Desperado Lawman Read online

  “Between the two of you, looks like you’ve got Joey’s bases covered for this evening,” Del observed. “Connor told Billy Tahe to pick out something for Joey when he went into Last Chance this afternoon for supplies. What’d Billy come up with, anyway, Connor?”

  “I don’t know.” Connor rose from the table. “I’m making coffee if anyone wants some.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? I saw you take the package upstairs yourself to put it on his bed,” Del contradicted.

  “Oh, Connor, you didn’t have to buy something for him,” Tess protested, getting up from the table herself. “But it was nice that you did. When Joey’s finished blowing up universes he can go nuts with what you got him.” She smiled at him as she started to clear their plates. “Really, what is it?”

  “Modelling clay,” Jess supplied helpfully as he moved to the sink with his own plate. “Right, Virge? I was chewing the fat with Billy just before supper and he said that’s what he got. Five different colors, at that.” He shook his head at Tess. “No, sweetie, leave Virge’s plate, he’s still eating.”

  She looked down in confusion at the plate in her hand, and then choked back a quick laugh as she saw the lonely slice of carrot still sitting on it. She gave Jess a similar glance to the one she’d given Joey earlier.

  “You’re bad. I don’t envy Del having to ride herd on you fifteen years ago if this is what you’re like now.” She turned to Connor. “Joey’ll love the modelling clay, I’m sure, Connor. Kids don’t always feel in the mood for exciting, action-packed…”

  She floundered to a halt at his look of patent disbelief. Then she tried again. “I mean, once he’s tired of having fun he—” Again she stopped, aware she was making matters worse.

  For a moment his expression remained unchanged. Then she saw a spark of wry humor behind those gray eyes. “Well, sure,” he said dryly. “That’s what I was going for—unexciting and dull. I was a little worried about the five-colors thing, but as long as you make it clear he only gets to use one color at a time I think we can keep him from getting too hyper over it.”

  Virgil Connor had made a joke, Tess thought as his half smile became a real, if reluctant, grin. Maybe having Jess around wasn’t such a bad thing for him, and despite the wickedly mischievous jabs his old buddy kept aiming his way, Jess had dropped everything and come to Connor’s aid as soon as Del had contacted him.

  The way both Connor and he had done for Tyler Adams not long ago, from what little she knew about the recent problems at the ranch, she mused. Fifteen years ago four hell-raising teens from disparate backgrounds had been forced to serve time at the Double B for crimes ranging from computer hacking to grand theft auto. Who would have guessed that the bond they’d formed then would still be holding firm when they were men in their thirties with responsible careers?

  Although firm didn’t mean it wasn’t capable of fraying slightly, she realized an hour later.

  “Well, well, what do we have here?”

  Jess’s laptop was open on the kitchen table in front of him, its digital video interface display—she was pretty sure that was what he’d called it, Tess thought uncertainly—showing the progress of the half-dozen programs he was running at the same time. Images flashed up on the screen and disappeared rapidly, but one progress window had frozen on a photo of a document. Jess looked past her to the screen door, where Del and Connor were talking quietly on the porch outside.

  “No, don’t call them,” he said in an undertone. “My ass would be grass if Virge knew I’d accessed this, and I guess I really should do the right thing and delete it.” Absently he made a beckoning gesture with his index finger, and the document immediately expanded to fill the whole screen. “But I just can’t resist. Must be the hacker in me.”

  “What is it?”

  The images that had been flashing by were culled from all existing databases in North America, Tess knew—photos caught on security cameras, ATM videos, law enforcement files and every other imaginable source capable of containing even a single frame of film. On Connor’s instructions, Jess had commanded one Crawford Solutions program to search for photos showing Jack Vincenzi with either Quayle, Jansen or Leroy. The other five programs had been set with different search parameters that could prove a link between the mobster and the three agents.

  When Tess had comprehended the scope of the searches, she hadn’t been able to suppress a slight sense of revulsion.

  “But surely everyone’s life isn’t on file somewhere, is it? Is mine?”

  “’Fraid so, sweetie,” Jess had replied unrepentantly. “I guess it’s possible someone living in the depths of the Borneo jungle might not be included, although I wouldn’t bet on it. Not with the capabilities of satellites these days. But don’t worry, the hard part is accessing all this.” He’d allowed himself a complacent smile. “These programs are light-years ahead of anything even the CIA or the Pentagon have, and until I’m sure all the bugs have been ironed out of them I won’t consider releasing them to the government. So, for the next foreseeable while, the only person who gets to snoop on this kind of scale is me.”

  His smile had disappeared and his tone had taken on an uncharacteristic seriousness. “It’s a power I don’t abuse, Tess. I wouldn’t deliberately dig around in anyone’s background for kicks any more than I’d snoop through my host’s personal belongings if I was a guest in someone’s home.”

  Deliberately had obviously been the key word in his declaration, Tess realized now as she glanced over Jess’s shoulder at the document filling the screen. Because what he’d stumbled across and was examining with no apparent qualms was—

  “Virge’s juvie record. Jeez, I knew our Virgil was a brawler when he was younger, but I didn’t realize he’d come damn close to making a career of it.” Jess sounded awed. “Eight…no, nine run-ins with the law before he got bounced up against the judge who gave him the choice of a year at the Double B or doing real time. I’m always ragging on him to loosen up a little, let go of some of that tight-ass control he keeps himself reined in with, but after looking at this record I’m just as glad he’s never listened to me.”

  “Jess! You said you didn’t abuse these hacker programs,” Tess said, appalled. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. You get rid of that right now, or I’ll—”

  “No, leave it up, Crawford.”

  With two strides Connor was at the table, his expression shuttered. His hand clamped around Jess’s wrist as his friend began to make the gesture Tess knew the computer’s action-activated screen would recognize as a delete command. Planting his other palm flat on the table’s surface, Connor bent over Jess’s shoulder and perused the document on display.

  “That one was a bum rap,” he muttered, his gaze flickering over dates and details. “Five guys jumped me in a parking lot, started kicking the crap out of me. What’s a poor street-fightin’ boy to do?”

  “Put four of them in the emergency ward with broken bones, leave the fifth one dangling from a street sign by his belt?” Jess ventured. His grin was lopsided. “Dammit, Virge, I know I was out of line. I should have listened to Tess and—”

  “The rest of them were valid charges, from what I remember.” Connor released Jess’s wrist and straightened to his full height. His voice was ice. “Hell, no, Crawford. I’m the one who should have listened to you all those times when you told me to let go of my tight-assed control. But better late than never. Let’s take this outside.”

  “No one’s taking anything outside. I didn’t stand for it fifteen years ago and I won’t stand for it now.” Del’s face was thunderous. He looked at Jess. “Of course, fifteen years ago I’d have put you on KP duty for a month, for pulling a damn-fool stunt like this. What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t,” Jess admitted honestly. He pushed his chair away from the table. “But that’s no excuse, and I know it.” He looked up at Connor with a ghost of his normal jauntiness. “Land sakes, Mr. Virgil, I thought my card was full, but I do bel
ieve I owe you this waltz, don’t I? Shall we step outside and take a turn around the dance floor? With you leading, naturally.”

  He swallowed, and began to get to his feet. “Don’t forget, my nose is my best feature, Vir—” He stopped, his grin halfhearted. “Connor,” he corrected himself heavily. “I’ve got this coming to me, Connor. Let’s get it over with.”

  “Please don’t.” Swiftly Tess put her hand on Connor’s arm. Beneath her fingers she felt muscles like iron cords. “Joey thinks the world of you—of both of you. He doesn’t need to see any more violence, especially between two men he looks up to.”

  Connor held her gaze. Then the hard light behind his eyes faded, and she felt some of the tenseness seep from him.

  “You’re right, he doesn’t. And I don’t need to handle my problems this way anymore.” He jerked his head at Jess, a certain weariness in the small movement. “Sit down, Crawford. It appears I’m not the dancer I used to be, luckily for you.”

  Slowly Jess sank back into his seat, his eyes still on the man standing over him. Without looking at the screen in front of him he made a flicking motion with his wrist as if he was throwing a piece of trash into a bin. The document vanished.

  “I’m a jerk, but not a total jerk, Virgil,” he said quietly. “I know you could make ground-round of me if you wanted to. I owe you, buddy. One day I hope I get the chance to pay—”

  “What’s that?” At Del’s query, Tess glanced at the ex-Marine. He was staring at the monitor. “That envelope with the exclamation point. Does that mean anything?”

  The varying screens on the display were still blurring through their programs, but now taking center stage was a depiction of a closed envelope. Even as Tess watched, she saw the exclamation point on its flap change to a question mark.

  “Probably not,” Jess said with a shrug. “That only indicates that information related to one of the searches has just come in. Kind of like a running banner showing late-breaking news at the bottom of your television screen. But I’ll check it out.”

  He made a movement that Tess didn’t see, and the flap of the envelope opened. As if it were being slid from it and unfolded, a black-and-white square moved in front of the envelope and expanded to fill the screen with an image that she recognized as a roughup galley of a newspaper item, accompanied by a photo.

  The photo was a head shot of a blandly featured man with thinning blond hair. The lines of type beside his picture were still being filled in, as if they were being composed even while she watched.

  That was because they were, she realized a moment later.

  “I’ll say this is late-breaking,” Jess murmured, his attention on the multiplying lines scrolling across the screen and beginning to surround the photo. “Someone in the set-up department at the Journal must be downloading this right now. We’re watching the morning’s newspaper being made, people.”

  “…concrete-encased body was discovered on the construction site yesterday evening at approximately eight o’clock when a quality-control error necessitated the removal and repouring of a portion of the building’s foundation. A site worker claims the body had identification on it in the name of—” Tess stopped reading and blinked. “What’s going on now? It’s starting to erase. Is that a glitch, Jess?”

  “No, that’s not a glitch.” He looked disconcerted. “That’s actually happening. The story’s being deleted.”

  “You mean an editor changed his mind about running the item?” Del frowned.

  “I guess.” Jess didn’t sound certain. “Or maybe—”

  “Or maybe an editor was persuaded to change his mind about running it,” Connor said tightly. “Strongly persuaded. I’ll lay you good money we never hear anything more about this, either in the papers or on the television. It’s been buried, just like that body was.”

  “But if it was supposed to run in the morning paper and the time given in the article was eight, yesterday evening…” Tess glanced at the clock on the wall. “That would mean the body was discovered tonight, right? Just over an hour ago. Are you saying someone moved that fast to kill a story about a dead man?”

  “I’m saying Arne Jansen moved that fast,” Connor said grimly. “I recognized the photo. The dead man’s Rick Leroy.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She was beginning to make a habit of creeping downstairs in the middle of the night to the Double B’s kitchen, Tess thought, feeling her way past the pine table in the dark and wincing as she stubbed a bare toe on the leg of one of the chairs. If she’d thought of it she would have made this phone call a few hours earlier, just after Connor had dropped his grim bombshell on them and with equal grimness had asked Jess if there was any way he could bypass the deletion. When Crawford had shaken his head Connor had shrugged.

  “I didn’t think so. Dammit, another line or two and we might have found out when that concrete was poured.”

  “Why is that important?” Del had grimaced at his own question. “Of course. That would tell you when the body was dumped, since it had to have been while the cement was still fresh. We’re talking a time frame of what?—five days since Leroy was alive and well enough to kill Danzig and come close to killing Paula at the safe house?”

  “The safe house was compromised six nights ago.” Connor had rubbed his jaw. “And once the construction site foreman discovered that, for whatever reason, the cement hadn’t set correctly, he wouldn’t have wasted more time than he had to in ordering it removed and repoured, so I’m assuming that by today it was hard enough to show flaws. Which means that yesterday it definitely would have been impossible to drop a body into it without leaving a trace.”

  “So Leroy was killed sometime between Sunday night and Wednesday night.” Jess had raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I’m missing something, but why should we care when the son of a bitch got fitted for a cement overcoat, presumably by his ol’ buddy Jansen?”

  He’d returned to his usual flippant manner, Tess had noted. As if in reaction, Connor’s reply had come out in a growl.

  “Because I think inside the box, pal. Because I like to find the logic behind things, and if I don’t have all the facts I can’t make all the connections. That good enough for you?”

  “Sir, yes, sir.” Jess had rolled his eyes. “I guess you’re going to want to know exactly where this construction site was, too? Just so’s you can build your freakin’ box nice and tight,” he’d added under his breath.

  “That part I’m not too worried about,” Connor had said with deceptive mildness. “If I’m right, the site’s—”

  “It’s visible from the safe house, isn’t it?” Tess had cut in. She’d given him a quick glance of apology. “Sorry. But I just remembered Joey mentioning something about watching dump trucks and cranes from his bedroom window in the apartment building where the Agency was guarding him.”

  “Less than a block away,” Connor had agreed. “Probably not relevant, but like I say, the more facts we have the better.”

  Not exactly the Eye-Opener’s policy, Tess thought as she felt her way to the wall-mounted kitchen phone without doing any further injury to herself. But despite the tabloid’s breezy reportage style, more than a few of its scoops on celebrities had proven to be the titillating truth, and those secrets had invariably been ferreted out by the same man.

  Unfortunately, that man was invariably drunk by this time of the night, she acknowledged glumly as she dialed his home number. But what did she have to lose? As Jess had explained, his computer programs were useless unless the information was documented somewhere. And all reference to the discovery of Leroy’s body had seemingly been wiped, not only from the newspaper’s files, but from police records as well.

  Besides, drunk or sober, Winston DeWitt could find anything out about anyone—for a price.

  “And, dammit, you knew just what his price would be, didn’t you?” she muttered out loud an hour later as she finally hung up the phone and massaged her ear, which felt hot and numb after being pressed against a re
ceiver for so long. “Hangar 61, every gruesome detail about that ridiculous alien autopsy, every conspiracy theory about UFOs. The man’s certainly got a bee in his bonnet about—”

  The rest of her sentence ended in a croak as a shadowy bulk appeared on the other side of the screen door. A stuttering heartbeat later she realized the bulk was Connor.

  “Tess? What the hell are you doing up? Why isn’t the damn light on?” He entered the kitchen, closing the door behind him and flicking on the switch that controlled the hanging lamp above the table.

  “Using the phone,” she said in an angry whisper. “And I didn’t put the light on because I thought you were asleep in your room, for heaven’s sake. Do you have any idea how close you came to giving me a heart attack just now?”

  “Using the phone?” He lowered his voice to match hers. “Are you crazy? We’re hiding out here and you phoned—”

  His tone had risen again. He strode past her and impatiently flung open the spare bedroom door. “Get in, dammit. We need to talk, and I get the feeling I’m not going to be able to keep this down to a whisper.”

  “I asked a colleague on the Eye-Opener to check into that construction site.” Tess swept past him into the room. She stopped in front of the small fireplace and turned to face him, her arms crossed over her T-shirt. “Winston cares who shoplifted what in Hollywood, Connor. He doesn’t—”

  “You called a reporter.” Despite his stated reason for transferring their discussion from the kitchen, his words were ominously quiet. “It was bad enough Del brought Crawford in on this, but what you’ve just done goes way over the line. Go wake up Joey. We’re getting out of here.”

  “Do you want to shut up and let me explain?” He wasn’t the only one who could lower the temperature of the room with his tone, Tess noted with some satisfaction. She gave him a glance as cold as her voice had been. “Winston DeWitt isn’t your run-of-the-mill reporter. He’s a drunk and a gossipmonger, but he happens to have contacts all over the place. And all he ever wants to know about me is whether I set off airport metal detectors when I walk through them.”