Chapter 1

"I really hadn't seen this coming! How could I have? Now what the hell do I do?" I thought to myself. "No witnesses! There weren't supposed to be any fucking witnesses!"

I had gone over the plan countless times in an effort to think of every possible way things might happen and had planned for every contingency; or so I had thought!

Maybe I'd better start from the beginning. I'm a thirty seven year old widower. My wife died a painful and drawn out death from ovarian cancer about four years ago. I was completely devastated by the whole thing. She was the best thing that had ever happened to me, my joy in life. Then she was gone. I'd grown up as an only child of parents who'd been only children. No brothers or sisters, no aunts and uncles, no cousins, and no living grandparents for me to call family. Not only that, but my parents had waited to have me until quite late in their lives and were now gone as well; Dad from a heart attack about seven years ago and Mom in an auto accident two years later. It had all happened so fast! First Dad died, then Sarah was diagnosed with cancer, then Mom died, and finally my poor wife's body gave in to the ravaging disease and she was gone.

I'd met the love of my life while working on my Masters degree. She was still in her undergrad program but we shared one class where we'd met. Things started off with 'lust at first sight', at least on my part, but steadily grew into a friendship based on mutual respect and appreciation. Sarah was a beautiful person inside and out until the day that cancer robbed her from me and the many others who'd learned to love her.

Her family had always treated me as one of their own and when she died that hadn't changed. In life she had loved me completely as I had loved her. In death she had given me a place in her family and that family helped me deal with her loss. Her brother Rob had been such a godsend during that first year. I couldn't have made it without him!

I remember one night in particular, about a year after she passed on, when I'd been drinking heavily to drown my sorrow; but the booze hadn't been enough and I was contemplating suicide for the first time in my life. I had a Glock loaded and ready, sitting on the table next to the bottle of Jack Daniels.

Rob had stopped by the house unexpectedly with a pizza he planned on sharing with me; I think he hoped I'd watch the football game and get my mind off of my problems for a while. When I opened the door Rob just stepped in with the Pizza and a bag with a few cold ones inside and headed towards the couch in the living room. He noticed the Glock right away of course. There was no way he could have missed seeing it sitting there on the coffee table.

"Hey! What are you thinking Mike?" Rob asked with a look I'd never really seen before. He looked angry, sad, hurt, and truly and mightily pissed all at the same time! "I already lost Sarah! It'd kill me to lose you to Mike!"

It'd taken me a while to work up the nerve to do this in the first place and now I realized that he was probably going to try and stop me. My eyes darted to the gun and then to Rob. I remember thinking he might grab the gun and stop me from going through with it; but instead he just sat down and began to do the last thing I ever thought I'd see the big guy do. The tears just poured out of his eyes like water from a faucet as he kept on saying "I miss her to Mike! I miss her so much!"

Knowing that I wasn't feeling the pain alone began a sort of healing inside of me at that moment; but it was his next words that really opened my eyes to how important I was to him and the rest of Sarah's family. Even to this day, when I think of Rob's words it chokes me up a bit. "Promise me Mike! Promise me that if you decide to pick up that gun and use it, that you'll put a bullet in my brain first so I won't know about it and so I won't have to tell mom, dad, Sally, and Becky that you're gone too!"

All this time I'd tried to hold the pain inside - to be the big 'strong' man that I thought people expected me to be; but seeing him there and hearing his sincere words seemed to open up the flood gates on my emotions and they all began to pour forth. We both were crying and sobbing openly about our deep and personal pain - the loss of a dear wife and sister. For the first time I really began to talk about my pain and Rob did to. We shared our grief together and found it a bit easier to bear. We told each other memories of good times with Sarah, shared stories of special times and reminisced about her smiling face and joyful spirit - and somehow I found that I was alive again!

I guess the closest thing I'd ever seen to the relationship that had grown between my brother-in-law and myself was the kind that some soldiers had with each other after saving each others lives during battle while risking their own to do so. That's the way I felt about Rob! He put it all on the line for me when I needed someone to rescue me.

Yup! I'd started to live again. I cleaned up my act and got back on track with my life as best I could. I quit the heavy drinking and focused on my work and the family that cared about me. I spent time with Rob and his wife Sally about three times a week going so far as to join the bowling league they were so fond of. Sarah's younger sister Becky was doing very well at her sports and was on the University's Soccer team. I went to every game I could fit into my schedule and cheered her on. Sarah's parents would usually save a seat for me and we'd talk about anything and everything.

But that was then. Things changed just over six weeks ago.

Rob made a pretty good living as a home appraiser. He liked the work and especially liked the fact he could largely set his own hours. Sally had her own interior decorator business she ran out of a separate studio near their house. Between his work and hers you could be sure that there would be a digital or video camera with them just about all of the time.

The pair went on a bit of a joy ride one Saturday evening after dinner. Rob wanted to drive Sally past a beautiful house he'd seen during the week. It was near one he'd been sent to appraise. The summer sun would still be giving light for another hour or two and Sally was quite intrigued by Rob's description of the property so she had agreed.

The home was in a very nice area of town with simply gorgeous landscaping just about everywhere you looked and Sally picked up the video camera and began shooting. At one point she asked Rob to stop the car. Sally got out and slowly panned the camera from left to right. She first taped the east side of the street and then the west. Satisfied, she hopped back into the car and they drove home. Anyone knowing the two and their interests in landscaping, architecture, and interior design would understand that this was normal behavior for them.

The very next morning the couple were enjoying an after breakfast cup of coffee while watching the morning news. The top story was the overnight assassination of Judge Thomas Mathers. The Judge's car had been booby trapped with a car bomb that had exploded when the man turned the key in the ignition. An enormous amount of explosives had been used on this hit - someone really didn't like the Judge that much!

When the on the scene news coverage began, Sally and Rob were watching intently. Car bombings and murders, particularly that of a judges, were almost never heard of in their part of the country and this was quite a sensational story! The images started with an extremely large crater in what was left of the driveway. The area around the crater had been blackened as well. Fire fighters were on the scene trying to douse the now burning home the car had been parked in front of. When the camera pulled back both Sally and Rob gasped. This was the same house that Rob had showed her the evening before!

They watched for a bit longer until the story was over and then switched the television off. Sally pulled out the tape from the day before and put it in the video player. She had rewound it the night before so now she had to fast forward past several of Rob's taped home tours until she reached the footage she had shot. As the camera panned past the Judge's home a man wearing overalls could be seen walking down the drive and out to the street. Later in the tape when the camera was capturing the other side of the picturesque street, the man's face appeared again as a van drove in front of the camera. The van had the name of a well known plumbing outfit painted on the side. It didn't really seem that unusual or anything the day before, but now both Sally and Rob wondered about it. Why wasn't the plumber's van parked in the driveway? How come the plumber wasn't carrying anything back to the van with him?

In one of those rare and freaky twists of fate it turned out that Rob and Sally had shown up at just the right time and place to capture the assassin on video tape leaving the scene of the crime.

Until now Dominick Torricelli hadn't found a Judge who didn't have a price at which he could be bought. Usually it was money, though occasionally other forms of persuasion had to be brought into play. With Judge Mathers the Mafia boss hadn't had any success at all. Money didn't work and there were no close relations he could threaten to harm. This wasn't South America where you could wipe out a judge without even causing a stir. If you did the job here, you'd better do it right and make certain that you covered your tracks well.

He'd been able to reach the D.A.'s office and from past experience knew that the man would stay bought; but taking out a judge was likely to bring heat from outside the county and most likely the Attorney General or even federal authorities would get involved. Not good!

To make matters worse Judge Mathers had a reputation as a hardnosed judicator who liked to throw the book at offenders and the Mafioso boss vowed that the particular offender in question would serve no time. Lawrence Torricelli was a chip off the old block and the apple of his father's eye. He listened to his father and did his best to make him proud. No. Larry wasn't going to do anytime just for getting a little to enthusiastic in dressing down one of the many bitches his pimps were running for him. She was just a little coke whore anyway, Dominick thought to himself remembering the way she'd thrown herself into the blowjob she'd given him for a single line of the magical white powder they'd used to control her.

Besides the fact that she was just another whore, the little bitch had actually refused to follow her pimp's instructions in full view of the other girls he was running. When "Larry the Lech", as he was known on the street, heard about the little sluts attitude, it made him furious not only with the lousy bitch but with the pimp as well.

"The cunts do not run the show!" he'd told the man with venom in his voice. "You run the show! You're the one with a dick swinging between your legs aren't you? Or did you somehow turn into a pussy yourself?"

When Larry beat a bitch he would sometimes get into it a little too much from Dominick's point of view; but hell - if you can't be passionate about your work what can you be passionate about? Larry's massive hand gripped the little bitch's neck a bit too hard as he fucked her ass till she bled. He'd been too busy mixing his cum with her blood to notice something as unimportant as whether she was still able to breathe.

No doubt the knowledge of what happened when you defied one of Larry's pimps would actually improve the obedience of the other girls; so now, Larry hadn't really done anything wrong. You have to keep discipline in the ranks.

It was only bad luck that this case had been scheduled to be heard in Judge Mather's courtroom. Apparently some little whore bitch of a police woman had given the Judge some information behind her captain's back. When the Torch's man went to try to buy off the Judge, Mather's had told him to tell his boss that Larry would do life for murder.

"No doubt, the man has balls! It's a shame he's too dumb to keep 'em," the Torch said when he heard the Judge's reply to his offer.

You didn't screw with Dominick Torricelli more than once. The mafia don's reputation was one of his biggest assets and he refused to let the Judge harm it. The Judge had thrown down the gauntlet from Dominick's point of view; it was only fair that he reap the reward.

The hit had gone down clean. The truck that had been used hadn't even been reported as stolen. The plumber happened to O.D. while partying with some of Larry's whores. The company he worked for wasn't connected to the mob boss in any way. They'd been really careful to make it look as if the man had been by himself when he overdosed. The truck was back at the man's house before his body had been found.

The explosives used for the hit on the Judge were purchased from the Russian Mafia through a cutout. The expense was more than justified since explosive experts would most likely be called in to investigate and the Russian C-4 variant would really throw the investigation a curve.

It had been a perfect hit! Except for one tiny little thing - somebody had videotaped the enforcer at the scene of the crime.

If only they had known! If they had understood that by taking their tape to the D.A.'s office they were signing their own death warrants Rob and Sally could have avoided the whole mess. When Rob called the D.A.'s office to schedule an appointment he of course had to give the assistant some idea of what his business with the D.A. was. Once Rob mentioned that he had information on the Mather's murder he was immediately transferred to the D.A.'s office.

The D.A. talked with Rob at some length and seemed very pleased to learn of the videotape's existence. "So you can actually see the man's face as he leaves the driveway?"

"Yes," Rob told him.

"And you can see him again as he drives away in the van?" the D.A. asked.

"Yes. It's very clear."

"Excellent! I'll be sending several of my assistants to your home within the hour. We'll need to get your statements and the tape of course. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention! Without this bit of information we might not have been able to bring this case to a successful conclusion. It's good people like you that make a difference in situations like this," the man told Rob.

Rob was happy to do his part and told the man so. It was only after he'd hung up the phone that something began to bother him a bit. Sally had been sitting in a nearby chair and had been trying to follow what was happening though she had only heard Rob's end of the phone conversation. Now she saw a puzzled look on his face.

"What's wrong Rob?"

"Maybe nothing. You were listening. Did I mention what kind of vehicle the man we caught on tape was riding in?" Rob asked.

"No. I'm pretty certain that you didn't."

"Did I say that he was dressed as a plumber?"

"No you didn't. What's all this about?"

"Somehow the D.A. knew both of those things and I don't remember telling him; but how could he know otherwise?" Rob wondered.

Suddenly Rob was gripped with a chilling thought. What if the D.A. knew about these things because he was somehow in on it?

"Sally please make a copy of the tape for me," he said with some urgency.

Sally moved to do as he asked while Rob went into his den and addressed a FEDEX envelope. Rob also took the time to write a hurried note and put it inside the envelope. Returning to the living room he took the tape that Sally handed to him and placed it inside the envelope.

"We need to get going right now honey," Rob told Sally as he gently guided her towards the door.

The two drove to the FEDEX drop off box nearest to their home and deposited the package in it. Rob hoped that he was wrong about the whole thing.

"At least now Mike will now if anything strange happens," he told Sally.

A few minutes after they pulled back into the house two men in a navy blue Tahoe pulled into their driveway. Both men were wearing suits and one was carrying a briefcase.

After stating that they had been sent by the D.A. and showing Rob their IDs before he'd even had a chance to ask, the two men had managed to ease Rob's concerns a bit and he invited them inside.

"Mr. and Mrs. Evans, I'd like your permission to tape your statement if that's alright with you."

"By all means."

The man pulled out a small tape recorder from his briefcase as well as a notepad and pen. He asked questions that Rob thought were right in line with an investigation and seemed all business. After he had finished interviewing them about what they had seen he reached forward and switched off the tape recorder.

"Okay. Now I know this will seem redundant and I'll apologize ahead of time for asking; but would both of you take a few minutes and fill out a statement? I know you've already told me these things but you have to remember that I work for the county government and we bureaucrats try to be as anal as possible!" he said with a grin as he handed them each a form and pen.

The interview had been just what Rob would have expected from the D.A.'s office and once the man handed him the forms he felt sure that this was legit. After all most every government employee he had ever met was just a bit anal like the man said.

"Excuse me a moment," the man who had remained largely silent during the interview now spoke. "Would you mind if I used your bathroom?"

"Not at all. It's right down the hallway on the left," Sally told him.

"Thanks."

The man did go down the hallway; but just after he was out of their sight he pulled out a digital camera and took a picture of the photos hanging in the hallway. Next he ducked into the little den and unlatched the window locks on both windows. Afterwards he actually did go to the bathroom and then return to the living room just as they were completing the paperwork.

"Alright then. If you could show us the tape I think that will just about wrap things up for now."

Sally picked up the remote, turned on the television, and started the tape. She had already wound it to the right spot.

"Oh yes! We should definitely be able to get an ID with images this clear. Listen I want to thank the both of you so much for providing us with this lead. It could mean the difference in solving this case," he told them.

I was just devastated the next day when I learned that there had been a gas leak and explosion in Rob and Sally's house. I was over at Rob's parents house trying to console them when the FEDEX man stopped by my house with a delivery; finding that no one was home he left a slip to let me know he'd dropped by. That night when I saw the slip I just took it inside and dropped it on the counter figuring I had more important things to worry about at the time.

With the funerals and other such business to attend to, it was more than a week later before I had time to think about the package again. I'd missed the FEDEX man enough times that he'd left a preprinted notice explaining how and where I could retrieve my package from the nearest FEDEX depot. I called the number and got the directions to the place. It wasn't too far from the grocery store and I hadn't been shopping for a while. I picked up a few things at the store and then stopped at the depot for the package.

R.A.E. Appraisals? At first the name didn't ring any bells; but when I looked at the address it all clicked into place. Robert Allen Evans. This was from Rob! I wondered what he would have sent me via FEDEX. Just seeing the name began to get me choked up. I quickly thanked the FEDEX clerk and just about ran back to my car. Once I was in the car I ripped the package open. Inside I found a note and a videotape. I began to read the note:

"Dear Mike,

I hope this is all paranoia on my part; but I'm a bit concerned that Sally and I have inadvertently gotten involved with something a little dangerous."

I couldn't read any further at the moment since the tears were obscuring my vision. Soon enough I pulled myself together and finished reading the note. What? They thought they might have caught Judge Mather's killer on videotape?

"Oh Rob! Yeah you really did step in it!" I thought.

Rob explained how the D.A. seemed to know specific details about what was on the tape without being told or having seen it and it made Rob just a bit frightened and unable to completely trust the man - so he sent a copy of the tape to me.

Shoving my emotions to the backburner so to speak I started the car and drove home as fast as I could without getting pulled over. I left the groceries in the car forgotten for the time being and loaded the tape into my VCR. It started in the middle of what must have been some of Rob's appraisal footage. I fast forwarded to the end of that and slowed things back to normal just as the next images started. I found myself looking at some street that Sally had taped. I could hear her voice pointing out a few of the various landscaping features she liked as well as making comments about one of the home's architecture. Then as she started with the other side of the street a van drove past. Shortly after that I was looking at blank tape.

I read Rob's note again. He mentioned a man dressed as a plumber and his van. He said the D.A. had known the man was dressed that way and driving a van without Rob ever having told him.

"That'd give me the willys to!" I thought. So how did the D.A. know?

Sarah and I had been married for about two years when we got the bad news about the cancer. We got married when she graduated with her four year degree. I already had finished my Masters the year before. It must have seemed odd to some of the girls her age when she took up with 'old guy' like me. I'd enlisted in the Army right after graduating high school and served two four year tours of duty before re-entering the civilian sector.

I was smart, aggressive, and intelligent. Both physically and mentally I had excelled at everything they'd sent my way. I was offered the opportunity to go to Ranger school and I jumped on it. I'd almost decided to make a career of it but my dad was starting to have some pretty severe health problems and I wanted to be there for him and my mom. Once my second tour ended I enrolled in the nearby University on the G.I. bill. I found that I was fascinated by computers and took to it like a duck to water. I moved through what was supposed to be four years of college in just over two earning a Bachelors degree in CompSci and a minor in accounting. When I decided to pursue a Masters degree in Forensic Criminology it just about blew everyone's minds.

I guess they were right to be a bit skeptical about the whole thing. Somehow I latched onto this crazy notion that I could be successful starting a detective type business investigating computer and financial crimes. That didn't materialize but I was able to get a pretty decent job working with computers designing really secure financial software for large financial institutions.

I never did end up looking or acting like the complete computer geek though. I kept up my physical conditioning and made regular visits to the firing range at my gun club.

They say the worst kind of mystery for a detective to solve is one that involves people close to him. At one time I had dreamed of being a sort of detective; but never with a case like this to deal with. Oh well! I guess I'll have to play the hand I've been dealt as best I can.

I had a lot of vacation time coming and although my boss was somewhat pissed when I told him I would be taking at least six weeks of it immediately I was pretty confident he'd get over it eventually. Both Sarah and I had life insurance policies naming the other as the beneficiary and when she died I had more than two hundred thousand dollars left after paying for the funeral and my share of the medical expenses. Having heard that real estate is almost always a good investment I used the money from the insurance settlement to pay off the mortgage on the house.

When you're a steadily employed middle aged man with home and cars paid for and earning a healthy six figure salary you generally can keep the bulk of your earnings growing quite well. Now it was time to use some of that rather large nest egg. I started by buying a fairly plain looking extended length blue panel van. The back end I outfitted with a cot on one side and a worktable and equipment rack on the other. Next on my list was some fairly expensive communications equipment that civilians aren't supposed to be able to get their hands on. I also purchased a rather large assortment of rather small spy gear: video cameras, laser microphones, miniature bugs, GPS trackers, and just about anything else I thought might help me gather the information I knew I'd need.

The D.A. turned out to be a lot easier to catch up to no good than I'd expected. He was using a wireless internet style router for his home computers and had failed to enable any of the security or encryption the device was capable of providing. The little router was hooked up to a cable internet modem and he always left his three computers up and running thinking that the act of "logging out" would protect him. I was able to capture his internet activity and discover the user id and password he logged into his bank account with.

Sure enough! He was in someone's pocket. You don't work for the county and have this much money sitting around in checking and savings accounts. I was also able to do a nice little reverse hack since the idiot used the same user id and password combination for his computer login. Once I got into his machine, I was able to locate an excel spreadsheet with account information for two different swiss bank accounts. Now what kind of District Attorney needs to keep money in offshore numbered accounts? A corrupt one of course!

Well now I had a starting point at least. During my surveillance of the schmuck I learned that he liked cigars, so I sent him a gift I was sure he wouldn't be able to ignore. It was a very expensive humidor with a built in hygrometer. I filled it with a variety of high end cigars. Of course, there was also a high end surveillance bug with a power booster built into the ensemble as well. I included a small thank you card upon which I had thanked him for "helping me with my recent video problem."

The messenger who delivered the humidor had barely got out of the building before the D.A. was punching a number on the keypad of his phone. I just love tone dialing. The bug was able to pickup the tones quite clearly and the digital software I was running the signal through identified each digit as soon as he pressed it. I was totally unprepared when he asked to speak to Mr. Torricelli! You didn't live in the area without hearing that name and a few associated rumors floating around.

Oh man Robert! You were right. You really did walk right into a mess. Now at this point a rational person would have stopped; but I wasn't feeling very rational at the moment and don't necessarily claim that label even now. What I was feeling was dangerously pissed at both Torricelli and the D.A. who thought it was okay to be on the payroll of the biggest mafia don around if rumors were true.

The D.A. thanked the don for his generosity and from the rest of the conversation I gathered that the don thought he was talking about the money he'd deposited into the Swiss accounts. "You earned it. It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

Well that was enough evidence for me. I wasn't out to convict the man; I was out for blood! The D.A.'s would be a good starting point. I intended to employ guerilla warfare tactics: Hit hard, hit when and where least expected, disappear without a trace, and do it over and over again.

There was no security at the parking garage for the county building. No cameras, no pass cards, and no guard. I pulled the van into a spot pretty close to the D.A.'s BMW, planted a bit of bait for him to find, and then waited. It seemed that he didn't expect a thing. Did the idiot think it was his birthday or something? Someone sends him close to a thousand dollars of cigars and related paraphernalia and now he just 'happens' to find two hundred dollar bills lying on the pavement next to his vehicle.

I took great joy shooting the tranquilizer dart into his big fat ass when he bent over to pick up the money.

That night was not a good one for the D.A. I knew what I had lost and I knew he had sold out and was partially responsible for taking it away from me. While he was out from the dart I drove to an old warehouse, opened the large sliding door, and pulled the van inside. After I'd slid the big door shut again I locked it up and went to check the other four doors.

About a week into my surveillance I had leased the warehouse under the name W. Mathers Industries and paid for it with a cashiers check delivered by courier. I was able to pull off the entire transaction without making a personal appearance. The keys were turned over to the courier who faithfully followed the instructions to send them in a small cardboard box by U.S. mail to a post office box. It was all pretty cloak and dagger; but I was trying to stay anonymous. The fact was that the post office box had belonged to Sally. I'd found the key for it in a desk when I'd had helped to sort through her paperwork. It was in her Maiden name oddly enough, though she'd obviously gone down to the post office to empty the box and to pay for its use.