Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

killed. He’d realized the second the call came in about an incident up in the Properties involving a white van that it was connected to his case. He’d arrived on the scene well before Jared and Daniel showed up, and was reasonably certain that they had no knowledge of what had transpired there. Nobody was inclined to press charges against Joseph for the dead man in the back of the van; his actions were clearly justifiable self-defence. A passerby’s video of the attack in the parking lot had gone viral, and two well-known celebrity lawyers had already offered to represent Joseph for free. The department was happy to let the incident slide.

As for what followed afterwards up in the Properties, the feeling of the department was that the less the general public knew about those events the better. It was never a good thing when private citizens got ahead of the police on a well-publicized case such as this one. The department’s press release was a jumbled haze of misinformation that made no mention of an old First Nations man and his dog, and suggested muddled drug-gang warfare as the most probable motive for the incident.

A separate press release stated that the police had found the kidnapped woman and she was in good condition apart from some bruises.

Any fear of contradiction of the events that had occurred at the Properties was put to rest three days later when the two men died in hospital of what was briefly described in the police press handout as complications from the crash.

Clarke summarized it for Merlynn over breakfast on the aft deck of Legalese. It was visiting hours when the incident occurred, people were coming and going, and the hospital videos showed nothing conclusive. He said that two tall men wearing hoodies could have been the pair who took Lauren out of the nightclub, but that was just a guess. Same body types, tall and lean, but nothing unusual about them save maybe for the way they kept their heads down when they passed the cameras as if trying to keep their faces hidden. It was also possible that they were just slouching teenagers. Apart from that, Clarke said, not a single damn thing. The officer stationed outside the victims’ room, soon to be assigned to traffic, vehemently denied leaving his post. When it was pointed out that two men had been strangled in their beds on his watch and only one door led into the room which was located on the eighth floor of the hospital, he acknowledged he might have gone out to the roof for a quick smoke break with one of the nurses.

“They were never going to tell us anything anyway,” Clarke said with a shrug. Thirty-four years of police work had left him relatively indifferent to the fate of miscreants.

“Probably not, but their deaths tell you something,” Merlynn said. “To murder two men like that under guard in a hospital is beyond risky, and it implies the stakes are high. And why take Annie in the first place? It had to be to put pressure on Danny and Jared for some reason.”

“There’s nothing in the house in the Properties,” Clarke said, “it’s empty apart from some basic furniture. The tax records show it’s belonged to the same offshore owner for the last seven years. The company that manages the property says it hasn’t been lived in or rented out since they’ve been in charge of it. They send in a cleaning firm once a month to dust things off, and they cash the cheques. It seems like just another spot for offshore money to sit. The city is full of similar places.” Clarke paused for a sip of coffee. “With housing prices rising so fast, renting can be more trouble than it’s worth on higher-end properties. Anyway, the upshot is another dead end. Just like Ernest, Louie, and Albert. Dead ends. Our one remaining good lead has vanished, and I’m getting a strong feeling that Newcombe’s disappearance is permanent. Whoever these people are, they’re careful. They don’t leave loose ends. So we’re back to square one.”

“Except for the park bench women,” Merlynn said. “They’re flashing-light loose ends. And they are a part of it all, there is no denying that, with the whole yacht club connection. And that bit of it is just pure unadulterated crazy. You go to the trouble of killing two small-time criminals who probably don’t know very much of anything and wouldn’t tell you even if they did, and leave alive witnesses who could put you away for a very long time? And not only do you leave them alive, you display them in a fashion that positively invites making connections between all of them? It’s just nuts. There have to be two different parties involved.”

Clarke took a sip of coffee, puckered up his face, and glanced at the ship’s clock.

“Still too early,” Merlynn said. “Even for on a boat.”

“I haven’t the slightest notion what you’re talking about,” Clarke said primly. He finished his coffee, picked up the toolbox that sat on the deck beside him, and retreated down to the engine room and the six-pack cooling in the bilge.

“He does look vaguely familiar.” Cat passed the newspaper across the table.

“Don’t know him,” Jared replied after a quick glance at the photo of the missing lawyer. “He was a well-known ‘man about town’ it says here. That usually means the guy is banging runway models. You probably met him at one of your fashion things. Or with your guy Albright. Sullivan does legal work for the party, according to this.”

“He’s not my guy,” Cat said pleasantly.

“Whatever,” Jared said. The up-in-the-air job offer was still a source of some annoyance to him. He didn’t really know why, he hadn’t even met Albright, although he was pretty sure that if he did meet him he wouldn’t like him. So maybe he was being unreasonable. Bite me.

“Did you say something?” Cat asked.

“No.”

Chapter 28