Wheels of Justice

WHEELS OF JUSTICE

DON STODDARD

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2016 Don Stoddard

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to SMASHWORDS.COM and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter I Investigation Botched

Chapter II Not the Usual Suspect

Chapter III Barely Breaking a Sweat

Chapter IV A Lousy Assignment for the Newbie

Chapter V Unexpected Domestic Help

Chapter VI A Routine Develops

Chapter VII The Key to the Case

Chapter VIII Tidying up Loose Ends

Chapter IX Things Come Crashing Down

Chapter X Reviewing the Notebook

Chapter XI Reaching Out to Jordan Wheeler

Chapter XII Amending Relationships

Chapter XIII A Plan to Snare a Killer

Chapter XIV Thwarting a Murder

Chapter XV The Aftermath

Chapter XVI Returning to the Hospital

Chapter XVII Released from the Hospital

Chapter XIX An Official Visit from Lieutenant Stone

Chapter XX Reflections

Chapter XXI Investigating Jake’s Accident

Chapter XXII Jake Recalls an Incident from the Past

Chapter XXIII Lieutenant Stone Tells Them What He has Found

Chapter XXIV Not a Suicide Note

Chapter XXV Looking Further into the Note

Chapter XXVI Every Little Bit Helps

Chapter XXVII A Race to Save a Life

Chapter XXVIII Ghastly Vengeance is Achieved

Epilogue

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

I owe a debt of gratitude to Diane Gregg, Thomas Stoddard, and Kevin McArthur for their tireless efforts in reviewing, revising, and editing this work. Applying their expertise, they have significantly improved the book’s continuity, and readability, while significantly reducing the number of grammatical spelling and syntactical errors that are the bane of all authors. Their effort and encouragement are deeply appreciated.

PROLOGUE

The early evening crowd at the shabby roadside dive was getting increasingly large and increasingly loud as the small band settled into its first set with pounding drums, screeching guitars and the incoherent screaming of a scantily attired songstress. The stomping, cheering audience gathered near the stage was unaware or didn’t care that the band was failing miserably in its attempt to reproduce the performance of a long faded musical legend.

Most of those sitting at the dimly lit bar that ran the length of the room paid little attention to the music or the raising noise level, appearing to be more concerned with the demons in their heads that only they could see, and nursing the assorted beverages that sat in front of them. One young man stuck out from the rest, mainly because of his relative youth and rough good looks, although he, like the others at the bar, seemed content to languish morosely in introspection while fondling his half-filled glass and periodically raising and pouring its amber contents into his tight-lipped mouth.

The sad faced young man appeared to be in his middle to late twenties, slightly overweight with thick brown hair brushed back from a high forehead. His dark brown rheumy eyes were listless and his puffy face sagged from excessive consumption of alcohol and lack of sleep. Despite this, he was ruggedly good looking with square jaw, bushy eyebrows, and full lips. His face was marred by a number of pale but long-healed scars around his mouth and cheeks, and a long ago poorly set broken nose. He wore a moderately expensive well fitting, though rumpled dark pinstripe suit. His tie was pulled down and several buttons on his shirt were undone exposing the white t-shirt he wore under it. With his expensive business suit, white shirt and tie he did not fit in with the roughhewn patrons who sat at or stood around tables near the stage, while stomping and cheering on the perspiring musicians and the wildly gesticulating warbler.

As the evening wore on and the crowd grew in size the unoccupied seat at the bar next to the morose drinker was, reluctantly it seemed, taken by a woman who in the dimly lit bar appeared quite attractive. However closer examination revealed a pair of cold, piercing blue eyes below heavily mascaraed lids, thin bitter lips and a face that, though still youthful, spoke of a hard life. On the right side of her face, a noticeable white scar extended upward nearly an inch from the corner of her upper lip. She was dressed in an attractive but conservative white blouse and black vest and tightly fitted black slacks that revealed, to good effect, a well-shaped posterior. Though outwardly attractive, she exuded a latent aura of anger and cruelty. She ordered a gin drink, which she sipped slowly, paying no attention to the man next to her.

She sat there for several minutes completely ignored by the man seated on her right who absently fondled his now nearly empty glass. She furtively checked her watch, then ostensibly reaching for a napkin, surreptitiously nudged the taciturn man on the arm. He turned quickly, surprised to see someone sitting there, then squinted and looked closely at the young woman, and mumbled almost incoherently, Were you trying to get my attention? If you were, you succeeded.

In a soft husky voice the woman quietly uttered, No, sorry about that. I was merely reaching for a napkin. The bartender didn’t wipe up the booze he spilled when he slopped my drink on the counter. Then suddenly in a voice loud enough for the bartender to hear, she said, For your information, tubby, I’m not in the habit of trying to attract half-drunk bums in sleazy bars. So go back to crying in your beer.

The morose drinker puffed himself up, nearly falling off the stool, and indignantly slobbered, I’m not crying in my beer lady, I’m sobbing in my whiskey.

The woman rolled her eyes, grimaced, and with a disgusted look waved the bartender over and said, This man has had too much to drink and is making a nuisance of himself. I think he should be asked to leave.

Okay, lady, I reckon you’re right. He generally don’t create no fuss; just drinks his fill and staggers out. Okay fella, this lady and I think it’s time you left. You ain’t in no shape to drive, so if you got a car here I’ll call you a cab but you’re going to have to leave.

The young man stood unsteadily next to the bar and with his hand on his stool mumbled, Well if that’s what you want, I’ll just take my business someplace else. With considerable effort, he pushed himself away from the bar, let go of the stool and staggered haltingly across crowded floor to the exit, slammed into the door and stumbled out into the approaching night.

The fresh air seemed to steady him a little and he managed to stand up straight and with great deliberation walk slowly, albeit still unsteadily, toward the back of the large unlit and rapidly darkening parking lot. As he walked, he fumbled in his pocket and with seeming great effort pulled out a keychain with a number of keys on it. Placing the key chain up to his eyes, he fumbled through several keys and then with a satisfied grunt selected one.

While concentrating on remaining upright and navigating the circuitous route to his car, the young man failed to notice the stocky man in a dark hooded jacket slip out of the saloon immediately after he left and cautiously follow him as he staggered to his car.

The young man’s car was a medium-sized sedan with more than a few years on it but it was immaculately clean and looked to be in pristine condition. After several unsuccessful attempts, the young man was finally able to find the slot, push the key in, turn it, and open the door. Then, for him, everything went black.

The shadowy man who had followed and then attacked the young man, jammed the pipe he had struck his victim with into his waistband, opened the back door and with considerable difficulty lifted and pressed the unconscious man onto the back seat of the car. The task completed, he quickly and quietly closed the back door, recovered the keys from the pavement where they had fallen and got into the car and closed the door. Being much shorter than the car’s owner, he adjusted the seat so he could comfortably reach the gas pedal, and in a short time found the right key, started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot onto the adjoining highway. He accelerated to the next intersection and turned left.

He continued rapidly for several miles and then at a predetermined location pulled to the side of the road next to a densely wooded area and stopped. He extinguished the headlights but left the engine running. From the light of the dashboard, he checked his watch and gave a sigh of relief. He was not late; in fact was a little ahead of time, so he had a few minutes to wait.

He settled back in the seat, and pulled a pair of cheap 7X50 binoculars from his jacket pocket and pressed the eyepieces to his face and stared steadily at an intersection a few hundred feet ahead. As planned, he had parked where he had an unobstructed view of the location he was interested in. The site he watched was the junction of a jogging path and the highway. Fortunately for the stalker, the city fathers after several accidents, had seen fit to place a streetlight at the location to provide a measure of safety for the runners as they approached the highway. The running path continued across the road effectively rejoining two wooded areas that had been separated by the construction of the road.

As he sat watching, several joggers approached from the wooded area, paused, running in place while they checked their luminous dialed watches for elapsed time and the street for oncoming traffic. Generally seeing no traffic, it was a seldom-used road; they quickly proceeded across the road to the adjoining wooded complex and a continuation of the trail.

A short time later a lone man jogged up to the intersection of the road and the trail, and as his predecessors had done, paused jogging in place and checked his watch. This ritual performed, he then looked up and down the road, and seeing no approaching vehicles from either direction, he ventured at a slow jog the short distance to the road.

The man staring through the binoculars in the parked car instantly recognized the jogger from the pictures he had been given, threw the glasses down, shifted into gear and with screeching tires and headlights still not lit, raced onto the road toward the intersection. The jogger who was just entering the roadway turned at the sound of the screeching tires and caught a glimpse of something dark as it sped toward him. He quickly recognized the approaching danger and spurted toward the opposite side of the road. However, the car approached too fast and was nearly on him before he could get across. In a last desperate attempt to avoid being struck, the runner dove toward the far curb.

Too late! The car swerved toward him and struck the runner with the left front bumper. Miraculously the bumper missed the runner’s body but struck his outstretched legs, exploding him cartwheeling high into the air. He hit the road with his right shoulder and the side of his head, while his shattered and bloody legs tumbled down twisted and shapeless beside him.

The car increased its velocity and swerved wildly down the road; its brake lights blinking as it negotiated a sweeping curve in the road and sped away.

The car maintained a steady speed while weaving wildly from one side of the road to the other until safely out of the sight of the two runners who knelt over their fallen comrade. Having accomplished his mission the driver turned on his headlights and drove cautiously until he arrived at the top of a short steep hill, about a mile from where he had struck the jogger. He pulled off the left side of the road onto a wide berm and turned the engine and lights off.

He leaned back over the front seat, took the still bloody pipe he had used on the car owner from his waistband and smashed the dome light. The bloody pipe slipped out of his hand and dropped to the floor of the back seat. He opened the door and climbed out. He looked for oncoming cars, and seeing none, opened the back door and roughly pulled the bleeding and still unconscious car’s owner out of the back seat and onto the ground next to the car. He searched with his gloved hand for the pipe but failed to find it. Ah it ain’t got my prints on it anyway, so hell with it.

As he was doing this, another car pulled off the road and parked behind him. The woman who had been sitting next to the drunk in the bar, quickly got out of the car and hurried forward. Come over here, and make it quick, said the stocky driver. Help me get this lummox behind the wheel. Man he is heavy. Why the hell did you pick this load of lard?

"Ah, shut up you little weasel, just do what I’m paying you to do. I took the only one available at the right time. Grab him under the arms and I’ll get his feet. Now just lift and push him onto the seat. Man he’s bleeding like a stuck pig. What did you hit him with? Damn, I’ll have to burn this outfit. Okay, that’s it. Now hoist his leg so it’s near the gas pedal— good!

Okay, now turn the engine on and twist the steering wheel so the front wheels point downhill in the direction of that drop off. Good, now open the window and hold the steering wheel steady until the car gets rolling then jump away. I’ll push it with my car for a few feet to get it started and then let it roll down on its own. Okay get moving.

She climbed back into her car, eased up carefully until the bumpers banged together and moved forward until the car with the unconscious owner at the wheel began rolling down the hill toward the drop off. She was amazed at how quickly they had accomplished their task, and the extraordinary luck in not having a car come along at the wrong time. She slowed down enough for her cohort to clamber in, and then sped away into the night.

Once out of sight she picked up her cellphone, dialed 9-1-1 and said, I’d like to report an accident. A car has run off the road at…

CHAPTER I - INVESTIGATION BOTCHED

The large square two-story red brick house, like most of the others in this moderately affluent suburban neighborhood, was nestled in a protective grove of ancient trees, mostly oaks and elms, interspersed with occasional clusters of loblolly pine. Tiny dogwoods were scattered beneath the branches of the taller trees, and on this early spring day, their pink-white blossoms glittered beneath the shadows of the larger trees.

A closely mown and crisply edged expanse of verdant lawn stretched from the sidewalk, running parallel to the street, to a grove of trees that bordered both sides of the house. In the front of the house, close-cropped grass abutted a neatly trimmed dark green hedge that ran across the front of the porch, effectively shielding the first floor windows from casual observation from the sidewalk and the street.

A narrow grey-cobblestone driveway bisected the luxurious lawn and ran from the street over the sidewalk past the house to a turnabout, which fronted a separate two-car garage. A large covered porch with white, wooden handrails extended across the front and sides. A number of ornately carved white, wooden columns supported its gradually sloping roof. A broad three-step stairway with a narrow ramp and an adjoining handrail led from the side of the porch to the driveway. Behind the columns, four large, draped windows, two on each side of the doublewide oaken door, crossed the front of the house. On the second floor, six windows, similarly draped, stretched across the upper floor of the brick abode.

The large front door opened into a small entryway and thence into a reception area replete with three loveseat-sized leather couches, two overstuffed tan leather chairs, a coffee table and a number of sensibly placed floor lamps. The reception area had polished hardwood floors with appropriately placed oriental throw rugs. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with dark wood paneling on which hung a number of paintings depicting realistic wildlife scenes. A coffee urn sat on a small table near the entryway with a short stack of Styrofoam cups, a bowl of packaged condiments and a ceramic cup holding plastic spoons. A wooden wastebasket partially filled with abandoned cups nestled close to the small table.

At the rear of the waiting room, a louvered white wooden double door hid the expansive kitchen area and living quarters located at the back of the house. A broad wooden staircase ran up the side wall to the second floor. The staircase was carpeted and sported a highly polished wooden railing on the open side and a narrow wooden ramp with a metal railing attached to the wall rose from the back of the entryway to the facilities on the second floor.

To the right of the entryway was an office with a large sturdy wooden door. The office was well appointed with paneled walls, which like the reception area, were also adorned with wildlife paintings and a large ornate wooden desk with several padded