Black River (29 page)

“The door? What door? Where the hell are you at…at this hour in the morning?”

“I’m standing on your boat. Cockpit door. Ike Kirby’s in trouble.”

Dave disconnected and came up from the master berth like a hibernating bear awakened before spring, the left side of his face creased from sleep. He stood at the transom door in boxer shorts and a white T-shirt. He unlocked the door and snatched it open. “What that hell’s going on, Sean? Where’s Ike? What kind of trouble?”

“Maybe the worst. A man broke into Laura Jordan’s house. He threatened to kill her daughter if Laura didn’t give him the Civil War contract. She’d already given it to Ike.”

“And this perp knows where Ike’s staying, correct?”

“She had no choice but to tell him.”

“I understand.”

“See if you can reach Ike. I told Laura to call and warn him. Don’t know if she got through before the police arrived at her home. Call him, Dave. Tell him to get out of the room immediately. Walk Max for me, okay?” O’Brien turned to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“To the Hampton Inn. Room twenty-three. Ike’s room.” O’Brien jumped from Dave’s trawler onto the dock. He ran hard down the length of the pier toward the marina parking lot. His thoughts raced even faster.
Could Laura or Dave reach Ike on the phone before the perp got there? Or was the man already there?
Maybe he simply broke into the hotel room and stole the Civil War contract while Ike slept. No one hurt.

Maybe not.

O’Brien ran under the light of a full moon high above the Atlantic Ocean, a burst of lightning hanging for a second in the gut of dark clouds. Dawn would rise above the Atlantic in about two hours. But now there was more than enough time for a nocturnal predator to come from the cloak of darkness and slip away quietly like the whispered flight of a bat in the night sky.

P
rofessor Ike Kirby usually slept well. An early riser, he went to bed right after the 10:00 p.m. news and awoke each morning before sunrise. The last few hours had been different. After leaving Laura Jordan’s home, Kirby bought take-out Chinese food and ate in his hotel room. When he finished a hurried dinner, he spent another two hours analyzing the Civil War contract until his eyes burned from strain and fatigue.

He was so exhausted that he never heard the soft buzzing of his phone on the dresser as he slept. He never heard the sound of scraping, the metal against metal picking of the deadbolt lock on the hotel door. Had it not been for the siren as the fire truck and crew rushed to a car fire off Cherry Street, Kirby wouldn’t have awaken and seen the intruder standing in the room near the small desk and under the dim light coming through the blinds.

“Good morning, Professor Kirby,” the prowler whispered.

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my room? How do you know me?”

“So many questions in one excited breath. I was about to leave the way I entered, through the door, silently and oh so quickly. But then you had that unfortunate happenstance of hearing the siren racing by the hotel.”

“Do you want money? My wallet is on the dresser. Take it! There’s four hundred dollars in it. That ought to be enough for you to buy drugs. I can’t see your face, so I can’t recognize you. Just take the money and leave.”

“Drugs? I think not, Professor.” The man held up the file folder containing the Civil War document. “This is my drug of choice. A Civil War
contract and perhaps a matching diamond to add to the ecstasy. Let me ask you, is it real? The contract between England and the Confederacy. In your opinion, Professor Kirby, is it genuine?” He set the folder back on the dresser.

“It still must go through scientific testing, but, in my opinion, it’s authentic.” Kirby narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “Why your interest into this Civil War contract? Are you some kind of collector?”

“Unfortunately, for you, I am the opposite of a collector. I am an eliminator. A terminator.” He lifted a 9mm Beretta, only the black tip of a silencer visible in the dim light.

“No! Don’t!” Kirby pushed back in bed, holding his hands in front of him. The round slammed into the center of his chest, his blue pajama top erupting in a flower of blood. He stared at the perimeter darkness, disbelieving, the room smelling of smoke and cordite. He touched the dime-sized hole in his chest, a half-inch above his heart, and felt the wetness of the blood on his fingertips. The second bullet hit him between the eyes, spraying blood and brain matter across the white headboard.

The man slid the pistol back under his belt. He started to pick up the file folder, pausing. He lifted a mobile phone off the dresser, scrolled down to the last number received, a number listed to Dave Collins. The shooter played back the voice message. He heard Laura Jordan’s terrified voice. “Professor Kirby! Get out of your room now! You’re in danger. A man may be coming to you, and he’s coming for the Civil War document. He’s dangerous. Maybe insane. Please…” There was a breathy sigh and the called disconnected.

The man played the next voice-message. “Hey Ike…Dave getting back with you. Damn good news about that Civil War contract. On first pass, if you believe it’s the real McCoy, I’d bet the boat on it. As always, I’ll keep that news under my hat. I’m glad you got a chance to get to know Nick and Sean. Because of Sean’s search for that damn painting, he’s separated a few layers from the contract by sheer happenstance. However, if anyone can hunt down the whereabouts of the stolen diamond, it’s Sean O’Brien. His gift of human observation, in my opinion, is unmatched. Call me when your testing corroborates your deduction. Nothing like a chance rewriting American Civil War history to put a bounce in your step. Let’s discuss it at
breakfast, if you can. In closing, let’s go fishing like we used to. Sean has an excellent boat near mine. Nick, though, will find the fish. Call me. Give Judy my love. Bye. ”

The man lifted up the file folder and whispered, “Too bad Professor Kirby won’t be joining you for breakfast, Dave Collins. Perhaps I will instead. And I can’t want to meet your sharp-eyed BFF, Sean O’Brien.”

The man punched a set of numbers into Ike’s phone. Pressed
call
and immediately pressed
end
. He dropped the phone on the carpeted floor and walked out of the dark room into the blue neon night.

I
t was a few minutes after four o’clock in the morning when O’Brien pulled his Jeep onto the hotel parking lot. Although mostly filled with cars, the lot had a secluded, surreal look as a soft rain fell through bluish light cast from two streetlights. The shower did little to loosen road dirt on the cars; most of which bore out-of-state license plates. O’Brien scanned the car tags as he drove across the lot. He glanced at windshields, looking for signs that wipers may have recently been turned on or off.

All the cars appeared to have been parked for a while. Business travelers, sales people, tourists—everyone tucked into their temporary beds behind doors with numbers painted on them. O’Brien read the room numbers while he cruised slowly through the lot. He could see that the hotel had at least eighty rooms, the first forty or so on the ground floor. He looked for room twenty-three. There it was. Bottom floor. Curtains closed. Lights off.

And then he looked for surveillance cameras. There were two that he could see. Maybe more. His options were to kick in the door—his break-in would be caught on camera, or he could find the front desk clerk and convince him or her to open the door to room twenty-three. He pulled his Jeep into a spot near the office and ran toward the door.

The lobby was brightly lit. No one could be seen. A stack of USA Today newspapers sat near the desk. The phone buzzed. No one came out from the back office to answer it. The Weather Channel played on a TV monitor above the front desk, the meteorologist talking about a tornado touching
ground in Arkansas. O’Brien looked around the lobby. He thought there was a trace of spent gunpowder in the air. His heart beat faster.

The first sign.

Amber colored glass lay shattered on the white tile floor near one corner of the lobby. The security camera had been hit with a bullet, lens splintered, replaced with a single dark and vacant hole staring at O’Brien like a blinded, one-eyed creature. He lifted his Glock, went behind the front desk, carefully opening the office door.

The smell of fresh human blood and gunpowder met him at the threshold. The body of a middle-aged man lay sprawled next to a desk, face and hands ashen, more than a quart of blood on the floor near what was left of the man’s head.

O’Brien glanced up at the bank of security monitors. No images. Nothing but black. He turned, picked up a paper napkin near a coffee pot, and ran out of the lobby, ran quietly down the cement walkway near the ground-level rooms. Within thirty seconds, he stood in front of room twenty-three. He leaned closer, placing his right ear on the door. Listening. Silence. The only sounds came from a tractor-trailer rig changing gears on a freeway entrance ramp.

He looked to his left, then to his right. Moths flew in and out of the light from a flood lamp on one corner of the hotel. O’Brien placed the napkin gently on the doorknob and tried to turn it. Locked. He stepped back and kicked hard, the heel of his shoe striking near the handle. The door flew open, wood splintering. O’Brien stepped inside, leveling his Glock, sweeping around the small room. There was the same smell of death. Burnt gunpowder and spilled blood. The odor of copper pennies, urine and feces.

O’Brien felt the rush of adrenaline-fueled blood pumping through his temples. He looked at the body of Professor Ike Kirby lying in the bed, his head back against the headboard, shot between the eyes, his lifeless eyes open and staring at the ceiling. O’Brien stepped into the bathroom, Glock extended, his heart pounding.

No one.

He searched the room, careful not to touch anything, looking for the Civil War contract. He looked in drawers, the professor’s open suitcase.
Nothing. Then he hunted for the dead man’s cell phone. It was on the floor. O’Brien used a handkerchief to pick up the phone.
Had the killer scrolled through emails, text messages or phone calls?
That would give him access to Ike’s immediate circle of friends, including Dave Collins. O’Brien scrolled to the last number called. It wasn’t Dave’s number…it was someone else. O’Brien looked at the time of the call and the length. Odd. Less than five seconds.

Sirens
. Police and emergency vehicles racing to the scene.

O’Brien set the phone down. He ran from the room. Ran from the horror—the reek of death. He drove east toward a steely sunrise, the illusion of dawn squinting through charcoal gray clouds. Three squad cars, two unmarked cars, blue lights spinning, engines roaring, sped past O’Brien’s Jeep. He knew they were responding to the information they just got from Laura. Maybe Detective Dan Grant was en route. O’Brien could turn the Jeep around, drive back to the hotel and tell Dan or officers what he found. But that would create unnecessary complications. The killer had vanished. They’d find nothing but bodies. It was too late for the police cavalry. Too late for a genteel history professor and a middle-aged hotel clerk simply trying to pay the bills. Both killed by someone they didn’t know, and for reasons they’d never know.

O’Brien knew that whoever killed Ike Kirby left no evidence behind. Taking out the security cameras meant having to take out the hotel night clerk. It was the work of a pro. Who was he? A hired gun, or someone working for himself? Why was the Civil War contract so valuable to someone that it was worth killing three people to get it? Could the executioner have the stolen diamond as well? Who did Ike try to call before he was killed?

O’Brien thought about that as he drove through the dim morning, a misty rain spraying the windshield. He was exhausted but could feel the current of adrenaline in his body. He glanced down at his phone on the Jeep’s console. There was no way he’d deliver the horrible news to Dave over the phone. Soon the pendulum swing of the wipers and the hypnotic drone of the engine helped evaporate some anxiety from his mind. He’d be back at the marina in forty minutes—forty minutes to think of a how he’d tell Dave that his friend of forty years was dead.