5 Alive After Friday (3 page)

“Calamine lotion, that’s what you need. I’ll go
get some Calamine.” He was frowning at her—she had lied to him. Flu bug indeed.
“What’s going on Sandy? No word from you since you left the office at five
yesterday. Chip and I waited in the office for an hour then we both became
unhinged. He ran around checking the hospitals and I went over to your
apartment. You didn’t answer. We didn’t stop searching until your text two
hours later. You weren’t at home sick were you?”

After her apology for canceling the celebratory
evening, she told him not to be concerned with what had happened and how she got
the bites. It was beside the point. She came right out and told him she needed
all
the proceeds from the settlement check he held in the office safe. In other
words, she needed to borrow his two hundred thousand dollar share and didn’t
know when she could pay it back. She also needed help at the bank with cashing
the check and securing the cash. Just trust her. She’d explain later.

Martin remained aghast. Was she in trouble? A
silly question but he asked it anyway.

Yes, in trouble. Something was very wrong.
Something she couldn’t share with him as yet. Just trust her.

He said he trusted her. Yet, could she at least assure
him it was just about money and she’d be all right?

She lied by nodding slightly.

The look on her face didn’t ease his concern at
all, as once again he knew she wasn’t telling the truth. After giving up on
getting more information from her, and asking if there was anything else he
could do, he had only two questions, “Is the additional two hundred thousand
enough?” and, “When do you need the cash?”

“Four hundred thousand total is enough, but I need
it first thing in the morning.” It would be close; she couldn’t explain that
Jane would phone with the money-drop instructions tomorrow. “Sorry. I can’t
give the bank more time. We need to endorse that check and get it to them right
away.”

She had no idea what four hundred thousand dollars
looked like, she explained, and needed his help with getting that much in cash from
the bank and safekeeping it until in the morning. It sounded risky and tricky
to her. To tell the truth, it all sounded impossible.

Martin didn’t seem to be in any hurry. He took out
his phone and called his bank. Had he been put on hold, he’d have waited
patiently until served. However, they did not put him on hold. In fact, the
last time any bank had put him on hold was at age seventeen. He hadn’t complained,
nevertheless when the bank president learned what had happened, he phoned Martin’s
father and apologized. This day, Martin asked for the bank president by name. The
man was called out of a meeting across town to take the call. Martin asked him to
deliver four hundred thousand dollars in cash to his law office at ten a.m. the
next morning. Were there any questions? No, of course not. They assured him
there would be no problems. Banks did not question Martin Bronner.

“You’re the financial expert, but don’t they need
the check before they release the cash?” Sandy asked when he had hung up. “Should
I endorse it now, so you can take it to the bank?”

“How long do you believe it will be before you can
tell me what this is all about?”

She took a guess, “I should be able to tell you by
tomorrow night.” Jane was to call her in the morning with instructions about
how to deliver the money. After the delivery she could explain.

“Very well. I’m going to wait on depositing that
check until I find out what’s going on.”

“Martin, cashing that check has nothing to do with
any of this.”

“Glad to hear that but let me handle it.”

She sighed with relief. Although she was amazed at
all he’d done, she had expected no less. She knew he’d help her with no
questions asked. Good to know there were certainties in life: the sun would
come up every day and Martin Bronner would always help her.

I
t
was Friday evening, forty-eight hours after her abduction. After staring at her
phone most of the day worrying that something had gone wrong, Sandy finally
received the expected phone call from Jane that evening. Sandy was all set. The
armored car from the bank had arrived at the office that morning as planned and
Martin was ready with a green gym bag, which he stuffed with cash and placed in
the trunk of her car. She made him promise not to intervene or try to follow
her.

She had her instructions. She checked her watch for
the umpteenth time.

She crossed the bridge over the Intracoastal
Waterway with the bright lights of the Park Beach mainland behind her and the
Atlantic Ocean three miles straight ahead. Once on the barrier island she
turned south leaving the traffic behind and drove along the winding Lagoon
Drive, past the golf course and through the affluent residential area that
bordered Lagoon Park. She circled beyond the boat ramps and tennis courts and pulled
into a space in the lighted parking area. She checked her watch again. Ten
minutes to go. So far, she had timed it right.

At this point, strange as it seems, she was
rooting for Dick and Jane and hoped their plan for the money-drop was foolproof.
She hoped they knew what they were doing. It was to her advantage for them to pick
up the money with no problems and take off. She didn’t want some harmless man
standing around reading a paper—looking like an FBI agent trying to look like a
tourist. Or have a cop on routine patrol decide to eat his sandwich in the park.
She didn’t want them upset because something had gone wrong. She hoped Jane was
calling all the shots. Judging from his actions in the Everglades, Dick seemed
to be knitting with only one needle.

Five other cars and a pickup truck were in the
parking lot near the tennis courts and boat ramp. She parked and stepped out
into the evening air. It was early May and the humidity was fine but the
temperature wasn’t dropping much even though the sun had showed the last of itself.
She heard indistinct voices from over at the tennis courts hidden by the trees,
but no one was in sight.

She opened the trunk and stared at the green gym
bag. The cash in that bag represented more than just months of long hours sweating
over case histories, and carefully preparing their briefs and court filings.
Even before that, were the years of sacrifice and hustle to get her degree and
pass the bar exam. It represented a lifetime. They had won the case and her
spreading fame should produce a steady flow of clients. All that was at risk. As
important as that success was, she also needed the money. She had earned it,
wanted it and somehow was going to have it.

Yet as beautiful as it appeared in the bag, she
was going to give it away. Might never see it again. What she was about to do
seemed unbelievable. Was this the right move? Yes, it was for Chip.

She lifted the gym bag out and while closing the
trunk, a movement to the right caught her eye. Someone was crouching in the
dark between two cars over at the side. Was this part of Jane’s plan? She
tightened her grip on the bag handle. The parking area could use some brighter
lights, but she could make out a boy. The kid was trying car doors. When he
raised his hand for an instant, she saw the glint of a shiny piece of metal he
was trying to slide down between the door and the window glass. That’s when he
noticed her and ducked down. He jumped back up immediately and started wheeling
his bicycle away. Then stopped and stared back at her, apparently deciding she
was no threat to him.

She could jump in her car and drive away. She could
dial 911. But she didn’t have time for any of that. She checked her watch and frowned.
No time for this creepy kid. “Just keep going, dude,” she yelled using her most
macho voice.

Instead, he wheeled his bicycle a few steps closer
to her and stopped. She could make out his dull brown eyes in his colorless
face. He eyed her and the green gym bag, trying to decide what she was all
about.

He was a tall kid with a body as scrawny as his
beat-up bicycle. He wore sneakers, old jeans and a T-shirt that read:
Screw
You!
She could probably take him. She’d faced young hoods on the corner in
Philly. A cop up there once told her,
“Aim for the bridge of their nose,
kiddo. You hit that and they may never get back up.”
The kid’s physical
strength was beside the point. He had that foot-long piece of sharp metal in
his hand—and she had a ton of money in hers. Possibly, he didn’t know how to
use the jimmy as a weapon, but she didn’t want him practicing on her. At least
he appeared nervous, that was good.

“Whatcha got in the bag?”

A commanding fearless voice was her best defense
just then, “Possession of that Slim Jim you have there is a felony. It’s
considered a burglary tool. Now get the fuck out of here!” She turned her back
on him to show she was unafraid and slowly opened her car door. She made a big
play out of casually tossing the bag across to the floor in the front seat as
though it contained dirty clothes. She got in and closed the door. Her cloth convertible
top would be no match for that thin piece of metal, if he decided to come at
her. He stood back there. She looked at her watch—five minutes left. She took
out her phone, looked back at him and pretended to be calling.

That did it. When she looked again, he was gone. She
grabbed the bag, got out and locked the car door.

She hurried along the dimly lit walking path,
which wound alongside the dry streambed in the public park. She checked her
watch—it would be close. She looked back over her shoulder—no one back there
that she could see. She hoped she’d seen the last of the kid. Up ahead, was
Lover’s Bridge. She’d seen the small bridge in the daytime but had never paid much
attention to it. Nothing particularly romantic about it, she thought, other
than the name, no charming babbling brook passing underneath. Just an ordinary footbridge
of concrete and rock, and just wide enough for a couple of bicyclers to pass
over.

Jane had instructed her to leave the money on a tray
that would be on the sidewall of the bridge. A tray? Sandy didn’t understand
the part about a tray. Almost there. Up ahead, she could see the bridge weakly
illuminated by lampposts at either end. Not a bad spot for a money-drop, she
thought. If she had alerted the cops, they’d have to hide in the trees to be
able to watch the bridge.

She stepped onto the footbridge and walked to the
middle. She could barely see her watch in the dim light. Eight o’clock. The
exact time she was supposed to be at the center of the footbridge. She looked
along the top of the waist-high sidewall. On the far side, she was surprised to
see a brown plastic tray resting there, just as Jane had described on the phone.
An ordinary cafeteria or food service tray completely out of place—it made no
sense. Her hands shook and her heart sank as she followed Jane’s instructions
and set the gym bag down on the tray. She slowly removed her hand. It all
seemed so ludicrous. Her entire life was in that bag. She had damn well better
see that money again someday.

Jane had said to leave fast and not look back. Sandy
didn’t want any slip-ups. She shook her head as she turned and walked away into
the dark leaving a bag containing four hundred thousand dollars in cash resting
on a brown cafeteria tray on the sidewall of Lover’s Bridge in Lagoon Park.

As she stepped off the bridge onto the trail
leading back to the parking lot, she froze as she saw a man and a woman approaching
her. They didn’t seem to notice her and appeared to be merely a couple walking
hand-in-hand busily talking. Dick and Jane perhaps? Could they be that brazen?
Was such a plan clever or stupid? If they were caught before leaving the park,
they could say they were just out for a stroll when they found the bag—merely
taking the bag to the police. She doubted the authorities would buy any of
that. And she really didn’t believe that was the plan.

No one else was even remotely close by. The couple
walked past her—a few steps from the bridge—chatting at each other as though
they were the only two people in the world. She was dying to glance up at their
faces but didn’t dare. If they were Dick and Jane, how would they react, if
they thought she was on to them and could identify them? She stared as much as
she dared. The man was just under six feet and in good shape wearing a madras
short-sleeved shirt, jeans and sneakers. The woman was Sandy’s size and shape:
five foot nine, one hundred and twenty pounds. She wore light colored Capris
and sandals showing fluorescent pink toenails almost glowing in the dark. Age
and color of hair—she had no idea. She didn’t really believe they were Dick and
Jane but was afraid to raise her eyes and look at them above the waist. She
kept repeating the descriptions to herself; when she got back to her car she’d
write it all down.

A chilling thought swept over her. Their plan wasn’t
going to work. Their plan couldn’t possibly have anticipated a couple showing
up and stepping onto the bridge just as the money was left.

Was the entire affair about to go terribly wrong?
An innocent couple happens along and screws up a complicated and precisely
timed interplay of abduction, ransom and possible murder. In another five seconds,
the couple would notice the bag. Impossible not to see it. Would they notice it
and keep walking. Were Dick and Jane watching? Might they imagine the innocent
looking couple was possibly FBI? They had threatened to kill Chip, if they
didn’t get the money. Suddenly, it was very possible they would not get it.

Would Dick and Jane be reasonable and consider
that Sandy had held up her end of the bargain? How likely was that? Jane seemed
reasonable and might just abandon the entire scheme. She might reason, they had
taken a chance; it didn’t work; just bad luck the couple came along; too risky
to pursue it further. Wouldn’t a sensible criminal reason that way? Sandy
didn’t believe Dick was sensible. He most certainly wouldn’t walk away from a money-getting
scheme, no matter how carefully crafted, simply because a critical element
suddenly went all wrong. He’d come after Sandy with a gun and demand to be
paid. And if happenstance did deny them the money, would they carry out their
threat to kill Chip?

By now, the couple was on the bridge. Sandy had
stepped off the bridge, and they had stepped on in a matter of seconds. How
could Dick and Jane possibly grab the money in those few seconds? How could the
couple not see the large brown tray with a green gym bag on it, setting there
entirely out of place? Sandy didn’t look back. She couldn’t have seen clearly
onto the bridge anyway. She feared they might see her looking and change the
plan.

When she got back to her car, she quickly wrote down
the descriptions of the couple. She snapped two photos of each of the other
vehicles in the parking area with her phone; one shot from the side, the other
from the rear of each vehicle being certain to get the license plate.

She hadn’t noticed any unusual activity since
walking back from the bridge. She had no idea what was happening back there. In
any case, there was nothing to be accomplished by sitting there. She needed to
get away from there. She could wait for the couple to come back to their car
and ask if they noticed anything unusual, but what if they were Dick and Jane?
The thought seemed absurd. She was helpless.

Had she lost her mind? She had just thrown away
four hundred thousand dollars.