Aftermath (19 page)

George stepped behind the floor-to-ceiling racking and unlocked and opened a rear door.

Logan looked both ways.  Saw no one, so quickly strode across the grass and into trees that fringed the small lake.  He found four fist-sized rocks, dropped them in the plastic sack, squeezed the air out and tied a knot in the top before throwing it at least thirty feet from the shore.  He watched as it immediately sank beneath the mud-colored surface.

“So what you plan on doin’ now?”  George asked Logan when he returned.

“Giving you this,” Logan said, pulling the thousand dollars he had taken from Mendez’s wallet from where he had stuffed it in a pocket of the overalls.

George didn’t argue.  Just took the money and nodded his thanks.

“And I’d appreciate getting a couple hours’ sleep while I’m here,” Logan said.

Ten minutes later, Logan was sitting back in the easy chair with his feet up on the desk.  He asked George to wake him up at five a.m. and went to sleep.

“You want for me to take these old clothes of yours home and burn them when I go off duty at six?”  George asked when he woke Logan up.

“Yeah, George.” Logan replied.  “And have you got a computer?”

George frowned and his forehead wrinkled like an old washboard.  He went out to his Ford truck and came back in with an old Dell laptop and placed it on the desk.

“I sometimes spend a couple of hours writin’ when I’m on nights,” George said.  “I had an ancestor that was a Buffalo Soldier in the 25
^th
Infantry Regiment, back in eighteen-ninety.  His name was Henry Nolan, and he was a sergeant.  He lived to be one hundred and three, and he got to be buried in Arlington Cemetery.  When I was a youngster he used to tell me stories, and now I want them to be recorded, to live on.”

“That’s a fine thing to do,” Logan said, and meant it.  “I was in the army for a short spell.”

Logan and George drank coffee and talked some more, while George booted up the computer and made a copy on a disk of the incriminating files from the USB flash drive.

Soon after, they shook hands and Logan left.  He climbed into the Discovery and planned his next move.  Decided to make two phone calls.

Ray had pulled into the rest area ten minutes after Logan.  Saw the SUV, and without slowing headed straight for the exit road, to drive back onto the interstate and come off a mile later, loop under the highway and park up in the lot of a closed diner.  He didn’t know if Logan had just stopped for a leak and maybe get himself a coffee from a machine, or whether he had decided to park up and grab a couple of hours’ sleep.  Ray lit a cigarette and waited for the signal from the tracker to start up again.

Logan
phoned Rita.

“You both OK?”  he said.

“Yes, are you?  Your face has been all over the TV.”

“I’m fine.  The problem is sorted.  You and Sharon are in the clear.  “I should be back at the motel in a couple of hours, max’.  If I’m not, then just leave.  You’re safe to go home.”

“We’ll wait for you, Logan.  Take care.”

Logan said nothing, just ended the call and phoned directory enquiries to get the number of the Charleston Police Department.

The call was put through to Detective Charlie Garfield.

“Joe Logan?”  Charlie said.

“Yeah.  Who are you?”

“Detective Garfield.”

“First name.”

“Charlie.”

“I believe you’re looking for me.”

“That’s right, Joe.  You need to talk to us.”

“That’s what I’m doing now, Charlie.”

“Where are you?”

“On the move.  So tracing this throwaway phone isn’t going to help you much.”

“So why have you called me?”

“To tell you that I have a flash drive with a lot of incriminating evidence against Jerry Brandon on it.  He had his accountant, Richard Jennings, murdered, and has been doing his best to find Rita and Sharon Jennings and have them capped.”

“And you’re looking after their interests, I take it?”

“That’s right.”

“So bring the evidence to me, Joe.  I need a statement from you.  At the moment all we have are bodies, and your name keeps cropping up.”

Logan thought it over.  There was no proof that he had done anything illegal.  Mendez was the only person that he had killed, and he was history; a burned up corpse at the bottom of a pit.  But this was not going to go away.  He needed to set things straight with the law so that he could get back to living his life without being a fugitive.

“OK, I’ll send you the file, and then check in on the ladies.  It’ll be mid-afternoon before I’ll be back in Charleston.  I’ll call you when I get there.”

“Not good enough, Logan―”

Charlie slammed the phone down.  The guy had ended the call.  But he had the feeling that Logan would do exactly what he had said.  And the truth was he had no hard evidence to bring charges against him.

Logan got a coffee to go from the bank of machines at the rest area, then drove onto the interstate and headed up to the Sunrise Motor Inn in Morgantown.  He stopped once at the Morgantown Mall, bought a new set of clothes from a store that had reduced all prices in a closing down sale, changed into them and dumped the overalls and ball cap, and then found a cyber café just up from Sears where he could use the internet and send the Brandon file as an attachment to the Charleston Police Department for the attention of Detective Garfield.

Sharon looked through the peephole.  Scrabbled off the security chain, opened the door and threw her arms around Logan in a tight embrace. “I had the terrible feeling that you would get yourself killed, Logan,” she said.

Logan said nothing.  Just gave her a small smile as he enjoyed the closeness of her, and the fresh smell of scented soap, and a lemony fragrance from her shining mane of hair.

He walked into the room and couldn’t help but feel like a returning hero, or a hunter home from the hill.  Rita joined them, and the three of them enjoyed a group hug.  He knew that this was more of a farewell display than a welcome, though.  He had expected the police to have the motel under surveillance; to be waiting for him, but he had scouted the surrounding area and had been surprised to find no apparent presence of law enforcement.  He was not to know that Benny Newman’s portable TV had blown up the previous week, and that he had not got round to replacing it.  Benny preferred reading to watching the junk that was put out these days, with commercials every five minutes that drove him almost insane.  He had not seen the news, or would have definitely enquired to see if there was a reward for giving up Logan’s location.

Rita and Sharon bombarded him with questions.  Logan waited for them to become quiet before giving them the pertinent facts, which were that Mendez was history, and that Jerry Brandon was probably within minutes of being arrested, if not already in a holding cell screaming for a phone to call his lawyer.

“So we
really
are safe now?” Sharon said.

Logan nodded.  “As safe as the next person,” he said.  “You can relax and get on with the rest of your lives.”

Logan took a large brown paper bag off the dresser, which had grease spots on it from a takeout meal that Rita and Sharon had eaten the previous evening.  He went out to the Discovery and transferred the money from under the seat into the bag.  Kept back a couple of wads for himself and put them in a deep pocket of his new car coat.

Ray cruised by the Sunrise.  The area was in freefall.  A lot of business premises were abandoned.  Some had been burned down, and many of the remaining eyesores were besmirched with crude aerosol graffiti.  The global recession was biting hard, and the poor just got poorer as the politicians and bankers continued to create civil unrest and seemed powerless to make this planet a better, safer, healthier and happier place to live on.

The bleeping had sped up, and the green light on the receiver was rapidly blinking.  Ray slowed and waited.  The interval between the beeps increased.  He pulled into a small lot fronting a 7-11 type of convenience store.  Parked and went inside.  He was starving, so got a hotdog and coffee while he pondered what to do next.  He would check the nearby motel out on foot, confirm that Logan’s SUV was there, and then wait for him or one of the women to come out.  It was broad daylight, so he couldn’t do anything else.  He knew just how lethal Logan could be.  He had to somehow get the drop on him and get this over with as quickly as possible.

Logan threw the paper sack on one of the queen-size beds.  “There’s maybe eighty or ninety grand in the bag,” he said to Rita and Sharon.  “A gift from Brandon.  I took some out to cover expenses for my time and effort.”

Rita emptied the banded bundles of banknotes onto the coverlet, ripped one of the bands off and started counting.  Sharon switched on the coffee maker, and Logan sat down on a chair and rested, readying himself for the trip back down to Charleston.  He needed to get his story right, and then repeat it in his head like an actor rehearsing lines, so that by the time he was sitting in a police interview room he would actually believe every word he said, true and false.

Ray walked along the sidewalk until he could see the rear of the motel through a gap in a broad-leaved hedge.  He pushed through a narrow opening and came to the end of the row of rooms.  Sneaked a look round the corner as Logan closed the driver’s door of the Discovery and walked back into one of the rooms with a crumpled bag held in one hand.

Now what
?  Ray backed out of sight and sat down with his back to the timber-clad wall.  He couldn’t be seen from the road, so took the short-barreled pistol out of his pocket and checked it.  It was almost Showtime.  If he kept his cool, he would soon be heading home and into a much better future.

Standing up and taking several deep breaths, Ray made his way along the rear of the building to the room he knew that Logan was in.  There was a sash-style window open two inches.  He attempted to raise it, but it resisted.  Applying more pressure, the swollen, wood-framed window begrudgingly inched its way up, until the gap was wide enough for him to climb through.  He waited a minute, in case he had been heard.  There was just the low mutter of voices through the closed bathroom door.  Ray pulled out a folding knife from his jeans and cut along the top and down the right side of a paper thin insect screen that had probably been in place for half a century.  This was going well.  The layout of the majority of motels comprised a short hall with the bathroom off it and the main room with beds and sparse furniture behind.  This was an oddity, in that the bathroom was at the rear.

Slowly, carefully, Ray climbed in through the window, to stand in a stained bath-come-shower combo.  He tried to relax, and listened again.  No change.  Still a muffled conversation.  He stepped gingerly out of the bathtub onto a damp mat on the cracked tile floor.  Drew the gun again and took two steps to the closed door.  Gripped the round, metal handle, turned it and yanked the door open.

Sharon had just handed Logan a mug of coffee, and Rita had just found a hundred-dollar bill with a thin, plastic card adhered to it.  All three of them looked up in surprise as Ray Darrow appeared in front of them, pointing a gun at Logan.

Charlie
Garfield detailed two detectives to park in an unmarked sedan out of sight on the approach road to Jerry Brandon’s property.  There was no other way in or out.  Brandon was going nowhere.

Charlie had received the file from Logan and read enough to know that this was proof of motive for Brandon to have had Richard Jennings murdered, and for him to want his late accountant’s wife and daughter also taken care of.  Charlie decided to wait and interview Logan later in the day before bringing Brandon in.  The more incriminating evidence he had, the more likely he was to obtain a confession and wrap this case up.  Mendez was still a loose end.  There had been no sightings of him.  He had either gone to ground, or maybe the mysterious Logan had found him and made the problem of the loose cannon killer go away, permanently.  Time would tell.

Jerry was on edge, waiting for a call from Ray that would finally put his mind at rest.  His future was in the balance.  If Ray failed, then…then fuck, he didn’t want to even contemplate what the future might hold for him.  If he’d had any sense, he would have negotiated a payoff with Jennings; one that would have implicated his Judas accountant, so that he wouldn’t have had a hold over him.  But on principle he had decided not to hand over a red cent to the disloyal piece of worthless shit.  Jennings had been like a dog that you gave a home to and fed, and then it turned on you and bit your hand.

“It’ll work out just fine,” Gloria said, taking his empty glass from the table to refill.  “I think that when Ray calls to tell you that he has taken care of the problem, we should take some time out and go on that vacation to Europe that you’ve kept putting off.”

Jerry nodded.  “That sounds great, honey.  We could do with a change of scenery for a few weeks.  But let’s wait till I get this cast off my arm.”

“Don’t move a fuckin’ inch or I’ll shoot you, Logan,” Ray said.

Logan took a sip from the mug of coffee.  Decided that, at heart, Ray Darrow was not a killer.  The snub-nosed pistol was wavering in his hand.

“You’re too late,” Logan said.  “You’ve come for the memory stick, right?”

“Yeah.  And I know you’ve got it, so don’t try to pull my strings, Logan.  Just hand it over.”

“OK,” Logan said, putting the mug down and slowly withdrawing the flash drive from the breast pocket of his new fifteen-dollar blue cotton shirt.  He held it up between his finger and thumb so that Ray could see it.  “A lot of people have died because of what’s on this,” he said.  “And for nothing but Brandon’s greed.  I guess you followed me up here from the old mine.”

“Yeah,” Ray said, managing a smile.  “There’s a tracker on the money.”

Rita held out the bill that it was glued to, so that Logan could see it.

“So you know where I’ve stopped on the way up here?”

“That’s right.  So what?”

“I stayed at a rest stop for a few hours.  A cleaner there was kind enough to let me get a shower, make me coffee, and even let me have the use of his laptop.  I then called in at an internet café at the mall.  Detective Charles Garfield of the Charleston police now has a copy of this.  Your boss is going down, Ray, so you’ve got a big decision to make.  Do you walk away from it all now, while you can, or do you die in this room?”

“You’re fuckin’ bluffing, Logan,” Ray said, but his voice lacked confidence.

“I told Brandon that I don’t bluff.  Check it out, because I know for a fact that your orders are to get the stick and then kill us.  Do you really want a triple murder rap, now that you know Brandon is finished?”

Ray kept the gun on Logan, took his cell out of his pocket with his left hand and called Brandon’s number.

“Give me some good news,” Jerry said.

“I’m up in Morgantown, Boss,” Ray said.  “In a motel room, with a gun on Logan and the women.”

“Has Logan got the fuckin’ memory stick?”

“Yeah, but―”

“There are no buts, Ray.  Get it off him and shoot them all.”

“Logan says that he’s e-mailed a copy of it to the police.”

“That’s bullshit.  He’s lying to you, saying anything to save his skin.  If the police had a copy, I’d be in a fuckin’ cell by now, wouldn’t I?  Do it, finish the job.”

A split second and that old standby, luck, can alter the course of everything and anything.  History shows us that.  The future is not set in stone.  One spontaneous word or action can change everything.

Rita had been moving her hand under the pillow, inchmeal, until she had a firm grip on the butt of the gun.  She summoned up all her courage and drew it, knowing that part of the man’s concentration was on the phone call.

Ray saw the movement from the corner of his eye.  He swung his gun hand and jerked on the trigger in the same instant that Rita fired.

Logan leaned forward in the chair and used the ridged sole of his right boot for purchase as he propelled himself forward in a sudden, explosive attack.  And like a big cat bringing down its prey, he crashed into Ray with his full weight behind him.

Ray felt as though he had been hit by an eighteen-wheeler.  All the breath was knocked out of him as his back slammed into the frame of the bathroom door.  The gun flew out of his hand to pinwheel though the air and land on the carpet just a few inches from Sharon’s feet.

Logan drove his right fist into Ray’s stomach with the power of a jackhammer, simultaneously bringing his left knee up to make solid contact with the already incapacitated man’s genitals.

Ray went sailing backwards into the bathroom; the backs of his knees impacted with the rim of the bath and he fell into it, gouging a deep furrow through his scalp as the back of his head smashed against the faucet.  Dazed and in agony from the devastating blows to his stomach and balls, Ray attempted to sit up, only to be met by a shovel-sized, knuckle-scarred fist that seemed to detonate in the side of his face like a hand grenade fragmenting, to fracture his jaw and cheekbone.

Logan was in a state of cold rage, but had not lost control; just let the reptilian kernel of his brain loose: the deep-rooted part of the psyche that is within all humans, and is bereft of compassion or the ability to show mercy.  He leaned over and struck the now unconscious man again, shattering the zygomatic bone that formed part of the orbit around the eye.

As he was about to inflict even more damage, Sharon used her fists to drum on his back.  “Enough, Logan, you’ll kill him,” she shouted.

Logan hammered his fist into one of the wall tiles.  It cracked like ice on a lake under too much weight, and sharp splinters of it flew out and down to shower Ray as he began to regain consciousness, to be consumed in growing world of pain.

Logan breathed out, long and hard.  Refocused.  Stood up straight and turned to look down into Sharon’s upturned face.  Her eyes were wide and full of apprehension.  The sight of Logan in action had been at once a frightening yet elation-filled episode.  He seemed to have put hardly any effort into his sudden and overwhelming assault on the man with the gun.  There had been no hesitation in his onslaught.  On some level Sharon was in awe of this enigmatic stranger who had become their guardian.  She had now experienced his extremes: the gentle giant that she had seduced and enjoyed making love with, and now the dark side of a potentially deadly man, who showed no clemency to those that crossed the hard line he had drawn and lived by.  His concept of right and wrong seemed simple, with black and white rules that he would not allow himself to be swayed from.

Rita was unharmed.  The bullet from Darrow’s gun had plowed into the mattress to bury in the floor beneath the bed.  And the shot that she had fired had gone high, to pass through the ceiling.

“What are you going to do with him?”  Sharon asked Logan.

“Put him in the trunk of his car and drive him back to Charleston, after I’ve had a cup of coffee.”

Logan hauled Ray out of the tub and into the room to dump him on the floor with his back up against the foot of the nearest bed.  Searched his pockets and relieved him of his phone, wallet and car keys.  He then picked up Ray’s gun and held it to the now alert man’s temple.

“If you’ve got a god, then I suggest you pray to him, Darrow,” Logan said.  “Or maybe you can just talk to him in person in a few seconds.”

Ray felt his bladder void its contents as he squeezed his eyes shut, grimaced and waited for a bullet.  His whole life didn’t flash through his mind, just the hope that he would not feel any further pain.

Logan tossed the gun on the bed.  Maybe if Rita and Sharon had not been there to witness it, he would have killed Darrow.  The man had come to kill the three of them, and so to Logan’s mind had no right to live.

Ripping strips from a bed sheet, Logan bound Ray’s wrists and ankles, and then asked him the make and location of his car.

Ray found it hard to speak.  His face felt like a broken egg.  He answered Logan’s questions in a slurred, weak mumble.

Twenty minutes later Logan was good to go.  He had found the BMW and driven it round to park next to the Discovery.  Checking that there was no one in sight, he picked Ray up like a baby and dumped him in the car’s trunk and closed the lid.

“Time to go,” Logan said to Rita and Sharon after he had told them how best to handle the inevitable questions that they would be asked by the police.

They took turns to embrace him, and Logan felt big and clumsy and slightly uncomfortable with the effusive thanks.  He’d done what needed doing, no more or less.

He stopped once on the way down to Charleston to take a leak and check on Ray.  And when he arrived in the city he pulled into an alley only a couple of blocks from the police department, untied Ray and helped him out of the trunk.

“You need a hospital,” Logan said to Brandon’s lackey, handing him the car keys.  “And then you should get the hell out and start over.”

Ray took the keys and got in the driver’s seat.  Decided that he would call in at the nearest A and E and tell them that he had been mugged.  Once his face had been fixed up he was going to do what he should have done a long time ago, head for Ohio.

Logan walked away carrying a plastic supermarket bag containing the money he had taken from the holdall.  He went to the Greyhound Station and placed the bag in a luggage locker, then bought some Scotch tape in a store and entered a Mac’s on Lee Street East, used the restroom to wash his face and hands and run his fingers through his hair, which needed cutting, and then went to stand in line at the counter.  He ordered two quarter-pounders and a large coffee, black.

He ran through what he was going to say to the cop again as he ate.  And finally, before leaving, he nipped a strip of the tape off the reel, pressed the small locker key onto it, and firmly attached the key to the underside of the tabletop, out of reach of where anyone would find it unless they had cause to lay on the floor and look up.

Charlie Garfield came out to the front desk in a hurry when he got the call that a man by the name of Logan was in the building, asking for him.

“So you’re Joe Logan,” Charlie said, his face tilted slightly up to look into the big guy’s impassive eyes.

“That’s right, Detective.  How can I help you?”

“By coming out back and giving me a statement,” Charlie said.  “A lot of people have got hurt, been killed, or gone missing, and like I said, your name keeps coming up.”

“OK,” Logan said.

They sat in a bright and airy interview room on the first floor.  Logan had expected a windowless room with a bolted-down table and two no-frills cheap chairs.

It started slow.  Charlie asked the big man for his full name and address.

“Joe Logan, no fixed abode.”

“You’re a vagrant?”

“No.  I prefer nomad.  I keep moving, but am self-sufficient, in that I have a pension and money from the sale of a house.  I’m no burden to you taxpayers’.”

“And just how did you hook up with Rita and Sharon Jennings?”  Charlie asked.

Logan ran through it from the day he’d met Rita at the Golden Valley Trailer Park through to the present.  He made it concise and skipped any wrongdoing on his part that could result in any charges being brought against him.

Charlie thought that the man in front of him had done a lot that he would never admit to.  “Sounds like you were doing my job, Logan.”  He said.

“I was doing what needed to be done, Detective.  The ladies are safe, and you have all the evidence you need to put Brandon away.  I’d call that a result.”

“What about Sal Mendez?”  Charlie said.

Logan shrugged.  “What about him?”

“You know where he is?”

Logan shook his head.  “Probably took off.  You may never hear of him again.”

Charlie caught the inflection in Logan’s voice.  Would have bet his pension that Logan knew exactly were Mendez was.  And that he would be wasting manpower and money by continuing to search for the hitman.

Logan asked for coffee.  Knew that Charlie was going to start at the beginning and go over it all again, asking different questions.  He was happy with that.  He had no other place he needed to be.

Charlie eventually gave it up.  He couldn’t find any holes in Logan’s story; even though he knew that they had just been filled in, like graves with their secrets buried.