4c392a139708e5efb30cc267dbb0c768

He and Alec moved over to the ground-floor window and positioned themselves on either side of it, then took a quick peek inside. Odelia waited from a safe distance. She wasn’t a cop, and these were two professional killers, presumably working for a well-known mobster. She wasn’t about to get in their line of fire. And she’d just ambled up to the factory entrance, the door hanging off its hinges, when suddenly two men came bursting through.

As a reflex action, she stuck out her leg, and the shortest one crashed to the ground. The tall one dawdled for a moment, then moved off at a respectable rate of speed. Chase had spotted him, though, and broke into a run to intercept the guy. Like a freight train gaining momentum, he barreled into the guy and tackled him to the ground. Ouch.

Uncle Alec came walking up to the short guy, who was rubbing his head and directing a nasty look at Odelia, and yanked him up to his feet, then proceeded to place him under arrest. From a distance, Odelia could see that Chase was extending the same courtesy to his tall friend. Cop cars were driving up, sirens wailing and lights flashing, and within minutes both men were safely tucked away inside two squad cars, and outfitted with nice shiny handcuffs.

“Now let’s take a look inside, shall we?” Uncle Alec suggested.

A small team of cops entered the building, Alec, Chase and Odelia in the lead, and made their way to the room where Harlos and Knar had been holed up all this time.

A small table covered with the remnants of several fast-food meals attested to their presence here, and so did the bed, the couch and the chairs. And as they carefully searched around, suddenly Odelia’s attention was drawn to a calendar attached to a clammy concrete support post.

On the 16th an entry was written in a childish scrawl:‘Shake down Craske—Yasir.’ And for the 17th the same person had written ‘Shake down Fido—Yasir.’ What interested her the most, though, was the entry for the 20th: ‘Take out Dickerson—Brettin.’ In small print a series of digits had been added. The combination to Dick Dickerson’s safe.

Next to her, Chase had materialized, and was studying the calendar with similar interest. Then he let out a deep sigh.“And here I thought the schmuck was innocent.”

Chapter 48

Alec and Odelia were seated in Uncle Alec’s office. They were both silent. It’s not every day that a police chief returning home from his vacation manages to take down a mobster and unravel a plot to murder one of his town’s most prominent citizens in one fell swoop.

Chase had picked up Olaf Brettin, and this time it wasn’t a social call. In fact it was probably safe to say Brettin wouldn’t be wearing his white Stetson for a long while. Jean Harlos and Markus Knar had confessed to the murder of Dick Dickerson and the occasional work they did for Yasir Bellinowski, who’d lawyered up but would also go away for a long time, no matter how good his lawyer was.

“Sad story,” said Alec finally. “I like Olaf. Liked his wife, too.”

“You knew Abbey Brettin?”

“Sure. She was a sweet lady. Great kid, too.”

“Lavinia.”

He nodded.“Real shame. Dickerson did a terrible thing there. Monstrous.”

“Do you think the jury will feel the same way?”

“I’m sure they will. Extenuating circumstances and all that. Still, people just can’t go around killing other people. That way lies anarchy.”

“But you can understand why he did it.”

“Of course I can. Any human with a heart can. I just have to imagine this was you and maybe—just maybe—I’d have done the exact same thing.”

“I still don’t understand how Harlos and Knar could be so dumb to write down their assignments.”

Alec smiled.“You know what they told me? That they’d seen a documentary on Edward Snowden so they knew smartphones could be hacked and decided to play it smart and write everything down the old-fashioned way so nobody could catch them.”

“They probably shouldn’t have written anything down.”

“Those two boys are not the brightest bulbs.”

“That’s the understatement of the year.”

“What did Chase say?”

“About what?”

“About your sudden ‘hunch?’”

She grimaced.“I probably didn’t handle that as well as I should have.”

“No, you did not. You want to be more careful, honey. Unless you want to let him in on your little secret?”

“I think it’s too soon for that. He might not understand.”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell him.”

Yes, she did. Though later sounded a lot better than sooner.

“I hear your grandmother and Tex made peace?”

“They have. She still refuses to move out, though.”

Alec suddenly looked grim.“We’ll see about that.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

“You lied to us, Mr. Brettin,” Chase said.

“Of course I lied. What did you expect?”

The tabloid editor looked a lot less rosy than the last time they met, Odelia thought. She was looking through the one-way mirror into the interview room, her uncle next to her.

“You can see why I did what I did, can’t you?” asked Brettin. “He killed my daughter!”

“There are other avenues you could have pursued,” said Chase.