Vengeance: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 1 Read online

  “Hello, Vinton, is now a good time to talk?”

  “Hey, Crystal, what’s going on?”

  “I’ve run into a little trouble at work,” she said in a quiet voice as she tried to rub away the headache that was pounding in her forehead.

  “A little trouble. What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been taken off of the task force because of my connection to Owen, but I have a plan to get back on.”

  “Whose idea was it to take you off?”

  “My boss, George Kendall.”

  “Why do you think he did that?”

  “I’m not sure, but I may have some leverage on him.”

  He didn’t sound impressed. “It sounds like you figured out the solution to your troubles.”

  “One of them. The phone you gave me got banged up this morning at work,” Crystal said, sounding apologetic.

  “Crystal, I sure hope you were smart enough not to leave it sitting around the Federal Center. That place is crawling with FBI agents.”

  “Why do you say that?” Crystal asked.

  “Because if the SD card or memory survived, it wouldn’t take much for them to find your calls to me, and I don’t want the feds snooping around up here.”

  Crystal was outraged that he would think she was that stupid. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. Sometimes you’re such an asshole. I’ve got the phone right here in my loft. You need to learn to trust me,” Crystal yelled, slamming down the cordless phone.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Reece sat in his rental car balancing his laptop on his knees and listening to Willie Nelson singing, “Blue eyes crying in the rain.” He’d bluffed earlier with Kathryn Anders, figuring she had something to hide, and in a short time he’d pieced together the names of the individuals that were involved in the deal to appraise, and auction off, Melvin and Melanie Phillips’ art collection. He’d found the hospital website and their public relations announcement about the upcoming art auction to be held in the hospital cafeteria on May 5th.

  Purple and gold lightning flashed across the southern sky in the distance. He watched the approaching storm and looked down at the laptop wondering if the Phillipses were truly good people, trying to do nice things with their money, or if they had other intentions. Reece thought about the housing bubble that led the country into the current recession. So many people have been hurt as a result of the financial greed of so few.

  He grabbed his notebook and thumbed through the sheets from the previous week. Reece came to the place where he’d written notes after visiting Ann Fletcher in her smoke-filled home. He’d taped in the concert ticket from the 1981 Rolling Stones concert in St. Louis, and below it the picture of Crystal and her relatives. Below the picture he’d written the names of her family members. Kathryn Anders was Crystal’s cousin. Interesting.

  Reece was scrolling through news articles on his laptop, looking for more information about Melvin and Melanie Phillips, when the phone rang. He checked the caller ID, not wanting to endure another call from his family.

  “Hello,” Reece said, recognizing the number.

  “Hey buddy, have you got a pen?” Haisley said, sounding excited.

  “Yeah, what have you got?”

  “I talked to the FBI agent I worked with here in Tulsa. I got the names of the guys he played poker with at Sam Shanks illegal casino. Are you ready for them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dr. Hank Johnson, Tavo Sheave, Dan Kochi, and Melvin Phillips.”

  “Thanks, buddy,” Reece said, writing them down. The name Melvin Phillips seemed to jump up off the page.

  Chapter Forty

  The early morning sun streamed through the large A-frame window of the two-story log cabin high in the foothills above the town of Blackhawk. Still wearing only his towel, Sam Shanks wrapped his arms around the woman he’d flown in to visit. They exchanged a long and passionate kiss in her kitchen.

  “Okay, here are the keys to my truck,” she said, pulling away from the embrace. “Give me an hour or so to get settled in at work and then drop by. Do everything just like we discussed.”

  “Got it, and you said the clothes you bought are in the second drawer of the chest?”

  “Yes, Sam. Come here, let me show you. I don’t want to take any chances with Derrick. It all has to look like I told you. I don’t trust that bastard. It’s bad enough that Evelyn hired him.”

  “I got it. You’d better get to work or you’ll be late.”

  “Okay, I’m going, but first,” she said, motioning to him for another kiss. “Next time you need to get back here sooner. This three months not seeing you is getting old.” Sam leaned into her and let his hands slide down the woman’s firm back. They held one another close and kissed passionately. When the kiss was complete, he picked up his coffee mug and watched her exit through the side door. Before long she’d pulled the Maserati out of the garage and descended the steep asphalt driveway.

  Sam tossed the towel onto the bed and pulled out the second drawer of the dresser. He got dressed into the outfit she’d purchased and slid on the same blue dress socks he’d worn with his dress clothes the night before. After wolfing down the rest of his bagel, he got into the woman’s truck, wearing black jeans, a white t-shirt, a navy blue zip-up hoodie, and a pair of light brown Red Wing work boots.

  Shanks eyed his image in the rearview mirror, getting into the character of a cabinet installation technician, and drove down the steep roads toward the Golden Spur Casino, where the woman took care of the books. He hated the idea of this new guy moving in on her territory. There were other ways of taking care of people like this, but attention was one thing they didn’t need in this situation. Not when she had millions of dollars she’d laundered for him in her office safe.

  He parked the Toyota Highlander in the side lot of the casino and strolled through the front doors, admiring the four neat rows of slot machines near the entrance. Making his way to the cashier’s cage, he asked about the woman and was directed to a row of gaudy red chairs to wait.

  “Bruce, did you have any trouble finding the place?” the woman said, after tapping Shanks on the shoulder. “Alan and Hank will help you bring the boxes up to my office on the third floor.”

  “You mentioned having common hand tools here at the casino,” Shanks said.

  “Yes, we’ve already moved the tool box up to the office. It has screwdrivers and such like you requested.” she said, smiling at him.

  “Good,” Shanks said as he followed two men dressed in black cotton dress pants, white shirts, and green vests with the gold embroidered logo of the Golden Spur across their chests. Out in the alley behind the casino Shanks found the crate that contained the three wooden cabinets she’d ordered from Staples. He and the other men tore off the plastic wrapping and carried the wooden boxes to the elevator and up to her office on the third floor.

  “Okay, I want the tall bookshelf in the first room and these two cabinets in this room,” the woman said to Sam as the workers brought the last of the boxes up to her office. “Thanks, guys.”

  Sam went to work, opening the first box and pulling out the pieces of wood for the bookcase. Behind him near the door to the inner office he’d stacked two of the remaining boxes in a manner that precluded anyone from entering.

  Shanks worked fast and soon the five-shelf bookcase was assembled in the corner. The woman opened the safe and was in the process of loading the cardboard box with stacks of $50 and $100 bills when someone knocked loudly on the exterior door to her office.

  “Just a minute!” she yelled after exchanging a look with Shanks, who had walked into the second room to assemble the cabinets.

  “Hello, are you okay? Is the door blocked?” Derrick said.

  “We’re fine. What is it?”

  “I don’t like having the door blocked. It’s a fire hazard.”

  “Derrick, the cabinet installer is here. What do you need?” she said.

  “Nothing, I just t
hought I’d come see if you were okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” she said curtly, rolling her eyes at Sam as she stuffed the last of twenty stacks of cash into the first box and interleaved the flaps to keep it from opening.

  “The delivery is all set.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Vinton Blackwell stared out the second-story window of Sam Shanks’ palatial home, watching the pink and orange glow of the eastern sky as the sun began to seep into the tree-covered mountaintops. He heard a steady moan followed by a screech of brakes and looked down just as one of the moving trucks was backing down the driveway. Blackwell bolted down the stairs and out the kitchen door. He rounded the corner of the garage and watched the long moving van back toward an open bay of the three-car garage.

  The driver climbed down and walked toward the rear of the truck. Looking tired, the man unlocked a padlock before pulling a steel latch outward to unlock the right rear door. Pulling back on the handle, he opened the cavernous interior of the truck.

  Blackwell approached the driver like a cat sneaking up on prey. He ignored Blackwell’s approach and climbed into the back of the truck and started dismantling what looked like a false wall of cardboard boxes. The man tore a section down with his hands, throwing it back toward the open doors.

  Michael Zimeratti climbed out of the passenger’s side of the truck and waved at Blackwell without speaking. He then rushed through the garage door and into the house.

  “How was the trip?” Blackwell said to the driver as he waved a lighter under the tip on an unfiltered cigarette.

  “Good. We stopped in Amarillo and got one of them big steaks you told me about.”

  “Where’d you spend the night?”

  “At the truck stop off the main highway.” The driver walked back into the truck and untied a series of tie-down straps that held several large wooden crates labeled “Coffee Beans”. With a cordless drill he took the wooden side off of both of the crates. Now they were set to load the first paintings into the house.

  In the meantime, Michael Zimeratti went down to the basement of Shanks’ large home. He passed a well-stocked workout facility, a large room with a fireplace and a bar, and walked toward a stainless steel door. The door had a black numbered keypad in the place of a doorknob. Zimeratti pulled his key ring from his pocket and swiped it past the keypad with a beep, then punched in his six-character password, and heard the door unlock.

  Back upstairs, two men assigned to the back of the moving van waited as Blackwell and a shorter worker stood on the hydraulic lift holding a large felt-covered painting. As the lift was lowered toward the ground, both men braced themselves. The lift settled to a halt and the painting was handed off.

  As Blackwell held the garage door open, two of the men carried the painting into the house and down to the temperature-controlled storage vault where Zimeratti was waiting.

  Later, after the contents of the truck had been unloaded, Blackwell found Zimeratti standing outside the vault with an electronic tablet in his hands.

  “You got everything inventoried?” Blackwell asked.

  “Yeah, looks like some very high-value pieces. Sam will be very happy.” Blackwell had to hide the smile that wanted to creep onto his face.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Crystal parallel-parked her Mercedes on Broadway and walked past an assortment of garish neon signs. Up ahead she saw the bar the guy on the phone had mentioned, and walked past, opening the door to a narrow red brick entrance sandwiched in between Roy’s Saloon and a fortune teller.

  She walked down a hallway lined with old-fashioned mailboxes on one side and a blizzard of concert flyers, ads, and posters on the other. The entryway smelled of mildew and stale beer. She pulled the paper from her jeans and checked the apartment number. The banister, in need of a new coat of varnish, sported an array of ancient knife scratches. Crystal walked up the narrow wooden staircase, reached out to balance herself, and then thought better of touching the sticky railing.

  As she rounded the banister from the second to the third floor, she almost tripped over the boots of a man sitting on the stairs in the dim light. His face was covered with a gray beard stained with food scraps. He reached up toward her with glassy red eyes. She swatted toward him, just missing his face, and ran up the stairs.

  “Aw, fuck you, whore,” she heard him say.

  At the end of the hallway on the third floor was #6. Crystal knocked on the door and then stood back with her right fist clenched just in case.

  “It’s open. Come in,” she heard a man yell from within. She pushed open the door, and the smell of bacon hit her. It was the first pleasant smell she’d encountered since entering. She peered into the darkness. “Mr. Lane?” she yelled.

  The lights were off, and the interior of the apartment was lit by a blue glow given off from two tables lined with computer monitors. A pile of electronics boxes was stacked in a U-shape near the computers.

  “You the one with the smashed smart phone?” someone said as he came up behind her.

  She turned, startled, and almost dropped her purse. “Yeah, I got it here. I hope you can get the video off.”

  “Bring it over here, and I’ll take a look at it.” Lane walked toward what looked like the kitchen. Crystal followed, wondering if the guy ever went outside. He was tall, pale, and so skinny she guessed she might outweigh him.

  She was greeted by a stack of dirty dishes. A pan sat on the stove piled high with cooked bacon strips knuckle deep in congealed grease.

  “Take a seat,” Lane said, pointing at a wooden table that took up the majority of the room. She pulled the envelope that contained the remains of the smashed phone out of her purse and handed it to him.

  The repair guy clipped a static strap running from a back mat on the table to what looked like a wristwatch band on his arm. He picked up a pair of tweezers and coaxed the pieces from the envelope on to the mat. She watched him methodically parse out the black plastic chunks, turning and inspecting each one.

  “The phone is dust, but if we’re lucky, I might be able to grab the video,” Lane said, looking up at Crystal. For the first time she noticed a split in his upper lip that looked like a poorly reconstructed cleft palate.

  “How long do you think it will take? Could I get it tomorrow?” Crystal asked in an anxious tone.

  “If you’re not in a hurry, I can do it right now.”

  With a casual ease that spoke of experience, he pried open what was left of the mangled phone. He picked up the black anti-static mat and carried it out into the other room.

  “Someone has been inside your phone,” Lane called to her.

  She walked in to make sure she’d heard right. “What do you mean?”

  “You have some jumpers in here that aren’t OEM.”

  “OEM, what’s that?”

  “Original equipment manufacture. It means the phone has been modified since it was built at the factory. I think someone’s been tracing your calls, or maybe uploading them to another device.” Crystal thought of Vinton, so eager to buy her a new phone. It made sense that he had done it to spy on her. She couldn’t think of any other explanation.

  “Can you get the video?” Crystal asked, not wanting to discuss who might have bugged her phone.

  Lane didn’t answer. Instead he turned on a soldering iron. He waited, eyeing her up and down in a manner that she didn’t like, then spit on the metal tip of the Weller iron. She heard the spit sizzle and then smelled it. He wiped the tip of the iron on a wet sponge and touched it to a small green circuit board from her phone. Crystal watched wisps of smoke appear, and Lane blew toward them, coaxing the remnants away.

  “Watch this screen here,” Lane said, setting the soldering iron back into its green wire coil and flipping it off.

  Crystal watched the video flicker and then come on. She was kneeling in front of George Kendall’s naked torso. He was on his back on the bed, his face a vision of ecstasy.

  “Can you fast forward
it?” she requested, uncomfortable with having a stranger witnessing her in action.

  “This is good stuff,” Lane said, leering at her. “I’m assuming you want a copy of it?”

  “Yes, I’ll be taking the only copy, and then I’m going to smash the phone so it doesn’t end up on the Internet,” Crystal said, watching his grin turn to a frown.

  “It’ll cost you $150, unless you want to let me have a copy for my personal use,” he said, making an odd up and down gesture with his right hand. Crystal had a strong impulse to smash the pale bastard’s face open and grab her phone. She felt her temper rising, but she needed the recording.

  “I’ll give you $200, and I get the only copy. If you try to keep a copy for yourself, you won’t like the consequences,” she said, glaring at him.

  He reached under the desk and slid a DVD into the computer.

  “Let me see the money,” Lane said. Crystal reached into her purse and pulled out two crisp hundred-dollar bills. She plopped her hand down in front of the keyboard with both bills visible between her fingers, and reached for the DVD.

  “I’ll take that.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Reece drove back toward Tulsa, fighting the strong sunshine that blazed through the right side of the windshield. He thought about what Kathryn Anders had told him. He knew that her father was Tracey Roberts’ older brother. He knew that Crystal and Kathryn were the same age, yet apparently weren’t close. Reece wondered if somehow Kathryn Anders might be tied to burglary at the Phillips home. If Melvin Phillips was a regular at the illegal casino, it was feasible that he was dirty. Maybe he wanted out of his marriage and had staged the burglary as a way of raising quick cash to end things.

  Reece pulled out to pass a slow green 1970’s vintage Volkswagen bus. He smiled after reading its bumper sticker, “Zero to Sixty in Fifteen Minutes.” He thought of his friend Haisley back in Tulsa and pulled out his cellphone.

  “Haisley, it’s Reece, what’s going on?”