CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

 

May 16, 2015

9:15 A.M.

McCall, Idaho

 

“Agents at the service door dressed in electric company uniforms,” Agent Munn said.

Lott moved over and unlocked the service door the caskets had come through, then stepped back so no one outside could see him if they happened to be looking.

Julia and Annie went up front to make sure the closed sign was up and the lights across the front were shut down. It would look like Andrews was gone at the moment, which is what they needed, since the mortuary was on the main road and a lot of traffic passed the building.

The two agents lifted Andrews from the floor and quickly taped his mouth shut. Then one told him he was under arrest for murder. One agent carefully read Andrews his rights while Lott and the other agent listened.

Then as Julia and Annie came back in, the agent asked Andrews if he understood his rights.

Andrews nodded.

“He nodded affirmative,” one agent said.

“Perfect,” Agent Munn said over the com link. “Get him on ice and don’t let him even move a muscle until this is finished.”

“Copy,” one agent said and they hauled Andrews roughly up the stairs to his own apartment where the agents would hold him until everything was done tonight.

“Remember,” Agent Munn said through the com link, “we don’t have a search warrant yet. So we need to get on to the second part of this to get that warrant.”

All three of them knew she was right. With the casket delivered there, they clearly could have gotten one, but at this point, they didn’t want to take any chance at all in alerting Williams.

But Lott really, really wanted to see what was in the basement. But they had the sheriff to take care of first. And this was going to be the tricky part.

Then they could come back.

They headed out the front door of the mortuary, making sure that the door was locked and all the closed signs were in place. It took them only a couple minutes walk to reach the white Cadillac SUV in the ski-shop parking lot.

Doc was in the driver’s seat, Annie climbed into the other front seat beside him and he leaned over and kissed her.

Agent Munn and Fleet were in the back seat, so Lott and Julia climbed into the middle seat.

“Anyone have a sanitary wipe. I had to shake that pervert’s hand.”

Annie laughed. “And great job there, Dad,” she said, digging into the glove box and handing him a Wet Wipe.

“I loved the kicking the casket tires,” Julia said, bumping Lott’s shoulder.

“How did you take him down?” Agent Munn asked. “We heard no struggle at all.”

Annie and Julia laughed.

“At my age, I sometimes have muscle spasms in my legs,” Lott said. “This one was a pretty violent spasm, on the scheme of things.”

Agent Munn and Doc broke into laughter, but Fleet looked confused.

“After we searched him and had him standing again,” Annie said, turning slightly and winking at Julia, “Detective Roger’s leg also had a violent spasm. It must have been something we ate at breakfast.”

“Just our advanced age,” Julia said, smiling.

Both Doc and Agent Munn were laughing so hard, Lott thought Doc might fall out of his seat.

“Do you mean you kicked him in the nuts?” Fleet asked, looking almost horrified.

“Not intentionally,” Lott said, turning to smile at Fleet. “Muscle spasm is all.”

Fleet just shook his head and turned to Agent Munn. “Are the communications links down at the moment?”

“They are,” Munn said, nodding, still grinning from ear-to-ear.

“Then I have some more information about the sheriff,” Fleet said. “He is the one who hires our friend in Las Vegas for the cars. I have traced the money finally on that.”

Lott nodded.

“And the sheriff gets all his money from a Williams holding company that is three levels deep, but Williams has nothing to do with any of it. No trace at all that Williams even knows about the money, and it will be hard to trace, to be honest.”

“Damn,” Annie said.

“What about deputies?” Lott asked.

“The second in command is living well, also in theory on an inheritance,” Fleet said. “Still digging on that one.”

Lott could feel his stomach twisting. They needed something to tie Williams into all of this. Or far too much would rest on Williams showing up at the mortuary. And since he had a company that owns the mortuary, his presence could be explained away as well by a good attorney.

Right now all they had was a lot of circumstantial evidence, much of which had been obtained without a warrant. Unless the women’s bodies had evidence that attached Williams in some way, and Lott doubted Williams would be that careless.

“We need to flip the sheriff,” Lott said. “Get him to turn on Williams.”

“And get Andrews at the mortuary to flip as well,” Munn said. “Then if we catch Williams in the act in the mortuary, we’ll have him rock solid.”

“We trap the sheriff as planned,” Lott said, glancing at Julia. “Get him to think he’s going to lure us to kill us. And then we make him think he’s going to go down for all the murders.”

There was silence in the big car.

Lott turned to Julia. “You ready?”

“As I’m ever going to be,” she said, smiling at him.

Agent Munn handed them both new Idaho driver’s licenses. “Just in case,” Agent Munn said.

Lott’s license said his name was Rick Guiss. Julia was Betty Guiss. They lived in Boise.

“The blue sedan beside us is your car,” Munn said. “I already have agents in place on both sides of the sheriff’s office. He is in his office now.”

“And we won’t be far away,” Annie said.

“Shall we go catch a bad guy, Mrs. Guiss,” Lott asked, smiling at Julia.

“I think we should, Mr. Guiss,” Julia said, laughing.

And with that they climbed out of the car and moved to the blue sedan and crawled in. This time they weren’t going up against a mortuary owner, but an armed sheriff.

There were so many more things that could go wrong, Lott didn’t even want to think about them all.