Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Twenty-One

The man now going by David Elliott came into his house after stowing his golf bag in the garage. It was a perfect day on the greens, still cool in the morning, early enough in the spring that the course wasn’t clogged with too many idiots. He never thought he’d be a golfer, but since his retirement he’d really leaned in to the clichés: moving to the desert, buying a house by a golf course, taking up the sport, eating early, going to bed after the late news.

Kate, his wife, sat at the breakfast bar, a cup of coffee going cold by her elbow while she looked at her phone. Elliott glanced at the screen when he kissed her cheek. She said hello but kept staring at the pictures of her sister’s grandkids.

“Do you see how big Taylor is getting?” she said.

He made a noncommittal noise and got himself a cup from the pot. She’d always wanted children. He’d told her he was sterile and never wanted to adopt. In fact, he’d gotten a vasectomy at an early age. He’d never wanted the liability of kids hanging around his neck. He’d seen that weakness exploited all too often.

After a couple of dead-end conversations on adoption, she went along with him, like she did on most things. Still, it was a real source of pain to her, he knew, like a splinter buried way down deep in the skin, mostly forgotten except when she picked at it.

He didn’t like to hurt her. But there were worse kinds of pain, and many other little lies in their marriage he’d used to spare her from them.

Kate believed they were living comfortably off his Social Security and the investments made after a long career as a sales rep for an electronics company, which explained his many absences and irregular schedule. Elliott had never paid taxes in his life, instead using a crooked accountant to launder his income so it came to him in the form of checks from a company that didn’t exist.

He thought that part of his life was over now, though. He’d survived. He’d beaten the odds, and now he looked forward to becoming a boring old man, sinking putts, taking occasional trips to Hawaii with Kate, building birdhouses or something equally useless on the tool bench in his garage.

Then his cell phone buzzed in his pocket.

He didn’t recognize the number and was almost retired enough to let it go to voicemail.

Instead, he stepped into the living room and answered.

“Turn on CNN,” someone told him.

He didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew the tone.

Elliott found the remote and turned on the TV.

There was a report of a house filled with garbage, and buried among the garbage were pictures of dead people. Lots and lots of dead people.

They even showed a few of them on TV, their eyes blanked out, the worst parts blurred, but Elliott recognized them.

He knew his own work.

The police were clueless, as usual. That’s not what the pretty anchorwoman on CNN said, but it was what she meant. That was why they’d released these photos and talked to the media. They were hoping to shake something loose, hoping to find someone who knew the identities of the dead men.

Elliott did. And so did the people who’d paid him.

Other people would, too, given enough time. Nothing ever really stayed buried.

“You see the problem?” the voice asked.

He didn’t know how they’d found him again, but he wasn’t surprised. The outfit had enough resources to find anyone. He had done his job faithfully and well for years, and he’d been considered loyal enough to be allowed to go away and find himself a new life. But even though he was done with them, they were not done with him.

“I’ll handle it,” he said.

“Good man,” the voice said, and then hung up without another word.

They didn’t have to tell him what to do. He was still professional enough to know that all by himself.

Elliott felt a familiar coldness in his chest, along with something he didn’t expect: regret.

He had enjoyed retirement. He’d liked being a normal guy.

“What’s on the news, dear?” Kate asked from the kitchen, not really interested, just asking with the usual politeness of marriage.

“The same old garbage. Blood and disaster. I was just checking the market.” He switched the TV off.

Elliott turned and walked back into the kitchen, forced a cheerfulness into his tone that he didn’t feel, crafting another lie easily. “That was Frank on the phone, from the firm. He asked if I could come out for a few days, show the new kids a thing or two. Would that be okay with you?”

She looked up at him and shrugged. “If that’s what you want,” she said. She’d never fought him on anything. He’d always ask, and she always went along with whatever he decided. “I mean, if they can’t manage without you.”

He put his arms around her.

“It seems like they can’t,” he said.

Raney wasn’t his real name, but it was the one he used now. His parents named him Bailey, one of the many things they got wrong. So when he got out of the service after four long tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he left that name behind along with everything else, not once looking back.

He was not a big guy. He was young and looked younger. His hair flopped down over his forehead, and his face was unlined and looked soft. He sometimes still got carded in bars.

Most days it didn’t bother him. He liked it when people underestimated him.

But he did wonder why so many big guys assumed that their size alone made them scarier than anyone else they met.

Case in point, this guy at the pawnshop, trying to screw him.

Raney had been hired by the pawnshop’s manager, a guy named Poole, to recover some stolen goods. His shop had been robbed, which Raney thought was a little funny, considering most of the stuff inside was stolen to begin with.

It wasn’t like he had to track down the thieves. Poole saw them on the security video, knew exactly who they were: a couple of meth addicts who sold stuff to him all the time. He’d turned down some of their offerings and they broke in to get what they thought they were owed. They didn’t even wear masks. Not smart, but meth addicts aren’t known for making good choices.

Poole didn’t really care about the junk. It was mostly stuff he kept in the front of the store, which he used as a cover for the high-quality merch that went out of the back. But he didn’t want people to think he’d let something like this pass. That would be blood in the water, and every junkie, crackhead, and dipshit in town would start hitting his place, looking for an easy score.

So Poole called around and found Raney and named a price, and Raney agreed to the job. Simple.

It was far below Raney’s skill set, but he was lying low in Portland after a couple of hits in Florida, and he needed the cash.

In the service, Raney discovered he didn’t mind killing people. He was, in fact, pretty good at it. So he learned every possible way to do it that he could. He hung out with the Explosive Ordnance Disposal guys and learned about bombs. He talked to the Special Forces guys and learned about knives and guns. He took instruction in advanced combat classes when he could.

And when he got back to the States, he found people who needed someone killed, and he offered them a service at a reasonable price.

Raney found the addicts exactly where Poole said they’d be, in a tent in an encampment near the overpass five blocks from the pawnshop. They still had the stuff, including the locked gun case that Poole desperately wanted back.

Raney tossed a foil packet of meth laced with enough fentanyl to drop a rhino in their tent. They didn’t even question their good fortune. Again, meth addicts don’t make the best choices. Their bodies were going cold a couple of hours later as Raney entered the tent and took back everything they’d stolen, loading it into the same cart they’d used to carry it away.

One of the other homeless guys said, “Hey, what are you doing?” to Raney, but backed away quickly when Raney gave him a hard look. Wasn’t any of his business. He knew Raney was more dangerous than he looked.

Which made him much smarter than Poole.

Poole barely glanced at Raney as he sat behind the bulletproof glass that separated the counter from the rest of the store. He was watching CNN.

Which Raney never understood. There was enough bad news in most people’s lives. You didn’t have to watch any more of it on TV. Raney liked sitcoms.

Poole put a stack of bills in the little drawer on his side and shoved it through toward Raney.

Raney knew just by looking that it wasn’t enough.

Raney waited. Poole kept staring at the TV.

“You planning on doing this in installments?” Raney asked.

Poole looked at him. He was not your usual sleazy pawnshop guy. He wore a crisp flannel shirt, had a neatly trimmed beard. He was fit and healthy. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in an ad for camping equipment.

“That’s all there is,” Poole said.

“That’s not what we agreed.”

Poole shrugged. “Didn’t even take you twenty-four hours. I told you where to find them. That’s plenty for the effort you had to put in.”

Raney let out a very small sigh of irritation.

“It’s not what we agreed.”

Poole shrugged again. “Sue me.”

Raney rolled his head on his shoulders. He didn’t need this. He didn’t get into this line of work for more stress.

“Look,” he said. “Can we agree that this could go badly from here? We don’t have to do it this way. You just pay me what you owe me. And I’m gone. We both get on with our lives. It doesn’t have to be some big drama.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t,” Poole said. “All you have to do is walk out that door. With the money I gave you. Or you can try to get through four inches of bulletproof glass and then somehow dodge this.” He lifted a sawed-off shotgun, double-barreled, from under the counter.

“Cops come, I tell them you tried to rob me. Had to defend myself. No drama at all.”

Raney smirked. “Wow. You’ve thought of everything.”

Poole grinned. “Sure did.”

“I was being sarcastic, you asshole.”

Raney reached into his jacket pocket and took out a can of lighter fluid. The nozzle fit easily into the slot of the drawer, and when he squeezed it, the liquid sprayed Poole from his beard to his crotch, soaking his nice flannel shirt.

Poole spat and sputtered, wiping his face. “You son of a bitch—”

Raney turned around and looked through the aisles of the pawnshop. He was sure he saw one before. There it was.

A long-handled crowbar sat in a barrel with a bunch of other heavy tools, all probably lifted from construction sites by thieves like the addicts. Raney took the crowbar from the bin and walked to the door into the back room.

Poole was still yelling at him from behind the glass, in his little cage. Probably still thought he was safe in the back room. And it was true that Raney could hammer at that bulletproof plastic all day without doing much more than scratching it.

But the door was another matter entirely.

Sure, it was steel. But the lock popped right off with just a little pressure from the long crowbar. It didn’t take that much strength at all.

You don’t have to be big if you have the right tools for the job, Raney thought, not for the first time.

He took out his gun, an S&W.45 that was mainly good for intimidation, pulled open the door, and walked into the back with Poole.

Poole wasn’t a complete idiot. He held the shotgun in front of him, but he didn’t pull the trigger. He was soaked in flammable liquid and afraid of a spark from the muzzle flash. He sat on his stool, glaring at Raney.

“Last chance,” Raney said. “The rest of my money?”

“Fuck you,” Poole said.

Raney flicked open a matchbook. It was getting harder and harder to find these. People didn’t smoke as much. He usually had to buy them in bulk at the supermarket now.

He lit it with one hand. A trick he’d learned in the army.

Poole’s eyes went wide with fear, right before Raney shot him in the forehead.

Poole dropped to the floor. Raney wasn’t about to risk being burned in the sudden explosion of fumes and flames. The gun worked fine.

He blew out the matchbook, then put two more in Poole’s chest, because he was thorough and he was a professional, not because it was necessary. The back of the pawnshop owner’s head was all over the wall.

Raney spent thirty-four minutes finding all the security cameras, removing the hard drive from the system, and making sure there was no cloud backup. He figured that someone who did so much illegal business wouldn’t want too much incriminating evidence out there on the Internet where anyone could find it, and he was right.

Then he took all the cash from the register and the safe. There were some gemstones removed from pawned jewelry in there, too, but he left them. Probably couldn’t be traced, but better safe than sorry.

He also left the gun case. Whoever had wanted that would probably come looking for it, another headache he didn’t need.

He used the rest of the lighter fluid to douse everything inside the office, then lit another match.

He was about to drop it when he looked up and saw the story on the TV, still stuck on CNN.

It was about a little town in Massachusetts and another dead man there.

Raney saw the photos arrayed across the screen.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.

He had another mess to clean up.

He dropped the matches and the empty container and left as the fire started burning.

Then Raney got into his car and began the long drive to Paradise.