Missing Bonds
For Ruby Dark, Denver’s fiery bail bondswoman, it starts as a routine skip. “Bullet Joe” Brown, facing a life sentence as a habitual criminal, jumps bail. Ruby and her idealistic law-student nephew Jason go after him. But their hunt turns deadly when they discover brutally murdered the man who put up collateral for Bullet Joe’s bond.
Their hunt takes a stranger twist when a controversial ex-Green Beret colonel shows up claiming that the dead man was living under a false name. He was, in reality, an Air Force officer officially listed as missing in action in 1970 during the Vietnam War. To a perplexed Jason, his aunt becomes obsessed with discovering whether the colonel’s shocking claim is true—and if it is, how the MIA escaped his captors and why he secretly returned to the United States to live under a false identity for over 20 years!
Their hunt takes a stranger twist when a controversial ex-Green Beret colonel shows up claiming that the dead man was living under a false name. He was, in reality, an Air Force officer officially listed as missing in action in 1970 during the Vietnam War. To a perplexed Jason, his aunt becomes obsessed with discovering whether the colonel’s shocking claim is true—and if it is, how the MIA escaped his captors and why he secretly returned to the United States to live under a false identity for over 20 years!
|
Before they can learn the truth, the killer strikes again and again to bury a past our own government and others—including Ruby herself—want buried forever.
|
|
Chapter 1
The dark motorcycle banked sharply out of a low evening sun into the parking lot behind the office of Ruby’s Bail Bonds and roared down on Jason Piszek. Jason was walking toward his car, his mind on Monday evening’s law class, which he was not looking forward to. By the time his attention comprehended the on-rushing motorcycle it was too late to escape its path. He got a fleeting glimpse of the driver against the sun, dressed head to toe in black leather, black helmet, and an impenetrable dark visor. Black Death on wheels. Suddenly the bike braked, the rear wheel fishtailing to a stop only feet from him.
The cyclist pulled off the helmet and flounced short, coal-black hair. Cyndee Valone, his aunt’s personal attorney.
After he retrieved his heart out of his throat, he barked above the rumble of the engine, “Jesus, Cyndee, you could have killed me!”
A loopy grin crossed her face. “Did you piss in your pants?” Valone was a tall woman, around six feet, slightly taller than his aunt. But the black outfit made her look tall enough to go one-on-one with an NBA power forward.
“I hope you don’t take clients for joy rides on that thing,” he said.
“Half my clients would steal a bike like this.” She patted the maroon gas tank with a black-gloved hand. “So would I. Brand new wheels. How do you like it?”
He shrugged, his nose wrinkling at the acrid smell of oil and gas. “Okay, I guess. I’ve never been into bikes.”
“Just okay? This is a brand new 1997 Triumph Thunderbird 900. Direct from England. They haven’t built new Triumphs since the eighties when the Japanese drove them out of business. Brando rode a Triumph in The Wild One.”
“I’ll stick to my green Duster,” said Jason. “By the way, how can you afford this thing, Cyndee?” Contrary to popular belief, not all lawyers are rich, especially small-practice independent attorneys whose cases are mainly penny-ante civil suits and small-time felons.
Valone hung her head in mock shame. “I can’t afford it, Jason. I’ve had to put my daughter on bread and water so I can make the payments.” She looked up brightly. “But it’s for a good cause.”
“What cause?”
“My sanity.”
Jason smiled. She worked as hard in private practice, and with as much passion and idealism, as she had in the public defender’s office. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to run, Cyndee.”
“You headed for class?”
“Yeah. Contracts.”
“How are your studies going?”
Jason shrugged. “Tough trying to juggle bail bonding and night school. Neither my aunt nor criminals seem to keep civil hours.”
Valone nodded her head at a distant memory. “First year law’s a bitch. Speaking of your aunt, she in?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got good news on her license.”
“Is she going to keep it?”
“Looks that way—ah, there’s the Angel herself.”
Ruby Dark came down the metal stairs from her second-floor office past the backside of the Planned Pethood Spay-Neuter Clinic, which occupied the first floor of the 1920s Victorian home that sat across the street from Denver Police Headquarters. She wore a loose print dress, the low evening sun catching mounds of shoulder-length red hair. As she walked toward them, she dipped in and out of black fingers of shadows creeping across the parking lot.
“So it’s your bike making all the racket,” Ruby chided light-heartedly in her trademark truck-driver voice.
“My new Triumph,” Valone said, patting the gas tank again.
“She damn near killed me,” Jason said to his aunt.
“That’s okay,” said Ruby. “The world won’t miss one less lawyer.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Speaking of lawyers, did you two hear the joke about the brass rat?”
Valone and Jason frowned. They’d heard more than their fair share of lawyer jokes from Ruby Dark.
She ignored their unenthusiastic response. “A man finds an interesting-looking large brass rat in a junk shop in New York City, but the dealer refuses to sell it. ‘I’ll pay you whatever you want for it,’ says the man. The dealer says $10,000. The man thinks the price is outrageous, but buys it anyway. He heads out the store and down the street. Soon, he notices several rats following him. He walks a little faster. More rats join them. They’re coming out of the sewers, old buildings, alleys, everywhere. The street is filled with rats, waves of them. The man starts to run. More rats follow. He’s freaked. So freaked, he runs all the way to the East River and hurls the brass rat as far as he can into the water. All the rats jump in after it and drown. The next day the man hurries back to the junk shop and asks the dealer, ‘Do you have any brass lawyers?’”
Jason and Valone laughed courteously. Then Valone said, “Now that you’ve trashed my profession, Ruby, maybe I won’t tell you the good news.”
“What good news?”
Valone lifted her chin and was silent.
“Do I have to apologize first?” said Ruby.
“Feet kissing would be sufficient.”
Ruby made an exaggerated bow and sweep of an arm.
“That’ll do,” said Valone. “I talked to the State Insurance Commission this morning. Cooler heads prevailed. They’re not going to suspend your license.”
A smile of relief crossed Ruby’s face. “Thanks, Cyndee.”
“And . . . ,” continued Valone, “we’ve got a good shot at making the criminal charges go away, now that the Cherry Hills Village DA understands exactly what happened. He dislikes the idea of letting a bondsman off the hook, but solving the Kray murder earned you a bunch of Brownie points around town and puts him in a tough spot. Charging you wouldn’t be good PR. He knows you’ve got newspaper buddies who would rush to your defense.”
Jason still broke into cold sweats about that night. He and his aunt and three bounty hunters had stormed a wealthy Cherry Hills Village home hunting for a man who had skipped on a $1-million bond for murder. It had turned out to be the wrong house, just as the skip turned out to be the wrong suspect. The tip given to Ruby had been phony—an elaborate setup, most likely concocted by her archrival and industry slimeball, Cadillac Johnson. Nonetheless, the damage had been done. The woman and her two daughters, none of whom had any connection to the skip, had been traumatized by the goons Ruby had brought along against her better judgment. The initial headlines had been ugly and the Cherry Hills Village DA had swiftly filed a raft of criminal charges, though Jason had not been among those charged. His aunt had managed to keep his name out of it, and for that he would be forever grateful.
“And the lawsuit?” Ruby asked.
“That’s proving a little stickier,” conceded Valone. “Your offer to pay for property damages and therapy fees was well received, and the woman recognizes that you personally didn’t act maliciously, even if Curly and Moe did. But she’s got Sydney Ellsworth for counsel. He smells a fat contingency fee.”
“Blood suckers.”
“Hey, we have to make a living, too, Ruby,” Valone said in mock apology.
Ruby laughed. “Thanks for all your work, hon. If we have to have lawyers, I wish more of them were like you.”
“My bill’s in the mail. Now for the bad news.”
“Isn’t the prospects of a lawsuit bad enough?”
“That not withstanding, I think Bullet Joe’s jumped bail.”
“What makes you say that?” Ruby’s eyes, as dark green as the chile peppers she was so addicted to, looked wild and restless.
“He didn’t show up for sentencing this morning and I can’t find him. The judge issued a bench warrant.”
Ruby stepped into one of the shadows, darkening her face. “He’s never skipped on me before, and I’ve bonded him out at least half a dozen times.”
“He’s never faced the Big Bitch until now.”
“Who are you two talking about?” interjected Jason. “What is the Big Bitch?” He slung off his backpack of law books draped heavily on one strap over his shoulder and set it at his feet. He’d be late to class if he lingered much longer, and Professor Gideon Rothschild was not a man who trifled with tardiness. Yet of late, Jason had found himself less attentive to his law studies and more caught up in his aunt’s world of criminals, cops, skips, and bounty hunters, and, yes, murder.
“Earl Brown, a.k.a. half a dozen other names,” said Ruby, answering his question. “Most people call him Bullet Joe.”
“Bullet Joe? Sounds like a bad nickname for a hit man.”
“It’s an old baseball player’s nickname. At least that’s what Bullet Joe told me once. He’s one of those walking baseball encyclopedias. You’re a baseball fan, Jason. You’ve never heard of a Bullet Joe?”
“Shoeless Joe, but not Bullet Joe.”
“You know how much I hate baseball. It’s our National Snooze Time. But I have to admit it’s got a great tradition of nicknames. There’s not another pro sport except maybe pool with names like Oil Can and Catfish and the Yankee Clipper and Hammering Hank. Course, none of the players these days have nicknames like those. Too much money. Got bench warmers making a million bucks a year and all they want to be called is Mister.”
“Okay, so this Bullet Joe loves baseball like everybody else but you, Aunt Ruby. Can I assume he wasn’t being sentenced for spitting in the new ballpark?”
“Armed robbery.”
Jason turned to Valone. “What’s the Big Bitch he’s facing?”
“Mandatory life as a habitual criminal.”
“What’s he done?”
“Pick any page in the penal code. Burglary, receipt of stolen goods, shoplifting, parole violation, auto theft, drug possession, criminal mischief, felony menacing. He’s been arrested thirty-seven times and served time for a dozen offenses.”
Jason looked at the two women. “Jesus, no wonder the man jumped. Why are you two surprised?”
“I’m surprised because he’s a prison homey,” said Ruby. “He’s more comfortable in jail than out. It’s where he’s spent most of his life since he came back from Vietnam with snakes in his head. Hard time wouldn’t scare him. He might almost relish it. There’s a lot of certainty in mandatory life.”
That was his aunt, mused Jason. Always going with her gut instincts instead of common sense. What idiot would willingly face mandatory life in prison?
“I don’t see how guys like that can walk the streets,” said Jason.
“There’s no doubt Bullet Joe couldn’t walk straight if he had a cop on each arm,” said Valone. “But in some ways he’s a good-hearted man. When he has money, he always shares it with his friends.”
Ruby laughed. “Yep, that’s Bullet Joe. Stealing for friends.”
Jason rolled his eyes at the women’s romantic view of a stone-cold sociopath. “How much was bail?” he asked Ruby.
“Eighty-five grand.”
“What did he pay for it with, his charm?”
“Third-party collateral. A friend.”
Every bondsman has skips, but his aunt had fewer than most in the business. She had a sixth sense who was a flight risk and who wasn’t. She turned down several requests a day because they didn’t “feel” right. And she had a fierce reputation for tracking down anyone who unwisely choses to jump bail. She never wrote off a skip as a “cost of doing business.” Now she had 30 days, 60 days, 90 days—whatever time limit the judge imposed—to produce Earl Bullet Joe Brown or fork over $85,000 to the court.
“Where have you looked for him, Cyndee?” Ruby asked.
“I made a few calls, but it’s not my job to hunt for him. That’s yours.”
“When did you last talk to him?”
“Two days ago.”
“What was his mood?” asked Ruby.
“He sounded okay, considering he was facing life in jail. He was more interested in gabbing about the Rockies.”
Ruby shook her head. “Something changed his mind between then and today. Well, thanks for letting us know right away, Cyndee. At least we can get a quick jump on him. I suspect he’s still around town. His folks and friends are here. The man’s never been farther from home in his life than Grand Junction.”
“Got to run,” said Valone. She slipped on her black helmet and the Triumph roared out of the parking lot.
Jason glanced at his watch again. He would be late for certain. “I have to run, too, Aunt Ruby. You going to get a bounty hunter to track down this Bullet Joe guy?”
The cyclist pulled off the helmet and flounced short, coal-black hair. Cyndee Valone, his aunt’s personal attorney.
After he retrieved his heart out of his throat, he barked above the rumble of the engine, “Jesus, Cyndee, you could have killed me!”
A loopy grin crossed her face. “Did you piss in your pants?” Valone was a tall woman, around six feet, slightly taller than his aunt. But the black outfit made her look tall enough to go one-on-one with an NBA power forward.
“I hope you don’t take clients for joy rides on that thing,” he said.
“Half my clients would steal a bike like this.” She patted the maroon gas tank with a black-gloved hand. “So would I. Brand new wheels. How do you like it?”
He shrugged, his nose wrinkling at the acrid smell of oil and gas. “Okay, I guess. I’ve never been into bikes.”
“Just okay? This is a brand new 1997 Triumph Thunderbird 900. Direct from England. They haven’t built new Triumphs since the eighties when the Japanese drove them out of business. Brando rode a Triumph in The Wild One.”
“I’ll stick to my green Duster,” said Jason. “By the way, how can you afford this thing, Cyndee?” Contrary to popular belief, not all lawyers are rich, especially small-practice independent attorneys whose cases are mainly penny-ante civil suits and small-time felons.
Valone hung her head in mock shame. “I can’t afford it, Jason. I’ve had to put my daughter on bread and water so I can make the payments.” She looked up brightly. “But it’s for a good cause.”
“What cause?”
“My sanity.”
Jason smiled. She worked as hard in private practice, and with as much passion and idealism, as she had in the public defender’s office. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to run, Cyndee.”
“You headed for class?”
“Yeah. Contracts.”
“How are your studies going?”
Jason shrugged. “Tough trying to juggle bail bonding and night school. Neither my aunt nor criminals seem to keep civil hours.”
Valone nodded her head at a distant memory. “First year law’s a bitch. Speaking of your aunt, she in?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got good news on her license.”
“Is she going to keep it?”
“Looks that way—ah, there’s the Angel herself.”
Ruby Dark came down the metal stairs from her second-floor office past the backside of the Planned Pethood Spay-Neuter Clinic, which occupied the first floor of the 1920s Victorian home that sat across the street from Denver Police Headquarters. She wore a loose print dress, the low evening sun catching mounds of shoulder-length red hair. As she walked toward them, she dipped in and out of black fingers of shadows creeping across the parking lot.
“So it’s your bike making all the racket,” Ruby chided light-heartedly in her trademark truck-driver voice.
“My new Triumph,” Valone said, patting the gas tank again.
“She damn near killed me,” Jason said to his aunt.
“That’s okay,” said Ruby. “The world won’t miss one less lawyer.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Speaking of lawyers, did you two hear the joke about the brass rat?”
Valone and Jason frowned. They’d heard more than their fair share of lawyer jokes from Ruby Dark.
She ignored their unenthusiastic response. “A man finds an interesting-looking large brass rat in a junk shop in New York City, but the dealer refuses to sell it. ‘I’ll pay you whatever you want for it,’ says the man. The dealer says $10,000. The man thinks the price is outrageous, but buys it anyway. He heads out the store and down the street. Soon, he notices several rats following him. He walks a little faster. More rats join them. They’re coming out of the sewers, old buildings, alleys, everywhere. The street is filled with rats, waves of them. The man starts to run. More rats follow. He’s freaked. So freaked, he runs all the way to the East River and hurls the brass rat as far as he can into the water. All the rats jump in after it and drown. The next day the man hurries back to the junk shop and asks the dealer, ‘Do you have any brass lawyers?’”
Jason and Valone laughed courteously. Then Valone said, “Now that you’ve trashed my profession, Ruby, maybe I won’t tell you the good news.”
“What good news?”
Valone lifted her chin and was silent.
“Do I have to apologize first?” said Ruby.
“Feet kissing would be sufficient.”
Ruby made an exaggerated bow and sweep of an arm.
“That’ll do,” said Valone. “I talked to the State Insurance Commission this morning. Cooler heads prevailed. They’re not going to suspend your license.”
A smile of relief crossed Ruby’s face. “Thanks, Cyndee.”
“And . . . ,” continued Valone, “we’ve got a good shot at making the criminal charges go away, now that the Cherry Hills Village DA understands exactly what happened. He dislikes the idea of letting a bondsman off the hook, but solving the Kray murder earned you a bunch of Brownie points around town and puts him in a tough spot. Charging you wouldn’t be good PR. He knows you’ve got newspaper buddies who would rush to your defense.”
Jason still broke into cold sweats about that night. He and his aunt and three bounty hunters had stormed a wealthy Cherry Hills Village home hunting for a man who had skipped on a $1-million bond for murder. It had turned out to be the wrong house, just as the skip turned out to be the wrong suspect. The tip given to Ruby had been phony—an elaborate setup, most likely concocted by her archrival and industry slimeball, Cadillac Johnson. Nonetheless, the damage had been done. The woman and her two daughters, none of whom had any connection to the skip, had been traumatized by the goons Ruby had brought along against her better judgment. The initial headlines had been ugly and the Cherry Hills Village DA had swiftly filed a raft of criminal charges, though Jason had not been among those charged. His aunt had managed to keep his name out of it, and for that he would be forever grateful.
“And the lawsuit?” Ruby asked.
“That’s proving a little stickier,” conceded Valone. “Your offer to pay for property damages and therapy fees was well received, and the woman recognizes that you personally didn’t act maliciously, even if Curly and Moe did. But she’s got Sydney Ellsworth for counsel. He smells a fat contingency fee.”
“Blood suckers.”
“Hey, we have to make a living, too, Ruby,” Valone said in mock apology.
Ruby laughed. “Thanks for all your work, hon. If we have to have lawyers, I wish more of them were like you.”
“My bill’s in the mail. Now for the bad news.”
“Isn’t the prospects of a lawsuit bad enough?”
“That not withstanding, I think Bullet Joe’s jumped bail.”
“What makes you say that?” Ruby’s eyes, as dark green as the chile peppers she was so addicted to, looked wild and restless.
“He didn’t show up for sentencing this morning and I can’t find him. The judge issued a bench warrant.”
Ruby stepped into one of the shadows, darkening her face. “He’s never skipped on me before, and I’ve bonded him out at least half a dozen times.”
“He’s never faced the Big Bitch until now.”
“Who are you two talking about?” interjected Jason. “What is the Big Bitch?” He slung off his backpack of law books draped heavily on one strap over his shoulder and set it at his feet. He’d be late to class if he lingered much longer, and Professor Gideon Rothschild was not a man who trifled with tardiness. Yet of late, Jason had found himself less attentive to his law studies and more caught up in his aunt’s world of criminals, cops, skips, and bounty hunters, and, yes, murder.
“Earl Brown, a.k.a. half a dozen other names,” said Ruby, answering his question. “Most people call him Bullet Joe.”
“Bullet Joe? Sounds like a bad nickname for a hit man.”
“It’s an old baseball player’s nickname. At least that’s what Bullet Joe told me once. He’s one of those walking baseball encyclopedias. You’re a baseball fan, Jason. You’ve never heard of a Bullet Joe?”
“Shoeless Joe, but not Bullet Joe.”
“You know how much I hate baseball. It’s our National Snooze Time. But I have to admit it’s got a great tradition of nicknames. There’s not another pro sport except maybe pool with names like Oil Can and Catfish and the Yankee Clipper and Hammering Hank. Course, none of the players these days have nicknames like those. Too much money. Got bench warmers making a million bucks a year and all they want to be called is Mister.”
“Okay, so this Bullet Joe loves baseball like everybody else but you, Aunt Ruby. Can I assume he wasn’t being sentenced for spitting in the new ballpark?”
“Armed robbery.”
Jason turned to Valone. “What’s the Big Bitch he’s facing?”
“Mandatory life as a habitual criminal.”
“What’s he done?”
“Pick any page in the penal code. Burglary, receipt of stolen goods, shoplifting, parole violation, auto theft, drug possession, criminal mischief, felony menacing. He’s been arrested thirty-seven times and served time for a dozen offenses.”
Jason looked at the two women. “Jesus, no wonder the man jumped. Why are you two surprised?”
“I’m surprised because he’s a prison homey,” said Ruby. “He’s more comfortable in jail than out. It’s where he’s spent most of his life since he came back from Vietnam with snakes in his head. Hard time wouldn’t scare him. He might almost relish it. There’s a lot of certainty in mandatory life.”
That was his aunt, mused Jason. Always going with her gut instincts instead of common sense. What idiot would willingly face mandatory life in prison?
“I don’t see how guys like that can walk the streets,” said Jason.
“There’s no doubt Bullet Joe couldn’t walk straight if he had a cop on each arm,” said Valone. “But in some ways he’s a good-hearted man. When he has money, he always shares it with his friends.”
Ruby laughed. “Yep, that’s Bullet Joe. Stealing for friends.”
Jason rolled his eyes at the women’s romantic view of a stone-cold sociopath. “How much was bail?” he asked Ruby.
“Eighty-five grand.”
“What did he pay for it with, his charm?”
“Third-party collateral. A friend.”
Every bondsman has skips, but his aunt had fewer than most in the business. She had a sixth sense who was a flight risk and who wasn’t. She turned down several requests a day because they didn’t “feel” right. And she had a fierce reputation for tracking down anyone who unwisely choses to jump bail. She never wrote off a skip as a “cost of doing business.” Now she had 30 days, 60 days, 90 days—whatever time limit the judge imposed—to produce Earl Bullet Joe Brown or fork over $85,000 to the court.
“Where have you looked for him, Cyndee?” Ruby asked.
“I made a few calls, but it’s not my job to hunt for him. That’s yours.”
“When did you last talk to him?”
“Two days ago.”
“What was his mood?” asked Ruby.
“He sounded okay, considering he was facing life in jail. He was more interested in gabbing about the Rockies.”
Ruby shook her head. “Something changed his mind between then and today. Well, thanks for letting us know right away, Cyndee. At least we can get a quick jump on him. I suspect he’s still around town. His folks and friends are here. The man’s never been farther from home in his life than Grand Junction.”
“Got to run,” said Valone. She slipped on her black helmet and the Triumph roared out of the parking lot.
Jason glanced at his watch again. He would be late for certain. “I have to run, too, Aunt Ruby. You going to get a bounty hunter to track down this Bullet Joe guy?”
|
“No. We’ll start tomorrow.”
“We?” “I want you along to learn a few things.” “Learning a few things” about the bail bonding business was not high on Jason’s agenda. As much as he loved his aunt—half aunt, technically—he considered his work for her temporary, a necessity for paying his way through law school. The bail bonding business was not his life’s aspiration. He wanted to work the other side, a prosecutor sticking criminals in jail, not bailing them out. “So where do we start tomorrow?” he asked. “Looking for Judas.” |
|