Project Northwest (20 page)

“You are not,” she teased. “Well, maybe,” she
admitted and they both laughed.

* * * *

Belltown, located on the city's downtown
waterfront, was once a low-rent, semi-industrial district. It sits
northwest of downtown Seattle and in recent decades the
neighborhood has been revitalized and transformed into a district
of night spots, small specialty shops, swank restaurants, and
residential towers, as well as old warehouses, some converted, most
not.

Belltown has a reputation for having more
than its share of crime: burglary, theft, assaults, and murders.
Many murders were drive-bys that didn’t seem to target anyone in
particular and the police linked most of the crime in the area to
gang activity.

For Mr. Wright and his team, Belltown was the
perfect place for them to add to the Seattle murder rate. Crime was
escalating in the area and the police chief and mayor had publicly
announced plans for an anti-crime program. The public announcement
afforded his team an opportunity many citizens just didn’t
consider. They never thought of the downside of such a program. All
they heard was the positive ring of anti-crime, but many criminals
knew the other side of it.

Mr. Wright knew that once a public statement
was made by the politically connected mayor, it had to be supported
by results. Big, bold, newsworthy, positive results; as such,
crimes were dealt with quickly and usually by overworked
detectives, some willing to hastily link victims to circumstance to
clear the dockets.

Another dead body in Belltown would be
distressing, but not unexpected, and Mr. DuVall’s circumstance
would be accepted as just another car theft that ended badly for
the owner of the vehicle, or another drug deal gone badly.

The death would certainly hit the papers and
many would wonder what a person of DuVall’s social standing was
doing in the Belltown area. Gossip would bring up the now overt
choices: drugs or prostitution.

Greed is a social disease, it’s not
self-preservation or natively biological in nature. Mr. Wright was
delighted when his fourth mark, Steven DuVall, agreed to meet him
at an abandoned warehouse on Western Avenue for the
exchange—digital photographs of bank documents for cash payment. It
would be the second such image delivery today.

Steven DuVall’s greed made Mr. Wright’s job
easy.

His team arrived about an hour before the
meeting and parked the Tahoe a block from the warehouse at a nearby
restaurant. One associate went inside to prevent the vehicle from
being towed while Mr. Wright and another associate walked to the
warehouse, cleared out any bums hanging around, and went over the
details of the deed.

Mr. DuVall arrived right on time. His
intuition was telling him he was in trouble, to keep driving and go
back to his apartment.

The area was too secluded, but he kept
thinking of the two hundred fifty grand and drove his Lexus through
the dilapidated chain link gate. He stopped at the front of the
warehouse, rolled down the car window and flashed his headlights.
Then he enacted his plan; one he thought was clever enough to keep
him alive. He called his office number from his cell phone, knowing
it would go to voicemail after four rings. He tucked the phone on
his seat near his right buttock and pulled his shirt over it to
hide the glow of the display.

The associate walked up to the driver’s side
door. “Where is Mr. Wright?” Steven pressed.

“He’s back there. Pull around and stay in the
vehicle, turn on your interior light, and turn your headlights
off.” The associate instructed him to pull to the side of the
warehouse, away from the street view.

Steven, out of habit, rolled the window back
up and announced out loud, “Driving to the north side of the
warehouse on Western Avenue, it’s nine P.M. I’m meeting with Mr.
Wright and an associate.”

He started the vehicle and could hear the
wheels crack and moan as they strained the pea gravel that
surrounded the warehouse. He made a sharp left turn, followed by a
quick right, creating a path through the overgrowth of garlic
mustard and giant hogweed before stopping along the north side of
the neglected warehouse. He waited.

The associate came up and tapped on the
window.

Steven rolled down the window and asked,
“Where is Mr. Wright?”

“He’s coming. Let me see yo cell fone,” the
associated demanded in his best street slang.

“Why?”

“Ya know, in case ya recording.”

Steven reached for the cell phone and
secretly pressed end–call before handing it over.

“Get out and put your hands on the hood, no
sudden moves.”

Steven thought of throwing the car in reverse
and flooring it, but greed clouded his judgment.
They need me.
They wouldn’t kill me,
he kept telling himself. He was wrong,
dead wrong.

After the pat down and a quick check of the
vehicle, the associate instructed Steven to get back in the car and
keep his hands visible at all times. “Leave that light on,” he said
as he pointed to the interior light.

Mr. Wright appeared from behind the building,
his path lit by a flashlight and Steven was troubled when he didn’t
see a briefcase or carrying case for the money.

When Mr. Wright neared the driver’s side of
the car, Steven pointedly asked, “Where’s the money?” He was trying
his best to act tough, even though he was about to vomit with
fear.

“We have it,” replied Mr. Wright. “Do you
have the pictures?”

Steven opened the sunglasses compartment, the
sim card fell into the palm of his trembling hand, and he handed it
to Mr. Wright. Mr. Wright gave it to the associate, who loaded it
into a small digital camera.

“We found the other camera in your office
earlier this afternoon. Out of curiosity, tell me, why were you
taking pictures of the same documents on two different cameras? Who
was the second set for?” Mr. Wright probed.

Steven didn’t respond.

Mr. Wright waited until he got the
confirmation nod from the associate then said, “Looks like we’re in
business. What was the deal again?”

“Two hundred and fifty,” Steven quickly
responded, eager to get the money and leave.

“Tell you what. We’re going to give you a
bonus, here’s a thousand.” Wright pulled ten one-hundred dollar
bills from his coat pocket and tossed them into the car.

Steven was dumbfounded—this wasn’t going as
he had pictured it in his mind. “The deal was two hundred and fifty
thousand,” he said. His voice quivered with a combination of anger
and fear as he shifted his gaze to the bills scattered over the
interior of his car.

Steven saw the flash of silver from the metal
of the silencer first, it was just enough to catch his attention.
He rotated his head back toward Mr. Wright and gawked when he saw
the black hole of the gun’s muzzle.

Without thinking, he pressed start, threw the
car in reverse and slammed his foot onto the gas pedal. He only
made it a few inches before the hushed bullet tore through his left
temple and exited the back of his skull just behind his right ear,
leaving a hole the size of an apple. The bullet blew out the right
back window of the car and bounced off the concrete blocks of the
warehouse before landing on the gravel.

The car revved as if it were still trying to
escape and crashed hard into a corner of the building before coming
to a jolting stop.

Mr. Wright surveyed the car and body. There
was blood, brain matter, and small pieces of skull all over the
interior of the car and, as planned, all over the money.

Mr. Wright fixated on a clump of brain matter
sliding off the headrest and thought,
There are his memories,
good and bad, his opinions, his likes and dislikes. Anything he
stored in those brain cells, now slid down a headrest for all to
see.
Like many things, when it’s all out in the open, it
usually means you’re dead, metaphorically speaking.

He reached in and popped the trunk, did a
search and didn’t find anything incriminating. He then carefully
searched the interior of the car. When convinced the car was clean,
he gave a nod and the associate then instructed the other
associates to clean Mr. DuVall’s apartment and office of all mics
and cameras.

“He wasn’t very prepared for this, was he?”
Mr. Wright alleged.

“No, sir, his apartment and office are being
cleaned and I have his cell phone.”

“Keep it. We’ll get rid of it elsewhere.”

The second part of the plan relied on a bum
or criminal type to walk by, brave the murder scene, pick up the
bait cash, and later be picked up by the police for something
minor—becoming suspect number one in the murder of Steven
DuVall.

Mr. Wright was even hopeful some crack-head
would happen by and actually take the car and dump the body—even
better. The murder scene would offer little in the way of clues and
the detectives would want to quickly pin it on someone.

Mr. Wright walked around to the passenger
side of the car, shined his flashlight on the concrete wall, found
the bullet’s imprint and dug through the weeds below. He soon found
the remains of the bullet.

He and the associate walked back to the
restaurant without speaking a single word.

Mr. Wright tossed the used bullet in the air
as if it were some worthless coin he’d found on the sidewalk. He
whistled the song “Patience” by Guns ‘N’ Roses and was at peace
with the world.

* * * *

The Lounge’s entertainment didn’t pull a big
crowd, so Cindy Stanton requested an early out from her shift,
gathered her items from her locker, and took a seat at the bar.

She nursed a cranberry and vodka while
joining in with the mindless banter between the bartender and a
couple of regulars. Her second drink was a gift by a young man
sitting at the conversation tables just outside the bar. She raised
her glass to him in a gesture of thanks and he motioned for her to
join him.

The associate took out his cell phone,
reversed the battery, and placed it back in the case as he
waited.

Cindy had no real connections to anyone in
the area except for the bar staff, the clerk at the local
bookstore, and the workers at the Seattle Art Museum. She was
twenty-nine years old and in most ways felt she wasn’t making any
headway in her life. She was lonely. The vodka kicked in and helped
her overcome her trepidation and she took him up on his offer.

“I didn’t think you’d come over, but am glad
you did. My name is Max,” the associate said as she slid into the
chair opposite him.

“Thanks for the drink. I’m Cindy.”

“Nice to meet you, Cindy. You know, as I
watched you come over, I was trying to come up with some clever
pickup line, but then I thought, how come there isn’t a drink named
‘Pickup line,’ wouldn’t that be clever?”

“That’s actually not a bad idea. What would
be in it?” she asked intrigued. Max wasn’t at all what she
expected.

“I don’t know. I only got as far as the name,
what do you think?” he questioned, attempting to get her
talking.

“Well, pickup lines are cheesy, but I can’t
think of anything cheesy related to a cocktail. Let’s see ... they
are also immature, but sometimes they are funny, so it would have
to be something that’s cheesy, immature, and somewhat funny.”

“Cheese is yellow or orange, so it could have
lemoncello in it, and gin is usually made with immature berries.”
Cindy laughed quietly when he said immature berries. It went over
his head at first, then he caught on to the sexual innuendo.

“So Lemoncello and gin is not a bad start,
what’s funny?” Cindy asked, now entertained by the idea.

Max inched his chair closer, “I can’t think
of anything that would go into a cocktail that would be considered
funny. Maybe some type of fruit?” He reached for his cell phone and
noticed a frown from Cindy.

“Darn, my battery just died,” he said.

“Do you need to make a call?”

“No, not really, I’ll call my boss later and
let him know I’m off the grid,” he said. He knew there was a good
chance she would want to visit the ladies’ room after she finished
her drink and she only had a sip or two left.

“If I’m being too personal, please let me
know. Let’s save the funny portion of the cocktail for later. What
do you like to do? I mean, what gets you out of bed each
morning?”

“Me?”

“Yes, of course, you don’t think I’d have
bought you a drink and divulged my million dollar cocktail recipe
if I wasn’t a little interested in you, do you?”

“I suppose not. Would you excuse me, I have
to go to the ladies’ room.”

“Sure, hate to ask, but can I borrow your
cell phone? I can call the boss while I miss you and we won’t have
to worry about being interrupted when you return.”

She hesitated before answering, “Okay, but
don’t be a jerk and run off with it.”

“Would never be a jerk. Here take mine as
collateral.”

“Okay,” she agreed and they exchanged cell
phones.

When she was out of sight, he checked her
call log. She had not received or made any calls today and from
what he could tell, she rarely received calls. She was a loner of
some type or just lonely, he wasn’t sure. She wasn’t bad looking
and had a nice laid-back personality and he admitted to himself
that this was probably the best blind encounter he’d had in quite
some time. He scrolled the log to Sunday and there either wasn’t
any activity or it had been erased.

He called Mr. Wright. “Checked her cell phone
and nothing here, there doesn’t appear to be anything unusual.”

“Very well, maybe Ms. Davies was just there
to pick up a schedule. But the mark is under control, so it doesn’t
matter.”

“Do you mind if I chat with her some more?
She’s kind of pleasant to talk to.”