Malicious Read online

  Now I wondered who would show up to meet us. There were too many possibilities to anticipate anything. Tharpe didn’t say a word and looked like he was waiting to visit his stockbroker. Every car that pulled into the lot drew my attention.

  Then the one car I didn’t want to see pulled up. A dark-blue BMW. As I watched out the wide window, I saw Katie Stahl emerge from the car and stroll to the front door of the bank, like she was on a normal errand.

  Tharpe smiled and said, “Well, well, well, little miss perfect has a dark secret. It makes me like her that much more.”

  She hesitated for a moment in the parking lot, staring at us through the window, then regained her composure.

  And my heart broke a little bit.

  Chapter 29

  BY THE LOOK on Katie’s face, she didn’t know who she was going to meet, either. She stood at the edge of the waiting area, right in front of us, brown leather car coat with a fur trim and red Aldo purse draped over her shoulder. Her blond hair hung down her back in a loose ponytail. She wore the same black running shoes my mom did at the hospital. She must’ve come directly from work.

  It felt like the three of us were in an Old West standoff, silently assessing one another as the sounds of normal bank business drifted across the tile floor.

  I scanned the tellers behind us. There were no visible security guards and no one was paying any attention to our little moment in the corner.

  Katie’s eyes cut to Tharpe.

  I said quickly, “He’s not here in an official capacity.”

  Tharpe let out a cough and muttered, “That’s an understatement.”

  Katie ignored him, turned to me, and said, “Hello, Mitchum. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Who did you expect to see?”

  She gave Tharpe a nasty glance and said, “I don’t know. But he doesn’t surprise me at all.”

  I could’ve explained my involvement to her, but right now I needed this to go quickly. Besides, she didn’t deserve to know exactly what was going on.

  “Do you have the code?” I asked, hoping she was some kind of a pawn.

  She nodded and said, “Do you still intend to split it evenly?”

  Tharpe mumbled, “Not as evenly as any previous agreement.”

  I cut in. “We’ll work it out. The only thing I want is for Natty to be released.” I just needed Tharpe’s statement. After that, these two could negotiate.

  Katie considered this. When she nodded, I realized there was no way she’d been more than just a pawn. That didn’t just break my heart, it pissed me off.

  The three of us walked down the long hallway, past the armed security guard, and met an attendant who led us down another long hallway to the room that held box number 68. The building was designed like a maze, and I stood in the center of it with a guy I hated and a woman who had tricked my whole family. Great. Just another Wednesday in upstate New York.

  The attendant, a thin man in his forties with a Boston accent, said, “Who has the code?”

  Katie stepped up and faced the keypad on the side of the closed door. She pulled a small piece of paper from her purse and punched in the five-digit code.

  The tumblers in the door turned and it popped open.

  The attendant looked at me as if I was in charge and said, “Number 68 is on the top row in the corner. There’s a table and two chairs. Would you like me to find another chair?”

  I shook my head.

  He smiled and said, “I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything at all.”

  The three of us entered the room slowly. It was the size of a bedroom. Maybe ten by twelve feet. Up against three of the walls there were boxes of different sizes. Everything was gray. The boxes in the wall, the door. Even the ceiling was a lighter shade of gray. There was no natural light, just a sleek tract of soft LED lights. Ten minutes in here would drive anyone crazy.

  I pulled out both keys from my front pocket. Before I inserted them into the round locks on the box, I looked at Tharpe and said, “Let’s get your video statement first.”

  He hesitated, so I let my hand slip inside my pocket where he thought I was holding a gun. He nodded and sat down in one of the two chairs at the table in the center of the room.

  I quickly recorded his statement, and when I looked up, Katie was at the far end of the room, holding a gun on both of us.

  Chapter 30

  IT WAS HARD to take my eyes off the gun in Katie Stahl’s hand. She clearly had no regard for the gun laws of New York. There was a little tremor in the barrel, but overall she seemed calm and confident. Always bad news for the person facing the gun.

  The sea of gray and soft lighting wasn’t helpful at all. I felt like I was stuck in a cavern, surrounded by a building.

  She looked at me and said, “I’m not enjoying this.”

  I said, “If it makes you feel any better, neither am I.” I tried to read Katie’s next move. I’d wait for my chance.

  I turned my attention to the box. Mike Tharpe stood to my right and I knew a guy like him had to be calculating the odds of escape. He’d already lost his old life. He’d never be a cop again. Now it looked like he was losing his new life as well. I didn’t want him to do anything desperate.

  I slowly turned both keys in the lock at the same time. Once they turned all the way to the left, the door unlatched and I pulled it open. I reached inside and pulled out a safety-deposit box that was about the size of a recycling bin. With the lid closed it looked like a big, gray building block.

  I plopped it down onto the table. Tharpe was eyeing it like a wolf stalking a sheep. I stepped back to the wall and said to Katie, “You open it.” I thought I might trick her into a mistake. Maybe tie up her hands for a second. But I had no such luck.

  She pointed the semiautomatic pistol at Tharpe and said, “Let him do it.” With her other hand, she gave him a piece of paper with the code written on it. Katie was in control and appeared ready to shoot if she had to. This wasn’t how I imagined a pretty occupational therapist would behave.

  Tharpe moved forward, cutting his eyes toward me. When he focused on the box, he paused. Then he unlatched the front and lifted the lid like it was the Ark of the Covenant. We all looked on in silence.

  There was a leather-bound notepad and a cloth sack. Tharpe picked up the notepad and thumbed through it quickly. Nothing but page after page of instructions and formulas.

  He set the book on the table. Then he pulled the cloth sack from the box. It was fairly large, about the size of a kitchen garbage bag. When he pulled open the drawstring, all I could see as I peered over his shoulder was cash. Bundles of hundred-dollar bills. Lots of bundles. Bundles of dreams.

  I had never seen that much money. I would probably never make that much money in my entire life. It annoyed me. How could people have that kind of cash? Suddenly I didn’t like the idea of Tharpe taking it. It seemed wrong, no matter what deal we had made earlier.

  Katie read his intentions, too. She said, “This was everything Pete worked for. He gave his life for it. I can’t let it be stolen. Don’t make me shoot you.”

  I noticed Tharpe out of the corner of my eye. He was trying to be subtle and get my attention. As Katie gazed into the box, he used two fingers to make a gun sign. Then I realized he thought I really had a gun in my jacket and he wanted me to shoot her. Even if I was armed, I wasn’t going to shoot Katie over this garbage in the box. It wasn’t worth it.

  I stayed where I was and raised my hands slightly. Part of it was a show of surrender to Katie, but when I turned, my jacket pulled tight and Tharpe saw that I didn’t have a gun.

  And that’s when he decided to make his move.

  Chapter 31

  THARPE LURCHED FORWARD, fast. Faster than I thought a guy his size could. He slapped Katie’s hand to one side, then reached across to grab the gun. It slipped out of both of their hands, bounced off the table, and clattered onto the floor. That’s when things got really rough inside the tiny vault.

&
nbsp; I dove for the gun as Tharpe tumbled over the table to get it. We met on the hard tile floor. Each of us had a hand on the gun. We tried to find the right leverage to pry it from the other man’s hands. We rolled on the floor, bumping into the boxes in the wall and the legs of the table. Each bruise made me angrier and angrier.

  I was hoping Katie would help me. All she had to do was push the heavy box off the table onto Tharpe’s face. Instead, she stepped forward and started to collect the contents of the box for herself. I managed to gain a hold of the gun and struggled to my feet as Tharpe was hanging on as hard as he could.

  He had a weight advantage on me and used it well. He twisted hard and jerked me into the wall of safety-deposit boxes. But no Marine was going to get the better of me. I raised my knee and caught him hard in the abdomen, driving him back. Then his fingers tangled in mine near the gun and he pulled it back before smacking it against my temple.

  I quickly regained my bearings, and as soon as I did, the gun discharged. In the enclosed space it was like being next to a thunderclap. My brain scrambled for a second.

  I let go with my left hand and threw a punch hard into his face. He staggered back.

  The smell of the gunpowder hung in the smoky air and stung my eyes.

  That was when I saw Katie. On the ground. The blood pumping out of a wound in her chest. I couldn’t help myself, and let go of the gun. I dropped to my knee to try and stop the blood pumping out through the hole in her leather jacket. It pooled on her chest.

  Tharpe wasted no time grabbing the gun, sack of money, and notebook. He slipped out of the room instantly.

  Katie tried to say something. It might’ve been “I’m sorry,” but maybe I was imagining it. No real sound came out. Within moments, I felt her body go still underneath my hand and I knew she was dead.

  I heard shouting in the hallway as Tharpe tried to get past the security guard. That’s when a shot was fired.

  This plan had gone completely to shit.

  Chapter 32

  SURROUNDED BY THE gray walls, I felt my anger rise. I didn’t care if Katie Stahl was the mastermind or criminal conspirator. Someone else was going to pay for all of this shit. Right now, the only target I saw was Mike Tharpe.

  I stood up and took one more look at poor Katie. Then I noticed the piece of paper with the room code written on it next to her. I plucked it off the floor and raced out of the small room.

  I crouched just outside of the door to figure out the direction in which Tharpe had fled. The maze of hallways made it difficult. I could hear people screaming. Then I heard gunshots around the corner toward the front of the bank.

  I sprinted down the long hallway, dodging the body of the murdered guard. As I got closer, I could hear the chaos. In the lobby, a young mother clutched her baby and ran for cover. An elderly man fell and just stayed on the tile, reaching up uselessly, like a turtle on its back. Customers and tellers alike were scrambling past him and shouting. Security had spread around the perimeter of the room.

  When I turned to my right, I immediately saw Tharpe crouched behind a heavy planter with leafy branches spreading out above him. This hallway led to the waiting area where we had come from.

  Tharpe leaned out from behind the planter and took a potshot at a security guard twenty feet away. Tharpe intended to flee out the front, but this guy held his ground. Good for him.

  The security guard was using a column as cover and he had the advantage of time on his side. The police would arrive before long. All he had to do was keep Tharpe behind the planter.

  I crept toward Tharpe in his blind spot. When I was about a dozen feet behind him, I tried to signal the security guard by waving my arm. The last thing I wanted was to catch one of his bullets by mistake. Or on purpose, if he thought I was Tharpe’s partner.

  The guard looked like a deer in the headlights. I had to risk the chance that he saw me.

  I made my move.

  Chapter 33

  I JUST DOVE in. Like I was playing football in school. I led with my shoulder. Tharpe made a humph sound as I drove him into the planter.

  I wrapped both hands around his right wrist to keep him from pointing the pistol in my direction. I jerked him away from the planter, expecting the guard to give me some sort of support. I didn’t care if he shot Tharpe while I had him in the open. Instead, I was in dogfight mode. The SEAL mentality was to never lose. This time I wanted to make the loser pay.

  I jerked Tharpe closer and head-butted him in the nose. He staggered back, blood already dripping from his nostrils. He managed to hold on to the gun. He even squeezed off a round that kept the security guard behind the pillar.

  I stole a peek at the lobby and saw that it was still in chaos. A woman screamed and ran for the front door. I hoped others would follow her.

  I focused on Tharpe again and used my legs to drive him into the wall. He crashed hard. The whole building seemed to shake.

  Then I twisted and used my body’s leverage to snap his right wrist. He let out a grunt of pain as the bones broke. I could hear them as well as feel them shatter under my hands. The gun dropped onto the tile floor. I kicked it hard with my left foot as if it were a soccer ball. It spun across the floor. I threw an elbow into Tharpe’s jaw and felt it break under the pressure. The big cop stayed on his feet. Incredible.

  He was done. I had the upper hand, but this was the best therapy I could imagine. I wound up my right arm and balled my hand into a fist. Tharpe didn’t even know what was coming his way. Then I heard someone shout, “Police! Don’t move!”

  I looked to my left and saw two uniformed Poughkeepsie cops with their service weapons drawn and pointed at me. They were both young. A blond woman, who couldn’t have stood at more than five foot one, and a lanky guy with a military haircut. His pistol clearly shook in his hand.

  The security guard pointed at me and said, “That guy stopped the gunman.”

  That made the cops focus their attention on Tharpe. Then I delivered my punch. It was a wild haymaker that felt like it came from across the Hudson and landed squarely on Tharpe’s nose. He stumbled back and hit the wall again. This time he fell to the ground. That’s when I gave him a good, solid kick in the ribs. He grunted and blood poured out of his shattered nose as if it were a garden hose.

  The tall cop stepped forward and yelled, “Cut that shit out. Now.”

  I was already in a stance to kick Tharpe again when I looked over at the cop. He could see I had nothing in my hands and I was no lethal threat. At least not to him. I winked and threw my kick anyway. Tharpe made another satisfying grunt as I felt one of his ribs crack beneath my foot.

  I immediately held up both hands and stepped back, mumbling, “Sorry, Officer.”

  The young patrolman dropped to his knee and started to search Tharpe. The other cop kept her gun trained on me. She had more tactical sense than her partner and didn’t step forward.

  The cop cuffed Tharpe behind his back, then stood up to face me. He was holding Tharpe’s ID case with the Newburgh detective’s badge on the outside.

  He said, “What the hell is this?”

  “That’s something he doesn’t deserve to carry.”

  Chapter 34

  THREE HOURS LATER, I found myself back in Newburgh. I tried to process everything that had happened. The Poughkeepsie police had a lot of questions. They weren’t particularly happy with me. There wasn’t much they could do. It was a mess and there was no chance to spin it in a positive way. A cop had gone bad, and because of him, there were bodies in both Newburgh and Poughkeepsie.

  I didn’t knock when I entered the law office of Lise Mendez. There had been some vague reports on the news from Poughkeepsie. I figured she didn’t have any of the details yet.

  She didn’t seem surprised to see me as I stood in her door. She looked up from her desk and gave me one of those dazzling smiles. “Hello, Mitchum. What are you doing here?”

  “I just came from Poughkeepsie.”

  “What’s going on
in Poughkeepsie?”

  “You can try and play this cool, but I think we’re past that.”

  She elected to remain silent.

  “I know you sent Katie Stahl to collect the money.”

  “I have no idea what…”

  “Save it.” I held up the piece of paper that Katie used to read the code for the safety-deposit-box room. It was a blue Post-it note with the logo across the top that said Adirondacks are not only chairs.

  Lise froze in place.

  “When I saw this Post-it with the security code, it took me a minute to remember where I’d seen this logo before.” I started walking across the room, slowly.

  Lise didn’t move. She followed me with her eyes.

  I said, “You were the perfect partner for drug dealers. If the cops ever had questions, you could’ve claimed attorney–client privilege. And Pete trusted you.” I stopped at her desk. I saw the Post-it pad with the same logo near her pen in the corner of her desk.

  I stared at her, waiting for some sort of response.

  She finally said, “That’s hardly a basis for an indictment, let alone a conviction.”

  “Not by itself. Phone records will help. Maybe your handwriting on the pad. Who knows. Good cops can be persistent.”

  There was no panic in her voice when she said, “I suppose the money is still at the bank.”

  Now it was my turn to keep quiet.

  She said, “What can we do?”

  “You think you can make some kind of deal?” I took a step back so I wouldn’t be tempted. “It’s a great idea. Make Katie do the dirty work. You get a big wad of cash and get to remain Newburgh’s top criminal defense attorney. Pretty sweet deal.”

  Then the front door opened and Sergeant Bill Jeffries walked in with three other Newburgh police officers. One detective already had handcuffs ready.