Murder Beyond the Grave Read online

  CHAPTER 26

  NANCY DRIVES HER Buick on the same route they’d gone the other day when they were looking at the scenery, and then again last night when she picked Danny up at three o’clock in the morning. Her bicycle is poking out of the open trunk, rattling around behind them.

  Danny isn’t talking. He’s fidgeting in his seat, just as he was at home.

  So much for our nice evening drive as a couple, Nancy thinks.

  “Pull over here,” Danny says. “Let me call Jerry, just to make sure it’s okay if we swing by.”

  “You said he’s a night owl.”

  “He is. I just want to make sure he’s there.”

  Nancy eases the car into the gravel driveway of a bait shop, and she parks near the pay phone. She turns off the engine. There’s no telling how long Danny will be.

  Danny hops out and looks around. The shop is closed. There are signs in the windows written in Magic Marker advertising fresh worms and inexpensive fishing lures, but the store itself is dark. The neon Budweiser sign is turned off. The parking lot is lit only from a single streetlight. There are no other cars in the lot. Danny looks up and down the road and sees no headlights. He listens and hears only crickets and the rustling of tree leaves.

  He dials the number of Nancy Small.

  “Hello,” the woman says after two rings.

  “Take Route 17 east,” Danny says.

  “What?” she says. “Wait. I want to talk to my husband.”

  Danny continues giving directions, telling her to leave the money by the railroad tracks where he had Nancy pick him up the other night. But the woman can’t keep up and asks him to repeat what he said.

  “Wait a minute,” she says, her voice panicked. “I’m not getting this.”

  CHAPTER 27

  AS NANCY SMALL pleads with her husband’s kidnapper over the telephone, the police and FBI whisper to each other in the background.

  “We’ve traced the call to Aroma Park,” someone reports to the special agent in charge.

  “We’ve heard from all four stakeouts,” another agent says. “No one is using any of the phones.”

  “How is that possible?” someone asks.

  “There must be another phone in the area.”

  The special agent in charge has a radio in his hand with a surveillance team on the other end.

  “We spotted one more pay phone down the road,” the surveillance officer says, his voice crackling through the radio.

  “Go check it out,” the agent in charge says. “Go, go, go!”

  On the telephone, Nancy Small is still trying to make sure she understands the directions correctly.

  “I’m not getting this,” she says, panic overtaking her voice.

  Then she hears another voice on the phone. It takes her a moment to realize it’s her husband’s voice, muffled and distorted again like it was the other night.

  “If everything is okay,” Stephen says, “if he gets the money, he’ll tell you where I’m buried. He seems serious.”

  “I’m not doing this for nothing,” the other voice says. Now it is distorted too. “I’m not coming back to dig you up. If I don’t get my money, you’re dead.”

  Nancy opens her mouth to call out to her husband, but before she can speak, the line goes dead.

  She collapses to the floor, weeping loudly, relieved to know Stephen is still alive.

  She doesn’t realize that his voice was on a tape recorder.

  CHAPTER 28

  DANNY PRESSES STOP on the tape player and hangs up the phone. His whole body feels tense. He turns back to the Buick, and just as he does, he sees a black sedan driving down the road. It has a large antenna sticking up from the trunk, and it looks a lot like an unmarked police car. Danny should know—he spent some time in them when he was working with the Kankakee drug-enforcement agents last winter.

  “Goddammit,” Danny mutters, and hurries to Nancy’s car.

  “Let’s go,” he says, practically shouting. “Come on. Come on!”

  “Jeez,” she says. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Danny doesn’t answer.

  The sedan slowly passes the bait shop. Once the car has passed, Danny watches as it attempts a three-point turn in the middle of the road.

  “Was Jerry home?” Nancy asks.

  “He can’t do it,” Danny snaps. “Go this way. Hurry up.”

  Nancy drives the Buick onto the road. Danny watches in the rearview mirror as the car begins to follow them. He checks and rechecks the mirror, squirming in his seat as if it’s a bed of nails.

  The car is behind them, its headlights far away but clearly visible. But then the car turns off the road, and the lights disappear.

  Danny collapses into his seat.

  “Sorry,” he says. “It just seemed like that car was following us.”

  “You’re being paranoid,” Nancy says. “Why would anyone be following us?”

  Danny has an idea. He sits up and rolls down his window and zips open the duffel bag.

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” he says to Nancy.

  “What are you talking about?” she says, but she keeps her eyes forward, fixed on the yellow lines in the center of the road.

  Danny pulls out the tape recorder and launches it out the window into the weeds. Then he rolls up the window and sinks back into his seat, exhaling loudly.

  “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Nancy says.

  “I’m telling you for the last time, Nancy. For your own good, stop asking so many goddamn questions.”

  Nancy says nothing more, just keeps driving. She doesn’t know what Danny has gotten himself into—and doesn’t want to know.

  When she passes another gas station up on her left, there is a car sitting in the lot, waiting to pull out. When she passes the car, she looks out her window and, under a parking lot lamp, makes eye contact with a woman behind the wheel.

  The car pulls onto the road behind Nancy’s Buick and begins following them at a distance.

  CHAPTER 29

  NANCY SMALL SITS on the couch, her legs pulled up underneath her, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. It’s as if she’s trying to become smaller, squeezing into as tiny a space as possible. The room is dark except for a pool of light cast by a reading lamp next to her. The windows in the room are curtained, but the darkness outside seems to press against the house. She can’t wait for the sun to rise. Somehow she associates the dawn with an end to this nightmare she’s living.

  This is the couch she normally shares with her family. She sits on one end, Stephen the other, and the boys—all three of them—squeeze in between them. Now the couch is empty. She’s in her normal spot, but the boys are staying with her parents. And Stephen … she doesn’t know where Stephen is.

  No one does.

  At least no one besides his kidnapper.

  Their house—their warm house that holds memories in every corner—is now full of FBI agents and police detectives.

  It’s the middle of the night, and no one has slept, least of all Nancy Small.

  Her mind is a fog. To her, the men in suits are just blurs in the background. They move around doing whatever they’re doing, but her mind is elsewhere.

  She is trying to remember the last time she saw Stephen. He left in a hurry, running out of the house because he believed there had been a break-in at the B. Harley Bradley House. She can’t remember if she said she loved him as he was walking out the door. Or if he said it to her.

  It was their habit to say the words whenever they parted, but he’d been in such a hurry to get out the door, they might have forgotten.

  It seems very important to remember whether she said it or not. She wants to remember Stephen’s face as he said the words.

  She shakes her head, trying to clear it of her spiraling thoughts.

  But then she notices something is different in the house. The atmosphere has changed. The police officers are talking with more urgency, speaking into radios, discussing what to do. Their voices are louder as they call out ideas to each other.

  Nancy wants to ask what’s happening, but she feels paralyzed on the couch. How can she inquire about what’s going on when she can’t even rise to her feet?

  Finally, the agent who seems to be in charge—she’s forgotten his name—approaches her and sits gently on the couch next to her, where Ramsey usually sits. The FBI agent wears round glasses and has a paunch. He looks like a nice man, and, from the start, she has believed him when he told her that he will do everything he can to bring her husband home safe.

  “Nancy,” he says. “We’ve caught a break.”

  “Do you know where Stephen is?”

  “Not yet,” he says, “but we’re getting close.”

  He explains that the surveillance teams spotted a car leaving the location where the telephone call was made. An undercover officer followed the car to a home in Kankakee.

  “We’ve run the plates,” he says. “Does the name Nancy Rish mean anything to you?”

  Nancy is stunned for a moment—the absurdity that Stephen’s kidnapper is a woman with the same first name as hers? Then she thinks hard, traveling through her mind looking for any reference to the name.

  “No,” she says. “I have no idea who that is.”

  “Well,” the agent says, “we believe she is one of the kidnappers, working with at least one accomplice. We’re assembling a SWAT team now. We’re going to bring her down. If all goes well, we’ll have Stephen home by dinner tomorrow.”

  Nancy feels her heart swell with hope. But then a cold needle pops her balloon of optimism, and she fills back up with apprehension.

  The kidnapper said Stephen had forty-eight hours of air.

  If he isn’t home by dinner, as the age
nt suggested, then he’ll soon be running out of oxygen.

  CHAPTER 30

  NANCY RISH IS dreaming.

  In the dream, Benji is graduating from high school. She is sitting in the stands with Danny. They’re older. Danny’s hair is going gray at the temples. She’s put on a little bit of weight and has a few wrinkles around her eyes. But she’s still pretty. And they are happy together.

  There’s a gold wedding band on Danny’s ring finger and a pea-sized diamond on hers. As Benji takes the stage and receives his diploma, Danny reaches over and takes her hand. They smile. This is it: the life she always wanted.

  Then a loud noise—like a car crashing into the house—jolts her awake. She sits up, trying to orient herself to where she is. She’s in her bed. The room is dark, but the curtains of her window are pulled back, casting a bluish light into the room. The sun isn’t up yet, but it’s close. She can tell by the soft morning glow.

  She feels for Danny in the space next to her. He’s not there.

  She hears yelling coming from downstairs. Lots of voices—deep and loud and full of authority. Danny’s voice, defiant but scared, is mixed in with the other voices.

  Nancy’s first thought is that the drug dealers Danny used to work for have come for him and they’re going to kill him.

  She is frozen with fear, unable to get up.

  She thinks of Benji. She must protect him. Then she remembers that he is at his father’s.

  Thank God, she thinks.

  But her relief is short-lived. Loud footsteps stomp up the stairway. The bedroom door bursts open, slamming against the wall. Nancy jumps and lets out a short, clipped scream.

  Two men step into the room. They’re dressed in black, with combat boots and bullet-proof vests. Both are holding military rifles, and they aim them at Nancy’s face.

  “Danny!” Nancy screams.

  She doesn’t know what else to do.

  She gets no answer from Danny.

  Instead, one of the SWAT agents pulls her to her feet. He is forceful but doesn’t hurt her.

  “Ma’am,” he says. “You can put on some clothes before we take you in.”

  Clothes? she thinks. Take me in?

  She doesn’t understand what is going on.

  She looks down at herself and sees she’s wearing Danny’s T-shirt, the one she uses as a nightgown. She has no bra, no underwear.

  She looks around the room, trying to find some clothes to wear. She grabs a pair of jeans lying on the floor. Then something out the window catches her eye.

  She walks to the edge of the window and looks out. The road is filled with police cars. Blue and red lights flash in the dim morning light. Two officers dressed like the ones in her room are leading Danny across the lawn to a police vehicle. His hands are cuffed behind his back.

  A female officer arrives in the bedroom and keeps an eye on Nancy as she gets dressed. Nancy pulls on the pair of jeans and puts on a blouse. The officer is wearing street clothes and her black hair is in a ponytail, but she has a pistol clipped to her belt. Nancy thinks she looks familiar. She just isn’t sure from where.

  Then it hits her like a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. She saw the woman last night driving the car that was behind them.

  Danny was right. They were being followed. Now Nancy is more confused than ever.

  “Can you at least tell me what’s going on?” Nancy says.

  The woman answers by instructing Nancy to put her hands behind her back. The woman clips on handcuffs and leads her down the stairs and into the yard. Blue and red lights flash from the police cars.

  The garage door is open, and police are inside, looking around. One uniformed officer is standing before a man in a suit, showing him a sawed-off hunk of two-by-four and a short length of PVC tubing. Two plainclothes detectives are kneeling over Danny’s duffel bag. They pull out a motorcycle helmet Nancy has never seen before. Then a pair of bolt cutters. A flashlight.

  Finally, one man pulls out a pistol. He holds it between his thumb and forefinger, like it’s something he doesn’t want to touch.

  “Someone tell me what’s going on,” Nancy says, practically shouting.

  “As if you don’t know,” the female officer says, opening the back of a police cruiser and gesturing for her to get in.

  CHAPTER 31

  THEY PUT NANCY in a room with cinder-block walls and into a cold metal chair in front of a stained metal table. On the other side is another chair that sits empty.

  For now.

  “I want to see Danny,” she says. “I think we can clear up this misunderstanding if I can just see him.”

  Instead of answering, they slam the heavy steel door on her. She tries the handle.

  Locked.

  She settles into her chair. The room is so silent she can hear her own heartbeat. The room has a dankness to it, like an underground basement. The air has the faint sour smell of body odor. And perhaps there’s the stink of urine.

  Nancy doesn’t know how long she can stand being in here. Panic starts to creep through her bloodstream.

  Thank God Benji wasn’t home, she thinks.

  But this thought leads to another thought. She needs to get out of here before Benji comes home from his dad’s. She wonders how long this will take before whatever has led to her mistaken arrest becomes clear.

  She hears the bolt slide free, and the door swings open. She feels relieved to know they’re not going to make her wait. That must be a good sign, right? That they’re not going to make her sweat before talking to her?

  But as the agents walk into the room, the expressions on their faces quell her relief. These men are tired and haggard, with loose ties and circles under their eyes.

  The first man, who settles into the chair across from Nancy, has sideburns and a pair of circular eyeglasses. Under ordinary circumstances, he would probably look like a very nice man, but right now he looks like someone you wouldn’t want to cross. The other man has a mustache and is going bald. Both men have five-o’clock shadows, and their suits hang from their bodies like they haven’t been changed in a couple days.

  “I’m going to make this really easy on you, Nancy,” the one with the glasses says to her. “Where is Stephen Small?”

  Nancy looks back and forth between him and the other man, who leans against the wall with his arms crossed.

  “Who?” she says.

  The agent slams his palm down on the metal table and makes Nancy jump.

  “Don’t play stupid with me!” he snaps. “A man’s life is at stake. Don’t you understand that?”

  His actions are so rapid that his glasses slide down his nose. He pushes them back up the bridge of his nose with his index finger.

  “Stephen Small?” Nancy says. “You mean the millionaire?”

  “That’s who you kidnapped, isn’t it?”

  “No, no, wait,” Nancy says, shaking her head. “There’s some kind of misunderstanding. Kidnapped? What is going on?”

  Nancy knows who Stephen Small is, of course. He’s one of the wealthiest people in town. He bought that antique mansion designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Everyone in Kankakee has heard the name Stephen Small. But she’s certainly never met him. And she doesn’t understand what they’re talking about.

  He’s been kidnapped?

  And they think she had something to do with it?

  The agent sitting at the table points toward the door and says, “Down that hall, there’s a room just like this that Danny Edwards is sitting in. Before I came in here, I was talking to him. And when I’m done here, I’m going to go back. We’re going to get the story out of one of you. And whoever cooperates is going to get some leniency from the judge.”

  “You think Danny kidnapped Stephen Small?” Nancy says.

  The agent continues, as if he hasn’t heard her. “Your boyfriend has a reputation around here. He’s a snitch. I’m guessing that it’s not going to take long for him to turn on you and try to save his own skin. If I were you, I’d start talking now.”

  “Can I see Danny?” Nancy asks. “I think we can clear this up if I could just—”

  “So you two can get your stories straight? We’re not stupid, Nancy.”

  “But you are,” the other agent adds, “if you think you can get away with kidnapping a millionaire.”