Forty Acres: A Thriller Read online

  “Come on,” Glen said. “Don’t keep our benefactor waiting.”

  Martin picked up the phone. “Hey. Damon. What’s up?”

  “Martin, how are you? Hope you and your wife had a nice weekend.” Martin could hear the chatter and clatter of a restaurant in the background.

  “I did,” Martin replied. “And thanks again for Friday night. Anna and I had a great time.”

  “Listen,” Damon said, his voice changing. “I have a very strange question to ask you.”

  Martin paused. What the hell did he mean, “strange question”? Their relationship was too fresh for any strange questions. “Okay,” Martin said hesitantly.

  “Are you and Anna, by any chance, Stevie Wonder fans?”

  CHAPTER 17

  The following evening the Handyman sat in the front seat of a van parked across the street from Martin Grey’s house, watching. The Handyman wore a blue workman’s uniform with a photo name tag that identified him as Curtis Goins. The company patch on the sleeve of the Handyman’s uniform read Cable Com in sleek lettering. The same logo adorned the outside of the work van along with the cheesy slogan “We bring smiles into your life.” The entire facade was designed to render the Handyman invisible to the casual observer, as familiar as the corner streetlight or a mailbox. But if some henpecked husband dragging out the trash or some fat housewife out for a power walk did happen to take notice, all they would see was a cable guy goofing off. Those soft and clueless suburbanites would have no idea that they were in fact observing a man of rare talents, a true criminal artist.

  The Handyman checked his watch: 6:33 p.m. The limousine was late. True, it was only three minutes, but for the task at hand every single minute was crucial.

  The client had assured the Handyman that Martin and his wife would be out of their home for a minimum of three hours. For your typical garden-variety burglar three hours would be more than fine, but the Handyman was nothing like a typical burglar. In fact, the Handyman resented that vulgar term. He didn’t consider himself a burglar at all. Burglars smash doors and break windows, whereas he had mastered the delicate skills to pick any lock and disable all security systems. Burglars ransack homes. The Handyman meticulously searched every inch of the property and took the utmost care to leave no trace of the intrusion. Burglars haul away valuables like jewelry and electronics. The Handyman had no interest in that junk. What the Handyman was after was far more precious. Financial records, medical records, bills, receipts, credit cards, family photos, keys, even hair follicles and nail clippings to extract DNA. With an array of high-tech gadgetry the Handyman would scan, copy, download, or photograph every shred of personal information that he could find—and he made it his business to find it all. To work his magic usually took about two hours, but if something went wrong, like a hard drive crashing while being cloned, three hours could be cutting it close.

  Finally the limousine glided to a stop in front of the Greys’ house. The Handyman checked his watch again: 6:35. Five precious minutes wasted.

  The Handyman watched as the uniformed chauffeur hurried up the walk to the front door and rang the bell. A moment later Martin Grey and his wife, Anna, emerged. Martin was dressed in a suit and an open-neck shirt and Anna wore a clingy black dress. The Handyman recognized the couple from the photos emailed to him from the client. They looked like nice, honest people, and for all he knew they probably were. The Handyman had no idea why the client had targeted the Greys and he didn’t care to know. He was hired to do a job and that was all that was important. He just wanted them to hurry up and leave so that he could get started already.

  As the Handyman watched the Greys make their way to the limousine, something unexpected happened. Martin glanced across the street and stared directly at the Handyman. The Handyman just smiled and nodded. Martin simply returned the friendly gesture, then climbed into the limousine with his wife.

  The Handyman frowned at his watch: 6:37. Usually he’d wait until the occupants were gone for a full fifteen minutes before entering a home. That way if they forgot something, like their tickets or wallet, there wouldn’t be any surprise encounters. But the Handyman couldn’t wait that long. Too much time had been lost already. The Handyman applied pressure to a precise point on the driver’s side door panel, and a small hidden compartment sprang open.

  If the Greys did return early, he would make every attempt to conceal himself. He was under strict orders not to harm them. But if by some unfortunate chance his presence was discovered, he would have to take matters into his own hands.

  From the hidden compartment the Handyman removed a nine-millimeter handgun and a silencer. The steely aroma of gun oil stung his nostrils as he twisted the silencer into place.

  Throughout his eleven-year criminal career, the Handyman had never even come close to getting caught. He attributed this amazing streak to one rule that he lived by: no one could ever know what the Handyman looked like. Not the clients who hired him through phone calls and email and certainly not the victims. No one.

  The Handyman placed the silenced handgun in his toolbox, slapped on his Cable Com cap, then jumped out of the van and strolled across the street toward Martin Grey’s house.

  CHAPTER 18

  I hate to tell you this,” Martin said to Glen over his cell phone, “but you’re too late. We’re already on our way to the concert.”

  “Shit. I was hoping to catch you guys before you left. I gotta be in court at eight a.m. tomorrow. What am I going to do?”

  Martin and Anna were in the rear of the speeding limousine, riding in plush leather style. When Damon had extended an invitation to the Stevie Wonder concert, which included after-show drinks with the legend himself, Martin could not refuse. Damon even insisted on sending a limo, and in true Damon Darrell fashion, he spared no expense. The marble wet bar was fully stocked with only the best liquor and several bottles of chilled Cristal champagne. A silver platter of jumbo shrimp cocktail and another with a crystal dish of caviar were laid out for their noshing pleasure. A plasma-screen TV played Stevie Wonder music videos in crisp high-definition. Before Glen’s call had interrupted them, Martin and Anna were sipping Cristal and singing “My Cherie Amour” with their mouths full. Anna tried to get Martin to ignore the call, but when Martin saw Glen’s name on the caller ID, he felt a distinct pang of guilt. Here he was cruising around in a stretch limo while Glen was stuck back at the office preparing for a trial. Glen didn’t seem to care that, once again, Damon had excluded him. The promised opportunities to come from Martin’s association with Damon were enough to squelch any feelings of envy.

  Martin had assured Anna that he would get off the phone quickly, but when Martin heard the urgency in Glen’s voice, he feared that he had spoken too soon. Glen had a mini crisis on his hands.

  Two weeks ago, after doing some preliminary research, their paralegal Akiko had handed Glen a typed list of dockets that he should review to prepare for the trial. Glen stuck that list into a case folder but never had time to get to it again—until twenty minutes ago when he noticed that the list was missing. It didn’t take Glen long to figure out what had happened. He and Martin routinely exchanged duplicates of their case folders so that in case of an emergency each would be up to speed on the other’s work. But instead of giving Martin the duplicate folder, Glen had mistakenly given his partner the original—along with the only list of docket numbers. Not a major problem if the folder was inside Martin’s office, but it wasn’t. Two nights ago Martin had taken the folder home to go over at his leisure.

  “The folder’s right in my study,” Martin said. “If you had called just ten minutes earlier, I could have read you the numbers over the phone.”

  Glen groaned. “I don’t believe this.”

  “Did you call Akiko? Maybe she made another copy.”

  “I tried. Believe me. For some reason she’s not answering her phone.”

  “Did you look for the file on her computer?”

  “Come on. You know I can’t
find shit on her computer. I can’t even find shit on my own computer.”

  “Look, don’t panic. As soon as I get back home, I’ll just call you with the numbers.”

  “And that’ll be when? Midnight? One? Great! I’ll be up all night reading. I’ll be a zombie in court tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t know what else I can do.”

  “Couldn’t you just turn back real quick?”

  Martin groaned. “Glen, there has to be another solution. We’re already halfway there. We’ll be late if we turn back now.”

  The instant Anna heard the words “turn back,” her shoulders sagged.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Glen said. “I screwed up and I feel bad about it, I do—but Martin, you know how important this case is to the firm. Besides, what concert ever started on time? How late would you really be? I need you, partner. Please.”

  As irritated as Martin was, he also knew that Glen was right. The case was important. All their cases were important. Anna would just have to understand.

  But before Martin could tell Glen that he would turn the limousine around, he remembered something. Two years ago, while Martin and Anna spent a week in Charlotte with Anna’s mother, Glen did them a favor and checked in on the house a few times. Removed circulars from the doorstep, that sort of thing. “Wait a minute, don’t you still have the set of keys I gave you?” Martin said.

  There was a pause on the phone as Glen searched his memory. “Yeah! Yeah I do. But man, that was years ago. Do those keys still work?”

  “The front lock I know we changed, but I’m pretty sure the back door is the same.”

  “That’s great. What’s the alarm code?”

  “Two two three four.”

  “Two two three four. Got it. The file’s in your study, you said?”

  “Yeah. Should be right on my desk. Don’t forget to reset the alarm when you leave. Same code.”

  “Really sorry I bugged you. You and Anna have a good time.”

  The instant Martin snapped his phone shut, Anna grabbed it, shut it off, and jammed it into her handbag. “No more calls.”

  “Hold it. What if Glen has trouble getting into the house?”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “Please. How hard could it be to open a door?” Anna grabbed a bottle of Cristal and refilled Martin’s flute. Tiny bubbles swirled in the golden liquid. “Now quit worrying,” Anna said, sliding closer to Martin. “Your partner will be just fine.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The Handyman sat at Martin Grey’s desk waiting patiently as his Micron 1-terrabyte solid-state drive cloned the entire contents of a Dell XPS desktop at the amazing speed of one gigabyte per second. The SSD’s pulsating work light and the shimmer from the computer monitor painted the walls of the dark study with a ghostly glow. A progress bar on the monitor indicated that 64 percent of Martin’s computer had already been copied. In just ten more minutes, the Handyman estimated, his night’s work would be complete.

  Stealing the Greys’ information was turning out to be one of the easiest jobs that the Handyman had ever had. Their home security system was one of those popular brands that advertised on television incessantly. The consumer-grade alarm circuitry was so easy to disable that it was almost laughable. Defeating the front door locks was just as simple. All it took was the insertion of a specially cut bump key, a few taps with the handle of a screwdriver, and the tumblers clicked open with ease. While lock-picking tools left microscopic scratches on the keyhole, when executed correctly the use of a bump key was undetectable. The Handyman had used bump keys for years, but when the surprisingly simple technique popped up all over the Internet, he was certain that home owners everywhere would scramble to have their flawed locks replaced. But to the Handyman’s utter surprise, the scare never happened. Despite nightly news reports and magazine articles, the bump key secret had been widely ignored. It was rare when the Handyman encountered a door lock that he could not bump open in under ten seconds flat.

  Once he’d gained entrance, the search of the Grey residence also presented very little challenge for the Handyman. When it came to record keeping, the Handyman put his victims into three distinct categories: organized, disorganized, and paranoid. The disorganized victims, the biggest group by far, presented the most trouble for the Handyman because they tended to keep their records wherever they set them down last. Sometimes the Handyman would have to search a home for hours to find and duplicate all the documents he needed. The paranoids, because they squirreled their valuables in some secret location or secured them inside a home safe, always presented a significant challenge, but only at first. Once the Handyman found their loose floorboard or cracked their wall safe, all their documents were right there for the easy picking. The organized victims were the easiest by far. They kept their records in filing cabinets or in boxes, neatly labeled. Sometimes even in alphabetical order.

  Martin and his wife definitely fell into the organized category. It did not take the Handyman long to discover that a walk-in closet inside Martin’s study served as a kind of in-home records room. Stacks of cardboard boxes filled the rear of the four-by-four space. The boxes were each labeled with a year, the oldest being 1989, and every single one was jam-packed with old bills, bank statements, and receipts. Just inside the door of the closet stood two tall metal filing cabinets. These cabinets were of much more interest to the Handyman because they contained the Greys’ most recent documents. Martin’s filing system was excellent, making the Handyman’s job simplicity itself. In under an hour the entire contents of both filing cabinets were digitally duplicated and stored on a tiny flash drive in the Handyman’s hip pocket.

  Cloning the computers found in his victim’s homes was usually the most unpredictable and time-consuming part of the Handyman’s work. Besides the desktops and laptops that were used by the victims every day, many homes contained several older computers as well. These were obsolete machines stubbornly hoarded because the owners refused to discard an item that cost them a small fortune just a few years ago. To do a thorough job, the Handyman liked to clone every computer in a victim’s house. Older computers were usually slower or had faulty hard drives that required the installation of special software to coax their data free. Sometimes these computers also had passwords that had to be cracked, requiring even more precious time.

  The Handyman encountered none of these technological obstacles inside Martin Grey’s home. The Handyman found only three computers—a Dell desktop located in Martin’s study and two MacBook Pro notebooks in their bedroom. The MacBook decorated with an Apple rainbow sticker belonged to Anna, and the other belonged to Martin. Neither machine was password protected and they each took mere minutes to clone. Martin’s desktop was a different story. The Dell XPS did require a password to gain access, but with the use of a sniffer program that the Handyman wrote himself, he was able to decrypt Martin’s code in no time: LAWMAN. The Handyman almost laughed when Martin’s password flashed on the screen. His victims’ lack of imagination never ceased to amuse him.

  What brought the Handyman the most relief about the evening’s work was that neither Martin nor his wife had returned to the house—leaving him to complete his work in peace. Only twice had the Handyman been forced to kill his victims in order to make a clean escape. He didn’t like killing, but like everything else that he set his mind to, he was good at it. No, the Handyman liked it best when he was able to complete his work quickly and quietly, then vanish into the night as if he had never been there at all.

  The Handyman checked the hard drive’s progression bar again: 85 percent complete. Only five more minutes to go. Maybe he’d get back to his hotel room in time to catch his favorite television program, Crime 360. It was one of what seemed like a million cable shows that focused on police forensic techniques. What made Crime 360 stand out was its amazing level of detail. The very latest methods in crime scene analysis were exposed for the viewing public’s entertainment every Saturday night at nine p.m. The Handyman often wondered
if the producers of these shows ever worried that they were teaching crooks and murderers how to evade detection and prosecution. The Handyman, of course, was already well familiar with most of the techniques demonstrated on the show, but occasionally he did pick up a trick or two. Like the episode about—

  What sounded like a vehicle pulling into the driveway seized the Handyman’s attention. He grabbed his silenced handgun from the toolbox. The study was situated in the rear of the house with no view of the driveway, so he bolted into the living room and stalked to the nearest window.

  The Handyman inched back the curtain and peeked out.

  A blue Grand Cherokee crept to a stop in the driveway. The Handyman recognized the car. It belonged to Martin’s partner, Glen Grossman. The Handyman had already done a level-one investigation on Grossman for the same client. Level one was just a basic background check with one day of surveillance. The Handyman’s investigation of Martin began as a level one as well, until the client opted to upgrade the probe to the Handyman’s most invasive tier of service, level three.

  As the Handyman watched Grossman climb out of the SUV his mind raced. What the hell was Grossman doing here? Didn’t Grossman know that Martin wasn’t home? Then the Handyman saw something that answered his question. As the lawyer started across the lawn, he pocketed his car keys and pulled out another set of keys. Keys to Martin’s house. What else could they be? No, this wasn’t a casual visit where Grossman would be turned away by an unanswered doorbell. For whatever reason, Glen Grossman was about to let himself into Martin Grey’s house.

  CHAPTER 20

  The key ring that Martin had given Glen two years earlier held just three keys. The first two keys Glen tried on the rear door of Martin’s house did not turn the lock. The last key did the trick. Glen pulled open the door and stepped into Martin and Anna’s spacious kitchen. Soft moonlight through curtained windows glistened off chrome, marble, and tiles. Glen locked the door behind him, then reached for the security keypad to punch in the code—and froze. What Glen saw made no sense. The small LED screen on the keypad read Disarmed. Martin and Anna must have forgotten to set the alarm before they left. But that wasn’t like Martin. Not even close. Glen’s partner was a cross-all-his-Ts kinda guy. Glen couldn’t imagine Martin forgetting something as important as securing his home. The excitement of the concert must have really gotten to him.