Absolution, p.5
Absolution, page 5
part #3 of Joe Logan Series
“You know that a train had gone over him.”
“That isn’t all though, is it?”
“How long had you known Sam?”
“Only six months. I thought that I knew him, but obviously I didn’t.”
“I doubt that anyone really knows another person,” Logan said. “Sam chose to live off crime, and apparently got greedy and bit the hand that fed him.”
“And what did they do to him, Logan? Tell me.”
“Removed his teeth and the tips of his fingers and thumbs, disfigured his face, and tied him to the track and waited for the train to finish him off.”
Andy felt sick to the stomach. Opened the door and exited the car, to slide down with her back against the front fender and hug her knees. The image that assaulted her mind was graphic, and impossible to expel.
“You needed to know exactly what kind of scum killed Sam,” Logan said, hunkering down in front of her. “Anyone that gets in their way is eliminated. Zack Slater makes his millions from other people’s needs and desperation, and he doesn’t care if they live or die, only in the use or profit he can generate from them. They’re just assets.”
Andy raised her head and stared into Logan’s eyes. Tears ran down her cheeks, but her expression was as hard as steel and full of resolve. “I don’t think I really loved Sam, Logan. I cared for him, but didn’t envisage our relationship going much further. But I can’t just sit back and let Slater get away with what he did. Are you going to tell the police what that man told you?”
“Let’s go inside and get some coffee and discuss it,” Logan said, helping Andy to her feet.
There were only three other people in the diner; a middle-aged guy in a check shirt, blue jeans and work boots, sitting on a stool at the counter, eating his way through a stack of pancakes that were swimming in maple syrup. And there was an old couple with gray hair, gray skin and gray clothes, facing each other across the table in a booth, both noisily spooning soup from large bowls to their puckered mouths.
Andy and Logan walked to the far end of the small diner, sat down and said nothing until the waitress had been and taken their order for coffee.
“Well?” Andy said. “Are you going to report what you know, or do I have to?”
Logan sighed. “Nothing that we heard in the motel room will help put Slater away, Andy. The guy would deny that he said any of it. And he was talking at gunpoint, under extreme duress.”
“So murderers like Slater are allowed to get away with anything, even when everybody knows what they’re guilty of?”
Logan paused and waited until the girl in a grubby yellow tunic put a coffeepot down on the table between him and Andy and sashayed away, swinging her oversize ass as if the aisle between the booths was a catwalk.
“Get real,” Logan said as he poured coffee into two large ceramic mugs that he supposed had been gleaming white a decade earlier, but were now more of a dull, pearly gray. “You have to provide proof. Knowing something and proving it are sometimes as far apart as New York and LA.”
“Are you going to do anything about it?”
“Yeah. Slater has made it personal. And if they can find out who you are, he’ll want you out of the picture.”
Taking the cell phone that had belonged to Wayne Miller from his pocket, Logan switched it on and scrolled through the list of contacts. Called Zack Slater’s number, spoke to him, goaded him, and then switched off the phone again.
“Did you mean all that?” Andy said.
Logan nodded. “Yeah. He needs to be dealt with. I suppose if I walk away now I’ll regret it, so I’ll do what I can to close him down.”
“You mean kill him?”
“If that’s what it takes, yeah.”
“Thank you,” Andy said.
“It’s a little premature to thank me. Slater will have made a lot of enemies over the years, but he’s still above ground, so he knows how to protect himself. There’s no guarantee that we’ll get out of this in one piece.”
“Better to have tried and failed, eh?”
“No. Better to succeed.”
After such a short period of time, Andy had already developed a deep sense of trust in Logan. He was the type of guy that exuded an aura of consummate self-confidence, with a psychological strength to match his towering height and powerful physique.
“I need to phone my sister and ask her if you can stay at her place for a day or two,” Andy said, taking her phone from her purse.
“One night only,” Logan said. “And then I’ll move out and take care of Slater.”
“Not without me,” Andy said. “I’m not going to sit back and wonder what trouble you’re getting into.”
“I work best alone,” Logan said, but knew that it was a false statement. If it hadn’t been for Kate Donner turning up at Miriam Carmody’s Rocky mountain home with a shotgun, then he would have been killed several months ago by the hitman Vicente Mendez.
“I was a tomboy as a kid,” Andy said. “I can shoot straight, and I won’t freeze up if the going gets tough.”
“We’ll see,” Logan said. “Phone your sister. We need to come up with a plan, get some sleep, and find somewhere to stay for a few days where we won’t be found.”
Andy spoke to Fran as she drove. Told her what had gone down and asked if she could bring Logan back for the night. The silence on the line told her that Fran was unhappy with the situation. “Never mind, Fran,” Andy said. “We’ll find somewhere else.”
“No,” Fran said. “We’re family. Your problem is my problem. See you soon.”
Andy put the phone back in her purse and drove the rest of the way to Pisinimo without saying a word.
The small clapboard house was at the end of a dirt track that dipped down to the property and was out of sight from the highway. Only a rusted metal mailbox affixed atop a wood pole gave a clue to a house’s existence.
Andy parked at the rear, and a dark-haired woman in jeans came out through the kitchen door to meet her and Logan as they got out of the Nissan and headed for the stoop.
Andy hugged her sister, and then introduced her to Logan.
“Hi, Logan,” Fran said.
“Hi, back,” Logan said.
They went inside, and Logan took in his surroundings. The kitchen was clean and homely and had the smell of coffee and freshly baked bread and furniture polish; welcoming aromas that combined to make him feel comfortable.
“Who exactly are you, Logan?” Fran said as she poured the three of them coffee from a pot that could have graced a campfire next to a chuck wagon in days of yore, when cattle drives were part of the western way of life.
“Just a guy,” Logan said.
Fran grinned. Could see that the tall man was not used to talking about himself. He seemed to possess some indefinable apartness, and she guessed, rightly, that he preferred his own company as a rule.
“Humor me,” Fran said. “Tell me something about the stranger that has suddenly turned up at night with my sister.”
“Long story short,” Logan said. “I’m an ex-cop from New York City. I seem to have got myself mixed-up in some mess that I’d rather not have become a part of. I have a bad habit of doing that.”
“Have you relocated to Arizona?”
“No. I was just passing through. Home is wherever I happen to lay my head these days.”
“A drifter?”
“A traveler. I like to move around and see what’s over the next hill.”
“Andy says you found Sam’s body.”
Logan nodded. “Yeah, unfortunately. And now we know more than is good for us, and have a war on our hands.”
“Why not just tell the law what you know?”
“Maybe I will, but that won’t make any difference. What I know isn’t going to put Zack Slater in a prison cell.”
“So what will you do?”
“I’ll think of something, ” Logan said before draining his cup. “Right now I need a couple hours’ sleep, to let what’s gone down settle out in my mind.”
Fran guided Logan up the stairs and pointed out the bathroom before opening the door to the spare bedroom.
“Sleep well,” Fran said.
Logan gave her a small smile. “I always do,” he said.
Fifteen minutes later, after showering and brushing his teeth, Logan was fast asleep, lying diagonally in the regular length bed, so that his feet did not stick out over the bottom edge of the mattress.
“What the hell have you got yourself into?” Fran said to Andy as they sat in the kitchen and had a nightcap of Jack Daniel’s.
“Nothing that I went looking for, Fran. If I’d known that Sam was working for a gangster I wouldn’t have been seeing him.”
“But you wouldn’t leave it be. You had to get involved. And this guy Logan could be a total flake. How do you know that he’s safe to be with?”
“I trust him. He’ll deal with Slater, and then I can get on with my life.”
“A big, mysterious stranger shows up from God knows where like Eastwood in Pale Rider, and you think that he can set things right. Remember the quote from The Book of Revelation; ‘and I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him’. I think that this Logan is a little like some kind of avenger. He’s trouble.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Andy said. “He found Sam, and then was told that Slater was probably responsible, but that the law didn’t envisage finding any evidence to link him to it. He came to Ajo to follow up, but decided that it wasn’t his business, until two armed men broke into his motel room. He made one of them tell him everything. I was there.”
“So now you and Logan are a team, willing to risk your lives for what? Sam was one of the bad guys. He stole that money, and he must have known what would happen to him if he got found out.”
“And you think that I should just forget about it, move away from Ajo and start over?”
“That could be a better plan than trying to fight a lost cause that could get you killed. If the man that Logan interrogated saw you, then they’ll find you if you stay in the area.”
“I won’t let them drive me off like a scared rabbit.”
“I didn’t think you would, but I had to try and make you see sense.”
“What would you do in the same position?”
Fran frowned. “I probably am in the same position, or will be when they find out who you are, because they’ll try to find out where you are through me.”
“You’ll have to come with us,” Andy said as the enormity of the situation hit her: she had put her sister in mortal danger by coming to the house with Logan.
“I’ll pass on that,” Fran said. “But I’ll keep a shotgun with me until you and your superhero make the problem disappear.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was seven-thirty the following morning when Roy Darrow unlocked the door to the Madison Bend Courier, entered, switched on the overheads in the gloomy room and then relocked the door behind him. He did not open for business until eight-thirty, which gave him time to work on the current week’s edition, prior to it being published over in Tucson on Thursday.
Apart from Wallace Pattison, the Courier’s photographer, and Mandi Stevens, a local woman who oversaw subscriptions, advertising, classifieds, obituaries and the like, Roy was the owner and editor and decided what news found its way into the Courier, and wrote it up the way he knew the readers liked it. The townspeople were on the whole a conservative bunch, and Roy catered for the majority in these hard times. The town council was due to host its annual meeting at town hall that evening, to set out its priorities and give residents the chance to have their say, so Roy would be there with Wallace. He saw that as being a two page spread with photos of the mayor, other officials and some of the locals.
Sitting at his desk, Roy was booting up his computer when a deep voice said, “You’ve got a big mouth, Mr. Darrow.”
Roy jumped in his swivel chair in surprise, spinning round to be faced by a giant that he had never seen before. The man looked very similar to a tanned Richard Kiel, the actor who’d played the villain Jaws in a couple of old Bond movies.
“How the hell did you get in here,” Roy said, standing up on trembling legs to face the intruder.
“Sit down,” Martin Keno said as he withdrew a pistol from a shoulder holster and leisurely screwed a silencer to the end of the barrel. “We need to talk.”
Roy felt his legs turn to Jell-O. He dropped back into the chair and blinked rapidly as his heart thudded and his bowels threatened to relinquish their contents into his pants. “Who are you?” he whispered.
“I’m an associate of Zack Slater,” Martin said. “And Mr. Slater has been informed by a reliable source, as you might say, that you met with a guy by the name of Logan for coffee at the Cochise Café down the street, and that you fed him rumors that you have no proof of.”
“I…I―”
“Don’t deny it, or I’ll gut shoot you, Darrow. I want to know exactly what you said to Logan, because he has already made a nuisance of himself, and it appears that you are the reason why.”
“We talked about the murders. I mentioned that some people thought that Zack Slater was a suspect for a while over the murder of the man found tied to a cactus out in Organ Pipe, and that it bore similarities to the body on the railroad track.”
“Was Mr. Slater ever charged with that brutal murder?”
“No.”
“Then your observation was no more than unfounded gossip that you obviously did not print in this no account rag you call a newspaper. Am I right?”
Roy nodded.
“What did Logan say about it?”
“He said that it was none of his business.”
“He has now had a change of mind and made it his business, Darrow, and that has already caused Mr. Slater some problems.”
“I’m sorry,” Roy said.
“And rightly so. Did Logan tell you how to contact him?”
“No.”
Martin advanced to within three feet of Roy, reached out and grasped him by the throat and lifted him up out of the chair and pinned him against the wall with his feet dangling over a foot off the floor. Watched as the fat little newsman’s face turned purple and his eyes bulged like a Leopard frog’s, and held him in place for twenty seconds before letting go, for him to drop heavily to the floor in a wheezing heap.
“Think on this, Mr. Darrow,” Martin said. “I was never here. If you make waves, then the next time you see me or one of my…associates will be when your premises are burned down and you get a bullet through your head. Do you understand?”
As he coughed, massaged his throat and fought to take breaths, Martin nodded vigorously.
“Sensible man. You’ll be monitored. And if Logan contacts you, get in touch with us in Ajo. You’ll find Mr. Slater’s business number in the book.”
That was it. The giant Indian turned and headed out through the rear door that he had gained entry by earlier.
Pushing up into a sitting position, Roy leaned against his desk and didn’t move for over five minutes. He had thought that the man was going to kill him, and now felt a surge of relief at only suffering a sore throat. The threat had worked, though. Roy had absolutely no intention of ever mentioning Zack Slater’s name again to anyone. It was evident that he had contacts in the Bend, and that loose talk could and would result in catastrophe. He ran a small weekly paper, not something like the Washington Post. He wasn’t an investigative journalist, and did not aspire to be one. Risking life or limb for a story was the chosen path of war correspondents and other gung ho types that courted danger to bring news to the masses, who in the main were not particularly interested. He had never set his sights on being awarded a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.
Logan got dressed, went downstairs and switched on the coffeemaker, before unlocking the kitchen door and stepping out into a dawn that already held the promise of another red-hot day. Strolling over the dusty yard to a small saddle-backed barn, he opened one of the large doors and entered the building, to be faced by two vehicles; one being an inexpensive Mazda SUV, the other a Ford pickup that had more rust than paint on the bodywork, was standing on flat tires and appeared to be a seventies model that had probably not moved from where it stood for at least a decade. Old farm tools hung on older cobwebbed brackets on the walls, and an accumulation of household junk in cardboard boxes and plywood tea chests were piled up in a corner. There was a single, grime-smeared skylight window in the roof, and a weak shaft of early morning sunlight was filled with swirling dust motes that had been disturbed and become airborne when he opened the door and walked across the dirt floor.
Logan found an old screwdriver on top of a lidless can that had two inches of solid orange paint in the bottom, which had dried, cracked and looked like a baked African plain in miniature. He used the screwdriver to remove the New Mexico license plate from the pickup, returned to the house and cleaned the plate at the sink using detergent and hot water. Back outside, he took the plate from Andy’s Nissan and replaced it with the one from the pickup.
“Why are you doing that?” Fran said, appearing at the door with a mug of coffee in each hand.
“Because Slater is obviously organized. He’ll have his goons looking at CCTV footage from any cameras that could show Andy and her car in the vicinity of the motel,” Logan said as he finished up and got to his feet to approach Fran and take the proffered coffee from her.
“That old plate is out of date,” Fran said.
“I’ll change it ASAP,” Logan said.
“I don’t want you to let Andy go with you, Logan,” Fran said. “You could get her hurt or killed.”
“I’d rather she stay out of it. But you need to remember that Andy was tailing two killers, and was in possession of a gun. I don’t think she’ll let go of this, with or without me.”
“There’s got to be another way.”
“Can you think of one? I could just hitch a ride and move on, but Andy would still be in danger, and maybe you would be too. I don’t think Slater likes loose ends.”
“The law has to take care of it.”
