and sat.

He was frowning at her. “
What
did you say to me?”

She almost smiled, the implied “young lady” so strong.

“Boss—Shelton? He was right.”

“What Shelton was,” Harrow said, “was crazy.”

“No argument. But he was also right.”

Interested now, Harrow asked, “What was he right about?”

“He said the deputies were the muscle for the company that wanted to buy the land, didn’t he?”

“He did, but he also included the state police and the FBI in on the conspiracy.”

“Take a gander,” she said, pointing at the screen.

Harrow scooched his chair closer and peered at the monitor. “Danyal Braz?”

“Funny spelling, huh?” Jenny said.

She pulled up the list of the companies she’d traced to and from Castano Developments.

“Here they are,” she said, “the whole chain of shell companies, subsidiaries, and partnered companies…all run by the same man.”

She hit the print button and, when the list popped out, handed it to Harrow.

He read aloud: “Castano Developments, Braun Realty, Marron Holdings, Brun Limited, and Kahverengi International.”

“Notice anything?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Harrow said. “Tongue twisters.”

“That’s because,” Jenny said, “the names are all in different languages.”

Harrow’s eyes tightened. He glanced at the list, then back at her. “Go on.”

“Castano, Braun, Marron—pronounced Mar-ón—Brun, and Kahverengi,” she said. “Castano? Italian. Braun? German, Marrón? Spanish. Brun? Portuguese. Kahverengi? Turkish. And Braz? Polish…but they all translate into English as the same word….”

“Brown,” Harrow said.

She smiled like a slightly demented pixie and nodded the same way. “The CEO of Kahverengi International is Danyal Braz—translated from Arabic and Polish, you get Daniel Brown. As in former Lebanon
Sheriff
Daniel Brown.”

“And that’s probably not a coincidence,” Harrow said dryly.

“My guess is,” Jenny said, “when I track down the board of directors and stockholders of Kahverengi International? There’ll be
more
familiar names.”

“Get on it,” Harrow said, rising. “I’ve got someone to see.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Oh! One more thing—track down the ubiquitous Daniel Brown. If he
is
on his way back to town, as the current sheriff says, I want him met at the city limits.”

“By the police?” Jenny asked.

“No. Have Chris Anderson do it—tell him to lay on the Southern charm. Brown should be told we want to interview him for the show—as an outstanding citizen of Lebanon. Tell Chris to get him in front of a camera crew and just stall his ass with local color questions.”

“Cool,” she said.