John Hart - Iron House

First, the bodies in the lake would pale beside the carnage at the farm. The dead gangsters would be traced back to Otto Kaitlin, and from there to the violence in New York: the explosion at the restaurant, the killings at Sutton Place, the escalating body count since the old man’s death. The feds would get involved. FBI. ATF. It would be a massive response.

Second-and very quickly-they would connect all this organized activity to Senator Randall Vane. When that happened, the tone of the investigation would tilt away from Julian. With this much death and this many mobsters, entirely different avenues of investigation would open up. Eventually, someone would make a trip to the Iron Mountain Home for Boys, and there that person would meet Andrew Flint.

And Flint had things to say about the Kaitlins.

They’d come to Iron House asking about the senator. Julian had been a mere child at the time, and Flint would tell the cops as much. That would add one more link to the chain of evidence connecting Senator Vane to organized crime. The case, then, would no longer be about a few bodies in the lake. It would be about mobsters and crooked politicians, about payoffs and killers and lots and lots of bodies. Michael liked it because it was messy and powerful and could be read in ways that had nothing to do with a troubled children’s author named Julian Vane. Maybe the mob killed the Iron House boys to implicate the senator. Maybe the senator retaliated. Maybe there were other connections, other players. Cops could only speculate at the extent.

Whatever the case, it was too big to be about Julian.

Way too big.

Michael was about to dial when his legitimate phone rang. For a second his heart skipped, but it was not Elena. It was Abigail’s number, and he answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

“Michael? Thank God.”

It was Jessup Falls.

They met on the edge of an empty field three miles south of the east gate, far from reporters or other prying eyes. Jessup looked washed-out and old; even in the dim light, Michael recognized the look of a good man dealing with a bad thing. “The body is in Abigail’s room. I can’t move it by myself, and there’s no one else I can ask. Everyone in the house is loyal to the senator. She’ll go down for this if I don’t fix it. You have to help me. Please.”

That part hurt. The begging.

Michael looked out at the field. The cars were parked head-to-head, parking lights burning. He thought about what Jessup had told him, and found it thin. “Tell me again what happened.”

“There’s no time! Someone may have heard the shot. He could be found any second!”

Except for the fact that the senator was dead and that Abigail had pulled the trigger, Michael doubted everything Jessup had said. “It doesn’t make sense the way you described it. She wouldn’t kill him without good reason. Certainly not over some stupid argument. She’s too controlled for that. Too smart.”

“What does it matter? Please!”

“Where is she now?”

“In my room. Safe, for now.”

“And the gun?”

“It’s here. I have it.”

“It’s untraceable?”

“I bought it clean twenty years ago. It won’t come back to us.”

Michael searched Jessup’s face. If he’d ever doubted the man’s feelings for Abigail Vane, he no longer did. Jessup Falls was coming apart at the seams. Worry. Fear. Desperation. Michael understood. He knew the same feelings, but for Elena. He considered all that had happened, all that he knew and had learned. Then he decided to push. “Tell me about Salina Slaughter.”

“Oh, God.”

“I’ve been to Slaughter Mountain. I know you were there, too.”

Jessup looked desperate to the point of collapse. He looked over his shoulder, toward the far, invisible house, then begged with every angle in his face. “There’s no time. Don’t you see? This will ruin her. Please, Michael. Help me. Please. I can’t let this destroy her.”

“If I help you-”

“Yes, yes. I’ll do anything.”

“-I want to know everything.”

“Yes.”

“Slaughter Mountain. Salina Slaughter. Everything.”

“I swear.”

Jessup nodded, but looked tortured, so Michael showed him a small mercy. “I won’t do anything to hurt Abigail. She’s a good woman; she’s Julian’s mother.” He actually smiled. “I don’t think less of her for killing a man like Randall Vane.”

A shaky breath escaped. “Okay. Thank you.”

“But after I do this, we talk.”

Jessup nodded, grateful, and Michael said, “Let me have the gun.”

Jessup retrieved it from the car, then hesitated. It was the murder weapon. It carried Abigail’s prints, his prints. Their eyes met, and Michael held out his hand. “You have my word.”

Jessup handed over the gun, and Michael took it. He wiped it down with a handkerchief, then withdrew the shells and wiped them down, too. He reloaded the pistol, wrapped it in cloth and tucked it under his belt. “I’ll call you when it’s done.”

“What about the body?”

“Don’t worry about the body. Leave it.”

“But-”

“A little faith, Jessup.”

Michael turned for the car, but Jessup stopped him. “I need more than that. The body is in her room. The implications…”

“Keep Abigail clear of the room; let the body be found. All hell will break loose in the next few hours, by dawn at the latest. Deny everything. Give her an alibi. It will look dicey for a day or two, but I promise you, this will not come back on her.”

Jessup put a hand on Michael’s arm. “This is hard for me. Trusting you.”

“I could say the same thing.”

Understanding flashed across Jessup’s face. Michael had the murder weapon under his belt; he was a killer with mob ties. If Jessup wanted to take pressure off Abigail, all he had to do was call the cops on Michael. One call, and it would all go away. Michael arrested, Abigail free and clear. He looked at Michael differently. Something fundamental shifted, and Michael noticed.

“A little trust can be a dangerous thing, Jessup.” He nodded from the car door. “But it doesn’t have to be.”

“You’ll call me?”

“Keep the phone close.”

Michael made his third trip to the farm in the dark of night. He eased down the long, twisted drive, found a likely spot in the house and left the gun where no cop could miss it. Abigail would be pushed hard in the first few days-cops usually looked first at the spouse-but ballistics would eventually come back to the thirty-eight on Stevan’s bedside table. The timing wouldn’t fit, as everyone at the farm had been long dead when a fatal bullet hit one of the nation’s most politically divisive senators. But that wouldn’t matter in the long run. All Abigail required was reasonable doubt, and in the end there would be too many other possibilities out there, too much connection between the senator and Otto Kaitlin’s criminal empire, too much money and too much bile. After all, someone killed all the gangsters at the farm. Someone left the gun there. Would the cops really think that someone was Abigail Vane? Of course not. People were dead in New York, dead at the farm, dead in the lake.

And the senator was connected to all of them.

Michael left the farm. He turned right onto the blacktop and drove a half-mile to the Exxon station where he parked out of easy sight. He pulled out the disposable cell phone and thought how close Jessup Falls had come to the precipice of one-minute-too-late. Had he called even a minute later than he did, Michael would have been helpless to assist. He’d have already made the call.

But that’s how thin the margin often was.