The Heir Hunter (25 page)

She made a pass down Morris Street. Nothing odd. Nobody suspicious. Absolutely normal. Mr. Tomiki was across the street, watering his lawn for the tenth time in the last three days. The streets were empty, as usual. She drove several blocks both directions from her house. Clear. A few cars—all unoccupied. She frowned. The whole hiding thing seemed slightly absurd. She would just slip into her home and slip out with the pictures. Nick wouldn’t even have to know about it.

She calmly drove back to her home and parked in the next-door neighbor’s driveway. The couple who lived there would be at work until six and wouldn’t mind in the least. She placed the .22 in her jacket and stepped from the car.

The house was fine. Slightly lonely looking maybe, but untouched. She cut down the adjoining pathway and
walked to the back fence. The hinges of the wooden gate creaked as she pushed it open and hurried through to the backyard.

She entered from the kitchen side door. The gun was out now. She did her best Angie Dickinson around the corner into the living room and scanned it. Home sweet home. Any psychopaths in the closet? She smiled and quickly jogged upstairs in a crouch, gun extended. She stopped at the top of the stairs. Her throat went dry as dead leaves. The office door was closed.

There was a simple reason she always left that door open. Air flow. Kept the house from getting musty. She never, ever closed that door. But there it was in front of her—shut tighter than a vault.

Her arm shook a bit. The house was still, a deafening dead quiet. She stepped toward the door slowly. The gun felt warm and slippery in her palm. The floorboards were creaking under her feet like little firecrackers. One thing she was certain of—she had left the Jacobs photographs on the edge of the file cabinet. She reached for the knob, turned it, then threw the door open hard against the wall. Three or four loose papers fluttered to the ground from the sudden breeze. She braced herself outside the doorway, gun extended, her finger lightly tickling the trigger. She could see the pictures, just as she had left them. She exhaled. If someone had been in there, they couldn’t have missed them. She approached the file cabinet and grabbed the envelope.

She was halfway down the stairs when the doorbell rang. She froze, then crept to the curtains. It was only her mailman, an older guy with roaming eyes. He was holding a package. She reached for the knob but quickly drew her hand back. A gasp passed over her lips as she slowly lowered herself to one knee.

Somehow it had registered in her peripheral vision, just a black blob, a dark incongruity against the varnished
brown door. She stared at it, eyes wide and unblinking. It was at the base of the door, a metallic looking black box, no larger than a brick. A pair of thin wires—one white, one green—ran from the top of it and reconnected at the base. On the very top was a red crystal, flashing twice every three seconds or so.

The doorbell rang again, but she barely heard it. She backed away from the door slowly, vaguely aware of her heart thumping in her temples. She gripped the gun and looked about wildly. This was no longer her home. Someone had entered and turned it into a house of horrors, a place she could no longer fathom sleeping in.

She made it to the hallway. Her eyes, keen now, spotted the second black brick instantly. It sat at the foot of the door leading to the garage—her normal point of entry into the house. Any other day, she would have pulled her car into the garage and come in from there. Either that or parked in the driveway and entered from the front. The same horrible fate awaited either choice.

In the kitchen, she could almost see the intruders now. The window hung open barely an inch, the latch bent slightly askew. They had broken in and seen the three doors leading in from outside. Having only two devices to plant, they had opted to play the percentages and arm the two most likely entryways. Only blind luck had saved her. But she wasn’t even supposed to have gone back there. Nick wouldn’t need to know about this.

She walked quickly to the side door, double-checking the doorway thoroughly before exiting. She crept down the side walkway between her house and the neighbor’s. The streets were clear. She entered the car quickly and thrust her key into the ignition. She felt heartsick as she watched her home disappear in the rearview mirror. She would not be returning in the near future. Whether she would be returning at all remained to be seen.

A small crowd had gathered at both sides of the glass. Even the warden had found time in his schedule to be present for this special meeting. It was he who personally took the contract behind the glass to inmate number 235150.

Timothy Von Rohr didn’t bother scrutinizing the piece of paper. He turned back to the crowd hovering behind him and raised his hands helplessly. “Can’t sign it with my finger, Warden.”

The warden nodded at one of his men. The guard slapped at his pockets helplessly in search of a pen. Finally the warden rolled his eyes and produced his own pen, a glimmering Mont Blanc.

Von Rohr took it and scratched his name across the line. It was a messy attempt, like a fourth grader’s, but this was understandable. It was his first signature in nearly nine years.

The warden took the paper back around to Richard Borg and Danny Risso, reading as he walked. He handed the paper to Borg and gave him a serious nod. “Ten minutes, gentlemen.”

Borg nodded and verified the signature before turning back to the prisoner. “I’ll keep it simple, Timothy. You’ve just signed a claim legally entitling you to one-third of an inheritance. Your fifty percent share of that comes to approximately three point seven million dollars.”

Von Rohr leaned back and crossed his thick, tattooed arms on his chest. He gave a snort and glanced up at one of the guards hanging over his shoulder. “Who’s gonna leave me that kind of money, buddy?”

“Your uncle,” replied Danny Risso.

“Yeah. My uncle Donald Trump.”

Risso smiled dryly. “Your uncle’s name was Ludwig Holtzmann. Remember him?”

“Nope. Sure you got the right guy?”

“We’re positive we got the right guy,” said Borg. “We
wouldn’t waste our time coming here if we didn’t. When do you get out, Timothy?”

“Five months.”

“What we’ll do—if you’d like—is set up a trust account with a local bank here in the Bay Area. The money will be perfectly safe there for five months until you’re free to claim it. Does that sound reasonable?”

Von Rohr gave another chuckle. Everything the two visitors said seemed to be eliciting a laugh.

“You two walk in here, give me three point whatever million, and ask me if it sounds reasonable? Yeah, sure, it’s sounds reasonable, all right.”

“Good. When the trust account is set up, we’ll send you a letter with all the details.” The investigators rose to their feet. “Thanks again, Timothy. Any last questions?”

“Yeah,” he replied, throwing a glance to the warden. “Would you guys mind sending a dozen long-stemmed roses to Uncle Louie’s funeral? That would mean
so
much to me.”

“Time’s up,” said a guard. “Let’s go, Von Rohr.”

“What a joke,” mumbled the convict as he was led out of view.

Borg looked at Risso and smiled slyly. He couldn’t agree more. Three point seven million in twenty minutes. What a joke.

Matt Von Rohr reached for his jacket and broke into his thousandth smile of the week. He slipped his card into the machine and felt the chomp of the time stamp. He waved good night to a few of the warehouse grunts and pushed through the exit to the lot. T minus seven days to freedom. Seven days until his life started all over again.

He had gotten the call two hours ago. She sounded nervous, probably more than a little embarrassed, but that was understandable. It was slightly unbelievable to him how it could happen. While it was true there was no protection
against a fire or other acts of God, you would at least think anyone with a piece of paper that valuable would put it in a bank vault or something. No big deal. Alex was cool. Besides, he had checked everything she told him by calling the Columbia County offices and verifying his uncle’s estate. Merchant and Associates was sending a new contract express airmail and he would be returning it to Alex’s P.O. box the same way.

He drove through his Sacramento neighborhood and felt absolutely gleeful. They had planned on raising their children there. They had scraped up enough for the house and made sure it wasn’t too far from the best schools in the city. But they could scrap that plan now. His fiancée was thinking big, talking about a four-bedroom in San Francisco or Hawaii and a cabin in Tahoe for the winter. Yessir, tough choices they were facing nowadays.

He pulled into his driveway and checked his watch. They were going out to celebrate over dinner. He was getting used to this. He slammed the door of his Corolla and envisioned a black 944 with a sunroof. He shook his head and laughed. This was no dream.

He grabbed the mail and found the front door key. He found a beer in the fridge and headed upstairs. He needed a shower badly. Eight hours of warehouse dust and grime was penetrating his pores. Another week and a half of it. And that’s only because he was nice enough to give them two weeks’ notice. He took his shirt off, threw it in the corner, and undid his belt.

The blow hit Matt Von Rohr from behind, a stiff shot to the neck that put him on his stomach. From the floor the room was spinning. He turned his head up painfully. Two men looked down at him. Both held guns. One of them circled around him, his head tilted thoughtfully.

“Your brother Timothy—you know where he is?”

Von Rohr looked at the gun and shook his head. He was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. He shifted to his side, his pants wrapped around his ankles.

“When did you last see him?”

“What do you want with me?”

“When did you last see your brother?”

“Christ, not for years. What—”

They each fired a shot, one of them applying a final bullet to the head. The two gunmen walked downstairs and entered their car, taking Brooke Street to the freeway.

T
HE PLANE BEGAN
its descent at 6:30
P.M.
The ground below was coal black as the sun’s final rays broke the horizon.

Nick turned from the window. He was rested and felt a bit calmer. He had managed to doze off somewhere over Nevada, and it had been deep, dreamless sleep. His fear and confusion over Rose’s murder had been replaced by an angry determination to find answers.

He took the Fifth Street exit off State Highway 5 and parked the car on the corner of Euclid and Second. As promised, the white pickup truck was parked and waiting. Nick made a U-turn and caught a glimpse of the face behind the wheel.

Dave Reinbeck was just as Nick remembered. The cheeks were still red, the whiskers still unshaven, the hair still a wavy blond mess. Little had changed from the day two years ago when Nick had appeared at his front door with the news of Stanley Reinbeck’s death. It had been the first bit of news Dave Reinbeck had gotten about his father since the old man had walked out on the family nearly thirty years ago.

They shook hands on the sidewalk.

“Glad I could help, Nick,” said Reinbeck, handing over the small wooden box. “Just get it back to me as soon as you can.”

“You bet, Dave,” replied Nick, placing the box under his arm. “I appreciate you coming out here.”

“No problem. I work only about five minutes away from here.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “So what’s going on anyway? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

Nick opened his car door and placed the box on the passenger’s seat.

“Everything’s fine. I had to catch a quick flight out here and didn’t have time to clear a gun with airport security.” He shut the door. “So how’s your brother doing?”

“Real good. Still working in construction. He says hello, by the way. He wanted to know if you had any more money for us.”

Nick smiled. “I wish I did.”

“Oh well. Guess I only got one deadbeat dad, huh?” He shook his head and pulled out his truck keys. “I’m run-nin’ late to dinner. Good seein’ you again, pal. Lemme know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks again, Dave.”

Nick gave him a wave as the truck pulled off onto the road. He entered his car and removed the lid of the box. The pistol was a six-shot, snub-nosed revolver, hardly heavy duty but better than nothing. Dave was nice enough to include a box of ammunition as well. Nick slipped six bullets into the cylinder and placed the gun in his coat pocket. The weight against his chest was reassuring.

His phone rang. Doug’s voice had an unrestrained urgency.

“I got the full background on that Brecker guy. It’s pretty ugly, Nick.”

“Give it to me,” said Nick, reaching for his notepad.

“For starters, we got a 1980 assault with a deadly weapon charge. Charges eventually dropped. Another assault charge, 1983. Charges dropped again. Here’s the kicker: a 1984 arrest for murder. Went to trial and found not guilty. You getting all this?”

“Every word,” replied Nick, writing away. “Anything else?”