R. Jagger - A Way With Murder

“You killed Alabama,” he said.

“No I didn’t.”

Wilde pointed the gun at the roof and pulled the trigger. The explosion was like a thousand lightning bolts striking the car. He smashed River’s head with the barrel.

“You killed Alabama,” he said.

January started to say something but River said, “Shut up!” Then to Wilde, “Alabama’s fine. We have her, that’s true, but she’s unharmed.”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s the truth,” River said.

“Where is she?”

“She’s in a shed up in the mountains.”

“Take me to her.”

“Sure, let’s go.”

River shifted into first.

The vehicle pulled forward.

They headed westto Golden and then into Clear Creek Canyon. Wilde knew the area well. He used to kayak the river back when he was a kid.

“If she’s dead, you’re both dying,” Wilde said.

“Fair enough.”

“It won’t be quick. I’m going to start with your kneecaps.”

River chuckled as if amused by something.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re timing is pretty good,” he said. “Me and Gapp were going to kill you tonight.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? You’ve been snooping around that Charley-Anna Blackridge murder too much.”

“Meaning you were afraid I was going to find out you were responsible sooner or later,” Wilde said.

The storm pummeled down.

Vertical canyon walls were to their right, not more than a few feet off the edge of the road. To their left was a drop into the river.

“Actually, no,” River said. “I didn’t kill the woman. I suspect Gapp did but I’m not sure. He was in the club with her that night.”

“Gapp? Who’s Gapp?”

“Gapp is Robert Gapp, Robert Mitchum’s double.”

Robert Mitchum.

Robert Mitchum.

Robert Mitchum.

“If you didn’t do it and he did, then what do you care if I’m snooping around?”

River shrugged.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll tell you, why not? We have to have a deal though, right here, right now. You get your little assistant back safe and sound. Then you go your way and we go ours. You drop the investigation. You leave me and January alone. We leave you alone.”

Wilde shook his head.

“No deals.”

“That’s the deal,” River said. “Like it or not, that’s the deal. If you don’t take it, you can kill us. But I guarantee you that will be the death knell for your little friend. You won’t find her in a million years. She’ll rot to death. Hell of a way to go, don’t you think?”

Wilde pictured it.

He said nothing.

“I kill people,” River said. “That’s my job. That’s what I get paid to do. I came up with a plan several years ago that at least for the female victims, they’d all be killed the same way, namely put in a red dress and dropped off a roof.”

“Why?”

“Because it was an MO,” River said. “It was a signature. It would be looked at as the work of one person. I brought Gapp in as an accomplice several years ago and set up a system. One of us would do the abduction when the other one was someplace public with an ironclad alibi. Then the other one would do the dropping, when the first one was someplace public with an ironclad alibi. Beautiful, huh?”

“Yeah, real pretty.”

“We spotted your little assistant on the roof with her binoculars,” River said. “We took her so we could bait you into a trap and kill you. Now that’s not necessary because we’re going to agree to give her up and you’re going to agree to lay off. Then again, maybe I’m lying. Maybe she’s already dead and I’m drawing you up into the mountains to kill you, even as we speak.” He chuckled. “Got you thinking, don’t I?”

“Shut up. Don’t say another word. You hear me?”

“Sure, no problem.”

They drove in silence.

When the canyon ended River turned right on 119, deeper into the mountains. Other than eerie snapshots of vague images brought to life by lightning bolts, the world was pitch black.

Miles passed.

Then River slowed, almost to a crawl.

He kept that speed for more than two or three hundred yards and then said, “Bingo. There it is.”

He turned left onto an abandoned road that was hardly there.

“What is this?”

“It’s an ancient mining road,” River said. “There was quite an operation up here back in the day. I used to come up here and play when I was a kid.”

“How’d you get here?”

“Motorbike,” he said. “I’ve been riding since I was eight. Where we’re going is a few miles up. Have you ever been up here?”

“No.”

“You’re going to like it.”

“She better be there,” Wilde said.

“She is, don’t worry.”

Fifteen minutes later River brought the vehicle to a stop and killed the engine.

“We’re here.” He turned to January and said, “You wait here.”

“No,” Wilde said. “You come with us.”

They got out.

River got a flashlight and rope out of the trunk.

“What’s the rope for?”

“I lied to you about the shed,” River said. “She’s down a shaft. We lowered her down on a rope. She’s fine but she’s about twenty feet down. We’ll need to pull her up.”

Wilde pressed the barrel into River’s back.

“Let’s go.”

They walked,slowly, one foot at a time, with River sweeping the flashlight back and forth. There were lots of vertical shafts.

“Watch your step,” River said.

The weather hammered down.

River flickered the light on a shaft about fifteen steps away. “That’s the one. That’s where she is.”

Wilde’s eyes followed the beam.

It was then that the side of his head exploded.

River’s knuckles broke the skin wide-open and made direct contact with Wilde’s skull. Then the man’s python hands were around Wilde’s neck, viciously twisting it and forcing him to the ground.

The gun went off.

January screamed.

River turned and Wilde punched him.

Two bloody minutes later, Wilde was standing over River, training the gun down on the man’s head. January was two steps away, holding a bleeding shoulder.

SuddenlyWilde heard a voice.

It was coming from the shaft to his left, not the one River pointed out before.

“Don’t move!”

He headed over and shined the light in.

Alabama was on a wooden beam, thirty feet down.

There was no rope around her chest or anywhere in sight.

“Are you okay?”

“Help me, Wilde! I’m losing it!”

Wilde walked over to River.

“You’re going to go down and put a rope around her,” he said.

“You’re crazy,” he said. “She’s not even alive. She’s dead.”

Wilde fired the gun into the air.

“I’m not playing.”

He and Januarylowered River down on a rope to the beam.

“Do it!” Wilde shouted down.

River hesitated, then unwrapped the rope from around his chest and secured it around Alabama’s. Wilde and January pulled her up.

She put Wilde into a bear hug.

From the shaftWilde heard muffled words.

They came from River.

“Pull me out. Hurry up.”

Wilde walked over and shined the flashlight down.

The beam wasn’t very big.

“It was just an accident that Alabama landed on that,” Wilde said. “You didn’t even know it was there.”

“I thought she was dead.”

“No you didn’t,” Wilde said. “You were burying her alive.”

“That’s not true. Pull me out. We had a deal.”

“That’s right,” Wilde said. “The deal was you go your way and I’ll go mine. So go your way. I’m not stopping you.”