The Interloper Page 17

  “Okay, I told my girlfriend I was going to have a hundred grand score soon, but I didn’t give any details about any of it,” he insisted.

  That answer checked out. McCoy could be right that his girlfriend had no knowledge of the robbery, other than there was going to be one, but that would have to be checked out later. Before Willis could close up his laptop, Hendrick offered somewhat indignantly that one of them should be questioning Willis with the voice stress lie detector.

  “It would be a waste of time,” Willis said. “You already know I’m not involved, but even if I was, the software wouldn’t show it. It can be fooled with enough practice, and I’ve had enough practice.”

  “I believe you that you don’t have the money, but maybe you still talked to someone about it,” Hendrick argued.

  “There’s no one that I could’ve talked to about it. The only person who knew I was going out on this job is Hanley, and he didn’t know any specifics except the size of the job and that you needed someone to open a security door of a specific model. Unless you think Hanley had every member of the team under surveillance so he could rip us off?”

  Willis had mentioned Hanley rhetorically. While the cut from Willis’s take that Hanley would collect would be dwarfed by the whole five hundred and fifty thousand dollar score, Hanley wouldn’t risk a lucrative business to pull a stunt like trying to rip them off. Hendrick begrudgingly agreed that Hanley wouldn’t be the one behind it, and he let the matter drop.

  Howlitz had had a small ranch-style house at the end of a heavily wooded cul-de-sac. Hendrick cut his car lights before he entered the street, but he mentioned that he could’ve kept the lights on and it wouldn’t matter. “An old lady who’s mostly blind lives on one side of Cam, the other house was foreclosed months ago and is still empty.” He made a face. “And even if anyone on this street saw my car tonight, they wouldn’t talk to the cops.”

  Hendrick pulled into the ranch’s driveway, then Gannier jumped out of the car and opened the garage door. Gannier had bandaged the arm that Bowser had grabbed, but if he had any ill-effects from his wrestling match with the dog, he didn’t show it.

  The garage could hold two cars. Hendrick pulled into an empty space, and Gannier followed the Malibu into the garage, silently closing the garage door after him. Hendrick and McCoy exited the car. Willis left his laptop computer on the backseat, but grabbed his small gym bag. All of them were wearing gloves, and Hendrick used a key to gain access from a door in the garage to a room that was set up as a den. Curtains covered the windows, but they still kept the lights off. Using a penlight, Willis located Howlitz slumped over in a recliner, his feet up.

  “Any chance the money’s still here?” Willis asked.

  “The money’s not here,” Hendrick said, his voice tight, angry. “I searched the place thoroughly. Besides, Cam had no reason to hide it. And no fucking way he keeled over like this.”

  Willis lifted Howlitz’s head and shined the penlight at the dead man’s nostrils. There was crusted blood, but if he had snorted any cocaine it had been cleaned up. The eyelids were closed and Willis lifted them open and flashed the penlight into them. Blood vessels had broken leaving the eyes bloody. Willis shone the penlight over more of Howlitz’s face. The waxen, unnaturalness of the corpse made him think of victims of his when he worked for The Factory, the ones who had been marked for natural deaths, all of which Willis killed by injecting with a fatal dose of digoxin to induce heart failure. Willis took a magnifying glass from his bag and exchanged the leather gloves he was wearing for a pair of latex ones. While Hendrick and the rest of the crew didn’t ask what he was doing, they watched with rapt attention as Willis opened Howlitz’s mouth and searched his gums for any needle marks. After that, Willis checked behind Howlitz’s ears. The Factory had trained him to inject a victim either in the gums or a soft spot behind the ear. The chances of an autopsy discovering the needle mark, or the digoxin in the blood, was slim, and as far as Willis knew, it never happened with any of the victims he terminated that way.

  Willis found a needle mark behind Howlitz’s left ear. He took a step back and stood silently for a moment as if he were brooding, then walked over to a built-in desk in a corner of the room and began searching through its drawers. The other crew members watched with interest for several minutes before Hendrick asked him what he was looking for. Willis had pulled a stack of papers from one of the drawers and was thumbing through it. “What I just found,” Willis said with a disheartened grunt. “This stack of unemployment check stubs.”

  “What has that got to do with anything?”

  Willis ignored the question, and instead searched through the stubs until he found one that showed Howlitz had been collecting unemployment for four months, which fit with his death being a Factory hit. Grim-faced, Willis told Hendrick and the others he needed to break into the house next door that had been foreclosed on. “You can wait here or you can join me,” he said.

  “Why the hell do you have to do that?” Hendrick demanded.

  Willis stared at him blankly and told him to do what he wanted, but not to bother him with any more questions. He turned to leave the house then. Gannier and McCoy stayed with the body, while Hendrick, not bothering to hide his exasperation, joined Willis.

  Willis used a lock pick and had little trouble breaking into the empty house. When he was with The Factory, they’d often give him information about a foreclosed upon house in the neighborhood that he’d be able to use for surveillance of his target, and a house right next door would’ve been ideal. As Hendrick followed Willis through the empty house, he complained about what they were doing.

  “No more of this bullshit,” Hendrick demanded, his voice showing the strain of the situation. “I’m sick of this secretive act of yours. What the fuck are you trying to find here?”

  Willis had brought Hendrick to the same room that he would’ve used if he had been assigned Howlitz as a target and needed to observe him. A bleak smile tightened his lips as he pointed out a folding chair that had been set up in front of a window that had the blinds closed. Hendrick walked over to the window and lifted up one of the slats in the blinds so he could look out and see a side view of the front of Howlitz’s house.

  “This chair could’ve been left behind when the house was foreclosed on,” Hendrick offered without much enthusiasm.

  “It wasn’t. That chair was used by the killer.”

  “You’re saying someone was sitting here, spying on Cam.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”

  Hendrick thought about it and shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he insisted. “No one should’ve known about this job.”

  “Our killer probably didn’t,” Willis said. “At least not at first when he started the surveillance. Maybe he overheard a phone call. Most likely it was simply dumb luck that he killed Howlitz when he did and was able to walk away with the money.”

  Hendrick eyed Willis suspiciously. “You’re talking like you know who did it,” he said.

  “Not exactly. I don’t know the who, but I have a good idea on the why. And it’s going to be a bitch getting our money back. But not impossible.”

  *

  Willis told them about The Factory and what he used to do for them, and why he was sure that Howlitz’s murder was a Factory hit. Gannier and McCoy both showed dumb grins while they listened to what he told them. Hendrick’s face, though, settled into a look of deadly seriousness.

  “Tell me again why they would think Cam was a terrorist?” Gannier asked, his tone indicating this was all a big joke.

  “They wouldn’t. That’s the story they fed us. That we were killing insurgents.”

  “This sounds like a fairy tale,” McCoy argued, his lips pushed into a thick scowl. “You’re trying to tell us that the government is bumping off guys who are unemployed to make the unemployment numbers look better? That sounds like total bullshit.”

  Willis didn’t bother arguing, or explaining that wh
at The Factory was doing was targeting people they considered unemployable. That it was all part of an Orwellian plan to fix the economy in the cruelest possible fashion.

  “Believe it’s all a fairy tale,” Willis said. “I don’t care. But if you want that five hundred and fifty grand back, you better believe me enough to do what I need you to do.”

  “I don’t get it,” McCoy continued arguing. “Let’s say this bullshit you’re telling us is true, which I don’t believe for a second. What makes you so sure it was one of those hit men who killed Cam?”

  “When we needed to make a death look like natural causes, we used digoxin, which won’t be picked up by a toxicology screen and when given in a fatal dose will cause heart failure. We were trained to inject our target in either the gums or behind an ear. The needle mark I found was behind his left ear in the same place that I would’ve used. The surveillance was set up the same as I would’ve done it. Whoever did this used the same methods I was trained to use and had knowledge of digoxin and access to it. If it wasn’t The Factory, who else would’ve put your friend under surveillance?”

  “You’re guessing that that drug you keep talking about was used,” McCoy grumbled stubbornly. “And I still think this Factory story is bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit,” Hendrick said. “Look at the way Burke took us down when we broke into his house—”

  “That was because of that damn dog.”

  “No, it wasn’t. He would’ve taken us all down just the same without that dog. And I know he worked for some spook agency. He wouldn’t have that gizmo he used to open that security door if he didn’t.” Hendrick scowled at Willis. “That was sloppy of that guy to leave a folding chair by the window. Why do you think he did it?”

  “He must’ve been planning to retrieve it after the hit, but got distracted when he found a suitcase full of money.”

  “Maybe he’ll go back for it? Because if he does, we could wait for him.”

  “He won’t,” Willis said. “He was wearing gloves. There won’t be any fingerprints or DNA evidence on it. While his handler wouldn’t be too happy if he found out about it, our killer is not going to care that he left that chair behind.”

  “How are we going to get our money back?”

  Willis couldn’t keep from grimacing as he thought about it. “By finding out which hit man was assigned.”

  Chapter 5

  Martin Luce almost took Howlitz out two days earlier than he did. The set up seemed good for a quick hit, even with The Factory marking it to look like natural causes. When they were marked to be a simple murder it was always the easiest, especially when you had an empty house nearby that you could camp out in with a sniper rifle, but this one looked like it should be almost as easy. Luce had earlier broken the lone street light in the vicinity of his target’s house, which would leave it more than dark enough for him to enter unseen through a back door of Howlitz’s ranch-style home at three in the morning as he planned, not that that even mattered. The cul-de-sac had a broken-down, forsaken feel to it. The houses were all small and in disrepair, the lawns mostly weeds. Luce had observed little traffic there, which was partly explained by a neighboring house, where he had set up his surveillance, being empty, and Howlitz’s neighbor on his other side being an elderly woman who kept her lights off and her shades drawn at all times, but there also seemed to be a general lack of interest in the neighborhood. He probably could’ve broken into Howlitz’s home in the middle of the day without worrying about being seen. What kept him from doing that was the cleaning service van that Howlitz drove into his garage during Luce’s second day of surveillance. It set something off within his internal radar and made him think he should wait and see what plans his target had for the van.

  Finishing the job the following night turned out not to be an option. While Luce maintained his surveillance, he watched as Howlitz drove the van out of his garage at eleven ten that night. Luce had earlier attached a GPS tracking device to the undercarriage of the van and used an app on his smart phone to see that the van first drove to South Boston, then at two eighteen drove to Charlestown where it stayed unmoved for ten hours and seven minutes in the same spot before ending up next in a police impound lot. All that time, Luce watched Howlitz’s home without the target returning. He had two gallon jugs of water with him, which he drank sparingly, another jug that had been emptied earlier which he used to relieve himself in, and three ham and cheese sandwiches which he took small bites of every time hunger pangs hit him. If he was still in his twenties, he could’ve sat immobile for twenty-four hours if he needed to, but now that he was forty-nine, he had to get up every three to four hours to stretch or his muscles would stiffen too much.

  At one thirty-nine that afternoon, Luce picked up a news story on his smart phone about a warehouse robbery in South Boston involving Schedule Two narcotics, and it didn’t surprise him when he matched the warehouse’s GPS coordinates to where he had earlier tracked his target’s van in South Boston. Howlitz must’ve used that van to transport the drugs from the warehouse to another vehicle that he had waiting for him in Charlestown. Security guards claimed at least four men wearing ski masks were involved in the robbery. The news story didn’t mention how much the stolen drugs were worth, or which Schedule Two narcotics were taken, but it did say that the stolen drugs were valued at a substantial amount, and Luce guessed that the drugs taken were oxycotin. Of course, it didn’t matter what the drugs were, only how much money they could be sold for. Luce’s palms itched as he thought about what would be a substantial amount. One million? Two million? More? He couldn’t keep from thinking about how much money Howlitz might have with him when he returned back home.

  For hours, Luce’s mind raced with different scenarios regarding the robbery and Howlitz’s role in it. He knew Howlitz would no longer have the drugs on him. He had already been gone too long for that. Most likely he had driven to another state so he could exchange the drugs for money, which left the big question: would he be returning home after splitting the money with the other members of the robbery, or would he be bringing all of it home with him? Luce’s palms itched even more as he thought how it could be the latter.

  While the news story didn’t say how much the stolen drugs were worth, the word they had used, substantial, stuck in Luce’s mind. If they were selling the drugs to a fence, which they probably were, they wouldn’t get back the full amount. But even half or a third of a substantial amount could be more than enough for what he needed. Two hundred thousand dollars would probably be enough. More would be better, but two hundred thousand would allow him to disappear to some coastal village in Thailand or Vietnam where he could live out the rest of his life comfortably, and he knew he’d be able to do it in a way so that The Factory would never be able to find him. For months, he had been praying for this type of opportunity.

  Luce no longer believed the story The Factory had fed him about who he killed. Maybe at first he did, but the sad sacks he assassinated couldn’t possibly be insurgents. His gut told him that early on, and by the time he finished his eighth assignment he was convinced of it. The idea that he killed innocent people didn’t much matter to him. If the government wanted the people dead, they had to have a reason for it, and while he didn’t get any pleasure out of killing, he didn’t lose sleep over it either. What stressed him out was knowing that the government would have to someday shut down The Factory, and when they did they’d have to scrub it clean completely, which would mean having to get rid of people like him. His was a job where when the pink slip came it would be delivered by two bullets to the back of his head, and then having his body dumped in the ocean or buried in a landfill. Understanding that kept him sleeping fitfully at night. But then came a potential way out.

  While he waited for Howlitz, at times he’d start to panic, thinking his target might not be returning—that if the amount was substantial enough, Howlitz could be on the run at that very moment so he could cut out his partners. Whenever those thoug
hts seized him, Luce would breathe slowly and deeply until he could force a stillness in his mind. Just because that was what he would’ve done in Howlitz’s situation didn’t mean his target would do the same. Howlitz could be wired differently than him, or could be happy with his existence in the rundown neighborhood and crappy little house, or he could just be stupid.

  Luce couldn’t help making a celebratory fist when Howlitz arrived again, driving a late model Ford sedan into his garage at a few minutes before midnight. Soon, though, Luce found himself feeling too antsy to sit still and follow Factory protocol, which would be to wait until all the lights were off within the target’s home for an hour before breaking in. He couldn’t risk doing that. If Howlitz had brought all the money home with him, then there was the possibility that the other members of the robbery could show up at any moment for the split. Within five minutes of Howlitz returning home, Luce poured out the remaining water within the jugs down a bathroom drain, gathered up the food he still had and all the rest of his garbage and threw it into a large plastic bag, then slipped on a gray trench coat, and left the house. He had prepared ahead of time, and everything he needed for the job was already in the pockets of his trench coat. He left a gym bag that had the rest of his gear and the bag that he had filled with garbage by the side of the house, then circled around his target’s property so he could enter the house through the back door.

  He was good with a lock pick, and he barely had to break stride before he had the door open, which brought him into the kitchen. Howlitz was there also, his head stuck in the refrigerator as he gathered up food for a midnight snack. Luce had been quiet enough that Howlitz didn’t hear him until a faint click sounded from the door being closed behind him. Howlitz froze for a moment, then looked over at Luce with his gaze first settling on the Beretta Nano 9mm that Luce held in his right hand that was pointed at him, then his gaze moved up to meet Luce’s eyes. Howlitz’s eyes glazed then, a bitter smile twisting his lips as if he thought it was only a robbery and he knew who was behind it. Of course, the gun was just for show. Luce couldn’t shoot him with the way The Factory had designated the hit, but Howlitz had no idea about that, and any thought of making a run for it died quickly with the way the open refrigerator door had him boxed in.