Vengeance for the Dead

Vengeance for the Dead

Don Stoddard

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 Don Stoddard

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to SMASHWORDS.COM and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever without the prior written permission of the author except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter 1 - Getting It Together

Chapter 2 - Life Goes On

Chapter 3 - Meeting the Widow Again

Chapter 4 - Investigating the Squad

Chapter 5 - The Interview

Chapter 6 - Getting to Know the Pretty Widow

Chapter 7 - No Help from the Specter

Chapter 8 - On to the More Pleasant Side of the Investigation

Chapter 9 - The Interviews

Chapter 10 - Looking for a Killer

Chapter 11 - In the Den of Thieves

Chapter 12 - The Task Force’s First Meeting

Chapter 13 - A Time to Kill

Chapter 14 - Hospital Time

Chapter 15 - The Making of a Killer

Chapter 16 - The Boy is the Father of the Man

Chapter 17 - Setting a Trap for a Tiger

Chapter 18 - Life Goes On

Chapter 19 - Trouble in Paradise

Chapter 20 - Undercover

Chapter 21 - I’m from the Federal Government and I’m here to Help You

Chapter 22 - The Undercover Warrior

Chapter 23 - Undercover Again

Chapter 24 - Starting to Wrap it Up

Chapter 25 - And the Beat Goes On

Chapter 26 - The End of the Beginning

Chapter 27 - Closing In

Chapter 28 - Trepidation in the Enemy’s Camp

Chapter 29 - It’s a Wrap

About the Author

Acknowledgements:

I owe a debt of gratitude to Diane Gregg, Thomas Stoddard, and Kevin McArthur for their tireless efforts in reviewing, revising, and editing this work. Applying their expertise, they have significantly improved the book’s continuity, and readability, while significantly reducing the number of grammatical spelling and syntactical errors that are the bane of all authors. Their effort and encouragement are deeply appreciated.

Prologue

It had been raining since early morning. Not a heavy rain that splatters against the windshield requiring rapid sweeps of the wipers, but a slow and steady drizzle that darkens the day like a heavy fog. The slow moving wipers removed the beaded water from the glass and did little to improve the driver’s visibility.

The old battered and rusty pickup truck moved slowly down the narrow tarred gravel road, stopped abruptly then turned sharply into a short driveway almost hidden behind a line of cedars that extended for several hundred yards in both directions.

A heavy iron-barred gate denied access. The truck stopped. The driver removed a keypad from his jacket and punched in a series of numbers that resulted in the ponderous gate moving in a slow stuttering arc. The truck moved through the opening and the gate slowly closed.

Intermittent lightning flashes revealed a low structure nestled in a thick wooded area a full one hundred yards down a deeply rutted dirt driveway. The twisting dirt road was bordered by closely planted trees that completed the sight barrier to the dark house.

It was a squat ugly building. The roof was flat. Little pitch was necessary in this part of South Carolina where snow seldom fell. No effort had been made to make the house inviting. It seemed in fact that every effort had been made to make it dark and uninviting. If this was the owner’s intent, he had succeeded.

The windows were tightly shuttered so no light filtered onto the roughly mowed weeds that grew to the edge of the concrete basement walls. The house itself was constructed of large fieldstones, roughly mortared to produce the effect of an impenetrable barrier.

The battered truck stopped at the entrance and a small thin man in ragged old clothes and a dirty baseball cap emerged carrying a cardboard box of food and supplies. He quickly unlatched the front door, keyed in the security code and entered the house.

The inside of the house was opulent, furnished with costly antiques scattered over plush oriental rugs. The dark wood-paneled walls were hung with fine tapestries and brightly colored paintings. A natural oak bookshelf covered half a wall lined with leather bound classics and bright dust jacketed current best sellers. The lighting was soft and indirect, the bulbs recessed into the ceiling and walls. Track lights were positioned to highlight the paintings. The internal beauty was almost overwhelming after the stark exterior.

The man doffed his baseball cap, revealing a balding head. He was thin but not gaunt. He appeared wiry strong and his movements were smooth, almost graceful as he moved through the house looking for evidence of entry since his last visit. He checked all the windows and doors for telltale marks of forced entry or that one or more of his elaborate detection devises had been triggered.

From his lined face he appeared to be in his middle fifties, he had a plain unremarkable face. The deep lines around his eyes suggested a life of pain and sorrow; but to think this would be a mistake for this man had seldom known real joy or deep sorrow. Though extremely intelligent, he was emotionally deprived knowing neither happiness nor sadness. His reptilian eyes were slate gray and totally devoid of warmth.

Satisfied at length that his defenses had not been broached during his absence, he removed the supplies from the cardboard box and placed them on the shelves in the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, removed a half quart of sour milk, poured it down the drain and replaced it with a fresh container. After putting his groceries away, he walked wearily to his spacious bedroom with its adjoining bath and slowly removed his old clothes, showered and put on silk lounging pajamas and a beautiful purple robe. The smooth leather slippers he wore made no sound as he walked back into the living room. Standing at the cocktail bar, he prepared himself an extra dry Absolut vodka martini. Then, somewhat wearily, he sat on the soft leather recliner, heaved a sigh and sipped his drink.

He turned on the large screen television set and watched for an hour, laughing quietly at Whose Line is It? He tried to get interested in a couple of detective shows but turned them off in disgust. Finally, somewhat reluctantly, he got up, rinsed his glass, went into the pantry and pushed a button concealed in the trim around the pantry door. The pantry shelves moved aside and a door slid open revealing a steep metal staircase to the level below.

He descended the stairs to a brightly lit room that had been built well below ground level. The walls were lined with detailed maps and aerial photographs of major cities around the world. He turned on one of several computers that lined the room. He read the message confirming that he had successfully completed his latest assignment and had left no trail. He then carefully deleted it.

Covering one wall was a vast collection of weapons: knives, pistols, shotguns, rifles, AK 47’s and even a handheld mortar. They were all immaculately clean and looked ready for use. Ammunition for each of the weapons was stacked on shelves below them.

On a desk located in the corner of the room, the small man picked up a black telephone and hit messages. Several messages had been left. To anyone listening there was only unintelligible noise. Retrieving a decoder from the desk, the thin man attached it to the phone and a clear sharp voice could be heard giving a series of numbers, which meant nothing without the proper code.

As he was decoding his messages, the other telephone on his desk rang. The man decided to let the answering machine handle the call.

A loud voice boomed out of the speaker. Get off your lazy arse and answer the bloody phone, the English accented voice commanded. I know you’re there so pick it up now!

Angrily the small man grabbed the phone and screamed into it. How the hell did you get this number? And why are you calling on my open line? You idiot, anybody could be listening. If you ever do that again I’m going to make you very sorry. Now what is it you want?

I’ll call you on any damned phone I bloody well choose, the booming voice exclaimed. "And if you ever threaten me again I’ll have five doers at your bloody Carolina cracker shack in hours. How did I get your number? I know all about you, you blithering idiot. I know where you live. I have your picture, your fingerprints, and even your DNA. Didn’t you think you were totally vetted when I let you join my organization? Don’t you think I keep close tabs on you?

Now you creepy little skin-headed weasel, I have a job that has to be taken care of right away. It’s one you cocked up five years ago and now needs fixing. The boys up there decided to do it on the cheap, and as we would expect they botched it up rather badly. Your target is in the hospital but not badly hurt, so get your bloody arse in gear and get going. I’m faxing you the details on your secure line.

The phone banged down in his ear and almost immediately, a fax began printing on his machine.

The little man, still shaking with rage quickly pulled the faxed message from the machine and began decoding it. As soon as he saw the name Brentwood, he knew what it was all about. Someone has been digging into the Daniels’ case and found something.

That job had not been his finest hour. The woman’s screaming had nearly undone the whole damn thing, but it had gotten done, and had held for five years. The fax went on to say that the target was a policeman named Hallen. I hate busting cops, he said to himself. It’s risky all out of proportion to the return. The fax continued; his usual twenty-five thousand dollar fee had been paid to his handler.

Wadding the fax into a ball, he angrily threw it into his trash bin. A skin headed weasel is it, he said aloud. You’ll be very sorry you said that. Still ranting he downloaded a number of files from the computer hard drive onto a small disc, wrote a note on the label and put the disc in his in pocket. That’s the last time that slimy Brit is going to talk to me that way. I’ll get you. You can bet your limey ass on that, he mumbled.

But that will have to wait, he thought, right now; I’ve got to go kill a cop.

Chapter - 1 Getting It Together

From across the room he was barely visible. Slowly swirling dust almost concealed him as he hunched over a file drawer that he had pulled from one of the battered cabinets lining the wall. He carefully examined the drawer’s contents and removed several pieces of wrinkled and yellowing paper. The room was silent except for the occasional sound of materials being extracted, unfolded, and placed carefully on one of five stacks resting on the floor.

Light dust billowed and swirled with his every movement and hung suspended in the room’s still air, forming a flickering halo around the glaring light of the single hundred-watt bulb that descended on a cord from the black ceiling. Battered green filing cabinets lined the room in long dusty rows while broken desks and chairs rested in dark cluttered heaps in the shadows created by the glow of the gently swaying bulb.

There was an odd feeling in the vault. During the last two days, the collector had sensed movement in the dark recesses of the room, but when he looked up only dust stirred in the shadows. Merely the swaying of the light bulb, he convinced himself.

Still he had an uneasy feeling that someone was watching him and it gnawed at his psyche. Several times while he was gathering documents he felt a cold draft that chilled him and caused an involuntarily shutter. Hal was not an overly emotional or an excessively sensitive person but there had been times, particularly since his wife’s death, when he had seen and heard things that he could not explain. Whatever! He would be glad to get out of this tomb. Tomb was the word that came to mind when he thought of the vault.

Hal had been trolling for two days, collecting material from metal cabinet drawers stuffed to overflowing. The tops of the cabinets were piled high with frayed and faded green ledgers, tax receipts on ringed wire holders, pads of outdated forms and regulations stacked in wavering piles, and office supplies of all kinds piled in jumbled heaps among the debris. In the corner near the wooden steps that led to the first floor stood an unadorned aluminum Christmas tree, its silvery branches appearing as a glittering skeleton in the meager light. Stacked in piles beneath its gaudy limbs were boxes of ornaments awaiting the tree’s annual rebirth from this dusty tomb. The tree would be reborn to a brief but wondrous life in the land of the living. That’s if the ACLU could be thwarted in its incessant lust to destroy any expression of religious thought. It was late summer and the silver tree’s eleven-month hibernation was nearly at an end.

This was the Harrison County dead file storage room, euphemistically called the vault. Whatever name was used it was in fact a sarcophagus for useless equipment and materials and the storage place for the files of unsolved and inactive murder investigations. The burial site for records of futile investigations into personal tragedies; a hiding place for justice failures.

A soft thin film of dust covered the well-worn gray uniform shirt and coated the membranes in Hal’s nose and throat. Frequent coughing and explosive sneezes into crumpled Kleenex tissues gave only temporary relief from the insidious dust that he ingested with every breath. For two days now, Detective Sgt. George Hallen of the Brentwood City Police Department had meticulously sifted through the battered files that contained the accumulated data on a large number of unsolved murders in the county. The gleanings from his search lay on the dusty floor in neatly stacked piles.

The search had yielded five almost identical sized stacks of officer’s reports, memos, newspaper clippings, hand written notes on lined yellow legal sized sheets and other odd sized pieces of paper. Crime scene photos and pictures of the victims posed in death plus an assortment of odds and ends in clear plastic envelopes had also been taken from the cabinets. He placed everything on one of the five stacks.

Propped against each stack was a three-by-five card on which Hal had printed with a broad felt pen, a name and a date. The names on the cards were the names of murder victims whose killers had not been identified, and the dates were the dates of the murders. The cases listed were Phelps, May 1991; Warwick, April 1993; Findly; January 1992; Daniels, December 1996; and Lewis April 1997.

Thank God that’s the last of it, Hal mumbled half aloud as he pushed the final drawer back into the cabinet and straightened up. Hal was just a shade over medium height with broad thick shoulders, muscular arms and a trim waist. Thick black hair fell down over his ears. He needed a haircut badly he knew, but finding the time of late had been difficult. His face was clean-shaven, or it had been when he had arrived at six this morning. Now dark stubble was turning his angular cheeks from a healthy tan to a shadowy gray. His nose was straight and his large wide-set eyes were the color of blue slate. His rugged masculine features made him attractive to most women but his sad eyes and lined face aged him so that he looked older than his thirty-three years.

As Hal straightened, the dull ache between his shoulder blades lessened a degree, so he stretched and twisted until the pain was mostly gone. The worst part, I think, is over, he said to himself. He had gathered all the data he could find on the five cases. Now he would have to put the pieces together and see what he had wrought. Then he might be able to determine whether anything in this mess linked the cases together as Harry Jacobs had hinted in his article.

Hal had initially thought that the files on each crime would be conveniently stored together and easily resurrected. But, alas years of easy access and the frequent failure to return extracted materials in the right order had resulted in a jumbled mess that had taken him two very uncomfortable days to sort through. He still wasn’t sure he had it all.

His search had been extensive and meticulous but there had been several occasions during his collecting that he had unexpectedly found important pieces of information outside his selected search area. How he came to find them, he had no idea. It seemed at times as though he had been prompted to look in a particular place even though by all rights there should not have been anything of value there. When he gave into these unconscious urgings, he always found something pertinent to one of the cases. It’s really weird, he thought.

Hal was familiar with most of the cases after having worked on some of them when the crimes were current and the cases active. He still felt bitter about his and the department’s failure to find the killers and bring them to justice. He had gone over the cases many times in the intervening years but could think of nothing that he could have done that hadn’t been done. And yet, the failures nagged him. Although he had yet to study the cases in detail or as a unit he was fairly certain there was no connection or linkage, but he had to make sure.

Three days earlier, Lieutenant Switzer had called him into his office and told him that he was to be a task force of one to reopen the five cases. Hal’s reaction to this honor was less than enthusiastic.

Why the hell do I have to dig into this old crap? Why is the Chief so worried about some newspaper articles written by a brain-dead reporter who had nothing better to do than search old newspaper articles about unsolved murders? He knows the articles are full of mistakes and most of the conclusions worthless. From this crap he builds a fairytale linking the murders together, and I’ve got to check it out. This had been Hal’s response when he had been given the assignment.

Lt. Switzer, his boss, was a tall, handsome, ramrod-straight ex-marine who was as tough as he looked. He still cut his abundant hair as he had when he was a Gunny Sergeant in the Corps, but there was gray now appearing in the temples of his brush-cut mane. His manly good looks made him the poster boy for law enforcement. His only problem was that although he was intelligent he had a total lack of imagination. He ran his command by the book and