The Pact: A Detective Locklear Mystery Page 26

  “Do you have the number of the hotel?”

  Mendoza dialled the number and handed the receiver to Locklear.

  “Ask for Jesús. He’s a friend of mine. We grew up together in Virginia. I didn’t know he worked there until I phoned looking for the photo.”

  Locklear spoke with Jesús who seemed to have a crush on Mendoza and told Locklear how fond he was of the trooper at least three times in the fifteen-minute conversation. Stoll had tried to check in with a man and, when her card was rejected, she paid cash for the room for two nights. She had not checked in and then absconded to provide herself with an alibi as Locklear had expected her to, but was sitting in full view in the foyer with the man, looking scared. After securing Jesús’s promise to ring Locklear if the woman as much as moved a muscle, Locklear placed the receiver down and began to pace the room.

  He lifted the phone and did something he wished he didn’t need to. He prided himself on sticking to the rules one hundred per cent of the time, but he had no choice. He was dealing with a ruthless person and he needed to stop her. He called Robbins who was luckily on duty and who reluctantly agreed to arrest her and put a tail on the man to see where he went. He ended the call by reminding Locklear that the hotel was out of his East Harlem jurisdiction and he would do it as a favour he expected to be remembered.

  “What’s happening?” Mendoza asked.

  “First off, Jesús wants to be your next husband.”

  Mendoza laughed. “He’s not my type.”

  “I hope your type, Mendoza, isn’t another cop. I’d have thought one cop husband would be enough for you.”

  “Your right, sarge. One cop husband was enough,” she replied.

  Locklear sat down and tapped his fingers off the table.

  “Why would a woman wanted for suspected murder and tax fraud sit in open view in the lobby of a popular hotel?”

  “She’s waiting for someone,” Mendoza offered.

  “Or she’s waiting for something to happen somewhere else while she can be seen on camera. A perfect alibi. Her second goon is missing but I’m not worried about him. These hired guns don’t do anything without the boss’s say-so. As long as Stoll is in custody, he’ll sit on his hands and wait it out.”

  Another half hour passed before Robbins phoned back.

  Locklear smiled as the call ended and snapped his cell shut.

  “OK, she’s in custody. Robbins has her in lock-up at the station. He said he got a lot of sour looks from cops for locking up an innocent, crying woman. And your friend Jesús might not be so fond of you now. When the goon saw the cops arrive, he took out his piece and tried to take them down. Shot a few holes into the marble pillars. They have him in custody now.”

  “All airports have been alerted. If Stoll or her goon gets out, they won’t be able to board a flight to Virginia or anywhere else. I told Robbins to make sure he drags out processing her for as long as he can.”

  Mendoza blew out and stretched her arms upwards. “What now?”

  “We’ll fly there tomorrow morning and bring Stoll back here for interview. We’ll have to get an order first though. From here on in I want this all done right. There’s no way I’m letting Stoll get off the hook on any minor legal loophole.”

  “Well, I’d suggest a beer but I think it’d be better if I got you to bed – your bed, that is!”

  Locklear laughed and radioed for everyone who wasn’t due to be on tonight to go home. When he got to the reception area, Jones was in place and Williams had gone home.

  “Jones – you and I need to talk,” he said as he opened the door to the station.

  “What about, sarge?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow!”

  The Hampton Inn on University Boulevard was almost as good a hotel as Locklear needed. The wood-panelled reception area was manned twenty-four hours a day and had three security cameras stationed around the large, open lobby. A heavy-set security man stood inside the door, successfully protecting the plush hotel from undesirable patrons, one of which had been Locklear until he flashed his badge.

  “You do need a shave!” Mendoza teased.

  Locklear slipped the man a note and asked him to call the room if anyone of Stoll’s description entered the hotel.

  “Aren’t you going overboard?” Mendoza asked. “She’s locked up in New York and she doesn’t have wings.”

  “Just taking out insurance. Always have plan A B, C – all the way to Z if you can.”

  “That’s pretty sad.”

  “No – it’s practical. Always be ready. Always expect the unexpected.”

  “Sounds exhausting, sarge,” she said as lifted the phone to order room service. “I’m starved. What do you say to getting up Irene’s nose by ordering steak?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Would you’d mind if I ordered a beer? I mean, if it’d be hard on you I won’t.”

  Locklear waved from his bed where he sat and rubbed his toe which was still smarting from kicking in Mendoza’s door earlier. Now he had two damaged feet.

  When their delicious steak dinner was finished and Mendoza had polished off not one, but four bottles of beer, she joined Locklear on the sofa facing the TV in the luxurious room.

  “You going to finally tell me what O stands for?”

  “What?”

  “Your first name. What is it?”

  “Mendoza, if I wanted you to know my first name, I’d have told it to you.”

  “Why the secrecy? It’s just a name!”

  Locklear ignored her.

  “What if I tell you something about myself and you then tell me your name?”

  Locklear laughed. “Mendoza, I’m trying to watch the news.”

  “OK, but you’re missing out.”

  Locklear continued to watch TV while the trooper stumbled into bed, anxious to give her privacy while she changed. He did not turn when she stumbled in the bathroom or when she stubbed her toe on the wardrobe door. He did not want to look at her in that white nightdress again. He did not want to arouse feelings that he could do nothing with. Feelings that would lead to nothing and to nowhere, except trouble.

  “Em ... I’m alright, by the way!”

  “You’re drunk, Mendoza. Go to bed.”

  Within minutes, he could hear his trooper snoring behind him. He turned off the TV and changed in the bathroom before climbing into the next bed.

  He lay back on the pillow and prayed for sleep to come to him but there were too many loose ends rolling around in his mind. He was fairly sure Luke had dug his last hole on the farm and that the treasure hunt that had spanned one hundred and fifty years was now over for the Fehr family. But the itch he felt every time he was missing something scratched at his consciousness and hindered his quest for sleep. The faces of all the people he had met in the course of the investigation raced across his field of vision, The Fehr siblings, Helena and Peter Wyss, the dysfunctional Shank family, Maria Whieler, Anabel Schumer, Letitia Grant, Jerome Stein – they had all played a part in a case that still had too many unanswered questions.

  More puzzling right now was the missing cop Maguire. Locklear was the last person to have seen him when he showed up at the hospital and Mendoza had said that the cop left the company they were in and headed home alone the night before. Maguire’s new partner, Jones, had been in that company but he had not shown any real concern that his buddy was missing. In fact, hardly any of the company seemed worried about Maguire’s sudden disappearance. He decided he needed an answer to that particular question now and went to the bathroom to phone someone who might be able to shed some light on the subject. He waited while the phone rang five times and was about to hang up when a sleepy voice answered.

  “Kowalski?”

  “Locklear? Are you OK? I heard ...”

  “No, I didn’t drink, Alex. I’m fine. Really.”

  “It’s 1am. When I saw your number, I was sure ...”

  “No. I won.”

  “I’m glad but you s
hould have called me. We had a deal, remember? You call me if you are in trouble and I call you.”

  Locklear remembered the deal but in the years since he’d quit Alex Kowalski had not phoned him even once. There was no need. He had not been tempted. Kowalski had a choice. Drink or family. He chose the latter.

  “What do you know about Maguire?”

  “Frank?”

  Locklear remained silent. He didn’t know Maguire’s first name. He rarely knew anyone’s first name unless he had a reason to.

  “He’s a good cop. Long service. I think his old man was a cop too.”

  “Is he clean?”

  “If you’re asking me if he’s corrupt, then no. Definitely not. But he has had some problems.”

  “Like?”

  “Maguire is a gambler. Got himself into a lot of trouble a few years back.”

  “Trouble how?”

  “He spent a lot of time in casinos. Lost everything, wife, kids, house, the lot. It still didn’t make him stop. She left town. Took the kids with her.”

  “Did his habit mean he ever went missing from duty?”

  “Too frequently, I’m afraid, but I thought he’d managed to turn things around. Last I heard he was still spending most of his off-duty time in casinos but his work was OK.”

  “Was it severe enough to warrant people not thinking too much of him disappearing?”

  “Guess so.”

  Locklear put the phone down and got back into bed. Maguire was an addict of a different sort but Locklear still understood its power, even if the object of their addiction was different. No doubt the man was sitting in some rundown poker house right at this moment spending his meagre cop salary on a bet he couldn’t win.

  Sleep still evaded him but he tried to will himself to relax and rest. The niggling feeling that he was missing something returned and tormented him as he twisted and turned in the bed. The concern he felt for Maguire would not leave his mind. Even if Maguire was a gambler, it did not explain him walking off his post in the middle of an investigation. Kowalski had said that his work was OK so the feeling that something was wrong continued to irritate his nerves. He rose again and brought his phone with him to the bathroom.

  He rang Lennox who he felt was an upright, honest type of cop.

  Lennox, however, was not too happy about the 1.30am call. Locklear could hear a baby crying in the background and the sound of a very irate wife, complaining.

  “Just tell me about the last time you saw Maguire. Was he his usual self or did you notice anything different?”

  Lennox yawned and blew out. “I was in the diner with him and a few other cops.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “Jones – by the way, that rookie is an ass, sarge. Don’t know how he graduated.”

  “I know, I’ll deal with him tomorrow.”

  “Em, Mendoza was there, Jenkins and Gonzalez.”

  “Did Maguire leave with you?”

  “No, he split earlier. He was his usual self. Nothing unusual.”

  “And he didn’t seem worried about anything?”

  “No – look, sarge, everyone likes Frank but he’s hooked on those casinos. No one likes to say anything bad about him, especially with his wife splitting with the kids. He’s a good guy so guess that’s why no one told you.”

  “What did you do after that?”

  “Em ... Mendoza and Gonzalez hooked up and left so I went for a beer with Jenkins.”

  “Did you say Mendoza and Gonzalez hooked up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gonzalez is a woman.”

  “Yeah. I noticed that.”

  Locklear laughed at what a fool he had been.

  “You didn’t know?” Lennox asked.

  “No. But I think Mendoza tried to tell me. I just wasn’t listening.”

  Locklear put the phone down and walked back to his bed. He walked to Mendoza’s bed and moved the hair back off her face. She stirred. He eased himself into bed and lay as still as he could while he waited for sleep to come. When he did finally drift off it was the face of Jerome Stein that was foremost in his vision. In his dreams, the balding man with the thick dark glasses and ever-present briefcase stood over his bed and repeated the same phrase over and over.

  “Everything is about money, in the end.”

  On the other side Luke Fehr threw thirty pieces of silver onto the bed. Locklear could feel the weight of the metal on his chest and in his dreams gasped for breath. He reached out and tried to catch one coin as it rolled off the bed and spun on the ground until it crash-landed on the wooden hotel room floor. Locklear jumped when the sound suddenly appeared real and seemed to be coming from the other side of the large bedroom. He reached for his gun and listened as the noise lessened until it came to an abrupt stop. He turned on the light to find that the dollar coin Luke Fehr had thrown at him had slipped from the pocket of his jeans which hung loosely from a chair in the room. He rose and lifted the coin from the floor. It was a regular dollar coin but it was a message. He was missing something. Something Stein had said. It was all about the money. That was what Luke had also tried to tell him earlier on the farm. It was not about revenge or saving face. It was not the pact the gullible Fehrs had thought it to be.

  It was about money and now he knew where it was. The money was in the box.

  Chapter 30

  It took Locklear only six minutes to drive at speed from the hotel to Dayton station where he knew what to expect before he even got there.

  En route he had taken a call from Robbins who said the badly beat-up Stoll was demanding to talk to him and was insisting that she was not Bethany Stoll but a missing person named Anabel Schumer. When he told Robbins to hold onto her for at least another hour, he had to hang up on the cop to drown out the expletives coming down the phone.

  Locklear rubbed his throbbing head and inhaled deeply and braced himself for the carnage he was expecting to find inside the station.

  Trooper Jones was lying across the reception desk. Locklear pulled his gun and crept inside. He placed his fingers on the man’s carotid artery. The bullet-hole at the centre of his head told the sergeant that the newly graduated rookie had died instantly. On the desk was an open comic book which the trooper had probably been reading, and possible even laughing at, in the seconds before he died. It didn’t look like Locklear was going to have to talk to Jones about his inappropriate sense of humour after all.

  He pushed his back against the wall and listened for sounds coming from the incident room but all he could hear were muffled voices. Two, maybe three. The muffled voice was male but there was one female voice and he already knew who it was. He listened to the heavy Germanic accent, the sharp tones and curt language of Bethany Stoll.

  Locklear walked back down to the reception area and did something he should have done before he arrived there. He pressed the emergency switch under the main desk, something Jones had obviously not had a chance to do. Within minutes, patrol cars would come screaming onto the lot and provide him with the back-up he needed. But he needed Stoll alive. He wanted the woman to pay for everything she had done. He wanted her to suffer. He opened the door to the station and crept down the side of the building until he reached the incident room which spanned the entire back section of the structure. He reached the window which was slightly open and peeped with one eye to scan the room.

  Beth Stoll had her back to him. Maguire was sitting on a chair, trying to open the safe with the combination Locklear had changed yesterday and which only he, Carter and Mendoza knew. Maguire’s hands were loosely bound but his legs were taped around the front legs of the chair. The cop’s eyes were wild. He tried to speak through the tape bound across his face – trying, Locklear reasoned, to tell the woman that he did not have the code.

  Stoll walked forward and slapped him.

  “I said open it.”

  The goon standing to her right glanced towards the window. Locklear pulled back swiftly and flattened himself against the wall, hop
ing he had not been seen. He would have to wait here for the back-up to arrive. It would be suicide to go in there alone. The odds were against him. He knew the woman would not go down without a fight and that her hired killer would show him no mercy. Maguire began to whimper.

  Locklear risked peering in again.

  The goon walked slowly over and punched the cop in the face.

  “Take it off,” Stoll finally said.

  The goon pulled the tape off in one clean move.

  Maguire roared.

  Stoll approached him and brushed her gun against his face.

  “Now, Francis,” she teased. “You know you owe my grandfather’s casino a lot of money and this is the way you will clean your slate. Now, you either open that safe or Manny here will put a bullet in your brain. It’s your choice.”

  “I swear I don’t have it. It’s been changed. I swear it.”

  “I’m going to count to three,” Stoll said as she pulled the trigger.

  “You lied to me. You said if I kept an eye on Anabel you’d clear my debts. I told you when I saw her at the station but you came back for more and you – you killed that girl. Why did you have to kill her?”