Hard Freeze

CHAPTER THIRTY

Donna and Jason were waiting when James B. Hansen arrived home. He calmed them, spoke soothingly, told them to put the dog outside and that nothing important could have been stolen from his basement gun room, inspected the point of breaking and entering, and went downstairs to look in his room.

They had stolen everything important. Hansen saw black dots dancing in his vision and had to sit down at his desk or faint. His photographs. The $200,000 in cash. They had even stolen his C-4 explosive. Why would thieves take that?

He had more money hidden away, of course—$150,000 tucked away with the cadavers in the rental freezer unit. Another $300,000 in various banks under different names in various cities. But this was not a small setback. Hansen would love to believe that this robbery was just a coincidence, but there was no chance of that. He would have to find out if Joe Kurtz was a skilled thief—whoever had bypassed those two expensive alarm systems and blown the safe knew his business—but it had to be someone working for or with John Wellington Frears. All of the recent events suggested a conspiracy afoot to destroy James B. Hansen. The theft of the souvenir photos left Hansen no choice as to his next actions. And Hansen despised being left without choices.

He looked up to find Donna and Jason peering into his basement sanctum sanctorum.

"Wow, I didn't know you had so many guns," said Jason, staring at the display case. "Why didn't they steal your guns?"

"Let's go upstairs," said Hansen.

He led them up to the second floor.

"Nothing was stolen or disturbed very much up here as far as I can tell," said Donna. "I'm glad Dickson was at the vet's…"

Hansen nodded and led them into the guest bedroom with its two twin beds. He gestured for his wife and stepson to sit on one of the beds. Hansen was still wearing his topcoat and now he reached into the pocket. "I'm sorry this happened," he said, his voice smooth, reassuring, controlled. "But it's nothing to be alarmed about. I know who did it."

"You do?" said Jason, who never seemed to quite trust his stepfather's pronouncements. "Who? Why?"

"A felon named Joe Kurtz," said Hansen with a smile. "We're arresting him today. In fact, we've already found the weapon he's used in similar robberies." Hansen brought out the.38 that he had reloaded.

"How did you get his gun?" asked Jason. The boy did not sound convinced.

"Robert," said Donna in her bovine way, "is there anything wrong?"

"Not a thing, dear," said Hansen and fired from the hip, hitting Donna between the eyes. She flopped backward on the bed and lay still. Hansen swiveled the muzzle toward Jason.

The boy did not wait to be shot. He was off the bed in a single leap, reacting faster than Hansen would have ever guessed the boy could move. He hit his stepfather in a full body check—an against-the-boards hockey crash—before Hansen could aim or pull the trigger again. They both went backward off the bed, Jason struggling to get his hands on the weapon, Hansen fighting to keep it away from the tall boy. Jason's reach was actually longer than Hansen's, but he was sixty pounds lighter. Hansen used his body mass to shove the boy off him and against the dresser. Then both of them were on their feet, still struggling for the weapon, Jason sobbing and cursing at the same time, Hansen fighting hard but smiling now, smiling without knowing it, amused by this sudden and unexpected opposition. Who would have expected this surly teenage slacker to put up such a fight?

Jason still had Hansen's right wrist in a death grip, but the boy freed his right arm, made a fist, and tried to slug his stepfather in the best Hollywood tradition. A mistake. Hansen kneed the teenager in the balls and backhanded him in the face with his left hand.

Jason cried out and folded over but kept his grip on Hansen's wrist, trying to foil his stepfather's aim.

Hansen kicked the boy's feet out from under him and Jason flew backward onto the empty bed, pulling Hansen with him. But Hansen was succeeding in swiveling the muzzle lower, even as Jason clung to his right arm with both hands, panting and swearing. Now the boy was sobbing entreaties. "Please, no, no. Mom, help. No, no, no. God damn you—"

Hansen got the angle and shot the kid in the chest.

Jason gasped, his mouth flopping open like a landed fish's, but still clung to Hansen's wrist, trying to deflect a second shot. Hansen put his knee on the boy's bloody chest, forcing the last of the air out of his lungs, and wrenched his right arm free of the boy's weakening grip.

"Dad…" gasped the wounded teenager.

Hansen shook his head… no… set the muzzle against the boy's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

Gasping, out of breath and almost shaking from the exertion, Hansen went into the guest bathroom. Somehow he had avoided getting blood or brain matter on his topcoat and trousers. His black shoes were spattered, however. He used one of the pink guest towels to clean his shoes and then he splashed water on his face and hands, drying them with the other towel.

The guest room was a mess—dresser knocked askew, mirror broken, the green coverlet on one of the beds crumpled under Jason's sprawled body. The boy's mouth was still open wide as if in a silent scream. Hansen went to the window and looked out for a minute, but he had no real concern that the neighbors had heard the shots. The houses were too far away and sealed for winter.

The snow was falling more heavily and the sky was very dark to the west. Dickson, their Irish setter, ran back and forth in the dog run.

Hansen felt light, his mind clear, energy flowing much as it did after a good workout at the gym. The worst had happened—someone taking his souvenir briefcase—but he still had options. James B. Hansen was too intelligent not to have backup plans beneath his backup plans. This was a setback, one of the most bizarre he'd ever encountered, but he had long anticipated someone discovering not only the falsehood of one of his identities, but the full chain of his lives and crimes. There was a plastic surgeon waiting in Toronto, a new life in Vancouver.

But first, details. It was too bad that the thief—Kurtz or whoever it was—had taken his C-4 explosive. That would have reduced this part of the house to such shambles that it would take an explosives forensic team weeks or months to figure out what had happened here. But even a basic fire would give him time. Especially if there was the usual third body in the house.

Sighing, aggrieved that he had to spend the time, Hansen went out, locked the door behind him, and drove the big Cadillac SUV to the rental freezer. There he retrieved all of the cash from the body bags, chose Cadaver Number 4 from the shelves, tossed the frozen corpse into the back of the Escalade, and drove home, taking care not to speed in the heavy snow. He passed several snowplows working but almost no traffic. Donna must have been correct about schools closing early.

The house was just as he'd left it Hansen put the Cadillac Escalade in the garage, brought his dog, Dickson, inside, and closed the garage door before hauling the cadaver up the stairs, removing it from its plastic wrapping and laying it on the bed next to Donna. The corpse was in street clothes from two years ago when he had killed the man, but Hansen went into his own closet and pulled out a tweed jacket he had never liked very much. The body's arms were frozen at its sides, but Hansen draped the jacket over its shoulders. He also removed his Rolex from his wrist and set it on the cadaver's wrist. Thinking he would need a watch of his own, he undid Jason's and slid it in his trouser pocket.

He carried in the five jerricans of gasoline stored in the garage. Burn the place now and leave forever? Caution said that he should, but there were still elements left to be resolved. Hansen might need something from the house—some of the guns, perhaps—and he had no time to pack now.

Leaving the cans of gas with Dickson in the living room. Hansen carefully locked the house, pulled the Cadillac SUV out of the garage, beeped the garage door shut, and drove back downtown to plant the.38 in Kurtz's room.

Donald Rafferty was glad to get out of the hospital.

He had a broken wrist, bruises on his ribs and abdomen, and bandages on his head. The mild concussion still hurt like a sonofabitch, but Rafferty knew that he'd hurt a lot worse than that if he didn't get the hell out of the hospital and the hell out of town.

He'd been lucky with the child-abuse/molestation rap. Rafferty had indignantly denied everything to the cops when they interviewed him, pointed out that his adopted daughter Rachel was a typical teenager—hard to handle, given to lying and blaming others for her problems—and that he'd done nothing but go down to the bus station late that night to retrieve her after she'd run away. He was afraid, he told the cops, that she was doing drugs. They'd had a fight—Rachel hated the idea of Rafferty remarrying, even though her real mother had been dead for more than twelve years—and she was still angry at him in the car when he'd hit the black ice and the car had spun off the Kensington.

Yes, Rafferty admitted to the cops, since they had the blood-alcohol test results anyway, he'd been drinking that evening at home—hell, he was worried sick about Rachel, why wouldn't he have a few drinks at home—but what was he supposed to do when she called from the bus station at 2:30 a.m., leave her there? No, the drinking didn't cause the accident—the goddamned snowstorm and black ice had.

Luckily, when Rachel regained consciousness in the ICU, the cops had interviewed her and she'd retracted the story about Rafferty trying to rape her. She seemed confused to the police, probably because of the anesthesia and pain from the surgery. But she'd taken back the accusations she'd made to the paramedics as the firemen were cutting her out of the wreckage of the Honda.

Rafferty felt vindicated. Shit, he'd not come anywhere close to raping her. It was just that the girl was wearing pajamas two sizes too small when she came down to the kitchen to get some cake, Rafferty had been drinking all evening and was frustrated that DeeDee couldn't see him for the next couple of weekends, and he'd made the slight mistake of coming up behind Rachel as she stood at the counter and running his hands over her budding breasts, down her stomach and thighs.

Waiting in the hospital lounge for his taxi to arrive, Rafferty felt himself stir at that memory, even through the pain and the painkillers. He was sorry the brat had screamed and rushed to her room, locking the door and then going out the window and down the garage trellis while he stood like a dork in the hallway, threatening to kick the door down if she didn't come to her senses. She'd taken the last bus from Lockport into the city station, but then realized she didn't have the money to get out of Buffalo. Sobbing, cold—she'd only had time to grab a sweatshirt—she'd finally called Rafferty. This also made him smile. The girl had no one else to go to, which was probably why she'd recanted on her accusations. If she was going to go home at all, she'd have to go home to Donald Rafferty.

Normally, Rafferty would face the driving-under-the-influence charges and take his lumps, but when one of the nurses—not that bitch Gail Whatever, who kept looking in on Rachel and staring at Rafferty like he was some sort of amphibian, but that pretty nurse—had said that Rafferty's brother had stopped in to see him the morning after the accident, his blood had literally run cold. Donald Rafferty's brother was serving time in an Indiana prison. From the nurse's description, this man sounded like Joe Kurtz.

It was time to leave town for a while.

He'd called DeeDee in Hamilton, Ontario, telling her to get her cellulite ass down here to pick him up, but she couldn't get off work until after five and she griped about the storm coming in off the lake, so there was no way that Rafferty was going to wait for her. He'd had the nurse call him a cab and he was going to get to Lockport, pack the things he needed—including the.357 Magnum he'd bought after that asshole Kurtz threatened him—and then he was going to take a little vacation. Rafferty was sorry that Rachel had gotten hurt—he didn't mean the kid harm—but if she did have a setback and failed to pull through, well, hell, that was one way to be sure that she wouldn't change her mind and rat him out to the authorities again. All he'd wanted was a little feel, a touch, maybe a blow job from the kid; it wasn't like he was going to take her virginity from her or anything. She had to grow up sooner or later. Or maybe not.

An orderly came into the lounge and said, "Your cab is here, Mr. Rafferty."

He tried to stand but the nurse he didn't like shook her head and he settled back into the wheelchair. "Hospital policy," she said, wheeling him out under the overhang. Big deal, hospital policy, thought Rafferty. They make sure you stay in the wheelchair until you're out of the building and then you're on your own. You can go home and die that day as far as they're concerned. Tough titty.

The cabdriver didn't even get out to open the door or to help Rafferty into the back seat. Typical. The ugly nurse steadied him with one hand while Rafferty struggled out of the wheelchair, his injured wrist hurting like hell and his head spinning. The concussion was worse than he'd thought. He collapsed into the seat and took some deep breaths. When he turned around to tell the nurse that he was okay, she'd already turned away and pushed the chair back into the hospital. Bitch.

For a second, Rafferty considered telling the driver to drop him off at one of his favorite bars, maybe the one on Broadway. A few drinks would probably help more than these wimpy Tylenol Threes they'd grudgingly given him. But then Rafferty thought better of it. First, it was snowing like a bastard, and if he waited too long, the goddamn roads would be closed. Second, he wanted to get his stuff and be ready when DeeDee got there. No time to waste.

"Lockport," he told the driver. "Locust Street. I'll tell you which house to stop at."

The driver nodded, hit the meter, and pulled away into the falling snow.

Rafferty rubbed his temples and closed his eyes for a minute. When he opened them, the taxi had pulled onto the Kensington but was going in the wrong damned direction, toward the downtown instead of east and then north. Fucking idiot, Rafferty thought through his headache. He rapped on the bulletproof glass and slid the open partition wider.

The driver turned. "Hello, Donnie," said Kurtz.