Murder Beyond the Grave Read online

  The man follows a pace behind, holding the gun in one hand and carrying a duffel bag with his other arm.

  “Please,” Stephen says, turning his head slightly to look at the man over his shoulder. “Whatever you’re planning, you don’t have to do it. I’ve already told you I’ll give you money.”

  “I’ll get my money, all right,” the man says, poking Stephen with the gun again.

  Stephen jerks as if he’s been burned by a hot poker. His foot collides with a clump of dirt and he stumbles forward, landing on his hands and knees. His glasses slip off his sweaty face and fall into a patch of weeds. He gropes for his glasses with his cuffed hands, but his kidnapper grabs him by the back of the shirt and yanks him to his feet.

  “Wait,” Stephen says. “My glasses.”

  “You’ll buy another pair,” the man growls, shoving Stephen.

  Stephen almost falls again, but he catches himself. Without his glasses, the world is a blur. Between the darkness and his own impaired vision, he can make out almost nothing, just clumps of vegetation or the occasional tree.

  “Stop here,” the man orders.

  Stephen squints. He can make out a large discoloration in the sandy ground in front of him. It looks like a large hole in the dirt. Stephen hunches over and tries to look more closely.

  He sees an open coffin sitting in the hole.

  “No,” Stephen says, wheeling around and collapsing to his knees. “Please don’t kill me. I have a wife, three kids. They need me.”

  “Shut up,” the voice says, sounding annoyed. “I’m not going to kill you. There’s a breathing tube. As long as your family does what they’re supposed to do, you’re going to live. Okay? Relax.”

  The kidnapper orders Stephen to stand in the box. Then the man removes a handheld tape recorder from the duffel bag and hands Stephen a handwritten note. He points a small flashlight onto the text.

  “Read the words as they’re written,” the man orders, and he presses record.

  Stephen squints again. Without his glasses, he can barely make out the words.

  The man presses the gun barrel against Stephen’s skull and nods his head toward the note.

  “Nancy, this is, this is, umm, this … I … that … I thought this was a joke or something, but it’s no joke. I’m … there’s somebody and I’ve got handcuffs on, and I’m inside some, I guess, a box.”

  Danny interrupts: “You got two days of air and that’s it. And it’s going to get real stuffy in there.”

  Stephen can make out enough of the note to relay the kidnapper’s demands to Nancy. He says to get 1 million dollars in fifty- and hundred-dollar bills. No consecutive serial numbers.

  “You’ve got forty-eight hours of air,” the man says, speaking toward the microphone.

  “I love you,” Stephen says. “I really do, and the kids. That’s all I know. This hurts like hell.”

  The masked man presses the stop button and puts the recorder back in his bag, then pulls out bolt cutters and severs the chain between the handcuffs. The kidnapper points out the amenities inside the box: There are candy bars, light, water, and even an air tube.

  “I’ll be back out as soon as your family ponies up.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Stephen says as he first kneels and then lies down in the box.

  The man slams the lid closed. Then he adjusts the air tube sticking through the plywood.

  Stephen calls out to his kidnapper, telling him it’s not too late to let him go.

  The kidnapper says nothing. He answers by throwing a shovelful of dirt on top of the box. Stephen cries for help as dirt rains down onto the lid. He tries to shift positions, but it’s almost impossible to move—and the temperature inside the box is sweltering.

  He feels like he can’t catch his breath, and he strains his neck toward the air hole. In doing so, he knocks the car battery and the light flickers. He feels on the verge of panic.

  This can’t be happening.

  He adjusts the battery. At least he has light now, but he can’t control his breathing. He gets his mouth as close to the air hole as he can and tries to take slow, deep inhalations through the pipe.

  The wooden roof starts to sag under the weight of the dirt.

  CHAPTER 21

  NANCY RISH WAITS for Danny at the railroad crossing, as she was instructed. She looks around, nervous, unsure if whatever Danny is up to is illegal. She thinks about firing up the engine and driving away, leaving Danny to whatever trouble he’s gotten himself into this time.

  But she can’t bring herself to do it. She loves him. She wants a life with him.

  A normal life.

  Is this a normal life? she asks herself. Waiting by a railroad track in the middle of nowhere at three in the morning? No, this is far from a normal life.

  But Danny has promised this is the last time he’ll do something like this. And at least it—whatever it is—is not drug dealing.

  Even if this isn’t a normal life, maybe a normal life is right around the corner. A little voice inside Nancy’s head tells her she’s just fooling herself. But she’s already here, already waiting. What would Danny do if she drove off without him?

  He almost slapped her the other day. Whatever he is into is stressing him out to the point that he was almost willing to hurt her.

  It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to abandon Danny now. If she did, she might as well go home and grab Benji out of bed and run away. But where could she go?

  The answer is simple: nowhere.

  If she runs away from Danny, she has nowhere to run to.

  She bites her fingernails and looks around impatiently.

  Danny comes walking toward the car, emerging from the darkness like a phantom. He is carrying a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

  Nancy scowls at him as he opens the door.

  “There aren’t any drugs in there, are there?”

  “No,” Danny says, irritated. “I already told you I’m not dealing.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  Danny leans his head back against the headrest like he’s worn out from a hard day’s work.

  “You don’t want to know,” he mutters.

  Danny is filthy. His pant legs are dusty, and his hands are caked in what looks like a muddy mix of dirt and sweat.

  Nancy opens her mouth to speak, but Danny cuts her off with a curt “Let’s get going already.”

  Nancy starts the engine and drives away. The headlights slice through the darkness. They drive in silence for several minutes.

  “Pull over up here,” Danny says, pointing to a gas station. “I need to make a phone call.”

  “At this hour?”

  Danny doesn’t answer, and Nancy doesn’t press him. She pulls off into the gravel parking lot and stops the car. She leans back and closes her eyes as she waits.

  She doesn’t see Danny pull a tape recorder out of the duffel bag when he gets to the pay phone.

  CHAPTER 22

  September 3

  3:00 a.m.

  NANCY SMALL IS asleep and dreaming when she hears a telephone ringing. She sits up, looks around, tries to orient herself. She’s sitting in a recliner in the living room. She sat down to wait for Stephen to return home and ended up dozing off.

  Now she checks the clock in the kitchen and sees how late it is. The phone is still ringing. She hurries and grabs it.

  “Hello,” she says.

  “Nancy,” she hears her husband say, but his voice is distorted, muffled. It’s hard to hear him, but the voice is still recognizable as her husband’s. “This is, this is, umm, this … I … that … I thought this was a joke or something, but it’s no joke. I’m … there’s somebody and I’ve got handcuffs on, and I’m inside some, I guess, a box.”

  Nancy’s mind reels as she tries to keep up with what Stephen is saying.

  He’s locked in a box?

  I’m supposed to come up with a million dollars?

  “Slow down,” she says. “What
is going on?”

  She hears another voice, even more distorted, say something about forty-eight hours of air. Then she hears Stephen’s voice again.

  “I love you. I really do, and the kids. That’s all I know. This hurts like hell.”

  “Wait, Stephen—”

  Another voice comes on the line.

  “We have your husband.”

  This voice isn’t distorted or muffled. It’s clear and cold, and hearing it sends chills down Nancy Small’s spine.

  “Get the money together,” the voice says. “If you don’t give me one million, your husband is dead.”

  “I don’t know if I can get that kind of money,” Nancy pleads.

  “Your husband is buried in a box, and only I know where it is,” the voice says. “He has forty-eight hours of air. If I don’t get what I want, I’ll leave him there to rot. You’ll never find him.”

  “I need some time.”

  “I’ll call back,” the voice says. “And don’t you dare go to the cops.”

  The line goes dead.

  Nancy’s heart is jackhammering in her chest. Tears fill her eyes. She paces the room for a moment, trying to process what is happening.

  She considers not calling the police, trying to do this alone. Could she assemble that kind of money? Could she do what the caller asks in exchange for Stephen?

  There is no guarantee that Stephen will be allowed to live. She only has the kidnapper’s word, and she can’t trust him.

  No, Stephen’s best chance of survival is for her to call in the authorities.

  She grabs the phone and dials the operator.

  She clears her throat and says in as confident a voice as she can muster, “Please connect me to the FBI.”

  CHAPTER 23

  IN THE LATE morning, Danny Edwards cruises down the residential street where Stephen and Nancy Small live. He is driving slowly, trying to look for anything suspicious, but also trying not to look suspicious himself. Everything seems normal. A man is trimming his lawn with a push mower. A teenager is riding his bike. An elderly woman is kneeling in a planter of flowers, clipping roses.

  Danny pulls over near the Small house and pretends to consult a piece of paper. Really, he’s looking around for evidence of law enforcement. He doesn’t see any marked cars or uniformed officers. The Small house looks like it does any other day, except the blinds are pulled and there are no kids running around in the yard playing in the sprinkler.

  Danny is about to put the van in drive when he sees one of the curtains shift. A man in a suit looks out, glances around, and then pulls the curtain shut again.

  “Damn her,” Danny growls, firing up the engine and speeding down the street. “That bitch called the goddamn cops.”

  Danny heads out of town, careful to make sure he isn’t followed. He drives to the sand hills, finds the spot where Stephen Small pulled off the road last night, and follows the tire tracks.

  The Mercedes is just where he left it, hidden in a cluster of bushes and trees. He keeps going and pulls up to the place he buried Stephen Small. It’s easy to see that the dirt has been disturbed here, but because the air tube sticks out of the ground twenty feet away, Danny doesn’t think anyone who might wander upon the spot would think that a person is buried alive down there.

  He heads over to the place where the pipe is sticking out of the ground. The sunlight seems unusually bright and oppressive. The air is hot and humid. A mosquito buzzes around his ear, and he swats it away.

  Danny leans over the tube sticking out of the ground and calls out, “Hang in there, man. This is almost over.”

  He stops and listens for Stephen Small to say something.

  “Stephen, you in there, buddy?”

  There is no response.

  Danny opens his mouth to call out to Stephen again, but he hears something in the brush nearby. He freezes and stares. He sees no movement. Was it a bird? A rabbit?

  Or something else?

  You’re just being paranoid, he tells himself. Keep it together.

  He hurries back to his van and spins the tires in the sand trying to get out of there. When he gets to the blacktop, he keeps looking around, checking his rearview mirrors.

  Is someone following him?

  He doesn’t see anyone who looks suspicious, but he just can’t shake the feeling that he’s being spied on.

  Maybe this is how I’ll feel the rest of my life, he thinks. Like someone is after me.

  CHAPTER 24

  September 3

  5:00 p.m.

  FOURTEEN HOURS AFTER she first talked to her husband’s kidnapper, Nancy Small’s phone begins to ring.

  Everyone in the house—the Kankakee police, the FBI, her lawyer—all go quiet. One of the FBI agents gives Nancy a nod.

  She looks at the recording device next to her phone, trying to remember how they told her to operate it. She presses the record button and slowly lifts the receiver.

  “Hello,” she says, attempting to sound as calm as possible.

  “I told you not to call the cops,” the voice on the other end growls. “Do you want your husband to die?”

  Nancy inhales sharply. Tears spring to her eyes. She tells herself to remain calm.

  “I have the money,” she says coolly.

  This statement seems to relax the man a bit.

  “How much?” he says.

  “All of it—one million,” she says. “It’s in hundreds and fifties, no sequential serial numbers. Just as you asked.”

  “I’ll call you back with instructions,” the man says.

  One of the FBI agents gestures to Nancy with his hands: Keep him on the phone.

  “I want to talk to my husband,” Nancy says, her voice beginning to lose its composure for the first time.

  “You called the police,” the man snaps. “You messed everything up. It’s more complicated now. I’ll call you back.”

  “I want to talk to Stephen,” she pleads, her voice breaking.

  There’s no answer. The line is dead.

  Nancy Small lowers the phone to its cradle. Her hand is shaking. Her whole body is numb.

  The head FBI agent in charge puts a gentle, reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  “You did good,” he says. “We traced the call.”

  Relief floods through Nancy’s body.

  The agents start frantically discussing what to do. The call came from a pay phone at a Phillips 66 gas station in Aroma Park, about thirty miles outside of Kankakee.

  “I want four stakeout teams,” the agent in charge says. “One for that gas station and three more for the closest pay phones. The next time the kidnapper makes a call, we’re going to pounce on that son of a bitch.”

  CHAPTER 25

  September 3

  11:00 p.m.

  NANCY RISH AND DANNY EDWARDS are sitting on the couch, watching the rest of Crocodile Dundee. Nancy sneaks a glance at Danny, who can’t sit still. He keeps looking toward the window and his leg keeps fidgeting. His skin seems flush, and she can tell he isn’t paying attention to the movie. His eyes might be looking at the TV screen, but his mind is a million miles away.

  “Are you okay?” Nancy asks.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Danny?”

  “I’m fine,” he snaps.

  After a few minutes, the telephone rings, and Danny jumps out of his seat as if he’s heard a gunshot.

  “What is going on with you?” Nancy says, walking toward the phone stand. “Hello?” She holds the receiver to her chest and says to Danny, “It’s Julie.”

  She sits down and begins talking to her friend. Julie wants to know what her plans are for Labor Day weekend.

  Danny’s legs bounce restlessly. Finally, he bursts out of his seat and storms out of the house.

  “Is Danny still acting weird?” Julie says.

  “Weirder than ever,” Nancy says.

  After a long conversation about everything from Benji’s school clothes to the weather, Nancy fin
ally hangs up. She goes looking for Danny. He isn’t anywhere in the house. She peeks into the garage and sees him pacing around. She opens her mouth to ask what he’s doing when he spots her.

  “Hey,” he says, excited. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Nancy looks at him skeptically as he explains. Since Benji is at his dad’s tonight, Danny says, they should take Nancy’s bicycle over to his friend Jerry’s house to get the brakes fixed.

  “At this hour?”

  “He’s a night owl,” Danny says. “He won’t mind.”

  Without waiting for a response, Danny opens the garage door and wheels the ten-speed into the driveway.

  “Let’s take your car,” he says. “We’ll put the bike in the trunk.”

  Nancy steps out onto the driveway in bare feet. The night air is muggy. Danny is trying to wedge her bicycle into the trunk. The brakes haven’t worked in months. Every time she mentioned getting the bike fixed to Danny, he said he had a friend who could do the work. But he never got around to calling him and asking for the favor. It seemed to be the lowest item on his priority list. She can’t imagine why, at eleven o’clock tonight, he unexpectedly wants to get this done.

  “Danny,” she says, “what’s really going on?”

  Danny can’t get the trunk closed, so he leaves it ajar, with the handlebars sticking out.

  “I just want to go for a drive with my girl,” he says. “And I thought we’d get an errand done while we’re at it.”

  She purses her lips and folds her arms, trying with her body language to send the message that she doesn’t believe a word he’s saying.

  “Nancy,” he says, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve told you a hundred times. I’m not dealing anymore. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve got a second chance, and I’m not going to blow it.”

  Then he wraps his arms around her in a tight hug and adds, “Besides, I would never put you in a situation where you could get in trouble for something I’ve done. Trust me, okay?”

  She doesn’t answer. She wraps her arms around him and sinks into his embrace, and that says it all.