Chapter 26 - The End

Chapter XXVI

When Kurtis and Spacer reached the interrogation room, Mike, the young officer who was their chauffeur, handed them an envelope.

“Crime lab sent this up for you,” Mike said.  “Thought you might want it before the interrogation.”

“Always do the homework,” Kurtis said.  “Saves looking like a klutz.”

Spacer read one of the pages that were in the envelope; Kurtis read the other then they traded pages.

“You seen these guys?” Spacer asked Mike.

“If they’re the guys I saw them bring down from the cells.”

“Bullies?” Spacer asked.  “Big and bad?”

“More like smart-ass kids,” Mike replied.  “The oldest is probably under thirty.”

“Do we have rap sheets?” Kurtis asked.

“I’ll see if I can get one.”  Mike jumped up eager to be helpful.

Mike was quick to return.  They had just time to read the rap sheets when the first man was ushered in.

Spacer looked him over with a cold stare, “You Miller?”

The question was met with a sneer and nod.

“I don’t even want to look at this piece of trash.  Joins up to serve with proud men.  Claims to be one of the finest, then discredits everyone by raping Iraqi women – three before they caught him.”  Spacer read, then threw the paper to the table.

“That’s a real dishonorable discharge,” Kurtis said, shaking his head.  “Why didn’t they leave him to Iraqi justice?”

Miller laughed – alone. 

“YOU want me to shake him by the front of the shirt and slap him up both sides of the head for you?” Mike asked.

“Nah, we save that for men,” Spacer replied.  He was pleased with the question.  Kid might work out, Spacer thought, and the glint in Kurtis’ eye told he was in agreement.

Mike noticed the unspoken camaraderie and was pleased.

“Yeah, don’t dirty your hands on this piece of shit,” Kurtis said.  “Says here he owned the land the pot field was on.  Hard to believe he owned ‘a pot to piss in.’”

“First time that land made money was last year when I took it over,” Miller said.

“Now you got nothing again.  Nothing but trouble,” Kurtis said.  “Feds take land used to grow illegal substanceS.”

“You’re sitting here looking at murder one,” Spacer said.

“I didn’t kill anyone.  … The Feds take the land?”

“Truck has the girl’s blood.  The rifle matches ballistics,” Kurtis nodded and kept it moving.

“So?” Miller said, “I didn’t kill her.”

“What do you bet your friend Draper says the same thing?” Spacer went on, “Could really piss him off, you trying to pin murder on him.”

“I ain’t saying any more.  I want a lawyer,” Miller yelled.

“I wish you’d thought of that earlier, when they asked you,”  Kurtis said.   “We wasted all this time.”

“Mike, would you see if Draper’s lawyer is here?” Spacer asked.  “He got one.  We can talk to them while you wait for yours.  He gets the first plea.”

Mike went to the door and received a nod from a guard.

Miller didn’t take the bait.  He was waiting for a lawyer.  When the guards took Miller out, Kurtis shook his head and said, “I think that flew right past him.  Does it seem to you we’re getting a dumber bunch of killers lately?”

“Stoker’s smart,” Spacer said.

“Who says?” Kurtis asked.

“Tate!”

“Oh, right, his good buddy.”  Kurtis told Mike, “Tate makes Miller look like a genius.”

Mike laughed.

The guards brought Draper and his lawyer into the room.  Draper looked Spacer and Kurtis over with a sneer. 

“What happened to you guys?” Draper asked.  His lawyer gave him a cursory glance, for speaking without his permission.

“I think you already know that,” Spacer said.

Kurtis had read the lab report on the van that hit him and Spacer, so he took a flyer question, “Yeah, says in your record you’re a body man.  Did a good job on the van.  That is a new paint job?” Kurtis waited for the smile at the praise, then went on.  “Put all that work into it.  Mounted the iron grill nice and smooth, just to run us off the road?”

Draper laughed and spoke before his attorney could stop him, “That’s a cattle sweep, I was gonna take it to Mexico.”

His attorney grunted and glared.  He wasn’t sure of this client, but he felt the quick responses and pride were not working against him. 

“But I didn’t – wouldn’t treat my baby like that.  And it wasn’t stolen like they said; I got it from a junk yard.” Draper couldn’t be silenced.  He was talking about his car.

His attorney tried again, but Spacer put up a ‘wait’ hand gesture and said, “I believe him.  You don’t work on a car like that to trash it.”

Draper nodded and smiled.  His attorney was suspicious.

“Why did you just leave it?” Kurtis asked.

“I didn’t Miller did.  I didn’t even know he took it.”

“You had to pick him up…” Spacer started, but Draper came out with it.

“I didn’t know anything about it.  If someone picked him up it must have been Lance.  More likely Lance did it and Miller picked him up,” Draper said.   “Lance has more guts than Miller.”

“I guess it’s only fair you put this on Miller.  He put the murder on you,” Kurtis said.

“Now, I know he didn’t say that.  I didn’t kill anyone.”

Draper’s attorney was young and not really certain how to contain his client, or if he should, since he wasn’t committing himself to all the evidence they had.

“Blood all over the pick-up,” Spacer said.

“I cleaned that good,” Draper said.

Draper’s attorney raised his eyebrows, but wasn’t fast enough with a response.

“Lab finds blood water can’t,” Kurtis filled in.

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Putting that on Miller too?” Spacer asked.

“No, that was Lance.”

“Who the hell is Lance?” Spacer asked.

“Must be the smart one,” Kurtis quipped.

Mike laughed.

“Sorry, inside joke,” Kurtis said too the dumbfounded attorney.

“Who is Lance?” the attorney asked his client.

“He’s a guy Miller hired to guard the field.  He had this neat rifle.” Draper said, “I couldn’t believe he left it behind.  I didn’t know it was there until the Narcs got it.”

They all sat silently waiting for Draper to go on.

Draper for the first time looked to his attorney for advice.  The Attorney nodded.  Draper went on, “It was just getting dark and we heard a couple of shots – Miller and me.  We ran out shouting to Lance, scared he was hurt. …We found him.  He was really shook.  Said, ‘she was stealing our pot.’  He said he shot over her head.  She started running.  He took another shot to scare her good and she ran right into his bullet.”

There was a long pause.  Draper took several breaths.  “I never saw a dead body like that – out in a field … She was young.  Why would she steal our Pot?”

“She just wanted a leaf; so the guys would stop teasing her, about not knowing Marijuana from tomatoes,” Kurtis said.

“Shit!”  Draper had lost all of his cocky-attitude, in a slump.

“So, what did you do?” Spacer asked.

“We carried her back to the truck and left her there in the garage until the middle of the night, then we took her to Heg Park.  We couldn’t leave her in the area, that was Miller’s idea, but you found the garden anyway.  Lance said he’d kill us if we talked.”

“Where’s Lance?” Spacer asked.

Draper shrugged.  “Day after the body was found, he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Kurtis asked.

“Like, we got up in the mornin’ and he was gone.  Only took half his clothes.  Never thought he’d part with that rifle,” Draper said.

“Rifle points to you and Miller,” Spacer said.  “Mike would you call the Lab and see if they came up with odd prints on the gun or shells?”

Mike jumped up to respond, but he looked back to Draper.  His assignment was to protect Kurtis and Spacer.

“I think he’s cool,” Kurtis supplied.  “He’d be a fool to blow it now.”

The attorney nodded.  “I can’t shut him up but I think I can restrain him.”

Spacer paused thinking of what he had been told.  “Wait a minute.  If Lance was gone who picked up Miller and brought him home after he rammed us?”

Draper pushed out his lower lip and stared.  He could only shrug.  “Maybe he hitched a ride.”

The attorney looked distressed.

“He didn’t really hurt himself, if he’s telling the truth,” Spacer said, “Sure help if there’s a third set of prints on the gun.”

Later in the afternoon Spacer reread the crime lab report on the rifle.  Then he read the cross-files from the morgue and a twenty-four-hour store robbery attempt.  Kurtis entered Spacer’s office.

“Did they come up with anything?” Kurtis asked motioning toward the reports.

“Oh yes!  Seems Robert Lance served with Miller in Iraq.  He received a medical discharge last year,” Spacer said.  “Night Style’s body turned up, he and someone else tried to rob an all night store.  An off-duty cop walked in and put Lance in the morgue.  The other guy got away with the rifle in hand.  Cop was injured.”

“Sounds to me like Miller’s looking at a line-up,” Kurtis said.  “Good, I didn’t like the thought of putting a simple body drop charge on him.”

“Too late tonight.  I hope it’s Miller.  I have a good feel for Draper.  I really don’t think he knew about Lance.”

Pete and Ruby were anxious to try the treadmills.  They hurried into the house and changed out of their work clothes and headed for the treads.  Nothing looked different, but then, all Al had to do was to change the command disk.

“I guess we can kiss dreams like a tropical path good-bye,” Ruby said.

“What do you mean?” Pete asked.

“The way they were reading our minds.  I thought it would be romantic.”

“Yeah, why not?  Cocos and bananas.”

“And a friendly little monkey to lead the way,” Ruby added.

They mounted the treadmills and started on trail six figuring that was the trail it would have affected first.  Pete stepped alongside of Ruby and took her hand in the usual manner.  Their psychic connection was working They were on a tropical path.

“Well, Rumble, they still read minds.  There’s your monkey.”

A monkey leapt to her side and took Ruby’s other hand.  She and Pete laughed.

“Hard to believe it’s us,” Ruby said.

“Maybe once you open a gateway you have broken the seal,” Pete spoke Ruby’s fear.

“I hope we don’t turn-up any more bodies,” she said.

Six weeks passed.  Ruby and Pete were happy with no further corpses. 

Kurtis’ leg was out of the cast and Spacer mended.  The trial was over and Stoker was indicted for conspiracy to commit murder.

Kurtis and Spacer met at the gym.  They had wanted to wish Lucky Mace luck on his upcoming fight.  While they were there Rocco convinced them they should try his new treadmills.

“That would be great for me,” Rocco said, “I have a couple of ladies going to take a ride and I won’t have to pay a couple of my boys to ride with them.”

“You aren’t bribing us for some future citation are you?” Spacer asked.

“These are real member ladies,” Rocco said.

Kurtis and Spacer thought it would be interesting and Kurtis needed to work his legs – Doctor’s orders.

When they met after riding the treadmills Kurtis said to Spacer, “That is great the way the person comes up on your monitor to talk to you and you see yourselves, in the monitor, on a trail,” Kurtis said. 

“Not quite as thrilling as Pete’s, but safer,” Spacer said.

“Surprised me I was walking with Christina.”

“Jesus, are those things really magic?  I was with Lake Ferris.”

THE END

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