The Devil's Snare: a Mystery Suspense Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 4) (3 page)

“They have any leads on the asshole who did it?” Bo asked.

“Not yet,” Kevin said. “Two of the flares were nothing but ashes, but the third somehow didn’t burn up all the way. Our forensics team sent the flare out for fingerprinting. We’re waiting to hear back.”

“Son of a bitch,” Bo said, then plowed his hands through his hair and paced around his living room. “Alright, what the hell do you need to do about his whole knife thing? I need to get down to the station. And I need to find out if Mack’s son out in Oregon heard the news yet. Son of a bitch!”

Ken said, “Bo, get your shit done. When you’re fully sober and can think, give me a call. You must have had someone over here last night.”

Bo’s mind raced to the note he found tucked between the knife and the seat cushion of the couch. “Wait a minute. I found a note the asshole left.” Bo limped over into the kitchen, retrieved the note he had placed on the counter and handed it to Kevin. Kevin read the note, handed it to Ken, then said, “We’ll need to take this. See if we can lift any prints from it.”

Ken said, “You have any enemies, Bo? Like maybe some husband of some chick you banged recently?”

“I have morals, you know. No married chicks and no one under twenty-one. I ain’t a pervert, you know. So as far as enemies go, none that I know of.”

“You think anyone down at the department would rather you not run for chief? Anyone you think wants that position over you?” Kevin asked.

“No one who would stick a knife in my couch. None of the guys down there are like that.”

“Any of the female members?” Ken asked.

“None of the guys
or
the girls would stick a knife in my couch. That could have killed me if I had laid down on it. Shit, this should be an attempted homicide investigation.”

Kevin said, “Slow down, Bo. I know you’re pissed but it seems more likely that someone was sending you a message, not trying to kill you. We’ll grab the knife, tape and the note, run them all through forensics and see what we can find. In the meantime, get yourself cleaned up, go to the station and be with your department. They are probably wondering why the hell you’re not there already. Wouldn’t want your absence to hurt your chance in the election. We’ll be in touch.”

Bo and ten members of the Ravenswood Fire Department walked into the Route 69 Bar and Grill at precisely eighteen hundred hours. The owner of the Bar and Grill, Lance Mahoney, had called Bo after he heard the news.

“Bo, you bring as many of your team as you can gather up here tonight. Drinks and food are on me. Mack was a good guy, he didn’t deserve what he got. You bring as many guys as you want.”

The eleven members of the Ravenswood Fire Department sat at the stretch of tables Lance had arranged. He estimated that twenty members would show up, so when Bo told him that he didn’t expect any more to show, Lance pulled one of the end tables apart from the rest, and prepared it for other diners, hungry for Route 69’s “World Famous” steak burgers and thirsty for any one of the twenty-nine beers Lance kept on tap.

“Listen boys,” Lance said to the group, “I knew Brian Mack for over forty years. He was a good friend and a great man. I know his son will make arrangements for his dad, but us being here together is what Mack would’ve wanted more than to be put on public display in some stuffy funeral home.”

“He won’t be on display,” one of the members said. “He was pretty burned up. Wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone to see him how he is now.”

No one said a word in comment.

Lance said after several seconds of quiet, “Well, all the better, I suppose. Here’s to Mack.” He raised a glass full of some brown liquid, and slammed the liquid down his throat. Every member did the same with whatever drink they had ordered.

Bo had just ordered his fifth beer when deputies walked into Route 69 Bar and Grill. They looked around the place for a few seconds before seeing the person they were looking for. One of the deputies reached over and grabbed the radio transmitter off his left shoulder, spoke a few words into the transmitter, then looked at his partner. His partner nodded then glanced back towards the entrance. Within a few seconds, three more uniformed deputies walked in. The deputy who did the talking into the transmitter nodded towards the stretch of tables where Bo and the other fire department members were finishing their meals and, by the looks of them, moving quickly to states of inebriation. Together, the deputies walked over to the group.

“Bo Randall?” the lead deputy asked. “We need to speak with you about the death of Brian Mack and his mother, Claire Mack.”

Bo, looking up from his beer, said, “Then sit down, order a drink and we’ll tell you everything we know. You don’t need to be so formal. Where’s Kevin and Ken? Thought they’d show up and have a few with us tonight.”

The lead deputy, who Bo had met only once or twice, put his hands on his hips, leaned closer to Bo and said, “We need to speak with you down at the station. Now, this can go one of two ways: Either you come with us on your own, or any one of my partners here will be glad to assist you. Let’s go, now.”

“What are you talking about?” Bo said, loud enough to capture the attention of everyone at the table. “You think I know something about Mack’s death?”

“Down at the station, Bo. Let’s go.” The deputy placed his hand on Bo’s shoulder, something Bo was not a fan of. He jerked his body away, nearly causing him in his current state of inebriation to fall to the floor. Before Bo could regain his balance, three uniforms grabbed him and shoved him to the floor while one of the deputies angrily slapped cuffs on Bo.

“What the fuck?” Bo yelled. “Is this some kind of sick joke? What the hell are you doing?”

The lead deputy said, “It didn’t have to go down like this, Bo. I did give you an option.”
 

Bo was pulled off the ground by two deputies, then hurried towards the exit door. The remaining ten members of the fire department, many of whom had stood up when Bo was pushed to the ground, were left with clueless expressions on their faces. They heard the lead deputy reading the Miranda warning to Bo, their captain and odds on favorite in the upcoming chief’s election, as Bo and the team of deputies disappeared out the door.
 

ˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇ

“I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Bo was rubbing his wrists, trying to dull the pain caused by the handcuffs, when the sheriff’s department’s lead homicide investigator, Ken McCallion, reminded Bo that he was free to contact a lawyer.

“Suit yourself,” Ken said. Ken stood around five-ten and weighed a slender hundred and fifty-five pounds. His salt and pepper hair, crows feet wrinkles framing his eyes and smoker’s lines etched around his mouth, gave him the look that most would associate with a chain smoking accountant. He had been with the sheriff’s department for nearly twenty-two years, the last nine of which were spent in homicide. “You do understand you’re facing some serious charges, right Bo? Arson is the least of your worries. You’re looking at no less than double manslaughter. If you’re lucky and plea out, maybe arson and depraved indifference. No matter which way this turns, you’re looking at spending a long time under the watchful eyes of New York’s finest correctional officers.”

“I’m not looking at anything because I had nothing to do with Mack’s death, starting any fire or depraved anything. Now either tell me what the hell this is all about, or let me go back and finish my beer.”

Ken McCallion, always one for the dramatic cliche, dropped a thin manilla folder onto the table, then, slowly and deliberately, pushed the folder in front of Bo. “Go ahead,” he said, “open it up. See your handy work.”

Bo flipped open the folder, then slammed it shut. “Why are you showing me this? Was that Mack? Jesus Christ, that was a picture of Mack, wasn’t it?” The four by six-inch photograph showed an image of a man, burned well beyond recognition.
 

“You need to see what you did to him. Don’t you want see how he died?”

“You’re a sick fuck,” Bo snapped. “Mack was my friend. Why the hell would I burn his house down and kill him? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I have no idea why you did it, but let me tell you how we know you did it. First, we pulled the remnants of a flare out of Mr. Mack’s basement. There were three flares used in conjunction with fifteen gallons of high octane fuel used to start the fire.
 
Most of the fuel was spilled across the basement floor and the gas cans they were in were sealed tight, each still holding enough fuel to create a nice explosion when the temperature got high enough. Thankfully, and luckily for us, one of the flares wasn’t reduced to ashes. It had a single fingerprint on its stem. Care to guess whose fingerprints we matched it to? Here’s a hint, it’s one of the two people in this room right now and the print wasn’t mine.”

“You’re a moron,” Bo said. “I’m the captain of the fire department and in charge of equipment for Station One. My fingerprints are probably on every flare in the department.”

“That’s true,” Ken said. “But our matching your print to the only one we found on the flare is just one of the reasons you’re sitting here with me. The second reason is the knife found in your couch. You remember, the one you allegedly sat on and stabbed a hole in your ass with?”

“Allegedly? You want to see my ass and see how alleged the cut is looking? Ask Kevin and Ken. They showed up at my house. They saw the damn knife taped to a seat cushion. And they read the note that the asshole knife guy left for me.”

“Deputies Kevin Long and Ken Majors are actually the ones who broke this case wide open. And since you already mentioned the note you found,” Ken emphasized “found” by using his fingers to demonstrate air-quotes, “that’s reason number three that you’re enjoying my company. I have a few more reasons but I would think you’d rather find out more about reasons two and three first. Am I correct?”

Bo’s mind raced back to the previous night. He couldn’t remember much about what happened, who he may have been with and who, if anyone, got selfish with his supply of cocaine. Despite his inability to recall the night’s events, he knew he would never commit arson, especially arson that killed an old friend of his. “Go ahead and tell me,” he said. “Tell me the reasons I’m here.”

“Glad you’re cooperating. I hope that after I give you what we have on you, you will continue to cooperate.”

“I didn’t burn the house down and I sure as shit didn’t kill Mack,” Bo snapped.

“The knife had one set of fingerprints, those being yours. We know they’re yours since we have your prints on file. You remember your pistol permit application, don’t you?”

“Yeah, and I know my prints were taken for the permit.” Bo paused a beat. “Man, you really are stupid. My prints are on the knife because I pulled it out of my ass. Probably touched the damn thing when I found it.”

“You didn’t pull the knife out of your ass, you sat on the knife, probably jumped in shock and pain and, according to the deputies who you called to investigate, the knife was still duct taped to the seat cushion. Plus, your prints were not only on the blade, but the handle as well.”

“I never saw that knife before,” Bo said, a bit confused and worried about the upcoming reasons McCallion was about to reveal.

“Not only did you see that knife before,” McCallion continued, “but you purchased it from Bass Pro Shops at nine forty-seven last evening. You see, the note that was tucked between the knife and the seat cushion, it was written on the back of a receipt. Your receipt, with a copy of your signature on it.”

“Bullshit,” Bo said. “I didn’t go to Bass Pro yesterday or any other day this month. Hell, I probably haven’t been in there in three or four months.”

“Yet the security footage we pulled from the store’s security system shows you clear as day, standing in line, then paying with a credit card at check out. You were there, Mr. Randall, and you purchased that knife. Oh, and by the way, you also purchased three five-gallon gas cans and a roll of duct tape. Duct tape, believe it or not, is a great surface for us to life prints from. And, before you ask, yes, only your prints were found on the tape.”

“This is all bullshit. I didn’t do anything and I never went into Bass Pro!”

“Can you prove it? Because, the video evidence is going to be really hard to deny.”

Bo paused, breathed heavily, and strained his mind. The harder he thought, the fewer details he could recall. It was as if everything he did yesterday had glazed over in his mind, leaving only ideas and guesses about his activities. “I know I was at Route 69 around dinner time, and there’re about six guys who were with me.”

“You arrived at Route 69 around five thirty, according to some eye witnesses, and left the place a little after eight pm. You’re are one hundred percent correct about that. Your issues begin after you left Route 69, showed up on video surveillance at Bass Pro at nine forty-seven, and weren’t seen by anyone again until two deputies showed up at your door this morning. See Bo, the fire that killed Brian Mack and his mother started around eleven last night, giving you plenty of time to gather up your fire-starting gear, make the short drive to his house and start the fire. So unless you have a credible alibi for your whereabouts between the time you left Route 69 and the time the deputies arrived at your house, I’d say you are in quite a pickle, Mr. Randall. Quite a pickle.”

“There’s no freaking way I set that fire.”

“I should remind you of your right to have a lawyer present,” McCallion said.

“I want to call my mother.”

“Your mom a lawyer?” McCallion asked as he stood and walked towards the interview room door. “I figured you’d want to call your father.”

“Nope,” Bo said. “My mother’s way meaner than any lawyer.”

Derek sat at the conference room table, his head spinning with his thoughts. He glanced at his watch for the fifth time since the team meeting had begun.

“I know you don’t have anywhere to be or anything to do since I set your schedule,” his assistant and office manager Victoria Crown, better known as Crown, said to Derek. “So, either stop looking at your damn watch and give us your full and undivided attention or I’ll just assume you aren’t interested in whatever decisions we make about your agency.”