Stillwater
An F/X Fanfic
Part EIGHT
by Cory
Need a refresher?
Here are the other parts of the story so far: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Chapter Twelve
3:52 p.m.
The lonely street now looked like the scene of a minor disaster. The police had pulled the two men from the crumpled hulk of a car now implanted in a lamppost. While emergency crews dealt with the vehicle the men were carried away in ambulances accompanied by a police escort.
A phone call reached Leo from the precinct. It was from a secretary, passing on a message from Captain Vanduren for an immediate update on their progress, and an explanation for the collision. Vanduren was scheduled to be back at the precinct in an hour, when he expected to receive a phone call from the trio.
“What will we say?” Francis said. He, like the others, was wearing a bright yellow rain slicker. The rain continued to pour down on them as they watched the emergency crews deal with the mess.
“We tell him the truth,” Shawna said, angrily. “We broke into the house to get information. They chased us. Listen, we’re facing suspension!”
“We can’t tell the truth,” Leo said.
“What?!” Shawna exclaimed. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this! How did you two ever become detectives? You can’t just disregard the law and …”
“If we tell the truth, that we performed an illegal break and enter, we will be pulled off the case,” Leo shot back. “And if we’re pulled off the case then Rollie’s chances for survival are zero. We have to keep working.”
Shawna opened her mouth to object, then hesitated.
“We can figure out how to explain this later. What we’ve got to do right now is get more information. We should get Angie access to the computer in that house.”
“We shouldn’t even go in that house …!”
“We have to,” Leo said.
But even as he spoke, a car identical to the one that was now being extracted from the lamppost pulled around a corner a few blocks away. The car slowed as it neared the accident site, and then stopped just in front of the police barricade. The detectives backed away behind the F/X van and watched. Nothing inside the car could be seen – the windows were tinted. After a moment, the car reversed into a driveway and then pulled forward back onto the roadway. It continued back down the street until it reached the house. Then it stopped, and two men got out. They entered the house.
Leo sighed. “Okay, so we’re not getting into the house. We’ll have to make do with what we have. Let’s go see if Angie’s gotten anything.”
“But what about Van –”
“We can deal with him later,” Leo said as he pulled open the back doors of the van.
Angie quickly found a drawer with towels, and tossed them to the officers. The rain outside was relentless, and the rushing sound of it pounding the van could be heard. As Leo dried his face, he glanced at what Angie and Lucinda had been working on on the computer. “Is that what we were able to pull from the house?”
“I only grabbed one disk’s worth of info,” Angie said. “I’ve been working on it. It’s from the email directory – ingoing and outgoing emails. The ingoing ones look like sets of instructions. The outgoing are confirmation messages. Can we go back to get more?”
Leo shook his head. “Somehow Sharize knows his goons got into an accident, and now there’s two more in the house. We can’t get back in yet.”
“Well, I guess this will have to do,” Angie said. She typed a few commands into the computer, and managed to open one message.
Leo scanned the text of the message, then pointed to one paragraph. “Look at that! It talks about dumping a body at a dumpster downtown. Sounds like these were the instructions received by the people who left Rollie behind The Gardenia.”
Lucinda nodded. “And that one, a few days earlier.” She pointed to another message. “Instructions on getting Valyne McKinnon to cooperate. They needed her so that Rollie didn’t have an alibi.” She swallowed hard, a painful memory returning. She pushed it to the back of her mind.
“And look who it’s signed by,” Angie said. “M. Sharize.”
“Sounds like this was the house where Sharize’s men received their orders,” Leo said.
“If those orders are really from Sharize,” Francis added. “Someone could have just signed his name. We can’t know for sure who it is … can you see where these emails were sent from?”
Angie frowned. “The sender isn’t revealed in the heading at the top of the message. There’s some kind of blocker on the I.P. address as well.”
“So you can’t find out who sent them?”
“If I can access the mail server, I may be able to find out. I’ll have to hack into the system.”
“How long will it take?” Leo asked.
“Just a minute or two,” Angie said.
Shawna groaned, and shot an angry look at Leo. But he wasn’t watching, and had moved to the front of the van. He watched as a tow truck pulled the wrecked car away.
“Something’s still not right,” Leo admitted, after a moment’s thought.
“What do you mean?” asked Francis.
“From all appearances, all the evidence fits. It’s almost perfect. Sharize set Rollie up for the murder of Matthew Domlin because Domlin didn’t pay him back. Sure, I can buy that. But how did Sharize think of Rollie?”
“Rollie didn’t take Domlin’s offer for a television series. Sharize felt that Rollie would make a good scapegoat. Domlin kept pushing Rollie, maybe enough to count as harassment. That could pass as motive.”
Leo shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. But Mark Sharize is already wanted for crimes. What would one more killing – Matthew Domlin’s – matter? Especially if Sharize has people to kill for him. But my point is, Sharize wasn’t involved in Domlin’s dealings with Rollie. How did he know they were enemies?”
Shawna sighed. “But what about the videotape evidence showing Rollie in Domlin’s house?”
“Maybe it was a tall guy wearing a wig,” Leo suggested, dryly.
Shawna finally threw up her hands. “Exactly, maybe. We’re basing the whole Sharize theory on brank tranfers and strange emails, which aren’t really that conclusive. Think of all the hard evidence Colin Fischer’s been out there collecting against Rollie! It could be argued that it really was Rollie all along, and Sharize has nothing to do with this. We don’t have any evidence that’s concrete yet and until we do, we can’t prove anyone did anything.”
“And we don’t have anything telling us where to find that antidote, either,” Francis said, sadly. “We’re running out of time.”
“Got it!” Angie exclaimed, raising her hands from the computer keyboard triumphantly.
Everyone gathered close around the Annex as Angie began to navigate through a complex file system. “The server logs each of the incoming and outgoing messages,” Angie explained as she worked. “I’ve retrieved the remote address of the sender of each of those messages.” The computer bleeped, and one line of text appeared in the center of the computer screen. Angie frowned. “They all appear to be sent by the same person at the same address.”
Leo looked at it. What Angie had found was a bunch of numbers separated by periods. “So what can you do with that?”
“This number,” Angie said, pressing a few keys, “gives me the internet account of the sender.” Another line of text appeared on the screen, this one incorporating both numbers and letters. “It’s a numbered account.” She sighed.
“But the server name is ‘doment’,” Lucinda said.
“Doment?” Leo said, cocking his head to one side. “Would that be….”
Shawna finished his sentence for him. “Domlin Entertainment?” she said, surprised.
“So someone’s sending these orders from the Domlin Entertainment company server?” Lucinda said. “But why?”
“They’re signed Mark Sharize,” Francis said. “What’s he doing using Domlin Entertainment’s email?”
“Unless it’s not Sharize at all,” Leo said.
“But who else could it be?”
“Maybe … maybe someone at Domlin Entertainment wanted their president dead. So they pass off as Sharize, giving orders to his men. This person at Domlin Entertainment would have known about the difficulties between Rollie and Matthew Domlin, and therefore would have known that Rollie would be a good person to frame for the murder.”
“But who would do that?” Lucinda asked.
“Whoever stood to gain from Matthew Domlin’s death,” Leo said. He thought for a moment. “Who took Domlin’s place on the board?”
“The vice-president,” Angie said. “I met him once – Thomas Jahner. He’s a nice guy, but he was after Matthew Domlin’s seat on the board.”
Leo’s eyes lit up. “I think we should call Detective Fischer.”
Interlude Eight
“Now the four thirty news brief. An accident in a residential area has some wondering if there is any connection between it and the strange circumstances surrounding the Tyler/Domlin murder case. According to neighbours, a car being chased by police officers collided with a lamppost at around four o’clock this afternoon. The police department will not comment as to whether this does have any connection to the bizarre murder of millionaire entertainment guru Matthew Domlin, although unidentified sources say that there may be a lead in the case.
“Stay tuned to the evening news for more on this story.”
4:46 p.m.
Thomas Alan Jahner’s mansion was nearly as spacious and ornate as Matthew Domlin’s. It was a large building with three stories. Leo found the place oddly warm and comforting. Meeting Jahner did little to change this feeling. Jahner looked tired. He explained that his day had included everything from press conferences to staff meetings as he tried to settle into his new position as company president. But he still welcomed the detective and invited them in.
Colin Fischer had been briefed by Leo and Shawna before coming. Francis had instead volunteered to stay at the precinct, expectantly awaiting Vanduren’s return.
They were seated in Jahner’s spacious drawing room. The gardens outside the windows appeared grey and wildly distorted as the thick, heavy rains continued to pour on the city.
“What is this about, detectives?” Jahner asked, settling into a large armchair.
Shawna spoke first. “We have reason to believe, Mr. Jahner, that someone in your company has connections with a drug smuggling cartel.”
Jahner’s face registered surprise. His teacup rattled against the saucer as his hand suddenly shook. He quickly placed the cup and saucer on the ornate coffee table in front of his chair. “What? Who?”
“We’re not sure yet. We’ve found emails originating from the Domlin Entertainment internet server to members of a drug smuggling operation. These emails included, among other things, orders to frame Rollie Tyler for the murder of Matthew Domlin. I assume you know of Mr. Tyler?”
Jahner nodded. “So what can we do now?”
“We have no proof indicating who sent the messages,” Colin said, breaking in. “But we’re concerning ourselves with those who had the most to gain from Domlin’s death.”
Jahner’s eyes went wide. “Detectives, are you implying – ”
“You were promoted to president,” Colin added.
Jahner’s hands shook. He moved to pick up his teacup but then drew back.
Leo watched and frowned. No, he thought. No, something’s wrong. This man isn’t ruthless enough to plan the murder of Matthew Domlin. Had they been right, Leo would have expected someone cold and emotionless. Someone calm, and calculated. But Jahner’s reaction didn’t fit the profile.
“Uh, I … I don’t know what to say,” Jahner was saying. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“All right, then, Mr. Jahner, who else in your company could have done it?” Colin Fischer asked, accusingly.
“I – I don’t know.”
“You must have known that Matthew Domlin received funds from Mark Sharize … it was a loan, wasn’t it? And Matthew Domlin didn’t repay it. This must have sounded like a good enough motive to use to frame Sharize for Domlin’s murder.”
Thomas Jahner was as white as the fragile china teacup he couldn’t pick up. Leo felt Colin was putting too much pressure on the man. This is wrong! thought Leo again. He glanced at Shawna Albert. She was biting her lip.
“Am I … am I under arrest?” Jahner asked, incredulously. His hands were shaking hard now, and he forced them down by his sides, trying to stay calm. “You – you talk about money. Money Matthew got from Mark Sharize. I did know about it. Matthew had some dirty dealings … I’ll admit it. I didn’t say anything about them to protect Matthew. But I stayed out of them. I could certainly never kill!”
“What do you mean, Matthew had dirty dealings?” Shawna pressed.
“Well, at least, that’s what everyone on the board thought. But we couldn’t … we couldn’t prove anything.” He sputtered. “But there were rumours that Matthew was in with Sharize! We figured Matt wanted in on the drug operation, maybe even kick Sharize out of it, but we never asked. We had no proof, and if we went in guns blazing, making accusations, Matthew could have us thrown off the board, or worse!”
Suddenly Leo’s cell phone rang, making them all jump. Leo grabbed it. “McCarthy, shoot,” he said as he moved away from the others.
“Leo, it’s Francis. Guess what … Rizzo just told me they’ve found a member of the Mexican gang in the sewers. Bang. Two slugs in the head.”
“What?” Leo tried to factor in the new piece of information. “Weren’t the Mexicans Sharize’s competitors?”
“Yep. But get this. The officer who investigated and discovered the Mexican’s body overheard a conversation on the street … rumours are something’s happened to Sharize.”
“To Sharize?” At that moment Leo felt himself get an inkling of a larger picture. Suddenly he realized, standing in Thomas Jahner’s house, that they were missing something. But he couldn’t seem to figure out what all of the sudden was bothering him.
“Leo?”
Leo snapped out of his daze. “Yeah, I’m here. So has someone bumped off Sharize?”
“Think so, Leo.”
“What are the chances of seeing two gang killings happen to two different enemy gangs all in one day? They’ve got to be related. ”
“Who knows, Leo. That’s all I’ve heard.”
“Good work Francis,” Leo said. “Anything from those guys who chased us?”
“They’re not as talkative as that woman Janet,” Francis said. “I don’t think we’ll get anything.”
“Damn. And Vanduren?”
“He’s still not here. Colleen said she heard he was up at the Commissioner’s office. At least it gives me time to think up an excuse.”
Leo chuckled. “Thanks Francis.”
Leo hung up, still trying to determine what was bothering him as he rejoined the others with Thomas Jahner. Shawna stopped speaking as Leo arrived. He heard the word “lawyer” mentioned. Leo wondered what was going on.
“What was that about?” Colin glanced up at Leo, annoyed.
“Something’s going down with the gangs,” Leo said. “A couple of Mexicans just got shot and dumped. But then there’s also word that something’s happened to Sharize himself.” He turned to Jahner. Somehow he now felt more than ever that Jahner had nothing to do with what was going on. “And you don’t know anything about these killings?”
“Me?” Jahner said, his voice trembling. “How would I know about these street gangs? I know nothing about killing … Matthew could have been into that stuff, I don’t know. But I would never get into it. I swear!”
It was like a bell sounding in complete darkness. In Leo’s mind, he got that feeling again that there was something bigger going on.
Suddenly he snapped his fingers, and the proverbial lightbulb suddenly winked on.
Chapter Thirteen
5:01 p.m.
“What the hell?” Colin Fischer said, annoyed.
“Leo …” Shawna said, sensing that Leo was on to something.
Leo stood up, and began to pace. “When Matthew Domlin was Rollie’s producer for Stillwater, Rollie told me something. A conversation he thought he heard between Domlin and some other man. He said it made no sense. Domlin said something about having to transfer money. He said something would happen to ‘the stocks’.” He turned to Jahner. “What’s the market price for Domlin Entertainment?”
“I’m not sure, exactly,” Jahner said. “But … but it’s way down. Way way down. We had a meeting today to discuss ways to calm the shareholders, but – ”
A grin slowly started to emerge on Leo’s face and he interrupted Jahner. “That’s it! We wanted to know where all the money in Domlin’s accounts was going. He must have been transferring it to another account … an untraceable account. I bet he sold all his stocks in the company, too.”
“What are you saying?” Shawna asked, hesitantly.
“We wanted to know, why frame Rollie? What was special about Rollie? There’s a possibility we hadn’t thought about. It had nothing to do with Rollie’s relationship with Domlin, or Domlin Entertainment. The murderer needed Rollie’s expertise. Rollie knows the tricks of makeup and special effects … he could very easily fake a death; a mask on a different body!”
“That’s ridiculous,” Colin exclaimed.
Shawna narrowed her eyes. “Leo, you’re implying that Domlin really isn’t dead.”
“Exactly!” Leo said.
“But why? How?”
“Francis told me on the phone there’s rumours Sharize is dead. What if that body they found, the one they thought was Matthew Domlin, was really Sharize? Matthew Domlin had made contact with Sharize’s gang before … and Mr. Jahner here just said that people suspected Domlin wanted in on the drug smuggling operation. Maybe this was his way of taking it over, bumping Sharize off, and disappearing without raising any suspicions.”
“That’s impossible,” Colin exclaimed. “What about all the people who handle the body after death? What about the autopsy?”
“Have you seen the body in the morgue yourself?”
“No, but …”
“Then we can’t be sure the body wasn’t switched. Would they really know what Domlin looked like? Or what if the examiner is on the gang’s payroll? There are a lot of possibilities.”
“Let’s say for a moment you’re right … Domlin heading a drug smuggling ring?” Colin said, incredulously. “This sounds a bit incredible.”
“It does sound wild,” Shawna said. “But … I have to admit it has merit. If you’re right, how could we prove Matthew Domlin is still alive?”
“We’d have to find him, or find proof that he’s still alive,” Leo said. He turned to Jahner. “Does Domlin have a second house? A cottage?”
“A cottage,” Jahner sputtered. “South of the city. I can look up the address.”
“Do it,” Leo said.
6:11 p.m.
Leo had tried to eat, but he didn’t have much of an appetite. Francis, Angie, and Lucinda had met them at the precinct with the F/X van, along with another cruiser and two other officers. The assault teams radioed in – they would meet Leo and the others at the cottage.
“This is a big hunch, McCarthy,” Colin said. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either,” Leo said. “But it’s the best we have. And I trust my gut.”
“I can’t believe Vanduren authorized this.”
Leo chuckled. “The captain’s a good guy. And he knows enough to trust my gut too.”
It took them just under an hour to make it out of the city to the address Jahner had found for them. The cottage sat along the coastline in a forested area. The narrow two-lane dirt road was winding and difficult, and the awkwardly large F/X van slowed them down as they tried to reach the cottage.
Leo looked up. “We should be near it now,” he said, searching through the trees for the driveway Jahner had told them came off the main road.
“Stop … there.”
The cottage could just be seen through the trees. Leo cracked a smile when he saw a black car, similar to the one that had chased them earlier, parked in front of the house.
“Should we go in?” Francis asked.
“Wait,” Leo said. He left the police cruiser, waving at the officers in the second cruiser to wait. He entered the F/X van. Angie and Lucinda were inside. “You have a parabolic on this baby?” Leo asked. Angie nodded. “Can you pick up anything in the house?”
Angie shrugged. “I can try.” She moved over to the Annex, and hit an icon labeled Parabolic. From the roof came a soft whirring sound. A set of directional controls appeared on the touchscreen. Angie used them to aim the microphone through the trees toward the house.
Francis, Shawna and Colin climbed in through the front door of the van in time to hear the fuzzy beginnings of a conversation.
“… may be on to us.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m out now, anyway.”
Leo clenched his jaw, feeling victorious. The voice was unmistakeable. Matthew Domlin. Shawna looked up at him with a wry smile.
“And Tyler?” Domlin said.
“Rotting in the hospital. The doctors are clueless, just as you
thought.”
“Good. I never liked him anyway.”
Leo glanced at Angie, who was squeezing the arm of her chair so hard her knuckles were white. Colin had a look of surprise on his face. Shawna’s smile had disappeared, replaced by a look of concern.
“Aren’t you afraid that they’ll find a
treatment?”
“No way,” Domlin said. “They don’t have the time or the
resources. They don’t even know what
they’re dealing with. And the antidote
is locked away in the lab at Vandemian’s, so no one’s going to find it.”
Leo’s eyes went wide. “Vandemian’s?”
“Isn’t that a restaurant in Brooklyn?” Francis said.
“It must be under gang control,” Shawna said.
Angie’s fists were clenched. “I’m going. Lucinda?”
“I’m with you, Angie,” Lucinda said with determination.
“But you can’t –” Shawna said, before stopping herself. She sighed. “Like I could stop you.”
“But we can’t stay here long,”
Domlin continued. “We need to get
out before they track me down. I
shouldn’t have come out here.”
“He’s getting ready to leave town, probably for good,” Colin said. “We’ve got to get into that cottage now.”
“Where are the other teams?” Shawna said.
Colin shook his head. “They’re out of radio contact. They may be lost. We can’t afford to wait. We
have to go in now.”
“I’ll go with Angie and Lucinda,” Leo said. “The rest of you bust Domlin.”
“No, Leo,” said Francis. “You were the one who first figured out Matthew Domlin was alive. You should get to bust him. I’ll go.”
Leo stopped, then nodded. “All right. Let’s do it.”
Chapter Fourteen
6:38 p.m.
Before she, Lucinda, and Francis had left, Angie had dug out some miniature radio headsets for the three detective and two other officers. The emergency teams couldn’t be reached, even with the more powerful setup in the F/X van. They had to be lost. So Leo became the team leader. They had little time to prepare for the ambush.
Slowly, the officers surrounded the cottage. A portable parabolic microphone erected on a tripod broadcast the sounds from inside the cottage to the officers. They were running out of time. Domlin could be heard getting ready to leave.
“We’re in position,” came Colin over the airwaves.
Leo gave the command to begin closing in.
He could just see Shawna through the bushes to his right. To his left another officer, Jack Rubaker, crouched behind a massive overturned tree. Beyond him, the second patrolman, Garrett Laurier. Leo moved along the edge of the driveway, and he ducked behind the bushes for cover. The leaves were wet from the rains which had thankfully stopped an hour earlier.
A moment later, Leo edged alongside the parked car. A thought occurred to him, and he paused. He reached down and unscrewed the cap partway off one of the tires. The soft hiss of escaping air was nearly unnoticeable.
Leo wondered why Matthew Domlin owned such a small, out of the way cottage. It had no lawn, but was crowded by tall deciduous trees. This enabled the officers to get right up against the wall of the cottage. But it also meant, if Domlin were to run, it would be easy for him to disappear in the crowded forest.
Leo pressed his ear against the cottage wall, and could just hear the sounds of people inside.
“Jack,” Leo whispered into his microphone, “you and Garrett stay here while the rest of us go in, just in case they try to run for the road.”
“Yes, sir.”
It seemed to take an eternity as Leo and the others edged around to the front of the cottage. Colin led the way. He leaned his back against the side of the front doorframe, waiting as the others moved into various defensive positions. Then Colin silently twisted the doorknob. The door had been left unlocked. Colin nodded, then silently mouthed:
“1, 2, 3 – ”
Colin flung the door open, and they burst into the house. “Police!” shouted Leo. Then Colin and the other patrolman ran into the room.
A man stood beside a table in the center of the room.
But it wasn’t Matthew Domlin.
Leo caught a glimpse of a person running toward the back of the cottage. “Domlin!” he shouted, running. Shawna followed him.
The person disappeared through a doorway. Leo heard a shout, and the sound of glass smashing. He ran into the room, a bedroom, just in time to see the man climbing out the window.
Leo squeezed off a shot, catching the man in the shoulder. The man fell the remaining distance out of the window to the ground. Leo heard a scuffle, then another gunshot. He ran up to the window.
There were two bodies on the ground.
One was Jack Rubaker.
The other was a man Leo didn’t recognize. But the gunshot wound in his shoulder was unmistakeable.
Leo swore. Matthew Domlin must have been a second ahead of the other man.
Leo heard a voice from behind him say “All clear.”
Shawna appeared at his side, and she looked down at the ground.
“It wasn’t him.”
“He can’t be far,” Leo said. He turned away from the window. “Damn it!”
The sound of a car engine caught his attention. He ran back to the window in time to see the car begin to reverse out of the driveway.
“That’s him!” Shawna said, her eyes wide. She pushed past Leo.
The car moved sluggishly with the flat front tire. Shawna swung her legs over the windowsill and lept to the ground, aiming her gun at the driver. “Hold it!” she yelled.
A gun appeared out the open driver’s side window, and it squeezed off a shot. Shawna lept behind a tree and the bullets whizzed by just where she had been standing.
Leo used the windowsill for shelter as he fired another two rounds at Domlin. The car door opened, and his bullets hit the metal paneling. Domlin tumbled out, using a cluster of trees as shelter as he fired back in Leo’s direction.
“Give it up, Domlin!” yelled Leo. “We know it’s you!”
Two more shots.
Then he stopped.
Shawna slowly peered out from behind the tree as Officer Laurier ducked in behind her. But no more shots came.
Is he out of bullets? Shawna thought. She listened hard. Nothing.
Colin appeared next to Leo. “Did you hit him?”
Shawna peered out from behind the tree trunk again and saw nothing. She crouched down, and ran the short distance to the car. She crouched down below the front hood, and peered out again. Nothing.
She took a deep breath, then ran across the driveway to the cluster of trees where Domlin had been. There was no one there.
She stood up slowly.
“He’s disappeared.”