John Puller 02 - The Forgotten Read online

  He pulled out his phone and hit 911.

  It was shaping up to be a long night.

  CHAPTER 46

  The long night did not start off well.

  The police cruiser skidded to a stop at the curb with its rack lights turning and its siren blaring, crushing the quiet of the night.

  Officer Hooper climbed out and pulled his gun as soon as Puller stepped clear of the house. The other cop with him was a man who looked similar enough in appearance to be Hooper’s brother. He had his gun out too.

  “I can’t freaking believe this,” said Hooper as he eyed Puller.

  Puller said, “Landry’s off duty. Why are you still working?”

  “None of your business,” snapped Hooper. He turned to his partner. “Boyd, this is the jerk-off I was telling you about.”

  Puller said, “Body’s in the upstairs bathroom.”

  “If you screwed with the crime scene you are in serious shit trouble,” said Hooper, keeping his gun pointed in Puller’s direction.

  “Hoop,” said Boyd. “Who’s to say he’s not our guy?”

  “I called it in,” said Puller. “I waited here for you to arrive. Why would I do that if I’m ‘the guy’?”

  Hooper said condescendingly, “Well, that way we wouldn’t suspect you. Shit, you Army guys all that stupid?”

  “And the motive?” asked Puller.

  “Not our problem,” said Hooper. “That’s your problem.”

  “Actually, our criminal justice system adheres to the ‘innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt’ philosophy,” said Puller. “So it is your problem.”

  Another cruiser pulled up with an ambulance in tow. Chief Bullock climbed out. He was dressed in civilian clothes, so Puller assumed he’d gotten the call at home.

  He walked straight past Hooper and Boyd and up to Puller.

  “What do we got?”

  “Dead man in the bath. No signs of a struggle. Could be he had a medical crisis and went unconscious. Post will tell us a lot more. I saw a car driving away from here a few minutes before I found the body. Blue Ford Fiesta with a big dent in the passenger door.”

  “Know who was in it?”

  “Woman named Jane Ryon. She was a caregiver to my aunt. And she knew the deceased as well. I don’t know if she was coming from this house or not. If so, she has a lot of explaining to do.”

  Hooper and Boyd just stood there open- mouthed as Bullock and Puller talked.

  Finally Bullock looked over and said, “Hey, Hoop, what the hell you waiting for? Secure the damn area. We have a potential crime scene here. You too, Boyd.”

  Hooper and Boyd holstered their guns and hurried to do this.

  Bullock turned back to Puller. “Some days I don’t know why I bother, with the likes of those people constituting my police force.”

  “You’ve got Landry.”

  “If I had all Landrys you’d never hear me complain one second.”

  He looked up at the house. “If this turns out to be a homicide, that’ll be four in just a few days. I don’t like that. Way out of proportion to the population down here. Scare the tourists away. Town council won’t like that.”

  “Any leads on the Storrows’ murders?”

  “Not a one. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. But they were murdered, no doubt of that.”

  “Cookie, the man in the tub, knew the Storrows.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “He told me so.”

  “That’s a link.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “My tech will be here any minute. In the meantime I better go see for myself.”

  “You better.”

  He started off. Puller didn’t move.

  “You coming?”

  “In a minute. Got something to check first.”

  Bullock went into the house and Puller hustled to his truck, passing by first Hooper and then Boyd as they were stringing up yellow police tape. Both cops gave him dirty looks, which he ignored.

  He popped the rear door on the Tahoe and dug through his duffel. He found the photos he’d taken from his aunt’s house. He rifled quickly through them.

  It took him all of two minutes before he found it. He held it up, letting the interior truck light fall fully on the photo.

  In the picture was his aunt.

  And Mr. and Mrs. Storrow bracketing her. He recognized their faces from the newspaper story that morning.

  Apparently, like Cookie, she’d been friends with them too.

  And now they were all dead.

  He looked at Cookie’s house and then at his aunt’s house.

  If this kept up there might not be anyone left alive on Orion Street.

  CHAPTER 47

  Puller called Landry and told her what had happened.

  “I won’t make it there in an hour,” he told her. “Sorry.”

  “Does Chief Bullock need me to come in?” “No, I think they’ve got it covered. Just processing the scene. Your buddy Hooper is working the graveyard shift.”

  “I think it’s punishment from Bullock for being such a jerk.”

  “I’m starting to like your boss more and more. I’ll see you when I see you. Okay if it’s late?”

  “I’ll postpone my walk. But only if you fill me in on the details as soon as you get here.”

  “Deal.”

  He clicked off and went back into the house. Bullock was upstairs with his tech guy.

  Cookie was still dead. Still at the bottom of the tub.

  Bullock was looking around. “No fingerprints in the water.”

  Puller said, “But most of these surfaces are great for prints. If they left a trace behind, great. If there’s no trace behind, that tells us a lot too. Means it’s been scrubbed. Which means he was killed.” He pointed to the floor. “Dry, but damp. Could be from water sloshing around, which would be the case if someone were holding him under.”

  Bullock looked at his tech guy. “Get to it.” They both stared down at Cookie’s diminutive frame at the bottom of the water.

  “Hell of a way to go,” Bullock noted.

  “Anytime someone other than the man upstairs decides when you die it’s a hell of a way to go-”

  “So you do think that’s what it is? Murder?”

  Til wait for the post. But yeah, I wouldn’t be stunned if somebody killed him.”

  “Looking a lot like your aunt’s situation.” “Yeah, it is.”

  “I’ve got a car going to check on this Ryon woman.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You think she might have done it?”

  “Cookie was old and small. She’s young and bigger and stronger. So, yeah, she could have done it.”

  “And her motive?”

  “No way to tell just yet.” Puller debated and then decided to share it. “My aunt also knew the Storrows.”

  “You really think that’s significant?”

  “Anytime you can tie murder victims together in some way it’s significant. Or at least it could be.”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m going to go check into a room at the Gull Coast.”

  “About those men in your room last night?” “What about them?”

  “We couldn’t hold them.”

  “So Landry told me.”

  “For what it’s worth, I believe you. Eight against one sort of explains itself.”

  “Yeah, it should.”

  “Watch your back.”

  “I always have.”

  On the way to his SUV, Puller scooped up Sadie along with some of her food and a leash. The tiny dog looked up at him mournfully as she sat in Puller’s big hand.

  “Yeah, I know, Sadie,” said Puller. “But it’ll be okay.”

  CHAPTER 48

  The first thing was to make them fearful.

  Well, to make him fearful.

  Fearful people often took steps to stop that fear.

  That is, they often made mistakes when they
reacted fearfully.

  Mistakes were good, when the other side was committing them.

  Mecho looked up at the grand estate in the darkness. It looked different in the moonlight. But he knew exactly where everything was.

  Tonight would not be the main assault. Tonight was just the opener.

  He did not approach the main gate. The use of that gathered intelligence would come later.

  There were six security agents roaming the grounds. They did not use guard dogs. Good for him, because his scent would have already reached them. Dogs were much better guards than humans in that regard. But humans were more dangerous.

  Dogs only had teeth and claws.

  Humans carried guns. And killed with malice, the only species that did.

  He had approached from the ocean side, slithering up a dune and then across a stretch of high grass to the fence. The fence did not have electronic monitors or surveillance cameras like the front gate did. It was also not electrified. But there were motion sensors tethered to bright lights. Trip one and you revealed your position. However, Mecho had scoped out where all of them were when he was here working. The lights would not trip him up, but he still had to be careful.

  The defensive philosophy here was a simple but effective one. Put up reasonable outer- perimeter measures, like fences and gates. If one got through them, the real defenses, clustered in an inner hardened circle around the target, would kick in and stop you.

  At least that was the theory.

  He clambered over the fence and dropped silently to the ground. He looked to the east and then to the west. The guards staggered their rounds. He had seen it from prior observation. He had also gained this intelligence from some well-placed questions to other members of the hired help he had encountered while working here. They obviously had no love for their employer.

  Perhaps they thought Mecho was simply a burglar looking to steal from the rich.

  What did they care about that? Someone who had everything losing a little piece of it?

  More power to him, they probably thought.

  But he thought there was another reason for their helpfulness. And it was the most disquieting one of all. It made the anger boil in his chest. It made him want to lash out and crush someone.

  But those feelings would keep. He would not crush anyone tonight.

  Not unless he had to.

  He zigzagged across the lawn, avoiding the motion sensors in the trees. He waited by a clump of bushes as one of the perimeter guards made his rounds. When the man was just past him, Mecho struck.

  The guard crumpled to the ground unconscious, blood running from the head wound. It was not fatal, Mecho knew that. He had calibrated his blow to wound, not kill. And he was a man who knew exactly how to do this.

  He also had the man’s weapons. A Smith and Wesson .44 semiautomatic and an MP5. Overkill, perhaps, for a security patrol around a residence, however rich the occupants might be. And you had to multiply that by six, for the other guards were similarly equipped. Florida had very liberal gun ownership laws.

  As Mecho looked down at the fallen man, he had to smile. The fellow apparently was pulling double duty, because it was the same man who had yelled at Mecho during the day for speaking to Chrissy Murdoch.

  Well, he would have a nice long sleep tonight.

  Mecho moved on, drawing closer to the house.

  There was a vintage Bentley convertible parked in the courtyard. A noise from another building drew his attention.

  The guesthouse again.

  He looked at his watch.

  Could it be?

  He crept closer. A small light illuminated the front of the building.

  Mecho could see another guard posted by the front door of the guesthouse. His .44 was hol- stered, and the MP5 hung loosely by its strap across his chest. He looked bored. He was smoking a cigarette.

  By this Mecho knew he was not a true professional. People who knew what they were doing never smoked on duty. Smelling your opponent before he could attack was sometimes the difference between life and death. As was the split second it would take you to drop the cigarette and close your hand around your weapon.

  By then you were dead.

  Killed by someone more professional than you.

  Three seconds later the man lay prostrate on the brick walk in front of the guesthouse. Mecho stripped out the ammo clips from both weapons and pocketed them. Then he slid the man behind a bush and crept to the door.

  The sounds coming from inside were the same ones he’d heard that morning.

  He opened the door and slipped in. This was not part of the plan tonight, but he took shortcuts when they presented themselves.

  The house was dark and he felt his way along. The bedroom was at the end of the hall on the right. He reached it about five seconds later. The door was partially open. With the guard outside they no doubt did not expect to be interrupted.

  He peered in. With the moonlight pouring in through the window, the room was illuminated well enough for him to see what was happening.

  Peter J. Lampert was on bottom this time.

  But it was not Chrissy Murdoch with him.

  It was Beatriz, the young maid whom Mecho had spoken with that morning.

  She no longer wore her crisp uniform.

  She no longer wore anything.

  If Mecho had been curious as to whether her body was as beautiful as the rest of her, he had his answer. She was exquisitely lovely.

  She straddled her employer. His hands were around her waist and he was smashing her down on him with what Mecho could see was far too much force. Peter J. Lampert seemed to get a kick out of being overly physical with women.

  Beatriz was not moaning as Chrissy Murdoch had been. At least not moaning in pleasure. She was moaning in pain. Her small breasts bounced up and down and Mecho could see her butt cheeks wrinkling with each hard collision against Lampert’s thighs.

  Mecho tensed, every instinct he had telling him to attack.

  But instead he pulled back, moved swiftly down the hall, and reached the living room. He looked around and decided this was as good a place as any.

  He did what he had come to do and then left.

  Outside he gave the guard behind the bush a kick in the head, pretending he was Peter J. Lampert.

  It felt good.

  He did one more thing before he left. The package was placed twenty meters away from the house and next to the Bentley convertible that had a license plate reading “The Man.”

  As he crawled over the fence he counted the seconds off in his head.

  He reached the beach and kept counting.

  Fifty seconds later, when he was back on firm ground, the explosion occurred, lifting the pristine old Bentley five feet up in the air. When it came back down it hardly looked vintage anymore.

  The blast lit up the night over Paradise.

  Mecho didn’t look up to watch it as he started his scooter.

  But he did smile.

  Good night, Peter J. Lampert.

  The Man.

  CHAPTER 49

  Puller drove to the Gull Coast and checked in. The front-desk person was young and sleepy, or maybe just bored.

  He put his gear away in his room and debated what to do next. He called Landry and told her he was on his way. He hopped into the Tahoe and twenty minutes later pulled into the garage in Destin.

  It was a humid night with little breeze.

  Landry met him at the garage elevator. She had changed into shorts and a tank top with sandals. She held up two bottles of beer and then eyed Sadie.

  “You have a dog?”

  “By default.” He explained about Sadie being Cookie’s pet.

  “I can’t take her, if that’s what you’re thinking. My building is no pets.”

  “No problem. I just didn’t want to leave her alone tonight.”

  “Let’s do the beach walk. It’s cooler down by the water and you can fill me in on the latest.” She glanced at Sadie. “And
you can walk your new dog.”

  They trudged across the sand, the breakers rolling over with a growing intensity.

  “Surf always this rough at night?” he asked. “Don’t you watch the news?”

  “Not lately, no.”

  “Tropical storm Danielle formed in the Atlantic and entered the Gulf. Don’t think it’ll strengthen much, but it’s roiling up the waters. It’ll make landfall around here at some point. They’re not exactly sure when.”

  The beach was mostly empty except for several young men stumbling along, beer cans in hand.

  Puller spent a few minutes filling Landry in on the details of Cookie’s death as Sadie walked dutifully next to him, occasionally looking up. The animal must have been confused as hell, thought Puller, because it had a far longer way to look up than it had with Cookie.

  “What the hell do you think is going on, Puller?” asked Landry after he’d finished.

  He shrugged. “If people knew something they’re being silenced quite efficiently.”

  “If they knew what?”

  He shrugged again. “If I knew that I’d know it all.”

  He glanced at her as they walked along sipping their beers.

  Sadie tugged and jerked on the leash, but she was so small that Puller barely noticed. It was like walking a cricket.

  The cold beer made Puller feel warm, warmer than the air around him. The waves crashing with tidal regularity made him more relaxed than he normally would have been, particularly after what had happened to Cookie.

  He caught her gazing at him. “You want to go back up to my apartment?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  She looked down. “I... We...”

  Interpreting her unease Puller said, “I’d really like to, but I can’t.”

  “Okay, I understand. I know I’m not a girly girl, and I carry a gun at work, but I am a woman. I do like guys.”

  “And I’m sure guys like you.”

  “I’ve been hit on by every man under sixty who lives around here, or at least it seems like it. And then the young punks come in from out of town and think they’re so hot, but they’re just idiots.”