Chapter Thirty
For the next five days, Caitlin hung on to life by a slender thread. Machines blipped and bleeped—recording her body’s functions and rhythms. Twice, her heart weakened further. Her mother called in a priest. Both times Caitlin rallied.
Mike worked or waited, either in the family lounge or at her bedside during the night hours. Standing and waiting, like her family.
During the first few days Vince and his team carefully amassed evidence. They built a solid case against Ivan, his harassment and abduction of Caitlin along with his participation in the drug traffic. In doing so, Vince’s team substantiated several companion cases, involving gambling, drugs, and in the case of Buddy Stein, murder. At first during his interrogation, Ivan offered information, but as charges piled up, he turned belligerent. When he learned he would be the only one charged, he fingered Kirby Metz as a key person along with several others employed at Northland Marine.
From Ivan’s information, Vince uncovered an organized crime ring with tentacle-like ties to Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, the Bay area, Seattle and Kansas City. That brought the FBI to the case. Such an operation extended far beyond what Kirby Metz could set up and maintain.
When Metz refused to talk, Vince left him to the Feds. The federal agents painted a bleak future for him, and Metz caved, seeing his life in the ashcan. He provided names of major players outside of Northland.
Like Tony Muro.
That scenario made sense to Vince, but what was the connection to Northland and Caitlin? He and the federal agents dug deeper and discovered that Muro was the same age as Keith Jantzen. Vince dug further and deeper and uncovered additional interesting facts. Muro had graduated from juvenile crime to national major crime over the past three decades. Local juvenile crime. A local success story in the world of crime.
Keith Jantzen was another local boy who’d succeeded on the global stage. Both had attended the same high school. Jantzen, the class president and team captain of football and wrestling. Muro, the class hoodlum, major bad ass—always in trouble.
Was this the connection to Northland? Did Jantzen and Muro have some kind of hidden relationship which Muro capitalized on now? Were they partners? Vince had never totally dismissed Jantzen as a suspect. After all, everyone including Caitlin felt someone very highly placed at Northland had to be involved in what was going on. Who was more well-placed than the president and owner?
****
Vince kept digging into school records, police records, ownership and property records, financial statements, and phone logs. His first serious clue lay hidden in old police files. He found the name of the arresting officer who was now retired. That officer’s work resulted in the only case that ended in Muro’s conviction. Vince bought the officer lunch, pumped him for details, got what he wanted, called in Hank Stoddard and gave him the particulars. Since the case was a juvenile offense, all records were sealed—even to Vince. But Stoddard had sources and techniques Vince couldn’t legally use.
The next day Stoddard reported in. Utilizing a well-placed connection, a few Benjamins for bribes, and a teen hacker with a bent for breaking rules, Stoddard hit the mother lode. The juvenile offense occurred when Muro had attacked and beaten another student after a school dance. That student had been Keith Jantzen, whose family had been influential enough to get the case through the courts and obtain a conviction. Word was Muro learned from that experience. He always covered himself by letting others do the dirty work for him and paying well for their services and silence. People close to Muro said he never forgot and swore vengeance against Jantzen. However long it took.
Motive.
“Here’s the kicker, Bertoli. A gal named Annie Johnson was the cause of the attack. She had the hots for Jantzen. Had come on to him pretty strong at the dance, but Jantzen refused her attentions. Lots of witnesses. This Johnson gal was also Muro’s girlfriend. Rumor had it Annie told Muro that Jantzen came on to her. Muro got jealous and didn’t appreciate Jantzen poaching in his territory. So Muro beat the crap out of him. Jantzen swore he’d never been interested in the girl. He claimed she wasn’t his type. Anyway, not long after, she disappeared for several years.” Stoddard’s staccato rendition held excitement.
“A teenage encounter caused this?” Vince’s voice held disbelief.
“I’m getting to the good part. Annie’s parents sent her to relatives out of town. Said they didn’t like her friends. She was a handful, no matter where she was. She married a few times, which all ended in divorce. About twelve years ago, she ended up here. New last name. Using her middle name instead of Annie. Had a new hair color, a nose job, implants, some facial work. All thanks to marrying up and squeezing the exes for all she could get.”
Vince had been jotting down notes, but stopped. “Where’s this leading, Stoddard?”
A broad smile broke across Hank’s face. “You won’t believe this. She got a job at Northland. Worked herself up in the ranks.”
“And?”
“Name’s Maxine Forquet.”
Vince’s jaw dropped, followed closely by his notebook. “Holy shit…Jantzen’s secretary! She’d know everything.”
“Bingo. So…you asking why yet?” Vince realized Stoddard loved doing this kind of work. Lucky for Caitlin and him.
“Absolutely. Got an answer?”
“Sure do. On the quiet, she’s been Muro’s mistress for years. My best guess is revenge against Jantzen and the need for Northland’s shipping set-up and distribution points put this operation in motion. Caitlin got in the way, just like Schwartz said.”
“And Jantzen was set up, too. Thereby settling old scores.”
“Looks like it. Hell hath no fury like scorned women and pissed-off crime bosses.”
“Dig deeper, Stoddard. Get some solid evidence to back all this up. Until then, keep this to yourself. Talk only to me about it. We arrested Muro this morning, but he’s already out on bail.” Vince grabbed the phone. “Guess I need to have a little chat with Ms. Forquet.”
****
Caitlin struggled with wanting to live and longing to die. Her mind wanted peace; her body struggled for life. Was the struggle worth it? Death seemed blessedly placid. Images of those hours in the farmhouse crept into her thoughts, plagued her in nightmares, and offset the drugs to calm and heal her.
She knew her family sat and waited for her to turn the medical corner toward recovery. She knew Rachel was there often, urging repeatedly to “Fight. Don’t give up. You beat him.”
But Caitlin had won nothing and didn’t want to talk about how she survived.
Vince came to get her statement. His case against Ivan depended on her testimony, but she wouldn’t speak, just nodded her head yes or no to his questions. Talking was beyond her. In avoidance, she slept.
Mike showed up, often. He sat sentinel in the lounge chair all night, every night. She wouldn’t speak, but when he took her hand and clasped it to his heart, she tightened her grasp. Tried to smile. “I was there, Cait, when you screamed.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “I know…” she croaked.
“I’ll always be here, sweetheart. As long as you want me and even if you don’t.” He kissed her forehead, his lips warm against her chill.
“Come on, Cait. Fight harder…we have a life to build.” He moved her hand from his heart, spread her fingers, and kissed her palm. Her machines beeped, her nurse came into the room, and shooed Mike out. That was the fifth day.
****
After leaving the hospital, Mike drove to work. With Caitlin gone and Metz in jail, Rachel was doing double duty in Human Resources. Mike liked to be available as extra help for her, competent though she was. That was his only reason for ever leaving the hospital during the day. Caitlin would expect no less.
When Keith returned to work, he’d been a whirling dervish. All personnel were being scrutinized and terminated if they were involved with the drug or gambling rings. Careful research and detailed analysis were ongoing into Northland’s suppliers and shippers and their involvement in the complex crime network Vince, his officers, the FBI, and now DEA and ATF agents were uncovering. Northland would be going through a massive restructuring, rehiring of personnel, and overhauling their external structure for sales, orders, and shipping.
“We’re starting over,” Keith mentioned during their coffee and catch-up session in his office.
“No wonder Caitlin’s little program for curtailing drugs got her into such trouble. She had no idea the nest of rattlesnakes she was disturbing.” Mike felt exhausted and knew he looked it.
Keith laced his fingers through his hair. “I plan to see her at noon. I’ll do my hospital vigil and give her family a chance to grab some lunch.”
“She seemed a little stronger this morning.”
“Good. I told Maxine to keep my schedule free for a couple hours.”
“They’ll appreciate your interest, Keith, though they probably won’t say so. Everyone’s still numb.”
“Understandable. Well, that’s it.” Keith slapped a folder shut. “Oh, one more thing. I’m—” Keith’s intercom buzzer interrupted. “It can hold until tomorrow.” Keith depressed the button. “Yes, Maxine.”
Mike slipped from the room, anxious to finish his day’s work. The sooner it got done, the sooner he’d get back to Caitlin.
****
Vince knocked on Keith’s office door about ten that morning. Maxine had stepped away from her desk so using his police officer’s bravado, he got a response and entered.
Keith extended his hand to Vince. “You’re here to see if I’m involved in this mess.”
Vince never wavered in observing the CEO. “I’m doing my job.”
“How can I help you?” Keith motioned toward a chair for Vince and pushed papers aside.
“I’d like to be undisturbed and I’d like to be sure we won’t be overheard.” Vince pulled out his notebook.
Keith raised his bushy brows, rose, walked to the heavy door, and snapped the lock. When he returned, he left a message for Maxine not to disturb him under any circumstances.
“Can you disconnect that thing so no one could possibly overhear us?” Vince settled into his chair and waited.
Again a quizzical rising of his brows. “Not a problem.” Keith pulled the intercom connection from the wall outlet. “With all this secrecy, what you have to say better be damn good.” He leaned on his fingertips, elbows planted on his desk.
“Oh, it is.” Vince inched his chair forward. “About Maxine Forquet…”
****
At noon, Keith entered the cardiac unit waiting area and signed in. At his insistence, Maxine accompanied him. He chatted with Caitlin’s parents about her, her excellent reputation, her solid work record. When he finished, he suggested the older couple take a lunch break.
“We’ll be here until you return. At least take an hour,” Keith added and watched the elder Donnellys as they left the waiting room, whispering sotto voce about the big boss visiting Caitlin. In a few moments, the nurse motioned for Keith to follow her. Maxine stood to join them.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, only one visitor at a time.” The nurse closed the doors to the unit.
Right in my face, Maxine fumed. And Keith never objected.
She’d been a twitchy basket case all morning. First, that phone call from Tony, warning her to keep her mouth shut. Or else. Then when she returned to her desk, Keith was closeted in his office with that nosy detective. He’d even pulled the plug on the intercom. Something she never thought he’d do. She’d gleaned good information for Tony by listening in that way and Keith never caught on. Mr. High and Mighty wasn’t so smart after all.
She’d even gotten Caitlin’s sacred phone number that way. Tony didn’t realize how lucky he was to have her skills working for him.
Keith always thought he was so smart and so careful, never figured out who she was or what she might be up to. She’d fooled him and done her part to set him up for a major fall. It may have taken her years, but she would get her revenge. That detective’s visit today was probably the preliminary to Keith being led from his office in handcuffs. The perfect retribution.
But Keith’s strange behavior today concerned her. He wasn’t one to be secretive. Everything out in the open and up-front. Well, he liked people to think that.
As if that weren’t enough, that detective, Bertoli, hung around after talking with Keith. He asked her questions about where she went to school and what she’d done before she began working at Northland Marine. He said he’d uncovered discrepancies in her work history. He wanted her to explain them. No, she didn’t like the smell of this. Not at all.
Then there was that second shift sweeper who kept bothering her, pretending to have the hots for her. A sweeper thinking he had a chance with her, the executive administrative assistant to the president. Like she’d stoop to that level. Not in a thousand years.
Her mistake was listening to Tony. At his orders, she sought the sweeper out once and played up to him. Now he was on her like flies on honey. She couldn’t shake him off. Since Tony got her into that situation, perhaps she’d get him to order his goons to take care of the problem. She’d never questioned Tony why he wanted her to do what he asked, she just did as he told her. That was the way it was with them.
Lately, even Tony was getting too uppity and demanding for her tastes. She didn’t need him anymore. With this job, she had a career, even prestige. She didn’t need to be at his beck and call. No one could connect her with the drugs. Kirby knew he’d be dead meat in a New York minute if he implicated her. He was the only one who could. Well, Tony could as well but that would put him into the fire, too—even more than her.
No, she’d be fine, but why did Keith want her to come with him today? She detested Caitlin. When Ivan went loony tunes and abducted the bitch, she gloated in secret. How she hoped he screwed the icy bitch. Screwed her in the most humiliating ways. She conjured up grisly images of Ivan, humbling Caitlin, and smiled—one Snow White’s stepmother would have envied.
Maxine checked her purse and felt the comforting shape of the small pistol. If she had to, she could take care of herself. The waiting room door reopened.
The same officious nurse cleared her throat. “Ms. Forquet?”
Maxine raised her eyes. Haughty, that’s the look she wanted. “Yes. You wanted something?”
“Ms. Donnelly and her visitor would like you to come in. You’re to bring your steno pad. Dr. Mandel has cleared your visit.” The nurse looked smug at the last statement, as if Maxine didn’t belong unless the doctor gave a special approval.
She fumed, angry enough to chew the nurse’s head off, but instead, she followed the damn nurse into the corridor.
Beyond those heavy doors, the hall was short and most of the rooms—cubicles really—were glass sided, with drapes that could be closed for privacy. Machines hummed and bleeped softly. Canned music played in the background, and a heavy medicinal smell clearly defined the purpose of this place. Even the tasteful muted earth tones in a Tuscan-style decor could not overcome the fact that very sick people were here, maybe to die.
Caitlin should be so unfortunate and me so lucky. She sneered as she entered the bitch’s room behind the nurse.
The soft, rusty peach-tone drapes behind the bed and on both sides were closed. The nurse pulled back the one facing the hallway as she left. “Only ten minutes, please. Ms. Donnelly remains in guarded condition.”
Maxine harrumphed. Caitlin was always guarded. So what was new? She scanned all the monitors, the IV poles and tubing, dripping life-giving fluids into Caitlin. Lying in the bed, the bitch looked tiny, very pale, and fragile. The reconstructive jaw-wiring provided her only look of tenuous strength.
Maxine gloated. Then she spoke. “Hello, Caitlin.”
A slight incline of the head on the pillow was Caitlin’s response. Maxine decided she wouldn’t be asked to sit, so she sat on the edge of the bed. Keith glowered at her action. Rarely did he show annoyance at her. Well, she didn’t care anymore. She was about ready to grab that winner’s prize in the game of life.
“Caitlin and I have some questions to ask. Mostly I’ll ask as she’s still so weak. Her jaw-wiring makes talking difficult. We’d like you to take notes as we go.” Keith proceeded to ask a few questions about personnel. Then Caitlin garbled a question, about how well did Maxine know Kirby Metz.
Keith interrupted Caitlin. “And what about Tony Muro?” He slipped the question in, taking Maxine by surprise. “Don’t you know him? Or Annie Johnson?”
Keith’s question shook her confidence, but she shrugged to hide that. “I have no idea what you’re asking. Or why.”
Caitlin never moved during the exchange, her jaw clenched tightly, jutting out, looking obstinate. She just stared at Maxine with those huge eyes.
Dead silence fell over the cubicle.
“Perhaps, Maxine, you’d like to tell us about it. Or would you prefer we call you Annie now that we know your birth name?” Keith wasn’t asking permission.
Caitlin mouthed a “Yeth do,” in agreement with Keith’s question.
At that, Maxine swore at Caitlin, who despite looking like death, was re-establishing her old dominating, know-everything attitude. So, that brute Ivan hadn’t conquered her. A chilling fear filled Maxine for the first time. Sweat gathered beneath her breasts, dampened her hairline, but she wouldn’t back down. Her steno pad slipped from her fingers, its spiral binding catching a red nail tip and ripping it off, carrying it with the pad to the floor.
Maxine swore, slipped from the bed, bent to retrieve the pad, and saw her purse. Neither Keith nor Caitlin could see it because of the bed. She slipped the gun from it. “You’ve got it all wrong, Keith. I’m not Annie. I’m Maxine.”
She rose from the floor with the gun firmly clasped in her hand. “You think you’re on to me, don’t you? You think you know all my secrets? Well, you don’t. I’m out of here, got that? But I think I’ll finish off what that lunkhead Ivan couldn’t accomplish.”
She aimed the gun at Caitlin, whose monitors blipped and bleeped in a fervid staccato rhythm. Beyond the glass inner wall, Maxine heard soft footfalls scurrying down the hall.
Ignore them. Stay focused. She cocked the pistol. Neither Keith nor Caitlin moved. Only the blipping and bleeping monitors, going crazy, interfered with her focus. Do it now. Otherwise the deed would never get done.
The bitch deserved to die.
Her finger pulled the trigger toward her chest.
Faster than she anticipated, the door slammed open, cutting into her and jostling her stance. She’d not calculated the wideness of the door when she’d risen from the floor and moved away from the bed in the tiny room. Burly men in suits filled the doorway and swarmed around her. One of them slapped the gun from her hand. Two brusque young officers handcuffed and escorted her from the room. Vince Bertoli met her in the hall.
“Gotcha,” he said and grinned as she passed him in the hall.
****
Later that afternoon, Mike, Vince, Rachel and Keith sat around Caitlin’s hospital bed. For the first time since she’d been admitted, she was sitting up. A smidgen of lip gloss adorned her lips, some color tinged her cheeks, natural color—not bruises, which she had in abundance. Mike held one hand, Keith the other.
“Well, Vinch, wash I gutschy enough?” Caitlin asked through her clenched teeth. Her throat was raspy and sore from the airway effects.
“Brilliant, medal of honor caliber, woman.”
She couldn’t smile at Vince’s praise, so she gave a thumbs up signal.
“She deserves praise and a raise,” Keith declared.
“I’ll document that Mr. Jantzen,” quipped Rachel.
“We’ll all deserve raises with the extra work we have to do in the next few months,” Mike added. “Knowing Caitlin, she’ll be in the trenches with us sooner than she should.”
Keith’s eyes swept toward Vince. “I thought the plan was crazy when you mapped it out this morning. I never thought Maxine would fall for it. Maybe I hoped she wasn’t involved. After all, she’s been with me through a lot of changes these past few years.”
“But she did. From Shakespeare, not Crime 101, I’ve learned an interesting fact; revenge can warp a soul and a mind. That’s what happened to her. Muro, too. Amazing what long-term effects small events can have on us.” Vince looked different—relaxed and content as his hand held Rachel’s.
“I can’t believe you’re philosophizing, Vince.” Rachel shot a lover’s smile to this exhausted but contented looking man.
“So what’s happening with Maxine?” Mike interrupted.
“She’s talking a mile a minute. Tony Muro’s under federal indictments too numerous to mention. The feds are having a field day rounding up people they’ve been trying to get at for years. This can of worms has turned into a major cesspool.”
“And think, all thish because I wanted a drug rehab program. Should I try again?” Caitlin piped up from the direction of her bed. Laughter meshed with the rhythmical bleeps and blips. She looked around at all her visitors. Exhausted but happy faces surrounded her. Most of all, Mike was here.
Mike whispered in her ear. “Go for it, Cait.”
She knew she would—with gusto. “Thash my plan. With you. At work and at home.” With Mike beside her, nothing would stop her. Or them. She wove her fingers between Mike’s.
“That’s a plan I’ll spend my life working on,” he promised as his finger traced a path from her lips to her heart.
“I love you, Mike Rafferty. Wanting to get back to you was the only thing that kept me fighting.”
““I love you, too, Caitlin Donnelly. I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you just how much.”