Vengeance: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 1 Read online

  “I just got off the phone with Mike Mobley,” Haisley said.

  “Did you ever get a name on that body we found?” Reece asked.

  “Yeah, are you sitting down?”

  “I’m sitting. Who is it?” Reece said.

  “Owen Roberts.”

  “Holy crap …”

  “Culver, are you still there?” Haisley asked.

  Reece could see his investigation going up in smoke. “I guess that confirms that there’s a snitch on the task force.”

  “Yeah, that could explain his death. There’s more, Reece.”

  “What do you mean, Haisley?”

  “The weapon used to commit the crime was a .45 caliber.”

  “Sounds common,” Reece said.

  “The .45 caliber is common, but this one’s different.”

  “How so?” Reece said.

  “I talked to Mike Mobley up in St. Louis. I mentioned you and your case involving Tracey Roberts. We got to talking, and he faxed me the ballistics report from your father’s case.”

  Shaken by this mention, Reece took his foot off the gas and let the car coast down a hill. The green Volkswagen bus came up fast in his rearview mirror and flew by him.

  “Reece, the ballistics are a match.”

  “A match to what?” Reece asked.

  “A match to the gun used on your father. Whoever killed Owen Roberts murdered your dad back in 2009.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Sam Shanks reclined his plush leather seat in the Lear 55C/LR corporate jet as it crossed the Mexican border heading south. He was looking forward to catching up with the people at his new gallery in Montevideo and starting his latest endeavor as an art dealer. It seemed like an easy, painless way to spend his retirement.

  Except for one lingering irritation. He picked up the satellite phone and punched in a number on the digital keypad.

  “Zimeratti speaking.”

  “Michael, it’s Shanks, how’s your evening been?”

  “Good, Sam, where are you?”

  “On my way south. I have a few more tasks to take care of before I return.” Shanks idly noticed the green flash of the navigation light at the end of the wing illuminating the thick clouds outside. “I have a little problem that I was thinking you might be able to help me with.”

  “Oh yeah, what sort of problem?”

  “Vinton Blackwell,” Shanks said.

  “That guy. Whose problem isn’t he?”

  “I know what you mean, Mike, but he has had his uses over the past couple of decades. I’m just afraid his shelf life, for my purposes, is running out.”

  “So what are you trying to say, Sam?”

  “I’ve got this idea I’m putting into place. The one I hinted at a while back when we were talking about your father. So anyway, when we finish our business in Minturn, you and I will be going one direction and the others will be going another. If you know what I mean?”

  “I’m not totally following you, Mr. Shanks, but you’ve never led me astray. What does this have to do with Blackwell?”

  “He’s a slippery character, and I’d rather he not catch the plane out of Vail. I was thinking we might be able to use his stepdaughter Crystal against him. She’d be one of the people that I’d be interested in taking along,” Shanks said.

  Michael started to sound more interested, as Shanks knew he would. Michael always was watching her whenever she came around. “How were you thinking of using Crystal?”

  “I was thinking if you were to befriend her. You know, good friends,” Shanks said.

  “Good friends. What makes you think she’d be interested in me?”

  “She’s on the run right now from the FBI. She doesn’t know where to turn.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Her world is not in order. Who better to help her than you?”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Crystal parked her Mercedes and walked lightly through the slick, ice-coated parking lot toward her office. A foot of snow covered the grass on the sides of the parking lot, and a clear blue sky peeked out from behind a heavy blanket of clouds moving rapidly east. She was glad she’d worn her winter fashion boots, and was impressed with their traction.

  She returned the security guard’s smile and walked past feeling new confidence before heading down the hall toward her office.

  “Hello, Ms. Thomas. How was your drive in?” The receptionist asked.

  “Good, I guess they sprayed the streets with magnesium chloride again. Oh, is George in yet?”

  “He is, and if you’re free he’d like to have a short meeting with you once you get settled.”

  “Tell him I’ll be in his office at eight-thirty.”

  She walked to her office, logged into the computer, and began reading e-mail while sipping a cup of coffee. Her phone rang and she answered, “Hello, this is Crystal Thomas.”

  “Good morning, Ms. Thomas. We’re in the Aspen conference room. Will you come join us?” George said.

  Crystal grabbed her briefcase, feeling unsettled, and walked down the hallway toward the conference room. Who was in this meeting? She had been planning to confront George with the evidence. She walked in and instantly recognized one of the three men with her boss George. It was FBI Special Agent Stephen Cox.

  “Thanks for joining us, Ms. Thomas. We’ve been discussing the plans the task force had for the raid in Tulsa,” George said, getting up to shut the conference room door. “The retired detective we had doing surveillance made a visit to the property to confirm the logistics we had planned—and found the place abandoned.”

  Crystal took the seat next to an unfamiliar man who had thick black sideburns, a pockmarked face, and a deep blue suit. George Kendall and Agent Cox sat across from her looking grim.

  “Ms. Thomas, it’s nice to see you again,” Agent Cox said, extending his hand to greet her. Crystal smiled and shook his hand. The agent slid his fingers back toward a brown folder and stared at her meaningfully after placing his hand on top of it.

  “I have something here that might tie into our problem,” he said, pushing the folder across the table to Crystal.

  Opening it, she recognized on the left side a photo of Owen Roberts taken ten years earlier with the date at the bottom. On the right was a photo of his gray face, eyes closed, lying dead on an autopsy table. Crystal fought back an unbidden wave of tears.

  “We all know who this is, and your relationship to him. Gentlemen, if it’s okay with you, I’d like a few minutes alone with Ms. Thomas,” Cox said, waiting for her boss and the other man to leave. He got up and closed the door behind them.

  “Ms. Thomas, I know this is no shock to you. I suspect you’re working for Sam Shanks, and you may have even been present when your father was murdered.”

  Crystal stood up from the table, feigning outrage. “You’re full of shit, Agent Cox. I should call your office and report you. What, do you take some kind of pleasure in showing women autopsy photos?” Long streams of tears flowed from her eyes.

  “I suggest you sit down, Ms. Thomas,” he said quietly. “I could detain you for questioning right now.”

  Crystal sat down but continued to glare at him.

  “There is a way you could save yourself a long prison sentence despite all you’ve done.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  As Reece drove toward his Tulsa hotel, the sun was low in the sky and the temperature was dropping. Reece felt the rattle of his phone in his front pants pocket and peeled it out. He glanced down and saw he’d missed a call from his client, Crystal Thomas. Reece pressed the button for voicemail.

  “Reece, are your there? If so, I hope you pick up. Oh well, I guess not. When you get this, give me a call. I need to talk to you.”

  Reece turned off the highway and headed toward the Executive Inn, his home base in Tulsa. His eyes felt funny and he considered pulling over. Whoever killed my father just killed Owen Roberts. I was that close to the murdering bastard. Suddenly the guilt he’d been car
rying about the second camera and knowing he’d been the reason his father went back for more pictures seemed inconsequential. The killer was working for Shanks. It could be Shanks himself.

  His cellphone started to dance around the plastic cup holder as it vibrated. Reece reached for it and answered.

  “Culver, it’s Averton. Where are you?”

  “Just heading back to my hotel why?” Reece said.

  “You okay? You sound funny.”

  “I’m fine. What’s going on?”

  “I got a call from Agent Cox. They’re disbanding the task force,” Haisley said.

  “That’s no surprise. It’s obvious they’ve got someone working for Shanks,” Reece said, turning into the parking lot of the Executive Inn. “It’s starting to sound like Crystal is on the wrong side of all of this,” he added. “I figure it was either Crystal or Owen that hit me in the head with the pipe, intending to frame me for murder.”

  “The thing that doesn’t add up, though,” Haisley pointed out, “is why she killed the homeless guy and framed you for it. She’s the one that brought you into this in the first place.”

  “True, but what if someone else, someone trying to protect Sam Shanks, found out that Crystal hired a PI,” Reece said, shutting off the Mazda.

  “That makes sense. This someone is close to her, and they’re using her to stay one step ahead. That would explain why Owen Roberts was murdered.”

  “There’s one more piece to the puzzle,” Reece said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Kathryn Anders, the woman I interviewed over in Norman, was the art appraiser for Melvin and Melanie Phillips.”

  “What does Kathryn Anders have to do with all of this?”

  “Melvin Phillips was a regular at Sam Shanks’ poker tournaments. The past couple of months the newspapers have been full of publicity for the art auction the Phillipses had planned on holding to raise money for their new cancer center.” Reece paused, giving Haisley time to process these connections. “A couple of days ago, the home of Melvin and Melanie Phillips was burglarized.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Sam Shanks walked down a tree-lined path admiring the progress the construction crew had made on his new home on the outskirts of Montevideo, Uruguay. He looked up at the banister that ran up the white marbled staircase. A cool breeze fluttered the beige shirt he wore and brought a chill. The sun was setting and he took a seat in his favorite chair on the expansive new patio that surrounded the infinity pool. He liked it here and he wondered if she might like it here too.

  He yearned for the time when he’d be done. He was tired of running and worrying how long he’d stay one step ahead of the FBI. Shanks heard an airplane overhead and looked up, wondering if someone was watching him, waiting for the right time to pounce. He dismissed the thought as paranoid. Uruguay was friendly to foreigners with pockets full of American currency. No one knew about this place he’d built in the country. He was thousands of miles south of the places they’d look for him. If they came far enough, they would find the gallery, but it had no connection to him. He was safe here.

  Shanks thought about his friend Michael Zimeratti and what he’d told him the day before. He reached into his pocket to retrieve his cellphone.

  “Vinton, it’s me. How are things up in Colorado?”

  Blackwell sounded surprised to hear from him. “Good, we’ve got everything locked up in the vault downstairs, and I’m working on the plan, and details for our last job,” Blackwell said.

  “Did you have a chance to look over the inventory Michael put together?” Shanks asked.

  “No, I leave that sort of stuff to Zimeratti. He’s got to pay his way somehow.”

  Shanks looked down at the Tuesday edition of the Tulsa World newspaper, featuring an article describing the recent burglary at the home of Melvin and Melanie Phillips.

  “There seems to be a discrepancy. I’m looking at a recent article from the Tulsa paper, and they mention a painting by Van Gogh. Vinton, you don’t remember seeing a Van Gogh, do you?”

  “No, that doesn’t sound familiar. What was it of? Do they say in the paper?” Blackwell asked.

  “It says here it was a one foot-by-one foot painting of a vase with poppy flowers.”

  “Poppy flowers? I didn’t see anything like that.”

  Blackwell’s voice was smooth as silk, without any catch of a lie in it. Yet Shanks knew better than anyone how little that meant.

  “Tell me something, Sam,” he went on, “if this Van Gogh was stolen, why would Melvin Phillips mention ever having possession of the piece?”

  Shanks could think of a few reasons, but he merely said, “You make a good point, Vinton.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  George Kendall sat in a booth at his favorite lunch place a few blocks south of work. The management had affixed to the ceiling an assortment of junk to give the place some personality.

  “Crystal, thanks for meeting me for lunch,” he said.

  “I wonder what they have on special today,” she replied.

  “Listen, Crystal, I’m sorry about what happened earlier.”

  “What are you talking about?” Crystal said, holding back the urge to laugh at him.

  “I’m talking about the meeting in the conference room. The way we informed you of your father’s death. It was Agent Cox’s idea. He’s convinced we have someone on the task force who’s working for the other side.”

  Crystal was relieved when the waitress came to take their drink order. She wore a green vest covered in buttons that looked like they’d been collected back in the 1970s. Crystal took a deep breath. “Do they know who killed my father, Owen?”

  “That’s being investigated, but until they figure out who’s spying, the task force is on hold. I’m sorry to do this to you, Crystal, but I’m going to have to lay you off. Without the task force, I don’t have enough bandwidth to keep you on.”

  Crystal’s face went slack. She felt a rushing of blood in her forehead and calmed herself only because she knew she held the cards to his future.

  “Nice, you slimy son of a bitch,” she said, shifting into a totally different mode. “Let me get this straight. Cox points the finger at you because of my dead father, and you lay me off so you can save your own skin.”

  Crystal reached into her purse. “You’re really the pride of the department, aren’t you, George Kendall?” She pulled out a small black portable DVD player and set it in the middle of the table. She opened it up so that the small screen pointed in his direction. She was close to breaking into a smile, but she held back. This was going to be fun.

  “I wonder what would happen to you if this video somehow made its way onto the Internet? I wonder what your pal Special Agent Stephen Cox of the FBI would think?” she said as she pressed play, bringing the screen to life.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Reece lay fully clothed on top of his motel bed. He felt better being engrossed in his case and pushed the image of the Canon camera lying on the floorboard of his father’s green GTO out of his head. He knew he was on the right track to solving his father’s murder. Crystal’s case had brought him to Tulsa, and Haisley had taken him to Sam Shanks’ casino. Owen Roberts was dead and the murder weapon was the key to everything. All of this is happening for a reason. Why am I still thinking about that goddamned camera? I’m going to solve all of this. I’m okay.

  Someone rolled what sounded like a cart down the sidewalk outside his hotel room. He heard a knock on the door.

  “Housekeeping.”

  Reece got up and answered. “You can skip my room today. It’s not dirty,” he said to the Mexican maid before shutting the door. The older woman smiled and winked at Reece.

  He fell back on the bed. His mind started roaming and pretty soon he was thinking about the ballistics report Haisley got from Mike Mobley up in St. Louis. The gun and bullets from Owen Roberts’ murder and Al Culver’s murder matched. Shanks or one of his men had to be the triggerman.


  Reece’s phone vibrated on the dresser adjacent to the bed.

  “Hello,” he answered, wondering if it was Crystal. “Oh, hi Mom, how are you?”

  “Good, Reece. How’s your missing person’s investigation going? Have you found anything?”

  Reece was surprised by her interest. He couldn’t believe she was asking about something he was working on.

  “Good. Actually very well, I found something that relates to Dad’s cold case,” Reece said.

  “To Dad’s case? What is it, Reece?”

  He had to make a decision. As much as she deserved to know, he had another, vital consideration. “You’ve got to make me a promise, Mom.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can’t tell anything I tell you to the FBI.”

  “Why not? Reece. Won’t it help them? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s complicated, Mom. They’ve got their own agenda.”

  As he knew very well, she had been suspicious of their investigation for a long time. So he believed her when she said, “I’m on your side, Reece.”

  “That’s good, because I’m hoping this will crack the case wide open.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Crystal spent the afternoon at home waiting for a call from human resources to confirm her transfer to a new position with the Bureau of Land Management. She was still laughing inside about the look on Kendall’s face when he saw the video. She’d spent the afternoon surfing the Internet while George made calls to all of his connections, then came into her office to tell her he’d found her a position at the BLM.

  She was heading down the steps into her basement office when she heard the phone ring in the kitchen. She retraced her way back up the stairs and ran toward it.

  “Hello,” she said, out of breath.

  “Ms. Thomas, this is Jocelyn Welders from Human Resources. I have your transfer paperwork here on my desk, and I was wondering if we could set up a time for you to come sign everything.”

  “Sure, Ms. Welders, what time were you thinking?”