DEAD MAN'S JUSTICE - A Place of Evil (Stone & McLeish Thriller Series of Stories Book 2) (11 page)

Chapter 24

Bloom asked Stone if he wanted more coffee and gestured that he join him at the side table where the decanter and cups had been laid out. He picked up the silver coffeepot and whispered to Stone as he poured. ‘Was she? Was Rachel in the car?’

‘What’s it got to do with you? How do you know Rachel Parker?’ asked Stone in as low a whisper as he could so that Mrs. R couldn’t hear. Sharp was also fortunately out of earshot.

‘I know all about her and Guy. I arranged everything for Guy Randall, the deeds for his secret apartment and other clandestine matters. I know he followed her to
Trinidad and she was probably the reason he was killed. Am I right?’

‘Whether you’re right or not, this isn’t the time and place to discuss it, there’s no reason for Mrs. Randall to know about her and Guy. Agreed?’ Stone said agreed through clenched teeth indicating that he had to agree like it or not.

‘Now, I have to tell her about the key to the apartment that Guy gave to me as he lay dying, I have no idea where it is and we can’t let her know where it is until we know Rachel is out of there. Understand?’

‘I know where it is,’ said Bloom.

‘Okay, well, keep it a secret until Rachel’s behind bars also. She kidnapped and almost killed my girlfriend so she’s in the firing line too.’

‘Okay, okay we’ll talk later,’ said Bloom. 

They returned to their seats. Stone gave Mac his coffee and Bloom placed a fresh cup in front of Mrs. Randall.

Stone began to tell Mrs. R about her husband’s messages.

‘Mrs. Randall, I have some things for you,’ Stone reached into his pocket and brought out a bag and emptied the contents onto the coffee table. There were two keys and Guy’s cell phone. ‘Guy gave these to me when…err erm he told me to make sure you got them personally, he also asked me to pass on a personal message to you. He said tell my wife I love her, I’ve always loved her.’

Mrs. Randall was a little overcome at hearing her husband’s message and reached for a tissue. She dabbed at the corner of her eyes. Bloom turned his head away slightly but Stone could still see the insensitive smirk on his face. ‘He gave me these keys Mrs. Randall. I think one of them is to some property somewhere, he didn’t say where. We’ll see what we can do to find it. Perhaps Mr. Bloom will assist us. And this key, he said, was to a safety deposit box here in the city.’

‘A safety deposit box?’ asked Mrs. Randall.

‘Yes Ma’am, it co
ntains one million U.S. dollars, In cash,’ he said.

‘Really?’ she began. ‘Why would he keep such an amount in cash like that?’

‘I don’t know Ma’am. He didn’t say.’ Stone did know and so did Bloom. Mrs. Randall would hopefully never know the truth, if she did it would devastate her and destroy the happy memories of her late husband.

The news about a property and a large sum of money came as a complete shock. She sat and thought for a moment. She was a wealthy woman in her own right and since her husband’s passing had inherited a good deal more. She didn’t need the money and decided there and then what to do with it.

‘Brad. Mac. The money is yours. I know you will bring the killer to the police, so you shall keep the money for your services.’

‘But Ma’am…’ Stone tried to say something but Mrs. R continued.

‘With respect to the property I’m sure it will be resolved in good time…’

Bloom was fidgeting nervously; he was astounded to hear such generosity and said, ‘Mrs. Randall, perhaps I should go with them to supervise the collection of the money, b-besides I should draw up some documents for the proper legal transfer…’ he added quickly, thinking on his feet. ‘Stone we’ll agree a time okay?’

‘Whatever Mrs. Randall wishes Bloom, as I’ve said we don’t…’

‘That’s settled then. What about tomorrow afternoon? We’ll do it then.’

Bloom was taking charge. Stone was beginning to think he had an ulterior motive. He went along with it to keep the peace.

‘I have to visit my daughter this afternoon so I’ll call you as soon as I’m back in town,’ said Stone.

‘Good. Then we’re all agreed. Thank you so much Brad and Mac. You don’t know what it means to know you’re doing this for me.’ Mrs. Randall seemed to relax a little now that she had finally talked to Stone and her confidence grew knowing the hunt to find Guy’s killer was moving in the right direction. She was still troubled as to why Guy was in Trinidad though, she had gotten no satisfactory answers from his magazine and she wouldn’t rest until she’d found the reason why.

‘Why was he in
Trinidad,’ Mrs. Randall blurted out the question, almost as if she was asking herself, her face contorted in desperation. Stone could see just how much pain she was in. He looked across at Mac and Bloom; their uneasiness was plain to see also.  He felt compelled to try to reassure Mrs. Randall that Guy was in Trinidad on legitimate business.

‘He err he’s a journalist, he said he was doing an article on the Caribbean,’ Stone paused to ensure he painted the right picture, Mrs. Randall was reaching for another tissue and looked up at Stone intently. ‘He wanted to expose the myth behind the ‘paradise’ tag that everybody thinks about the islands, the danger to tourists. He saw a newspaper report about my wrongful arrest for attempted murder and came to interview me.’ Stone thought he’d done enough to protect her husband’s reputation and to help her reconcile the awful events in her mind.

‘Yes but he was shot Brad, why would someone want to shoot my husband?’ Her words we half spoken half cried.

Mac took up the story.

‘He was in the wrong place at the wrong time Ma’am. He came to our house and his phone was dead, the rain had soaked it so he asked to borrow Brad’s phone. He was standing by the pool with the phone to his ear and I guess Shadow mistook Guy for Stone. It was Stone he was after, just an ironic coincidence…that’s all. I know it might not help but that’s what happened.’

Mrs. Randall was slowly absorbing the new information, at least now she knew why he died even if it was in such unfortunate circumstances. She was calmer and stopped crying, she tucked the tissue into her sleeve and said thank you to Stone and Mac, and apologized for her weeping. They said they understood of course.

Guy’s honor and Mrs. Randall’s love and respect for her husband had been restored. All they had to do now was to make sure that in the process of returning the apartment back to the Randall family that neither Anthony Bloom’s nor Rachel Parker’s lies were not exposed.

‘Are you still at the Williamsburg?’ Mrs. R asked, seeming more composed.

‘Yes Ma’am,’ Stone replied.

‘I’ll call Alfredo. He has an apartment over his restaurant and delicatessen on 11th St. in Brooklyn. You can stay there as long as you need. He’ll sort out your meals and things; he’s Guy’s uncle on his mother’s side.’

‘But Mrs. R you’ve already been so helpful lending us the…’

‘I won’t hear of it, and please stop referring to me as Mrs. R, I’m Sandra.’ Mrs. Randall wrote the address and Alfredo’s telephone number down on a piece of notepaper and handed it to Stone.

‘Thank you, Sandra,’ said Stone. ‘I must be on my way soon I need to see my daughter, haven’t seen her since September, should have been there yesterday, well, you know what happened.’

‘Of course Brad, you must, we’ll stay in touch?’ Mrs. Randall called Sharp and they all stood and shook hands again. Bloom led Mac to the hall and Mrs. Randall linked arms with Stone as they walked out.

‘You will be careful won’t you Brad. That man is still out there somewhere.’

‘We’re big boys Sandra, we can take…’

‘I know I know just …you know, watch out for each other,’ she said. She leaned in closer to Stone and looked him in the eye. Her face took on a worried frown as she implored Stone, ‘Who was this, this Rachel, Brad? Is there something I should know?’ When someone suspected there to be more dark secrets, they still felt impelled to ask, if only to be lied to to help ease their feelings of sadness. Mrs. Randall was seeking such a lie and Stone obliged.

‘No. There’s nothing like that Sandra. This woman, Rachel, she made my life a living hell, I stupidly got mixed up with her, she robbed me, stalked me and kidnapped my girlfriend Karla. I paid a ransom and
still
she tried to kill her. We got to Karla just in time and then this Rachel disappeared. We all thought she was dead. Then she turned up here in New York again. If it’s the last thing I do I’ll find her and your husband’s killer and bring them both to justice.’

‘I know you will Brad,’ she squeezed his arm, ‘Come back and see me when you have some news? And one more thing...’ Mrs. Randall pulled Stone even closer and said, ‘Watch that Bloom would you? I don’t know him that well, he was Guy’s lawyer really, he gives me the creeps.’ 

‘Of course.’

Sharp had called for the elevator and the doors opened as they heard the indicator ping. Stone and Mac rode down to the parking level and found their car. They scanned around the parking area and could see no one suspicious. It was a habit Stone would have to get used to for a while.

If they had known which vehicle to look for, they might have seen Scarface through the windshield; all that could be seen though were his black-gloved hands holding the steering wheel and the occasional glint of the ceiling lights reflecting off his shades. Scarface waited for a few seconds for Stone’s car to exit onto street level then he fired up the four by four and kept an eye on the dashboard tracker device relaying Stone’s every move. After taking the Queens Midtown tunnel into Murray Hill in
Manhattan the Porsche seemed to be heading west towards Penn station on 33rd St.

Chapter 25

After meeting with the contractors at the warehouse, and running through Maloof’s room requirements for his business guests, she left them to start work on the modifications and new decoration. She had ordered the new furniture to arrive for the day after tomorrow.

Rachel left the building and climbed back into the limousine. She told the driver to head for
Brooklyn.

It was now mid afternoon and the sun was dipping fast towards the horizon, light was fading. In another hour it would be dusk. Snow flurries began to tick on the limousine’s windshield, the driver turned on the wipers. Rachel cocooned herself into her overcoat, pushing her hands into the opposite sleeves, looking for fetal warmth, extricating herself from the world outside. She stared out into infinity through a cotton filled sky, and flashes of light from the passing streetlamps pulsed across her eyes hypnotically. Her consciousness was filled with Rebecca. She was trying to wade through a kaleidoscope of memories of the lonely years without her mother and her sister, regressing to happier times, shared beds, shared clothes, shared birthdays with her twin sister. They were inseparable. They were ‘two halves of one whole’. If one felt pain the other did also, if one cried, so did the other. Then one afternoon, without rhyme or reason, she was alone. There was no explanation, no time to prepare. Her father had only said
‘They had to go away, there was no other way.’
The years passed, the pain grew less and less, from a stabbing, unrelenting twinge to a dull ache that stayed with her and had never gone completely.

One day Rachel was told of her mother’s death. Another heart wrenching disaster in her life,
‘She died in a car wreck,’
she was told. Rachel’s dream of being together again with her and Rebecca was shattered. A visit to her grave when she was finally able to travel, and finding the flowers from her sister, galvanized her resolve to find Rebecca whatever the consequences, and with every passing second as the limousine sped through the snow laden streets she was closer to her dream. Half of her dream at least.

‘We’re here Ma’am,’ said the driver turning round in his seat. ‘Ma’am?’  He had to repeat himself several times. It took a while for Rachel to return slowly from 1994 to the present. She hadn’t realized they had arrived. She sat up, looked around and saw the old wooden doors at the entrance to the institution, bereft of paint or varnish and uninviting. On the sidewall was a dull brass nameplate, mounted on the brickwork, drooping slightly to the left due to rusting screws, Claremont Rehabilitation Center. Underneath were the words of their motto
‘Nil sine magno labore’ – (Not without great effort).

The sign hadn’t been polished in years.

Rachel stepped out of the car and with trepidation in her heart climbed the six stone steps to the main door. The doors were locked; Rachel buzzed the intercom and a lethargic woman’s voice answered enquiring as to who was there. Rachel announced herself saying that she had family at the institution. The latch clicked automatically and the door sprang open.  

The hall inside was dimly lit from low lamps suspended below a high ceiling. Large iron radiators pumped out heat making the place feel stiflingly warm and the vinyl floors smelt of Clorox reminding Rachel of a hospital. This was not a modern facility, Rachel thought to herself.  A kind looking middle-aged woman, whose voice she recognized from the intercom, asked Rachel what she could do for her. A second later she took another look at her as if she had seen Rachel before.

‘I’m here to collect my sister,’ she told the woman. ‘My name is Rachel Parker.’

The woman looked down through her bifocal lens checking the day register for an appointment. She was turning the pages back and forth.

‘I don’t appear to have you down…’

‘You won’t. I only found out today where Rebecca was and I came straight over. It’s been too long…I haven’t seen her for thirteen years.’ Rachel kept a serious expression, she was determined to remove Rebecca from the institution and would not take no for an answer.

‘What is her name, Ms. Parker?’

‘Rebecca. You’ll know her as Rebecca Loman. She’s my twin sister,’ added Rachel.

‘I understand…just give me a moment and I’ll talk to Matron and see what we can do.’

‘Prepare whatever legal forms that may be necessary, I’ll be her guardian from now on, I’ll have her cared for in my own home. Please also have any medication she may need, for me to take away. I’ll employ a private nurse full time until she is well again.’

The woman disappeared through a set of double swing doors and didn’t reappear for fifteen minutes or so. When she did the Matron accompanied her and talked through the process to enable Rachel to withdraw Rebecca from their care.

They could see the resemblance themselves, Rachel and Rebecca were identical twins and apart from their hairstyle, they were to this day, difficult to tell apart.

After finalizing the formalities two nurses were summoned to bring Rebecca out to the reception hall and for the first time in years Rachel and Rebecca stood just a few feet apart from each other. Neither could believe it.

‘Rachel!’ tears started to flow, Rebecca moved slowly towards her sister.

‘Rebecca, it’s been so long!’ said Rachel.

They embraced nervously and held on to each other for what seemed like forever.

‘I’ve missed you so much, you’ll never know, and now I’ve found you…’ said Rachel.

‘I know, me too, when mom passed, I had no one, I, I…’

‘Never mind now girl, let’s get you out of here and we can talk all night. You have everything?’

‘I don’t need anything now I have you Rachel,’ said Rebecca.

A nurse placed Rebecca’s only suitcase of her belongings into the trunk of the car and after a few goodbyes’ they left the driveway of the institution. Neither of them looked back.

Rachel and Rebecca would start a new life, together.