Culprits Page 9

  When they arrived at her hotel and the driver held open the rear door, Gracella at last remembered her manners. “I’m truly grateful for everything you’ve done tonight, sir. How can I ever thank you?”

  “By havin’ dinner with me tomorrow evenin’, honey,” he said smoothly. “I’ll send the limo to pick you up.”

  He seemed to take her silence as acceptance, and in her naivety she mistook arrogance for sophistication.

  She climbed out, paused, and glanced back into the limo. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “My name is Harrington—Clovis Harrington.”

  Six weeks later he proposed, and Gracella thought she’d reached the end of her troubles.

  Instead, they were just beginning.

  It wasn’t until six months after she married him that she discovered who’d tipped the police to her possible drunk driving that evening. By that time, no act of petty cruelty seemed beyond her husband.

  . . .

  Thirty Minutes Earlier

  Clovis Harrington leaned against the rear wheelarch of the Chevy Silverado dually pickup, watching Traynor operate the backhoe. They were way out on one of the more deserted stretches of Crystal Q land, well beyond sight of any habitation.

  It was early morning, the sun only just beginning to clear the far hills and chase the chill out of the air. Harrington sipped hot coffee from an insulated travel cup while he watched his foreman work. Traynor was good with the backhoe, manipulating the articulated arm and bucket with a smooth precision that belied the misgivings he’d voiced about the purpose of the exercise.

  They’d hauled the excavator on a flatbed trailer towed behind the dually, driving out from the homestead into the pre-dawn darkness to the same GPS coordinates Harrington had cause to use a time or two in the past.

  No doubt he would have cause to use ’em again.

  Or maybe his wife should take an overdose in her own bedroom? He pondered over this as the hole Traynor was digging grew in size. Being able to show a body might cause fewer questions—especially when he had a tame doc and the local sheriff’s department on a short leash.

  Anyway, it was high time he traded in his wife for a newer model.

  The noise of the backhoe meant the two men didn’t hear the approaching Bell 407GX until the downwash from the main rotor began to flatten the shrub around them, gusting grit into Harrington’s eyes and threatening to blow the tools and tarp right out of the back of the dually.

  The helicopter circled once and set down about fifty yards away. It carried the livery of the sheriff’s department. Harrington thought he recognized Deputy José Martinez in the co-pilot’s seat and relaxed enough to lift a hand in greeting.

  He glanced at Traynor. The damn fool had shut off the backhoe and frozen, halfway out of the cab, a miserable and downright guilty look on his face. Harrington glared until the man slumped back into the seat.

  Martinez was out of the helo now and striding toward them as the rotor slowly spun down behind him. So, this ain’t no flyin’ visit, Harrington realized, and almost cracked a smile at his own pun.

  “Mornin’, deputy,” he called into the unexpected quiet. “What can I do for you?”

  “Mr Harrington,” Martinez returned gravely. “Can I ask what it is y’all are doin’ here, sir?”

  “My land, son. My business.” But seeing the set of the other man’s jaw, Harrington added, “Matter of fact, we’re diggin’ a coupla new wells. Cattle gotta have water.”

  Martinez didn’t reply to that, just walked past. Before Harrington could protest, the deputy had put a boot on the dually’s outer wheel and hoisted himself up into the pickup bed. He bent and lifted a corner of the tarp with the caution of a man who already knew what he was going to find.

  From a ruined face, Zach Culhane’s lifeless eyes stared back at him.

  Martinez switched his gaze to Harrington, who met it with a cool disregard, and emptied the dregs of his coffee out into the dirt.

  “Fuckin’ my wife was one thing, but then he had to go fuck with me,” he said calmly. “And that, son, is never a good idea.”

  Martinez nodded, like he got the warning for what it was. He dropped the edge of the tarp and climbed out of the pickup bed. Harrington opened his mouth to tell Traynor to get back to work but the deputy forestalled him.

  “Sir, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to place you under arrest for the murder of Zachary Elmore Culhane,” he said, shaking the cuffs loose from his belt. “You have the right to remain silent.”

  “What the fuck d’you think you’re doin’ son?”

  “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

  “You gone crazy? I own you, boy. You’re makin’ the biggest mistake of your goddamn life!”

  “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

  “You’re finished! I will fuckin’ finish you for this!”

  “Do you understand these rights, sir?”

  “’Course I understand my damn rights. You think I’m some goddamn wetback can’t speak English?”

  Martinez countered that with a bland stare but his hands were less than gentle as they cinched the steel bracelets tight around Harrington’s wrists, his hands in front of him. For the first time, a sense of unease scuttered through Harrington’s chest. He swallowed, tamped down his anger, and thought fast.

  “Listen, son, the guy was havin’ an affair with my wife. I reckon he tried to break it off and she musta killed him in some kinda jealous rage. Maybe it was an accident,” he offered in a reasonable, placatory tone. “Anyhow, he was already dead when we found him. I was tryin’ to protect my wife. I admit it was the wrong thing to do, but I guess I just wasn’t thinkin’ straight.”

  Martinez didn’t reply to that either, just turned and waved toward the helicopter.

  One of the rear doors swung open and a man jumped down with a bulky bag on a strap over his shoulder. Even though the Bell’s rotor was barely moving now, the man jogged forward with his head instinctively ducked, so it wasn’t until he got closer that Harrington realized with a jolt it was that little rat, Lebermann. The unease swelled into a sharp pain in the vicinity of Harrington’s breastbone. His heart began punching like a fist.

  “Doc, if you’d be so kind?” Martinez said.

  Lebermann avoided Harrington’s eye as he scrambled clumsily into the pickup bed. He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves before making a brief examination of the body. Then the doctor produced a fancy camera from the bag and took photographs from all angles, like some goddamn CSI on the TV. The only noise was the whine of the flashgun recharging between shots.

  “This man has been tortured and then shot,” he announced when he was done.

  Harrington had to force himself not to jeer. He cleared his throat.

  “My wife has a gun—a Smith & Wesson .357. Gave it to her myself.”

  Martinez asked, “And tell me, sir, does your wife also own a branding iron?”

  Harrington did not respond.

  Lebermann reached into the bag again, this time for a sheaf of papers with photographs clipped to the pages. The topmost one, Harrington saw, was a close-up of a woman’s torso, covered in bruises.

  “It’s my professional opinion that Mrs. Murieta-Harrington is in no state to have tortured anyone,” he said meaningfully. “Indeed, she has been the victim of considerable physical assault herself. It’s all right here in my report.”

  Martinez took the papers with a nod. From the way he didn’t even glance at them, Harrington gathered he already knew what they had to say. A cold fear washed down over him.

  “What do you want?”

  Martinez shook his head. “I ain’t the one you need to negotiate with, sir.”

  The rear door of the helo opened again and two more people got out. A man and a woman, neither of whom moved easily. This time, Harrington recognized them by the
ir gait alone.

  Gracella, leaning on the arm of the federal court judge.

  When they neared, he said, “Shoulda known you’d be behind this, honey—you scheming bitch.”

  “Gracella.”

  “What the—?”

  “It’s Gracella. Not honey. Not wife. My name is Gracella.”

  Harrington took a breath to lambast her, until the judge said mildly, “You might want to hold off on expressing any colorful opinions, Mr. Harrington, till you’ve learned what this lady has in mind.”

  Harrington grunted.

  The judge gave a small smile and withdrew from the inside pocket of his jacket a legal document—Harrington had seen enough to know one instantly. The judge unfolded it and held it up for him to read.

  “Divorce papers?” He scanned further down out of ingrained habit, waiting for the catch, but saw nothing outrageous or out of the ordinary.

  “Divorce papers,” Gracella agreed. “Sign them, and this all goes away.”

  “You signed a pre-nup,” Harrington said, baffled. “You won’t get a cent.”

  “All I want from you is my freedom.”

  He glanced at Martinez, who offered him a pen without uncuffing his hands. Harrington hesitated a moment, then shrugged and scrawled his signature, letting the pen drop in the dirt when he was done.

  He glared at the men surrounding him. “And what do you bastards want?”

  “From you? Nothing,” Martinez said. “Just bear in mind we have all the evidence of what you’ve done here safely tucked away, and there ain’t no statute of limitations on murder.”

  “As this crime was carried out in retaliation for the robbery at the Crystal Q yesterday, it becomes capital murder,” the judge said, “which, as I’m sure you’re aware, carries the death penalty here in the great state of Texas.”

  “And in case you were thinking in terms of a little more retaliation, Mrs. Murieta-Harrington has already returned to us certain, um, incriminating evidence,” Lebermann said.

  Harrington’s gaze shot to his soon-to-be ex-wife. She stared right back at him, coolly defiant.

  “Looks like you fell real lucky, hon—Gracella.”

  “Luck?” she queried. “Oh, no. Luck had nothing to do with it.” She laughed out loud at the consternation in his face, leaned in close enough to kiss—or bite. “You followed the plan I laid out, honey—every step of the way.”

  Harrington’s eyes widened and slid involuntarily to the body in the pickup. “But—”

  “Yeah, you got it,” Gracella said. “If I hadn’t thrown you a sacrificial goat, well, we wouldn’t be here now, would we?” She glanced at the body, and the trace of sadness in her face was chased away by the fierce note in her voice. “And when it comes to betrayal, well, Zach damn well started it.”

  . . .

  Six Hours Earlier

  The gathering at the homestead was long over when Susan Treacher showed Deputy Martinez into the living room and closed the doors behind him. He paused uncertainly just inside, his hat in his hands, and nodded cautiously to the three people already present.

  “Your Honor. Doc. Mrs. Murieta-Harrington.” He focused on Gracella. “What’s this about, ma’am?”

  Gracella rose, something she achieved only by levering up on the arm of the chair, devoid of her usual grace.

  “If I had balls, my husband would have me by them,” she said flatly. “Just as he’s gotten you all by yours.”

  She waited for denials. None came.

  “I take it, then, that you wouldn’t exactly be averse to finding a way out of his…grip?”

  Martinez glanced at the others and saw a kind of desperate hope reflected in their eyes. He cleared his throat.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  . . .

  Now

  As the Bell lifted off, the judge leaned forward in his seat and gave Gracella a worried frown.

  “Will you be able to manage, my dear? Under the circumstances, I’ve no doubt the pre-nup agreement could have been broken.”

  Gracella shook her head. “I meant what I said—all I want is my freedom.”

  Martinez twisted in his seat and looked back at her. He was smiling. “Where to, Ms. Gracella?”

  “The homestead,” she said. She flashed the judge a sheepish look. “Okay, there’s one thing I need to pick up there before I leave—of sentimental value.”

  The portrait of the Marilyn Monroes from her bedroom wall. Oh, she liked the painting well enough, but tucked behind the frame was a memory stick containing a great deal of fascinating information on the members of the North Texas Citizens Improvement League.

  She leaned back in her seat and watched the acres of the Crystal Q blur past beneath them. With the sun coming up like this the ranch really did look quite beautiful, but she wouldn’t miss it for a moment. She had something far prettier—the dirt on a whole bunch of very influential people.

  And the brains to use it.

  Chapter 5 - The Financier

  By David Corbett

  As the twin-engine Cessna banked toward the Clyde River airstrip, he looked out the weather-scarred window across Davis Strait and saw, looming beyond Baffin Bay over the coast of Greenland, a phenomenon resembling a sky-high wall of rolling smoke.

  The pilot—a short-haired, cinnamon-freckled blonde named Rachel, ex-RCAF, proud owner of a malamute named Amos, don’t get her started—followed the direction of his gaze and shouted over the engine, “Looks like you could get socked in here for a few days.”

  He feigned unconcern. “Not a problem. Time’s not the issue.”

  I came all this distance to vanish, he thought. How could a blizzard not help?

  With Zach Culhane no doubt dead or nearly so, squeezed of all relevant information concerning the disaster at the Crystal Q—specifically, who else was involved—there was no rush whatsoever in returning to so-called normal life.

  Though Culhane didn’t know enough to put his finger on a map and say, “You can find him there,” and he had no actual name to attach to the moniker “the Financier,” the truth remained that no escape plan was perfect, no firewall impregnable, no alias inscrutable.

  An arctic snowstorm? Bring it on.

  He reached in his pocket for his itinerary, issued to the blandly named Carl Russell. He’d not been foolish enough to try to finagle a phony passport on short notice and wanted to kick himself for not planning ahead with a bit more foresight—or paranoia. That said, in an era of international terror, acquiring false passports that could withstand even routine scrutiny required contacts far above the pay grade of even his most sophisticated criminal associates.

  Instead, he’d walked the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara, using his own passport at the checkpoint and telling the customs inspector he was meeting friends for dinner at the Sheraton on the Falls. Then he slipped into a waiting car parked at the casino—courtesy of a hedge fund associate who’d asked no questions—found a counterfeit Ontario driver’s license in the glovebox, and, for all intents and purposes, vanished into thin air.

  First stop, Ottawa, where the freshly incarnated Carl Russell, using cash, purchased the clothes and other gear he’d need for this excursion, then hopped on a flight for Iqaluit in the territory of Nunavut, where he caught his connection with the malamute-besotted Rachel and headed for the opposite end of Baffin Island.

  He’d never been one for bucket lists, but after watching Iditarod coverage on ESPN, he’d developed an itch to hop on a dog sled with a team of huskies and head off into the icy nowhere. Turned out traveling all the way to Anchorage wasn’t necessary—the east coast was equally, amenably frigid. And, more to the point, remote.

  His destination, lying along the fabled Northwest Passage, lay closer to the Arctic circle than Alaska’s North Slope, and even with the onset of spring and the ravages of global warming, snow lay heavy on the ground into May.

  And judging from the front he could see
moving west from the Cessna’s cockpit, more was on the way. A man might very well get lost in it.

  An Inuit guide from the trek outfit greeted him on the landing strip, just outside the corrugated Quonset hut that passed for a terminal. He was small, leather-skinned, with a windblown mop of wiry black hair atop a baked apple of a face, creased with a tobacco-stained smile. He wore seal-skin pants, seal-skin boots, and a flimsy wool pullover.

  “I am Miki,” he said in vaguely accented English, offering a thickly callused hand and nodding eastward toward the oncoming storm. “I am sorry, but I think we will not start out tomorrow. Maybe day after, or day after that.”

  “That’s what I gathered. Not a problem on my end.”

  “The lodge will charge you for the extra nights.”

  “Again, not a problem.”

  “And you will probably have to share a room with one of the hunters.”

  A sudden pinprick somewhere along his spine. “Beg your pardon?”

  “They will head south when we head north. But no one goes out till the storm goes by.”

  A shared room. With an unknown hunter, which meant a gun of some sort, possibly a knife. Not the plan.

  “Is there nowhere else, someplace I could get a room of my own?”

  Miki offered a wincing smile and shook his head. “Only one hotel. I am sorry.”

  Complain too much or too loud, he thought, you’ll only draw attention. Make an enemy.

  Miki pointed west, suggesting they head off, and once each man had grabbed a duffel they marched with crunching footsteps toward the scramble of low-slung pre-fab houses that made up the town, each seemingly nailed in place by a twenty-foot TV antenna. Here and there he spotted a wood-plank rack for stretching sealskins, or a husky, beautifully furred with its mask-like face and haunting blue eyes, chained in place on a ten-foot snow drift, its home.

  . . .

  The lodge was a one-story structure of long pinewood hallways and small tan rooms, but a great stone fireplace anchored one end of the lobby, and welcoming flames crackled within the hearth.