Chapter 1

"Murder most foul, " the assistant district attorney shouted over and over during his closing arguments. It had to have been almost a year before I got fired. It wasn't until that last year that I lost interest in my cases. Obviously I had been a cop at the time.

The words were just theatrics to me until the night I witnessed a murder. I saw it up close and personal and it was pretty damned foul. The victim was sitting in the back seat of my cab. A year after leaving the police department, I was indeed driving a glorified cab. Glorified in that they called it an airport limo. In reality it was a black midsize Ford sedan. It would have been a compact car ten years earlier.

The fare smelled bad from the start. I picked him up at the overnight airport parking lot. One of those places where drivers leave their cars for a couple of days. Usually they take the shuttle to the airport but this one had other plans. "Take me to the overlook on highway 68."

"You mean the reservoir overlook?" I asked.

"Yeah I got a date," he replied. It was after 9 PM the place would be deserted. I figured he would be meeting a married woman there. I expected him to transfer himself and the small suitcase to her car and be gone. That would be the most likely scenario.

I expected that to happen right up until the man appeared from the woods. I saw him in the side mirror. At that point it took on the feeling of a drug deal, except the man walking toward my cab didn't have a bag of drugs. What he did have was something in his hand held close to his leg. He wasn't dressed in black but in dark clothing of some kind. At that point I knew that either my fare was gay or something was about to go terribly wrong.

What the man approaching didn't know, was that the glass isolating the rear seat of the cab from the drivers compartment was bullet proof. He also didn't know that shoved between the seat cushions of my cab was a .38 Colt three inch barreled wheel gun. He had no idea that he had been spotted by a man with a gun.

I could have rolled out of the cab at any time and confronted him, but I had a nice piece of bullet proof glass between us if I stayed in my seat. I could bend around and take a couple of shot at him from pretty close range.

Then he did the one things that changed the plan drastically. He approached from the passenger side of the car. He, by complete accident, had chosen to approach the cab in the worst place for me to get a shot off. In a stupid turn of fate the bullet proof glass was shielding him.

Before I could reposition myself he walked up and shot my passenger without saying a word. Then took a shot at me. I ducked of course even though the bullet bounced off the glass after cracking it. I rolled out of the cab on the driver's side leaving it between me and the assassin. I had only one advantage. He did not know I had a pistol.

He stood up to fire across the roof of the car. I was ready for him I shot first. I am no marksman by any means. Add to that the fact that I was terrified and it becomes a miracle that I shot him in the face. A 158 grain ball of burning hot metal entered his face just a little right of the nose. That is what the autopsy would say. He was dead before he realized his mistake.

I knew that I was going to be making the only phone calls from the overlook, so I wasn't in a great big hurry. I reached into the cab for the small piece of luggage. It wasn't even locked. Probably for an easy show and tell. I expected that a Drug deal had just turned into a rip off. It there were drugs in the bag they would be useless to me. I hoped for huge wads of cash.

It had been a long time since a fantasy came true for me. I guess I was due. The case contained a lot of cash. I didn't have time to count right then, but it was a lot. I knew that much.

Since I wasn't a cop anymore, I decided that I would apply an even older law than those I used to enforce. I decided that it was a clear cut case of 'finders keepers'.

My life was going to get complicated if I decided to keep the money. Oh what the hell, I thought, My life has always been complicated. Immediately my marital status came to mind. I had to laugh. I was standing over two dead men holding a bag of stolen money and my ex-wives came to mind. The bodies and the money paled in comparison to the trouble five ex wives can cause a man.

"Okay, if I am going to keep the money, I have to hide it." I knew for a fact that the area was going to be a crime scene real soon. I couldn't put off making that call much longer. I also could not disturb the crime scene anymore than I had already. I walked twenty five yards or so down a gravel path to the concrete overlook. When I arrive I stood in the spot where the front handrail and the side handrail came together. I knelt down, took a quick look around, then lowered the bag into the dark waters of the city reservoir.

I walked back to the car to make my report to the 911 operator. "911 emergency how my I help you?" the female voice asked.

"Dear God I think I killed him. Please send an ambulance and the police please."

"Is he breathing?" she asked calmly.

"No neither of them is breathing please send someone."

"Where are you sir?"

"I'm calling on a cell phone. I'm at the city reservoir overlook on 68. Please send someone."

"Just stay on the phone sir. I have an ambulance and police car on the way."

"Thank you." I said almost hysterically."

I hit the kill button on the phone. I put my gun on the hood of the Ford and waited for the ambulance and the cops.

"Burke what the hell happened here?" It was a woman much younger than my 48 years. Cops who have been on the department more than five years knew me. Even the younger ones knew of me. In my case it was not a good thing. I had been forced into retirement. They used my case at the academy to teach rookies what not to do.

Even though I was acquitted of criminal wrong doing, it was suggested that if I wanted to avoid a civil rights trial I should resign. One trial took all the money I had so resigning seemed like a good idea. I went out with twenty years service, not enough for a pension but I did get a nice big settlement. My retirement account and a few other things the department owed me. I would have wished for my good name restored but the department was playing politics with my life. I guess that is how I justified dropping the case full of money off the concrete walkway of the overlook.

"It's a hell of a mess is what it is," I replied.

"I can see that so what happened?"

I told her the story almost exactly as it happened. I did leave out the part about the bag being under water not 25 yards from where we stood.

"So the man on the ground just walked up and put a round into the head of the guy in the back seat. For no apparent reason."

"Yeah, I was surprised by the sound."

"Not so surprised that you couldn't manage to pull that nasty little .38 and pop the shooter."

"I had a pretty good idea that he was too cold to leave a witness. So yeah I busted a cap in his ass."

"Very poetic, but we call in homicide."

"Call it anything you want, it was a righteous shoot."

"Well that will be something new for you." She changed the subject after she saw the look on my face.

The female cop was joined by two detectives within minutes. They walked right up to me ignoring the patrolman. "So what happened Burke?"

I told the same story again. "I thought he was meeting some married woman to be honest," I said finally. I mean there was no luggage, no case of any kind. It just had 'cheating husband' written all over it

If the cops weren't buying my story they didn't let on. After the dead men were identified, they pretty much seemed happy to let the DA handle it. They were both known drug dealers so I guess my story sounded reasonable. I got cut loose after about three hours of interviews. One thing I learned while doing my time on the blue line was how to keep my mouth shut. Most suspects hang themselves because they think they need to fill the dead air. In other words they keep talking when they should just shut up. Lawyer up and you look guilty, shut up and you just look stupid.

The cab was a crime scene so I had no way home. I called the airport limo service. Eddie, one of the old timers, picked me up. I had to tell the story one more time. Again I left out the part about the money.

At 1AM I drove to the mall parking lot, a couple of miles from the overlook. I took a short cut through the woods behind the mall. The walk through the woods was only a mile and a half that way. I knew about the short cut because it was part of the bike trail. The trail started at a park about half a mile from the mall. It ran through the woods behind the mall, then on past the overlook. The trail ended in the next town about twenty miles away. I always swore that I would hike it all one day, but I usually walked no more than five miles. From the park then past the mall, past the overlook and on to the spot behind a local church. Then I turned around and went back.

That was not the plan that night. I walked from the mall parking lot because my car would not stand out there even at 1AM. Lots of out of town workers and college students parked their cars at the mall. Since the mall was experiencing hard times, they didn't mind the cars in the lot. It gave mall shoppers a false, but more favorable impression.

Even in the dark with no additional light, I was able to walk about three miles an hour. I was naked and in the water by 2:30 AM. I was back in my car, with only wet hair to make anyone suspicious, well before sunup. I transferred the wet money from the small piece of luggage into two pillow cases from my bed. I tied the tops closed with a piece of twine.

From the mall I drove out of the city. After about a fifteen minute drive. I stopped at a small shopping center in one of those rural bedroom communities. The shopping center had a 24 hour coin operated laundromat. I knew about it only because I had worked a few nights as a body guard for a lady whose husband liked to pound on her. I went with her to do her to do the laundry one night.

I fed two bucks worth of quarters into a commercial dryer and let the pillow cases tumble for almost an hour. They were hot as hell when I removed them. I was pretty sure the money would be dry enough to repackage by that time.

I knew two things for sure. The cops didn't know about the money yet, but the two dead men did. Not only did they know, but some of their friends most likely knew did as well. Just as soon as the cops gave all the details to the press, someone would notice that there was no mention of a bag full of money. About that time there would be a lot more interest in the old cab driver.

I wouldn't be hard to find at all. I wouldn't be for sure if I stayed put. I had no intention of staying put. I planned to get the hell out of town and to get so lost daylight would have a hard time finding me.

Number one thing to do, was something not to do. Forget about closing down the my present life. The thing for me to do was to just close the door to the apartment and walk away. The cops might figure out that I was on the run, or maybe not. They might think I was in the wind or they might think some one killed me and hidden the body. It had been known to happen to drug war witnesses. They might not suspect me of skipping with the money. If I was the cop working the case, I would sure as hell look at that possibility.

So I had to leave the money in my bank account alone. I had to toss the credit cards as well. I had a small balance on the only card I ever used. "After 12 years with never a late fee, they can take the bite on three hundred bucks," I said aloud. I couldn't owe more than that since I paid it off every month.

I needed to walk away from my car as well. I couldn't take anything from the apartment, I was going to need clothes and everything. Clothes could wait, the first thing I needed was transportation out of town. I could walk to the regional bus terminal from my downtown apartment. I figured to ride the commuter bus as far as the next town. Nobody kept records on those buses since it was public transportation. The only person who would see me who might be available later to interrogate would be the driver. He most likely was tired and would pay no attention to one more homeless man headed to a shelter somewhere."

If I bumped into anyone I knew, which was very unlikely, I could just go home and do it again tomorrow, I thought.

"Will that be all?" The young blond cashier at Wal-mart asked as he placed the large black backpack onto the counter.

"Could you put that in a bag for me please?" I asked it because I didn't want my neighbors to mention seeing me with a backpack. When I put it in the wind I wanted as little information as possible floating around about me.

Later that evening I stuffed the money into the backpack along with the receipt for the backpacks purchase. I took a deep breath and turned over a couple of chairs, then walked out the door. When I closed it my present life was over, a new one would be beginning. What kind of life was a mystery even to me.

I never wear a hat, but on the bus ride into the next town I wore one. I also wore glasses from the drugstore. I used them to read the newspaper at home. I was so vain that I never wore them when anyone else was around. I know a man my age should wear glasses to read the morning paper, but I look like a dork in glasses.

I looked like a balding dork when I climbed on the bus. Neither of those things fit me at all. I have all my own hair, and I am anything but a geek or a dork. Don't get me wrong if I were a geek I might not have needed to steal the money.

The bus stopped at the regional airport but I stayed in the rear with my nose buried in a book. I think I might have read the same page a hundred times before the bus stopped for the last time.

"Folks this is the end of the line. After this stop I turn the bus in for the night so everyone has to exit here."

Of the three towns that made up the regional transport area, it was the slightly larger one. Even so the terminal building was only slightly larger than the other terminals. The bus service went between the three towns stopping only in a few other places. Mostly parking lots and other mass transit sites were the only stops. The terminal where I left the buss that night was directly across the street from the larger town's train station.

There was a local train coming from Washington DC and headed to New Orleans with a thousand stops in between. It left an hour after I arrived at the bus terminal.

I used the hour to stop in a small diner two blocks from the bus station. It was even called the Greyhound Grill. It was one of those places where the burgers where filled with artery clogging grease and the tea was cold and sweet.

"What ya gonna have?" the over the hill waitress asked.

"Make it a burger with cole slaw and tomato please."

"How about fries?"

"Sure why not, and iced tea." The food took a while to make the short trip from the grill to my table. It was almost worth the wait but not quite. When it did arrive I almost did my usual to the burger but I caught myself at the last minute. Until I left town, I didn't want to call attention to myself in any way. I was close enough so that there might be questions asked of these folks by my hometown cops. So instead of taking the sandwich apart and eating everything but 3/4 of the bread, I ate it all as a sandwich. It was a good burger grease and all.

I was back at the train station ten minutes before the train arrived. I made a point of avoiding the other half dozen people waiting for the train. I chose that train because the station's ticket counter was closed before it arrived. On trains which arrive after the ticket window closes, the conductor takes the payments. Odds were very good that he would not remember a half naked coed let alone me.

Just my luck the conductor was not an old man but rather a man even younger than me. I paid my fare while keeping my nose in the book but not so much as to make the conductor remember me. On that night it was all about being completely forgettable. It was a night not to make a favorable impression or a negative one either. It was a night to be just plain boring as hell.

The train made terrible time. It stopped every thirty or forty miles it seemed, which made the ride seem to last forever. I got off the train in the middle of the night in a small Georgia town. Since my ticket was all the way to New Orleans, there was no record of me leaving the train.

I sat alone on the train platform waiting for morning. I still hadn't counted the money but I knew it was a lot. I was nervous waiting for the station to open. When it did open at 6AM, it was just for freight pickup by some local delivery service. I probably could have talked the station master into allowing me to put my back pack into a locker but I chose not to be noticed. I waited another hour until he opened the station to everyone.

The first thing I did was to find a locker for the backpack. After that I went in search of food. I was so hungry my stomach was rolling. I didn't bother to ask the station master for a recommendation. At the moment he was the weakest link in my escape plan.

I found my way to a diner about two blocks away. If I had known where it was, I could have reached it in half the time. The only indication that it was a restaurant was what appeared to be a very unprofessionally, hand painted sign on the window. The place did not start life as a diner for sure. It had the big windows of a jewelry store or maybe a ladies ready to wear store. It had been a diner long enough to have a dingy coat of grease on the walls. I found a table in a corner. I knew no one was looking for me yet, but it was good practice.

"Would you like the special?" the teenage black girl asked.

"What is the special?"

"Two eggs, bacon or sausage and grits for three dollars." Her diction was too good for a waitress. But I didn't want to know who she was bad enough to risk standing out.

"Sure with coffee and toast."

"Wouldn't you rather have biscuits. The price is the same and mama makes great biscuits."

"Okay then biscuits it is." I found out who she was without asking.

While I ate, I considered my next move. The town would have been fine for me to settle in for a while, except it was on the train route that I had used. It would be better for me to move on to another town. Somewhere having no ties to the railroad at all.

One of the good things about getting lost these days is that businesses have made it easy. It is good business to sell to illegal aliens. It is even better business to make it possible for them to do all the things a citizen does. He can't do them the same way, but he can do them.

No questions asked prepaid cell phones and credit cards make it possible to work on a cash basis leaving no trail behind. Lots of criminals have been doing it for years. It was time for one only slightly soiled old guy to give it a shot.

The food was very good just as the youngster had promised. I left the restaurant after paying my bill with a twenty, not one of the stolen hundreds. It was still not the time to be noticed. I began to wander around aimlessly. I considered buying a bus ticket or renting a car but both would leave a paper trail. I wanted the trail to end in the small Georgia town, even though it was unlikely that anyone could have followed me that far.

While I was walking around trying to decide on my next move, I noticed an old railroad hotel that had been converted to a downtown bed and breakfast. I would love to have stayed there to celebrate my new life, but alas they would want identification. I could come up with some given a little time but I was not willing to show anyone identification at the moment. It appeared that life on the run was going to be difficult for a while at least.

It was about nine in the morning when I stumbled onto something interesting. I saw a few motor scooters in the showroom window of what had once been a Chevrolet dealer. I could see the word Chevrolet even though the faded paint, which was meant to cover it. What caught my attention was not the bikes, it was more the sign.

50cc moped... 150mpg, ... no insurance ... no driver's license ... no registration. Prices start at $599 ... Now that was an interesting option. I could buy one and slip out of town leaving no trail behind me. No bus station ticket agent to ID me. I doubted seriously that any investigator would think that a man with a suitcase full of money would even consider a moped.

"Hi there you interested in that beauty?" the salesman asked. He was what is the stereotype of a used car salesman. He was even worse, he was one who had fallen on hard times.

"To be honest I was reading your sign outside. The idea of a hundred plus miles per gallon interest me for sure."

"To be honest Mr?" He waited for me to speak. I could have ignored him but I didn't want to stand out, remember.

"Abrams, Mike Abrams," I replied. I didn't think the real Mike would mind me borrowing his name. I had arrested him for murder a few years before. He was doing life without parole back in North Carolina. Yes, I had his social security number just in case.

"Well Mike to be honest those little things are toys. You have to have a license but the 150cc is about minimum to run with the traffic."

"Well to be honest it's the no license thing that appeals to me right now."

"Oh I see. In that case let's at least fix you up with a quality scooter."

"Actually, I kind of like the one over there that looks like a bicycle," I suggested.

"Ah you do have an eye for quality. That's to Tomos It's not cheap though. Not $599 for sure."

"Well how much is it?"

"1200 and a bargain at that." He replied in his best used car salesman voice. "But it is the most reliable and easiest to use of any moped we have. It's a four stroke no gas to mix and none of that weed eater sound."

"Well I like it but not that much," I replied.

"Would you take that one? It's been on the floor for a while. I can have the mechanic check it out and service it for you."

"When can you have it ready?"

"It will take a couple of hours to clear your check, so we can have it ready by say noon."

"So how much are you talking about?"

"How about a thousand plus tax, and the service?"

"How about a thousand including the tax and service. For that price I'll go to the bank and get cash."

"Okay leave me a deposit, so the boss will have Greg do the service and it will be ready to go by noon."

I handed him a hundred dollar bill. "I'll be back but let me tell you something. If the bike is not ready, I will walk away AFTER I get my hundred bucks back." I have him my best bad man stare. "Now it will be ready?"

"Yes it will be ready," he replied seriously.

"Make sure your man rides it, I don't want any surprises."

Two hours later, I entered the shop with the black backpack in my hands. "You must be Greg," I said to the man in the greasy blue uniform. He was standing under a huge fan. I quickly determined that there was no air conditioning in the shop of the old Chevy dealership.

"Yeah, you must be the man who bought the Tomos."

"Not quite yet, but I will be if you tell it won't blow up on me." I smiled at him as I spoke.

"It's good to go. At least as far as I can tell. It's about a year old but it hadn't ever been cranked till I started it a few minutes ago."

Greg wasn't a young man. He wasn't as old as me, but he still wasn't young. "Did you ride it?"

"Yeah I made a few adjustments to the running gear and greased everything good. You shouldn't have any trouble with it at all. The one year warranty starts today even if you find a problem."

"Will they honor that warranty, if I take it to my sister's place?"

"Get Eddie to give you a dealers list. Any dealer in the country will honor the warranty."

"Well I appreciate it. I guess I need to go pay for it."

"Yeah, I'm sure Eddie is biting his nails." He chuckled at the thought.

I had stopped in the men's room of the train station after I retrieved my bag. I took out fifteen one hundred dollar bills from the backpack. I thought surely that would be enough for the purchase.

"Hey there Mr. Abrams. I just need your address for the bill of sale."

"To be honest I'm just passing through. I used to live up in Virginia."

"It's just a formality. I can put your old address down if you like."

I made up an address in Arlington Va. I wasn't sure but it might have been an address from my murky memory. It could even have been the CIA or FBI street address. It took him about ten minutes to process the sale and collect his 1100 bucks. Yes they came up with something called a paper processing fee to charge me a hundred dollars. I really didn't mind, since I had expected something like it.

I rode the bike off into the afternoon sun. I rode around for a few minutes to get the feel for it. I had not been on a bicycle, or motorcycle in over ten years. It took me a while to pick it up again. In less than half and hour I was tooling along in a semi business area. I rode past the older family style motel before I decided to turn around and go back.

I checked into a room on the back of the motel. If anyone saw me arrive on a moped they sure as hell wouldn't be expecting me to have any cash at all, let alone a bag full. I paid the Middle Eastern clerk in cash, I paid for only one night and told her I would probably be leaving early the next morning. I used the same phony address as before. I did not give her a credit card number since I didn't have one to give.

I had six hundred bucks left from the bike and the walking around money in my pocket. I didn't bother to get more before I left the motel. I left the backpack behind the bathroom door. By that time the back pack had an old padlock lock on it. I didn't really expect it to be any deterrent at all. I guess even the useless lock made me feel better just like everyone else would. If I had known I would be staying in town, I would have kept the locker at the train station.

I got direction to the town's only discount store. It wasn't Wal-mart which was a bit of a shock. It was some homegrown version of it. I expected the prices to be a bit higher and they were by at least ten percent.

I had some specific things in mind. Clothes, a computer, a prepaid cell phone, and a prepaid credit card. I got the clothes and the prepaid phone and credit card but the little store did not carry computers. My purchases fit in the small storage compartment on the rear of the bike. Just those few items completely filled the small storage box.

On the way back to the motel I passed of all things an internet cafe of sorts. It was actually a coffee shop that offered rental of a computer along with a great cup of coffee. At least that was what the sign promised. I went inside the way too clean coffee shop.

The coffee was forgettable but they did have an old laptop they rented to me. I pulled up the map on yahoo without signing in. My old account was dead to me. I would need to setup a new one but not at that moment. I copied down directions for a fifty-five mile ride I planned to make the next day. The route kept me off the Interstate highways. I made my plans along older two lane roads. I hoped that I could do more, but I didn't plan to push it that first day.

I almost activated the cell phone but decided against it. I had no idea when I would need the phone, so I decided to wait until I settled somewhere. The next town would probably be only temporary, but I decided I would do an activation there. I did activate the credit card though. I used the new name and the phony address.

I left most of the coffee as I couldn't figure out how to carry it back to the motel. I stopped at a burger joint on the way and took the bag of burgers to the room. I was sure that they had a coke machine there so I decided not to try to deal with the burger shack coke.

After dinner I turned in for the night. I had used the lock the dealer included with the Tomos to chain it to a post. Being on the back side I didn't really expect anyone to notice it.

Before I left the next morning, I walked across the parking lot to a fast food restaurant that served breakfast. I tried to get enough calories in me so that I could skip lunch. It was my usual eating habit. The food wasn't bad for one of those plastic and cardboard places.

I left the motel for the last time around eight. My plan was to be at my next stop by two and then to find a place to spend the night. My final destination was a little over a hundred miles away, but I was in no hurry to get there. If I saw something I liked along the way I might even stay there. There was no real plan. I tried to keep the getaway just a series of random choices.

I double checked to make sure the bike was full of gasoline before I left. The gas tank was a bit over a gallon in capacity so I could easily make my next stop. At least that was the plan.