Aftermath (13 page)

Logan
woke up fully alert, as usual.  He had always made the transition from sleep to full wakefulness instantly, unless he had imbibed too much alcohol, which was something he had not done for decades.

He glanced across at the LED display on the cheap plastic clock on the nightstand.  It was 4.30 a.m.

It had been the pressure of a sound that didn’t belong in the bedroom that had roused him.  Just a faint squeak of hinges and the scrape of the bottom edge of the door catching on the stiff, short pile of the carpet.

A gap between the two drapes at the window allowed a shaft of gray light to stripe the room at the foot of the bed.  Through the murky beam passed the naked body of a woman.

Logan didn’t move.  Just closed his eyes and waited.  Felt the weight gently depress the thin mattress next to him and heard the rustle of the sheet and shallow breathing.

A hand gently touched his shoulder.  He turned his head and looked into the low lit face of Sharon Jennings.

“I need to be held,” Sharon whispered.

“Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” Logan said.

“Why not?”

“Because compared to you I’m from the Jurassic age.”

“That old, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“So maybe I like older men.”

“Everyone has faults.”

“So just hold me, Logan.  You don’t have to do anything else.”

“I might want to.”

“I might want you to.”

“You do realize that I’m old enough to be your father.”

“That’s not relevant.”

“OK,” Logan said and turned sideways and slipped his arm under Sharon’s neck, around her shoulder.  She turned inwards to him and put her hand on his chest, to run her fingers over the thin coating of hair.

They remained almost inert for ten long minutes.  It was Sharon that made the move and took it up a level.  She kissed him on the mouth with her lips part open.  He responded, and they went through the age-old process of foreplay before having sex, making love, or doing whatever tag covered the proceedings.

“You sure you’re so old?”  Sharon whispered breathlessly when it was over with.

“You sure you’re so young?” Logan came back.

She hugged him hard for two minutes, then slipped out of the bed and was gone.  He smiled.  Thought it was pretty awesome how the future kept rolling out of a dark tunnel like an express train to become the here and now and surprise him with new experiences.

Logan got up at six a.m. and showered and brushed his teeth.  He needed a razor.  He was beginning to look like a version of Eastwood as the Man with no Name in the Spaghetti movies he’d watched at cinemas as a kid growing up.  Maybe Clint and the military and then police environments had helped mould him into the lone drifter he had now become.  He had never dwelt on what might have been in life.  Had no time for ‘what if’ or ‘if only’.  You took the cards you were dealt and played or folded.  Your choice.  Sit in or walk.  He usually sat in and finished the game, whatever it was.  He could look back with no regrets, no remorse, and be content to take any action he deemed necessary to resolve a problem.  He did not consider other people’s take on what was right or wrong.  Like everything else in life, justice was subjective, and he was in no doubt that he could discern what was or was not wrongdoing, and deal with it without the need of a legal system that he knew firsthand got it wrong too often to be relied upon.

Rita was cooking breakfast when he entered the dinette and sat at one of the benches.  The table was too low for his long legs and he felt cramped so got up and walked over to the counter.

“Coffee?”  Rita said.

“I never refuse it,” Logan replied.

Rita poured the hot, dark liquid into a mug and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he said, and went to the open door and sat down on the step to drink it.

Tom Ellerson came out of his trailer, held up a hand in greeting and headed over to where his old pickup was parked in the shade of an oak tree that had been growing there since before the civil war.

“You going anywhere near a store, Tom?”  Logan called.

Tom changed direction and angled across to the doublewide.  “Yeah, what can I get you, Logan?”

“A shirt, pants, and some shorts and socks.  Nothing bright.  You can see what size I am.  Oh, and a pack of disposable razors,” Logan said, handing Tom a fifty dollar bill.

“No problem,” Tom said.  “Are my girls still in big trouble?”

“A little trouble,” Logan replied.  “I’m working on getting it down to no trouble.”

“I appreciate that,” Tom said and went on his way.

Jerry was sitting up in bed looking like shit and feeling worse.  His right arm was in a cast, and there were metal splints taped on his broken fingers.  His usual air of total confidence was absent.

“I’m Detective Garfield and this is Detective Adams,” Charlie said, flipping his gold shield for Jerry to see.  “We need to talk, Mr Brandon.”

“You took your time,” Jerry said.  “Did you catch the bastard that did this to me?”

“Not yet, sir,” Charlie said.  “But you can bet the farm that we’re working on it.”

Jerry sighed.  “A fuckin’ giant walks into my office in broad daylight, inflicts serious injuries on me, and you can’t find him.  Is that what you’re saying?”

“He’ll turn up,” Russ said.  “All we need to know from you is who he is.”

“I’d never laid eyes on the guy till he showed up and did this to me.”

“Strange,” Charlie said as he took a worn leather-bound pad from his inside sports coat pocket, opened it and withdrew a small ballpoint pen from a sheath stitched to the inside of the cover to take notes with.  “Your receptionist, Marcie, said that he phoned you prior to visiting.  Said his name was Johnson, and you asked her to put the call through.”

“And when he showed up in person you had him sent through to your office,” Russ said.  “Doesn’t sound like someone you don’t know.  And you didn’t call him Johnson, you called him Logan.”

Jerry could feel his left eyelid begin to twitch.  It did that if he got too stressed or too angry.  “I said that I’d never
seen
him,” he said. “And up until yesterday I hadn’t.”

“Okay, sir, we don’t want to start nitpicking,” Charlie said.  “Just tell us who he is and why he broke your arm and fingers.”

Jerry thought fast.  He had a quick brain: couldn’t have got from being a salesman in a rundown garage west of town to become the biggest and wealthiest car dealer in the county if he hadn’t been able to lie on cue and convince people that he was as honest as the day was long.

“OK, Detective Garfield, I got a call from a guy who said his name was Johnson.  I spoke with him because I thought it was Rafe Johnson, the CEO of Johnson Holdings in the city.  He’s a regular customer.  But it wasn’t Rafe; it was a total stranger to me.  He said that he knew I’d put a contract out on my accountant, Richard Jennings, and also on Richard’s wife and daughter.  Threatened to cut my throat and throw me in the river if I didn’t call it off.”

Charlie knew all about the hit and run on Jennings.  “So what did you say, sir?” he asked.

“I told him that Richard had been my friend, and that he had no right to threaten me.  He hung up.”

Russ asked Jerry, “Did he mention Roy Naylor or Sal Mendez?”

Jerry frowned.  “Now you mention it, yeah.  He said the names Roy and Sal.  But I have no idea who he was talking about.”

“Why didn’t you phone us, sir?”  Charlie asked.  “You’d just been accused of murder and had your life threatened.”

“I thought it was some crank call.  I decided to ignore it,” Jerry said.

“Bad decision,” Russ said.

“With hindsight I can’t argue with that,” Jerry said.  He felt a surge of relief, because the cops were obviously buying his story.

“That just leaves a statement we have from Mr Lester to run past you, sir,” Charlie said.

Jerry felt a lance of apprehension hit him like a physical blow. 
What the fuck had Sammy said to them?

Charlie saw the colour drain from Brandon’s cheeks, and noticed the almost imperceptible look of fear pass through his eyes like a shadow.

“Sammy Lester?”  Jerry said.  “He works for me.”

“I think that should be ‘used to work for you’, sir,” Charlie said.  “At the moment he’s in custody, trying to deal his way out of some serious charges against him.”

“What charges?”

“The murder of Roy Naylor and his girlfriend,” Russ said.  “He’s blaming it on the guy that paid you a visit, but Lester’s prints are all over the weapon, so he feels it his civic duty to cooperate with us.”

“And exactly what has that got to do with me?” Jerry said.  “I’ve had nothing to do with anyone being murdered.”

Charlie smiled and said, “Sammy says that you wanted Richard Jennings hurt.  And that he put you in touch with Roy Naylor and Sal Mendez to kill Rita and Sharon Jennings.”

“That is wholly untrue,” Jerry said.  “I had no reason to want Richard or his family harmed.  I’m a highly respected businessman in Charleston, not a fuckin’ psycho that arranges for people to be killed.”

“So why would Sammy want to lay the blame at your door?”  Russ said.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Jerry said with all the conviction of Billy Graham mind-bending the masses at a rally.  “Perhaps the maniac that attacked me told him to.”

Charlie said nothing.  Just replaced the pen in its sheath and closed his notepad.  He conveyed his thoughts to Jerry with a practiced look that said, ‘you’re as guilty as hell, buddy, and we both know it’, before thanking the man and telling him that they would definitely be doing a follow up interview.

“What do you think?” Russ asked Charlie as they rode the elevator down to the ground floor.

“That Brandon is a sleaze ball,” Charlie said.  “And that Sammy Lester is telling us the truth for the most part.  Although he’s obviously the go-between and knew exactly what Naylor and Mendez were being paid to do.”

Russ nodded his agreement. “Problem is we’ve only got his word.  Not enough to put Brandon in a cell.”

“Not yet, Russ, but we’ll get what we need.  My main interest is finding Mendez, and this Logan guy, who appears to be protecting Rita and Sharon Jennings.”

Charlie and Russ stopped off at Sam’s Uptown Café on Capitol Street for takeout wings and coffee.  Ate in the car.

There was a copy of Logan’s military and police service records waiting for Charlie when they got back to headquarters.  What hadn’t been black-lined in Logan’s file made for interesting reading.  He had picked up a purple heart in Gulf 1, and had subsequently been a first-rate cop and homicide detective.  Reading between the lines he was a maverick and had sailed close to the wind on several occasions, but had picked up four commendations along the way.  Logan seemed to have been a guy who did whatever was needed to get the job done and close a case.

The problem was, Logan’s present whereabouts was not known, as he had no fixed abode and was not in any gainful employment.

The overall picture that Charlie formed in his mind was that Logan had abilities and qualities that made him extremely efficient and obviously dangerous if provoked.  Whether he was a murderer or not was yet to be determined.  Charlie arranged for a state-wide BOLO to be put out on Logan, Sal Mendez and Rita and Sharon Jennings.  With every officer in possession of a ‘be on the lookout’ for them, he was sure that one or all of them would soon be located.

When Sal woke up on the narrow bunk in the living room of the cabin it was 10.30 a.m.  His side and leg hurt as he slowly, carefully sat up, so he dry-swallowed four Tylenol before getting dressed in the clothes that Donny had laid out on a wicker chair next to the bunk.

The forest outside the cabin was not the quiet place that Sal imagined it would be.  He could hear a loud and repetitive tapping sound, but was unaware that it emanated from a woodpecker drilling its beak into a tree trunk in search of insect grubs.  There was a lot of birdsong, and a strange chattering noise and clicking, scurrying sounds from above him.  Had he gone out and looked up he would have seen a pair of squirrels chasing each other back and forth across the shingled roof.

Sal found the coffee pot on the stove, and a note pinned down under a lone mug on the counter nearby.  He read the note twice before picking the mug up and throwing it at the rendered wall, where it shattered and fell in a dozen pieces to the paved floor.

The note read:  Maybe you’re who and what you say, and the trouble you said that you’d got yourself into is factual, Tony…or whatever your real name is.  But I got to feeling that you were pretty desperate and might just try to take more than free chow, clothes and painkillers with you when you left.

I’ve taken my hunting rifle and gone for a drive.  I’d like to find that you’ve gone when I get back.

Happy trails,

Donny.

Sal found another mug in a cabinet and poured himself coffee.  The old soldier was no dummy.  He’d seen through Sal’s lies and decided to play it safe and avoid any confrontation.  And one-armed or not, Sal believed that the man would be no slouch with his rifle.  Maybe he’d stashed the Jeep nearby and was watching the cabin at that moment, just hunkered down in thick foliage beyond the clearing, waiting to see what he would do.