The Faded Midnight Train Ticket And The Missing Shipping Tycoon
CHAPTER 4: THE HANDCUFFS AT THE HEAD TABLE
Gerald Vance made it less than four yards across the dining room carpet.
Before his hand could reach the brass handle of the kitchen service door, Detective Cole’s partner, Detective Marcus Bell—a former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle turned senior homicide investigator—stepped through the pantry alcove, his broad frame completely filling the doorway.
Bell did not draw his weapon. He simply lowered his shoulder and drove it straight into Gerald’s chest.
The impact sounded like a car hitting an oak tree. Gerald let out a loud, breathless grunt as he rebounded off Bell’s chest, stumbling backward onto the Persian carpet, knocking over a silver champagne stand that crashed to the floor with a deafening clatter of ice and glass.
Before Gerald could scramble to his feet, Detective Cole was over him. Cole drove his knee hard into the small of Gerald’s back, pinning the thirty-eight-year-old executive flat against the floorboards. With two swift, practiced clicks of hardened stainless steel, Cole secured Gerald’s wrists behind his back with high-security handcuffs.
“Gerald Vance, you are under arrest for attempted murder, criminal conspiracy, aggravated domestic assault, and felony securities fraud,” Detective Cole recited, his voice completely calm as he hauled Gerald to his feet by his tuxedo collar.
Across the room, two uniformed officers moved in on Hugo Mercer. The heavyset vice president offered no resistance. He sat slumped in his dining chair, his head resting against the blood-stained tablecloth, sobbing into his hands as the handcuffs clicked around his fleshy wrists.
The room erupted into controlled chaos. Board members were whispering frantically, gathering their coats and slipping through the main foyer doors, while the club manager hovered by the wall, wringing his hands in sheer disbelief.
Detective Cole pushed Gerald up against the head table, right beside the easel holding Richard Vance’s oil portrait.
Irene Vance stepped forward. Slowly, with delicate, deliberate grace, she reached up to the gilded frame of her late husband’s portrait. She took the heavy black silk mourning sash between her fingers and gently pulled it free from the canvas. She let the black ribbon fall to the floor, where it pooled beside the overturned wine glass.
“Twelve years of mourning are finished tonight,” Irene said, looking directly into Gerald’s bloodshot, wild eyes. “You took your father’s name, Gerald. But tonight, you will inherit his cell.”
Gerald looked at his mother. The panic that had consumed him thirty seconds ago seemed to suddenly congeal into something cold, dark, and terribly mocking.
A bizarre, bloodless smile curled across Gerald’s lips. He let out a low, raspy chuckle that made the hairs on the back of Detective Cole’s neck stand straight.
“You think you won, don’t you, Mother?” Gerald whispered, his voice dripping with venomous amusement. “You think you brought Detective Cole in here to stage a triumphant third-act courthouse drama.”
“You are going to prison for the rest of your life, Gerald,” Irene replied, her voice unwavering. “There is no bail for what you did.”
“I don’t care about the prison, Mother,” Gerald sneered, leaning his face forward until he was inches from Irene’s ear. “Tell the police to find the body.”
Irene frowned, a sudden, cold tremor of doubt piercing her chest. “What did you say?”
Gerald’s smile widened, revealing his white teeth. “Check the county cold-case file on Detective Cole’s mobile terminal, Mother. Look at the coroner’s certificate from November 2014. There is no autopsy report. There are no dental matches. There is no body recovery photograph. Do you know why?”
Detective Cole’s hand tightened on Gerald’s arm. “Shut your mouth, Vance.”
“Tell her, Detective!” Gerald laughed, a manic, breathless sound that echoed off the walnut wainscoting. “Tell her what you found in the river twelve years ago! You found an empty Town Car with the driver’s window kicked out! The body you buried in the family plot at Allegheny Cemetery was an unidentified drowning victim pulled from the Ohio River three weeks later that Hugo paid the deputy coroner five thousand dollars to sign off on!”
Irene took a step back, her hand flying to her throat, her knuckles whitening around her pearl necklace. Her pale blue eyes turned to Detective Cole, wide with shock and awakening dread. “Thomas… is this true?”
Detective Cole looked at Irene, his weathered features tightening with deep, reluctant shame. “Irene… we never recovered Richard’s remains from the Monongahela. The river was at flood stage that week. Hugo Mercer made a positive identification on a decomposed body recovered downriver at Emsworth Lock. At the time, with Gerald and Hugo holding the signed proxies, the coroner accepted the identification.”
Gerald leaned toward Irene, his eyes blazing with cruel triumph.
“He didn’t drown, Mother,” Gerald whispered, his words striking Irene’s soul like an artillery shell. “Dad survived the jump. And he is still out there, waiting for you to find him.”
Detective Cole stared down at Gerald with the cold, unhurried disgust of a veteran cop who had pulled dozens of bodies from the Monongahela’s muddy currents. He had investigated three hundred industrial accidents, but he had never seen a son stand over his father’s memory with such unrepentant arrogance. Gerald had built an empire on a forged burial permit, counting on the cold water and the passage of time to rot away every trace of the truth. But homicide detectives had long memories, and rivers had a way of coughing up what was thrown into their depths.
