Poisonfeather (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 2) Read online

  “Thing is, my uncle convinced most of the family,” Birk said. “We aren’t rich, so the family pooled its assets to buy in. My uncles lost everything. My aunt had to sell her house. Dad was forced to sell half the farm; other half may not be far behind. Uncle Robert was going to retire from the Navy; that didn’t happen.”

  “Old boy sure could talk,” Swonger said again.

  “Is it bath time, Christopher?” the judge asked.

  Swonger leapt forward. “No, it ain’t bath time. Shut the hell up already.”

  “Hey.” Gibson stood.

  “Don’t hey me. This old bitch don’t get consideration.”

  “That why you have him living out here in a field like an animal?” Gibson turned to Birk. “To punish him? He’s your family.”

  Birk’s face turned an angry sunset red. He was up and out of his chair, stabbing his finger in Gibson’s chest. “Cain was family too. You hear me? Yeah, he’s family. He’s family. And we didn’t turn him out like we could’ve. Should’ve. But nobody’s got time to be taking care of him either.” Birk was yelling now. “He’s got a roof. Food. No, it isn’t pretty, but pretty isn’t on the menu, thanks to him. This is all there is. His quality of life isn’t anyone’s priority anymore. You hear me, you self-righteous son of a bitch?”

  “Fuck his quality of life,” Swonger agreed.

  Gibson told himself to get out of there. He didn’t move. The judge looked down at his lap, cowed by the anger in the air.

  Get out of here, Gibson told himself again, but he still didn’t move.

  “Do you hear me?” Birk said a second time.

  “Yeah, I hear you. What I don’t hear is what I’m doing here. This is a sad story, but I’ve got sad stories of my own.”

  “You’re here because of that.” Birk pointed at the cover of the magazine.

  “What about it?”

  “Why don’t you read it and tell us.”

  Gibson read the interview with Charles Merrick with a growing sense of awe. Not for Merrick himself, but for Merrick’s delusional, self-important arrogance. It was the stuff of legend. His rant about the failure of his criminal enterprise being the fault of Americans who defaulted on their mortgages sounded like an obscene parody. And it only got worse from there:

  Merrick: We took a chance on the American people. We offered them the opportunity to elevate themselves. Gave them the keys to their own home. And what did they do? They accrued credit-card debt they couldn’t service. The banks opened a door for people to move out of the middle class, but the American people didn’t meet us halfway.

  That should have been the showstopper, but Merrick was only warming up, each quote more jaw-dropping than the last. When Gibson finished, he whistled and pushed the magazine away from him like it caused cancer.

  “Wow,” Gibson said. “Just . . . wow.”

  “Right?” Swonger said.

  “Who is he?” the judge asked.

  “Gibson Vaughn,” said Birk. “Remember?”

  “What does he want?”

  “You know. Charles Merrick. The interview.”

  The judge lost interest in the conversation and drifted away.

  “I don’t get it,” Gibson said. “No argument, the guy sounds like a world-class prick, but you don’t need me to tell you that.”

  “Last line, chief. Read it out loud,” Swonger said.

  Gibson gave him a look.

  “Trust me.”

  Gibson flipped back to the end of the article and read:

  Finance: What does the future hold for Charles Merrick? How do you plan on starting over?

  Merrick: Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’m a man who knows how to invest his pennies.

  “Pennies,” the judge repeated, shifting in his seat.

  “Uncle Hammond,” Birk said. “What does Charles Merrick say about pennies?”

  “Save them. Always save them!”

  “And if you do?”

  “Real money!”

  Birk and Swonger looked at Gibson like they’d just proved the existence of God.

  Gibson stared back blankly. “I still don’t get it.”

  Swonger was nodding. “Tell him, Chris.”

  “So Uncle Hammond was always repeating things this Merrick clown said like it was scripture. Merrick this, Merrick that. Well, Merrick had a motto. Went something like, a million dollars wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on anymore because everyone’s a millionaire these days. A million is the new penny, he claimed.”

  “But,” Swonger cut in, “if you save your pennies, eventually you’re talking real money.”

  “So save your pennies,” Birk repeated.

  “Pennies,” the judge echoed.

  They all stared at Gibson again, waiting for him to acknowledge the utter self-evidence of their discovery.

  “You think Merrick’s saying that he’s got money the government didn’t find.”

  “Damn right,” Swonger said.

  Gibson saw the appeal of the theory, but it sounded a little far-fetched. “Let’s say that’s all true. What does it have to do with me?”

  “Help us get it,” Birk said. “The money.”

  “Yeah, help us. Son of a bitch need to go down.”

  “We’ll cut you in. Just name your price,” Birk said.

  “My price isn’t the issue. The issue is, how am I supposed to do what you’re asking?”

  “Money’s electronic now. If he hid money, stands to reason there’s a digital trail. Uncle Hammond told us all about you, so I Googled you. Saw what you tried to do to Benjamin Lombard back in the day. What you did in the Marines. The other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?” Gibson asked.

  “You know,” Birk said with a wink. “Look, we need your computer expertise to track the money. Help us take back what belongs to us.”

  Gibson looked from one to the other. So that was what these people wanted from him. He hated to be the one to break it to them, but it was impossible.

  “I can’t help you.”

  “Why not?” Swonger demanded.

  “A lot of reasons, but I’ll just give you one. You point me at a network; I’ll find a way in. I’m very good at that. But Merrick’s accounts? His network? None of it exists anymore; his money’s in a Swiss vault gathering dust. There’s nothing to hack. No starting point. Even if there was a trail, it’d be, what? Eight to ten years old? I doubt I could track that. I don’t know a thing about Merrick’s world and even less about forensic accounting. But you know who does? The Justice Department. AFMLS.” Gibson saw Birk’s and Swonger’s blank looks and explained. “Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section—I worked with those guys in the military. They are scary good at following money, and if they couldn’t find Merrick’s hidden stash when the trail was fresh, then I have no chance now. None.” Gibson stopped to let it sink in.

  Birk sat back and let out a sigh. “But he gets out in a month. After that, he’ll be a ghost.”

  “Then he’s a ghost. So is his money.”

  Swonger cursed and kicked the side of the trailer. “Well, this was a waste of time. Guess that’s what we get for listening to this old vegetable.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gibson said.

  “Yeah, everyone’s sorry,” Birk said. “Uncle Hammond’s sorry for flushing the entire family’s life savings down the toilet. The rest of the family’s sorry for being a bunch of lemmings and listening to this old faggot. Dad’s sorry that Jim Beam bottles have bottoms. Swonger’s dad is sorry he worked thirty years for a man who doesn’t keep his word. Yeah, it’s just a chorus of sorry around here.”

  “I’m sorry,” the judge echoed.

  “Hey. Screw you and your sorry,” Swonger said.

  “Take it easy.”

  “Don’t tell him to take it easy,” Birk said. “Our families are barely scraping by while Merrick is set to live the high life on some tropical island. Dad’s gonna lose this farm. Been in my family since 1947. The Swonge
rs’ll be out on their ass. And the day that happens, I’m driving up to DC and dumping him on a street corner. You hear me, old man?”

  Christopher Birk threw back his chair and stalked toward the house.

  Swonger stood staring at the judge as if trying to make his mind up about something. “Show yourself out,” he said and followed after Birk.

  The judge watched the pair go, eyes rimmed red and sorrowful. Gibson flipped the magazine over so he wouldn’t have to see Merrick grinning up at him. One more powerful man who had gamed a broken system, ruined lives, and lived to rub it in his victims’ faces.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The town of Niobe sat on the West Virginia bank of the Ohio River. In the mornings after a long shift, Lea Regan liked to drink her coffee on the exterior stairs outside her apartment and watch the river make its solemn way southwest toward Cairo, Illinois, where it joined the Mississippi. It reminded her that the outside world was still waiting and that her two-year purgatory here in Niobe—self-inflicted though it might be—would be ending soon. One way or another.

  Lea bartended nights at the Toproll, the bar directly below her apartment, which she rented from her boss. So more often than not, “morning” was code for early afternoon. Last call was two a.m., so she usually didn’t crawl into bed until after four. At least it made for a short commute. She rested her coffee on the railing while she stretched and listened to her joints crack. Felt good but did nothing to loosen the golf ball–size knot between her shoulder blades.

  A barge tramping upstream toward Pittsburgh passed between the two towers of the old Niobe Bridge, which loomed out of the water like CGI effects in some end-of-the-world summer blockbuster. The center deck had collapsed spectacularly on the Fourth of July, 1977, sending cars and families tumbling into the river as fireworks lit up the night. The state legislature, in a decision that cemented Niobe’s declining stature, deemed the bridge too costly either to repair or demolish. So the spine of the bridge rusted amiably in the sunshine, the unacknowledged symbol of a town on the far side of its heyday.

  The citizens of Niobe had more or less adjusted to the inconvenience of driving north for an hour if they needed to cross into Ohio. But truth was, Ohio was an unfamiliar ambition for the many locals who lived within eyeshot of another state but never left West Virginia. Still, every so often, Lea caught Old Charlie, a fixture at the Toproll, in an expansive mood, and, for the price of a drink, he would recount the town’s history and rail against the black mark on their honor.

  It made her sad. She imagined that Niobe must have been a beautiful town once, but the money had moved on and left relics like the Niobe Bridge to remind people of their past. The people survived, if you could call it that, in hard-drinking bars like the Toproll, easing the pain of having been left behind as well. Most too young to remember the way things used to be but feeling their obsolescence deep in their bones like toxin absorbed from the groundwater. They were good people but quick to anger and held a grudge until it fossilized. In that way, she fit right in. In all other ways, she was an outsider and always would be if she spent the rest of her life in Niobe.

  She pulled the rubber band off yesterday’s mail and stood in the sunshine, sorting it. Mostly junk, but the magazine caught her attention. It was him. On the cover. That wasn’t right.

  “UNREPENTANT.”

  It was supposed to be only a short profile piece, not a cover story. At least that was what her source inside the prison had told her. Her heart lurched in her chest; Lea studied the photo of Charles Merrick, smiling proudly as if he were wearing a tuxedo instead of a prison jumpsuit. How did he manage to look smug? She tore the cover off, shredded it, and scattered Charles Merrick confetti out over the Toproll’s back parking lot. She had a bad feeling, and coffee suddenly didn’t sound nearly strong enough.

  Lea sat at the bar of the Toproll and read Merrick’s interview for the third time. She pushed the magazine away and reached for her beer, trying to decide what it meant. Merrick hadn’t admitted to anything—not straight out—but it was all there, between the lines. If you knew him well, it was impossible to miss. Insane—the only word for it. Others would read it and glean what she already knew. Three years of preparation, and she might already be dead in the water. Everything was predicated on her, and her alone, knowing Merrick’s secret. She wasn’t equipped to fight a war. And it would be a war. They’d be coming now, circling like vultures the day Charles Merrick walked out of Niobe Federal Prison. The hell with taking him quietly at the local airfield. He might not make it ten feet out of the prison gate. He had beaten her. Beaten her without knowing or trying.

  She texted Parker to set a meeting. A guard at the prison, Parker supposedly served as her eyes and ears. At least that was what she was paying him for, but getting blindsided by the full scope of Merrick’s interview made her reconsider Parker’s usefulness. Well, he was all she had, and she needed an update on Merrick so she could figure out what to do.

  What was she going to do now?

  Order another beer, to start. While she waited, she prodded her forgotten lunch with a fork until the fork got stuck. That’s what you got for ordering fettuccine Alfredo at a dive bar in West Virginia. That being said, it was far from the worst bar food she’d ever eaten and not even close to the worst bar she’d eaten it in. One of the drawbacks of not knowing how to boil water was you wound up eating too many meals in places like the Toproll. Even when it wasn’t your shift. Not that you could taste anything but the thick pall of cigarette smoke that hung in the air. There was no ban on smoking in West Virginia, and the citizens of Niobe took their smoking seriously. Only one p.m. and already it stung her eyes. After a shift, Lea changed clothes in the bathroom and tied them up in a garbage bag before heading back upstairs.

  “You know you’re not on the schedule until tonight,” Margo said from behind the bar. Margo was her boss and landlord, a potentially dangerous combination, but they’d made it work.

  Lea nodded.

  “Just think it’s kind of sad. I own the place, and even I don’t hang out here on my days off.”

  That was a lie, but Lea let it go. “If I’m the saddest thing you see today, consider it a good day.”

  Margo nodded at the truth of it. “Well, it’s your youth, babe. Just don’t turn out like Old Charlie there.”

  Old Charlie had been drinking at the Toproll back when it had still been Kelly’s Taproom. As the longest-tenured regular, he was treated with the lack of respect that such an accomplishment warranted. However, the position did come with its own barstool, a grace period after last call to order one more round, and the privilege of insulting Margo without Margo kicking his ass. Of those perks, it was definitely the latter that Old Charlie cherished most.

  “Up yours,” Old Charlie said without breaking eye contact with his mug of Budweiser or the shot of Jameson’s keeping it company.

  “Oh, hush up,” Margo said. “You know I love your old wrinkled ass.”

  “Then come here and kiss it,” Old Charlie said and belted back the shot.

  “Exhibit A,” Margo said. “Another beer?”

  Lea nodded and pushed her empty across the bar top.

  Margo had named the Toproll in honor of her first love, arm wrestling. Dozens of framed photographs of arm-wrestling greats decorated the walls: Duane “Tiny” Benedix, Moe Baker, Cleve Dean, John Brzenk. For years, Old Charlie and his cohorts had amused themselves by hanging a framed picture of Sylvester Stallone and seeing how long it took Margo to notice. When she finally did, Stallone wound up on the curb out front and the game began anew.

  Margo competed in the West Virginia women’s over-forty division. She’d been runner-up to the state champ two years running, something Lea found hard to imagine. Margo was an obsessive CrossFitter; she rose at five a.m. every morning to drive to a Box over in Charleston and had biceps thicker than Lea’s thigh. Her long blonde hair hung between her powerful shoulders in a thick Valkyrie braid. One time, Margo had demonstrate
d a toproll on Lea, and her fingers had ached for a week. Lea didn’t much want to meet the woman who could beat Margo.

  Lea couldn’t imagine Niobe without the Toproll. It was better attended than church, and Margo was the pastor of its thirsty congregation. The Toproll was Margo’s place, but if you asked her, she said it belonged to the bank. Then she’d smile, wink, and say, “But they’ve been nice enough to let me stay on until they find new management.” It was about 20 percent joke, 80 percent truth. Like a lot of businesses in Niobe, Toproll was barely hanging on.

  Lea decided to give the interview another read. Maybe she’d missed something. She adjusted her earbuds and clicked to the next song on Mule Variations. Tom Waits seemed tailor-made for West Virginia dive bars, although he’d have started a riot if she played him on the jukebox.

  “Whatcha reading?” asked a skinny white guy as he slid onto the stool next to her.

  Lea had been bartending at the Toproll for two years, and there weren’t ever new faces, but she didn’t recognize him. He was part of a group that had been drinking hard since before she’d arrived. He smelled stale, like a case of empty beer bottles, and a cigarette hung long from the corner of his mouth. It bounced as he talked. Not bad looking, all told: a young thirty or an old twenty-two. Chances were he was somewhere in the middle, like Lea herself. He wore a close-cut, sculpted beard that was clearly his pride and joy. On his head, a camouflage-style New York Yankees cap canted at a weird left-leaning angle. He’d been looking over at her for twenty minutes, trying to catch her eye, but like a fish that had been hooked once and released, Lea’s eye was very hard to catch. She turned the magazine enough so he could see.

  “Finance magazine,” he read aloud. “What’s it about?”

  “Finance,” she said and reopened the magazine to her page. She was fairly sure her body language was visible from space, but this guy was looking at her like she’d just put her hand between his legs.