Chapter 24: No, I Expect You to Die

October 12th, 1995, 4:40 PM MST, SeaGuard Trucking, LLC, Phoenix, AZ

John now knew with a distinct amount of certainty that the derailment of the Sunset Limited was accidentally planned and executed by Charlie Croker of SeaGuard Trucking. He had no truly distinct proof of it, but he didn’t need to convince a jury. His son had looked at the facts available to him and drew an outline of what had happened. Investigation of the puzzle pieces of the actual facts put together a picture that almost precisely fit that outline - with SeaGuard and Charlie Croker as the main actors.

All of the details pointed to the derailment being an intentional act accidentally targeting the wrong train. The right train existed, it was right behind it, and it was a juicy target for a major theft ring, indeed. Sitting right in Phoenix was a suspected mastermind who perpetuated well executed, beautifully planned, almost flawless robberies that were high in complexity and involved the use of semi-tractors. The proper set up for the Sunset Limited derailment involved exactly that, if they were targeting the cargo he thought they were targeting - which they certainly would have been.

Having this picture in his mind, without an absurd amount of investigation by somebody with the resources of the FBI, he would never be able to build a case against Croker’s organization beyond a reasonable doubt. They would need witnesses, testimony, forensic evidence, and so forth - most of which were probably obliterated beyond use by this point. But that was ok - he was convinced about 98% that he had found the right person. He would go with George and Jill and present his suspicion to Charlie Croker and base the final verdict on his reaction.

He didn’t think that Croker’s gang would be the violent sort of criminals. Armed with a large file of crimes they were suspected of, none of them used more than knives to force people around, and of the few people who directly interacted with the criminals, nobody had even been hurt. This was the kind of organization that operates primarily in the shadows; he was certain from a variety of further research that SeaGuard was in fact a legitimate trucking company.

He stopped by the hospital, and brought George and Jill out to the hallway. They in turn brought out Josh and Miguel. They walked into a bathroom together and closed the door, turning on the fan.

“I’m 98% sure I know who did it,” John told them, “This operation was almost certainly masterminded by a man named Charles Croker, who owns a trucking company known as SeaGuard Trucking. He was assisted by a crew most likely, but tracking them down would be difficult. I am fairly confident that his second in command at the trucking company, Mickey Mills, was also involved. All the puzzle pieces point to him, and there is little room for me to be wrong on this. Too many damned coincidences.”

“How dis stuff do yuh know, or what?” Josh asked.

“He is a known criminal operator involving these kinds of large scale crimes, although not provable,” John answered, “He has a former Southern Pacific guy who asks a lot of questions as his second in command. This job has a lot of the hallmarks of his work. Honestly my only doubt is that he screwed up; with over 30 such crimes to his suspected record, there hasn’t been even one screw up before.”

“That’s an impressive record,” Miguel said irritatedly.

“What is the plan for dealing with him?” George asked.

“I suggest we go there just before closing time, send one of us in to see him, spring the rest of us on him, and then simply tell him we know he did it. If he did it would become obvious pretty quickly,” John suggested.

“That sounds excellent to me,” Jill said, “Let me be the scout. They’d never suspect me.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” George said, “That works for me.”

“I want to come with you guys,” Miguel insisted, “I want to tear them limb from limb.”

“Out I wantcha tuh count me,” Josh said, “My blessin’ I give fawh dis meshugauss, but a part of it I will not be. A schlimazel I usually am, a keyn ayn hawheh I will not give yuh.”

“That’s ok, Josh,” Jill said, giving him a soft kiss on the cheek, “Our girl needs to be taken care of.”

The group left for the address John had for SeaGuard Trucking. It wasn’t an extravagant looking place. It was a ramshackle warehouse, looking used and beat up. It had dozens of loading docks, and a fleet of old trucks, mostly Mack R-series, parked against one of the fences. There were only a few cars in the parking lot, one of them a somewhat new Audi 200. There was an office style entrance on one side of the building, so that is how John directed them to get into the building, after giving the taxi driver a picture of Benjamin Franklin as an incentive to stay in the parking lot.

Jill went in the door confidently, finding a middle-aged secretary sitting behind a desk, with the name plate reading “Janice Brown” and “Secretary.” She seemed like a nice enough lady.

“I’m here to talk to Charlie Croker,” Jill told the secretary, “It’s quite urgent.”

“What do you want to talk to him about?” Janice replied a bit suspiciously.

“Its really kind of private,” Jill told her, looking bashful and shy, “I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to tell you about it.”

“Hold on one second, dear,” Janice said, and then pressed the intercom button, “Mr. Croker, there’s a girl here to see you.”

“A girl?” a rough and tired voice responded over the intercom, “Send her in.”

Janice pressed the intercom button and responded, “Right away, sir, also I am leaving for the day.”

What a spot of luck! Jill thought, She’s leaving, and there’s only two other cars here. We should have these pricks to ourselves!

“Go ahead, Janice,” the voice over the intercom croaked.

Janice indicated her towards a door marked “Private”, and she just walked through it into the plain and somewhat tired office, which did not fit Jill’s personal idea of the headquarters of some kind of master criminal. She walked in a way calculated to make the men drool, showing off her well displayed assets. She could see this effect on them; she wanted to have them completely off guard.

“Which one of you is Charlie Croker?” Jill asked radiating innocent sweetness.

“I am, kid,” the harried middle aged balding man behind the desk said, “What can I do for you?”

“My name’s Jillian McGee,” she dripped with the honey of innocence, “And I like riding trains.”

“You like riding trains?” the other man, also middle aged and harried looking, but less bald, asked her.

“So does my boyfriend,” she let the honey turn into vinegar as she spoke, “And my dear friend Josh, and also my best friend, Akilah, who is in the hospital because you derailed the Sunset Limited.”

Janice must have left because Miguel came in behind her and picked up right where she stopped, “And I am Miguel Rodrigo Abaca, and my girlfriend Sharon is also in the hospital, and doesn’t even remember who the fuck I am for the same reason, cabrón.”

George and John followed in behind him, and stood there just looking menacing.

“Who the fuck are you two?” Charlie asked.

“I’m John Caldwell,” John said, “And this is my son George.”

“George is my boyfriend,” Jill laughed, “If you were wondering. We came to talk to you about the derailment.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Charlie asked, “Tell you I derailed this train?”

“Oh no, Mr. Croker,” George said with an eerie calm, “I expect you to die.”

In that moment, the man standing in front of Charlie sprang for George. George grabbed his extended right hand while stepping to his left, using the body momentum of the man to twist his arm right around his back. The arm broke with a huge snap as its owner fell hard on the floor, having totally lost his balance when George was no longer there to tackle. George found a roll of shipping tape on the secretary’s desk, and quickly bound the man’s wrists behind his back with it. With every move, the man winced and screamed in pain from the broken arm.

“This is Mickey Mills, I assume,” John asked with cold politeness, “Don’t reach for your drawer, just come out from behind the desk, Mr. Croker.”

“Yes,” Charlie responded, complying carefully with the request, “This is Mickey Mills. You aren’t police?”

“Nope,” Jill said, “We’re a lot worse than that, handsome. We’re pissed off New Yorkers. Well, everyone but Miguel here, but he’s a pissed off Mexican, so that’s not much of an improvement.”

“I am complying with you because I can see you are pissed off,” Charlie said, “But I am not sure why you think I have anything to do with the train wreck.”

Jill walked up to him, smiling sweetly, and then backhanded him across the face with a bullwhip of a slap. The amethyst and gold ring George had given her a few months ago made a jagged and bleeding cut on his cheek.

“Say you had nothing to do with it,” Jill needled him, “One more time. Please.”

“Ok,” Croker said, “I steal shit, kid, but why the fuck would I derail the goddamned Sunset Limited!? I’m a thief, kid, there is no money in derailing a train and killing people.”

This time she slapped him front-hand, and then swung backhand for a second pass. Another cut, more blood.

“Jill, that’s enough,” George said, walking in front of Croker, “You weren’t trying to derail the Sunset Limited, I believe you about that.”

“Ok, then, can I please get up now?”

George grabbed his hand started crushing it laterally. “You weren’t trying to derail the Sunset, Croker, you were trying to derail Southern Pacific’s Hot Shot 162 so you could steal about $20 million worth of piggy back trailers loaded with new computers, and you fucked up royally. Tell me I’m wrong.” He squeezed a bit more for emphasis.

As he spoke, the color drained from Croker’s face.

“How the fuck do you know that?” Croker ejaculated, before he realized he had just admitted it.

“Once you remove the impossible,” George quoted Sherlock Holmes, “Whatever remains, however improbable, must be true. Somebody derailing a freight train like this is somewhat improbable, but frankly somebody derailing the Sunset Limited for terrorist purposes on a 35mph stretch of shitty track when it is three days late is simply impossible. Once we knew we were looking for a thief, you were as obvious as a thumb at a finger convention.”

“You almost killed me and my boyfriend,” Jill said, “You injured and almost killed my best friend and her fiancé. You thrust a nice woman and her family who are friends of ours into a rotten position. Give me one god damned reason, honey, why I shouldn’t kill you!”

“You can’t prove I did any of this!”

“Mr. Croker,” John said, “I think we have already established that we aren’t the police. Why do you think we need proof?”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Millsy squealed, writhing in pain, “It was that idiot Lenny’s idea to derail the train, he swore to us there would never be a passenger train at the same time as the job. If we knew we would never have even considered this job, you gotta believe us.”

“Millsy, shut the fuck up,” Croker ground out.

“You don’t want him to shut up,” Miguel said, “Tell me more, Mills, who the fucking duck is Lenny?”

“He was the one who showed us how to derail the train,” Croker said, “He was the one familiar with railroad procedure, he convinced us six ways to Sunday that it was impossible to derail the Sunset. When we realized it was the wrong train, we tried to stop the whole operation, it was just too late.”

For some reason, his words rang true. The truth was that actually killing Croker had not really been the plan. They wanted to scare him into turning himself in. If he had derailed their train on purpose, killing him would have made sense, but it was an accident. Now they were getting the idea that maybe the accident wasn’t really Croker’s fault.

“Tell me more about this Lenny,” George said calmly, “Where can I find this prick?”

“I’ve got him locked up in my strong room,” Croker told him, “I can take you to him.”

George pulled out a large knife, and opened it, “Lead the way, Croker, lead the way.”

Lenny was pacing back and forth. He didn’t understand why they weren’t just giving him the money and letting him go. He was hungry as hell, he hadn’t eaten since the night of the botched robbery. Those fools had derailed the wrong fucking train. There were only two trains on the line that day, and they derailed the wrong fucking one. What kind of idiots was he dealing with?

They also had the gall to try to get away without paying him, and what was worse, they had locked him in this room without food or water for days and he was hungry and thirsty. He was going to demand more money from them. Hell, perhaps he’d even blackmail them. He knew what they were trying to do with the train. He could force them to pay him to remain silent.

The door opened, and Lenny charged straight at it. George thrust out his arm straight in front of him, and the ball of his fist landed straight in the chest of the charging Lenny, who promptly fell back on to the floor fighting for air.

“Going somewhere, Lenny?” George asked, “I was just about to ask you why I shouldn’t kill you.”

“You don’t want to kill me,” Lenny said, “I can make you a very rich man.”

“He’s already a very rich man,” John said, “ Do you have a better reason why we shouldn’t kill you?”

“Why would you want to kill me anyway?” Lenny asked, “I’m just a retired railroad worker.”

George, Jill, and John looked at each other. This guy was almost surreal. He was unpleasant and hateful, but he was also a complete idiot, and very disconnected with reality.

“When did you find out that the Sunset Limited was three days late?” George asked him matter-of-factly.

“I kept an eye on it,” Lenny said, “It wasn’t exactly important.”

“You knew?“ Charlie hissed, “You knew that the Amtrak was going to be close to the freight train we were planning to catastrophically derail?”

“Of course I knew,” Lenny said, “It wasn’t exactly important.”

“We would have aborted!“ Charlie screamed, “Are you fucking stupid? It would have been a minor unsolved robbery and property damage case, now the entire Efff Beee Fucking Eye are after all of us.”

“Exactly,” Lenny said, “The FBI are after you, and I am going to tell them who did it.”

“For conversations sake,” Jill asked with exaggerated calmness and innocence, “Can I ask you a silly question?”

“Sure, honey,” Lenny replied, “Anybody as sexy as you can ask me whatever they want.”

“Are you, like, grounded in reality?” Jill asked, ignoring his commentary, “I mean, you do realize you are locked in a, like, vault with several people whose lives you messed up, some of whom have no real qualms about killing you, right? So like, hypothetically speaking, if I was to like kill you, do you think you could still go to the FBI and tell them anything?”

“Charlie doesn’t have the balls to kill anyone,” Lenny said, “So I’m not really worried about it.”

“You are right, sir,” John told him, “Charlie does not have the balls to kill you. Are you not aware he is not the only person in the room?”

“Listen, buddy,” Miguel said to him, “My girlfriend is lying in a hospital bed, not even able to remember my fucking name, and the main reason is you didn’t tell your cohorts that their plan had a good chance of going terribly wrong!”

“Who cares?” Lenny said, “She’s not important.”

Before the others could stop him, Miguel shoved Lenny against the wall, and then slammed his forearm really hard against his neck. There was a slight popping noise, and Lenny started making a choking noise. George and John quickly grabbed Miguel and pulled him off of Lenny.

Disengaged from their anger, all three men stood in horror as Lenny did not start to catch his breath. Jill looked at him with quiet detachment, while Charlie stood there in something approaching shock.

“I think you crushed his windpipe, Miguel,” Jill said emotionlessly.

A few moments later, Lenny collapsed to the ground, quite dead.

October 12th, 1995, 5:30 PM MST, Holiday Inn & Suites, Phoenix, AZ

Laying on their bed together, Akilah and Josh were worn out and very sleepy. They didn’t feel like eating, and their bodies were worn out from so much lovemaking. Obviously another baby was not in the offing for this cycle, but they had needed to prove to each other that no matter what, they had each other. Josh needed to prove to Akilah that he still found her unimaginably desirable, and he had done that. She had needed to prove to him that she was ready to try again for a child, and she had done that.

They were that delightful kind of sore that comes from overexertion at something you really enjoy doing, and now they were in the shimmering afterglow. It was a roller coaster ride for them, and they were appreciating that, after the brunt of it was over, they were still together and still very much in love. They still didn’t understand the others attraction, but they became increasingly aware of it.

“Josh, I need to tell you something important,” Akilah said, “It is very important to me that you understand this.”

“If impawhtant it is, de careful listenin’ I will do, Acky-luh,” Josh purred.

“For this I am thankful,” she said, “I need you to know that I do not care about what happened on the train. I do not care who did it, and I do not want you to be consumed with hatred for the person who did it. I lived in a world where people did terrible things because they hated, and then the other side would retaliate with equally terrible things because they hated back. It was always the same thing, back and forth, retaliation and reprisals. It was always this back and forth. Let us forgive them and put this behind us. I am ok, you are ok, and we will have another child, at a more convenient time. Can you please let this go, Joshua?”

“Fawh me dis is hard, Acky,” Josh said, “Destroy dem I wanna!”

“Please understand me clearly,” Akilah said, “I want them to be destroyed, also. But I do not want to have them destroyed at the expense of destroying you, or destroying us. Overcoming this desire with forgiveness is the price we will have to pay to make sure this does not happen.”