Chapter XXIII

ane took charge of the situation and said hold up.  "Explain to us the sequence of events" he said.  He's already gone, we need to figure out in what direction he will go.  I think he has been programmed to know something only Mason Ludlow knew.  And with some notes I'm dredging up of my own, I think Russell Adams knew it too."

"It all points to the Kingpin.  And, I think the Kingpin is the one who iced Mason or who ordered the hit.  And, with the information the Chief brought this afternoon concerning Nancy Wilhelm, I think there is another connection.  It is evident she had been visiting the Kingpin as well."

"Look here, here's something else Lane."   Len said.  It looks like either a plot number or a plan number.  Could that be the plot of ground on which the Mayors mansion is built?  He was pointing at some notes scribbled like what one will do when talking on the phone.

"Okay, let's do this" the Chief Williams said.  "I've some more papers and things I can look through which were in Mason Ludlow's office.  I'll head back there and check through those.  I'll also call Victor and update him.  Then she started laying down a plan.

Lane, you see what you can find in your notes.  Len, head down to the Building Department and drag one of those lazy bums out of bed and get him down there.  Melinda, go see if you can find any information on when the Stillwell Lady belonging to Strickland Deep Sea Fisheries is set to sail."

"Sharon, as soon as you can, get to the hospital and learn what you can.  I'd like to know how a person in the shape of William can just walk out of a place like that.  It was pretty stupid to leave William untethered.  I think something is going to happen and it will be tonight.  We have to locate William before he does something, or something happens to him."

They put more than enough money for the meal and the tip and all got up and hastened out the door.  Melinda would drop Sharon back by the hospital to retrieve her vehicle and any details she could gather concerning the disappearance of William.  Then, she was to meet the Team back at Lanes office.

Dropped off close to the entrance of the hospital, Sharon disappeared through the revolving door in short order.  She hit the nurses station and collared the nurse that was in charge of William.  She immediately went into defensive mode and stated "Sharon, I'm sorry.  But he had a visitor, a middle-aged gentleman in a uniform, well it was more like a suit, but anyway, he came in and saw William."

I looked in to check on him, and William was sitting up in the bed with that same stare.  I don't know if the visitor had set him up, or, if William sat up on his own or perhaps a command.  When I checked again, the visitor was gone and William was lying down on the bed again staring straight up.  I turned the light down low and went to check another patient.  In less than twenty minutes, I checked on him again on the way back through, and he was gone."

"No one saw him leave, and no alarm sounded when he passed from his ward to the hall, and no alarm sounded when he passed between stations nor when he exited the building.  I believe who ever it was that visited him was the one who arranged his escape."

"I do know the man who came in was carrying a Bible case so I figured he was Clergy.  But that's all I have.  I'm sorry I have no more."

Later when she reached Lanes office she related the story to the Team, Lane said "I'd be willing to bet there was a firearm in that Bible case.  I think he may have been re-activated, so he will be following the plan of action again.  But who would be after the Kingpin at this point in the game?"

"Oh, hello Victor."  Sharon said as she stood to give him a hug.  The whole ring had gotten very close in the last few weeks.

"What's the latest?" he asked while pouring himself a cup of coffee.  Then "I have an odd bit of interesting news, but I don't understand how it fits in as of yet, or if it fits.  Sharon, I didn't hear how William got out of the hospital."  Sharon explained the story she was given a second time.

Victor sat wistfully considering what she had just reiterated.  "Hmmm.  It fits . . ." he said to himself more than to anyone else.

"OK Victor, spill it" Lane said in a jolly way.  "You are keeping us on pins and needles."

"Oh, I'm sorry.  I'm still trying to stitch together a piece of information that floated across my desk this morning.  At first, I just cast it aside as being just unrelated spillover.  Then a thought hit me.  It could be part of the feud."

Sharon knew a little of the feud but figured it was all over after nearly eighty years of time.  What she didn't know was that the one who had suffered the very most wanted the whole mess stopped and over with.  But then, that couldn't be the Kingpin.  She shook her head to clear it, but mostly to refute it.

Lane just sat looking at the document.  Even though the deed had been done legally, it still placed an intense amount of friction on the whole issue of the feud.  He, his sister, Victor and Walter had been ousted from the family at a young age and pretty much left to raise themselves.  A man and lady who helped them a lot although they were poor themselves, was Handel and Anna (Strickland) Waterbury.

Handel lost his own boat in later years after the ship on which their son Axel sailed disappeared at sea.  But they were good hearted people and helped the four siblings all they could.  Because of being thrown out of their mothers presence, they had very little to do with her, and barely knew she was still alive.  None of the four figured there would ever be any inheritance for them.

But, there was one who did know of the inheritance, and it was a very substantial amount for each.  But the rivalry of all those years finally came back home, and it was the one person who was willing to give all to kill that rivalry.  And that lady was Doris Strickland.

Lane considered the matter.  He had worked for Mrs. Strickland a little bit over the years, but had never called her anything but that; Mrs. Strickland even though she was his own mother.  The years and the circumstances would and could not bring Lane to consider her mother ever again.  Even though he had received a letter several years later explaining things, the children felt betrayed, abandoned and cut off.

Out of the forty plus years since their being cast out of the house, they'd only gotten less than a half a dozen contacts from her, and then only pieces of mail.  The last one was a plea, but only one child got it, and that was Walter.  He had placed it aside thinking it strange he was the only one who got the letter, and eventually forgot about it.  It was the only letter that managed to get through.  All the others had been deliberately destroyed.

One thing Doris did, she kept very smart people in her bookkeeping and financial departments.  So her fortune had grown, and she was the wealthiest person within two hundred miles.  She had people that kept up on all the happenings of the city, and was probably in the know of the goings on in Stillwell Creek more than any other person.  That is, except one person: The Kingpin

None of the four children cast away from her ever asked for a dime or help from her in any way.  Although she was aware of weddings, births, birthdays, deaths and the like, she was never a part of any of the four childrens' lives, but she dearly longed for same.  As they married and moved away, they became further detached from two who still lived in Stillwell Creek that they claimed; Lane Wardlow and Walter Bension.

Over the years fewer and fewer people knew of the connections between the two as well as the connections to Doris and the two.  Sharon had not known until she learned of the deaths of Lanes wife and his daughter on the list from the coroner.  When questioned, Lane said there were two possibilities of which he knew for their murders, and one of them was when Walter and Lane went against Roger Strickland in a disagreement.

The other, which Lane changed to believe, and only recently, and only because he found out years after the fact, was that Mason Ludlow, Mayor at that time, was running around on Lanes daughter, Layan.  Lanes wife flounced Mason three times.  The first time he just shrugged it off.  It was a meeting that was seen from a distance, but it was plain to see she was very angry with him.

Embarrassed, he just turned and walked away.  The second time he got into her face and warned her to leave him alone or she would be sorry.  The abuse and infidelity against Layan by Mason not only continued, but increased.  Brenda Sue, Layans' mother, wife to Lane caught him a third time and threatened to have him killed if he didn't divorce Layan.  Brenda Sue Wardlow was one steaming mad motherbear.

Within a week she disappeared while Lane was out of town for two weeks  A conversation they had over the phone about it was short and Brenda Sue told Lane she had a very serious problem that had to be taken care of as soon as he got home.  As it was, she never told Lane the story of what was going on.  And it would be years before anyone ever learned what happened.  Lane investigated, paid investigators, even got the FBI involved, but the protection provided by the Kingpin proved too great to overcome.

And then, Lanes daughter, Layan Ludlow, the second of the Mayors wives, came up missing.  His first wife, Betty Ann, had left him and run off . . . or so the story went.  That story was quite similar to the story that surfaced about a week after she went missing by a man who had been in town for less than two weeks.  He conveniently disappeared after the story was related.  He claimed he was at the Stillwell Cafe and saw Layan out back talking to some man in a blue pickup truck.  They were being very friendly with each other, and finally they got in the truck together and drove away.

Gone.  Just gone.  Very convenient for the Mayor.  At least until the Team came down on the Russell Adams residence.  Then the questions came in by the boatload of why three of the Mayors wives were found in the Adams house along with Mrs. Wardlows' corpse.  There still was not enough evidence to arrest Mason.

His answer?  He suspected Russell Adams from the get-go, and would be getting an investigator on the find right away.  But there was never enough evidence to prove that.

Sharon was still learning history of her past.  She had not known who her grandmother was.  But she was well known by her grandmother.  Doris knew all about her marriage, and, all the troubles William had gone through.  She knew more about who he was and more details about the whole situation than anyone else.  She also knew who the Kingpin was, and she was also trying to destroy him, but at the same time, attempting to make sure she was completely out of the picture.

The problem was, the Kingpin knew who she was, and the rivalry between her and him was just as high as it was between him and Lane.  Lane intermittently suspected the Kingpin was a nephew.  Lanes' belief changed back and forth as new details came in.  But with his suspicions wavering back and forth of the identity of the Kingpin, he could bring no charges.

But Doris knew him, and knew what he was, and wanted him stopped.  And, the Kingpin wanted her out of the picture as well.  And he wanted her fortune.

When the Kingpin met Ryan Norkin, he thought he might have a chance at ridding himself of some of these problems and hired him.  He placed him on as one of the City's Attorneys.  But he had proven incapable and had a temper that would get him in trouble.  His demeanor was as obnoxious as his entire character.  But, he got things done.  That is, when he didn't overstep the bounds as he had with Lieutenant Williams.

Norkin was determined to take Lieutenant Williams down for humiliating him.  But Roger liked her, and thought she had what it would take to clean the PD up and thought she would be a ready and willing ally in the case of an emergency.  He knew how to spend the citys' money where it would benefit him the most.  He would just have to work his magic on her.

Norkin had outlived his usefulness and the Kingpin was wanting to be rid of him.  He had been ordered to dispose of Jason Perry.  Jason was no longer the Chief of Police and just this morning a warrant for his arrest had come through the City Attorneys office.  It was time for him to go.  But he wanted him out of the picture so he couldn't inadvertently reveal damning information concerning himself, the Kingpin.

Jason Perry was not home when the cruiser arrived to arrest him, and a neighbor claimed he was out of town for the day, but would be back on the morrow.  That afternoon a 911 call came through that a man had been shot.  The address was that of Jason Perry.  A neighbor was standing by and was now talking to one of the investigators when the Chief got there.

"Chief, you ain't going to believe who shot this man" the officer was saying.  They had stepped off a few paces and were having a private confab with hushed voices.  The Chief did not want to influence the witness in any way.

He had rattled off the plate number which was soon traced.  Her radio came alive.  "The license plates of the vehicle in which the shooter exited belongs to Ryan Norkin.  It is now sitting in front of his home in Westwood Park. "

"OK Officer Trayborn.  You take Higgins with you and I'll have someone meet you there with the warrant.  Do not go in without backup." She instructed.

"Yes Chief.  He walked off to find his partner so they could head over to the Norkin residence.  When they arrived, the back doors of the car were open and the trunk lid was up.  A couple of sacks of groceries sat in the trunk along with a gallon of milk.  The door was ajar about halfway and they heard the wail of someone in dire grief.

Groceries were spilled from the sack after being dropped.  Leaning against the wall and sobbing,was a nice looking redhead.  In front of the sofa a couple of feet away, Ryan Norkin lay with a garrote around his neck.  There was a chrome hook with a chain attached laying over his shoulder.

"Chief forget about the warrant.  Send the coroner instead." Officer Trayborn explained as he walked outside with his cell phone.

"OK.  Get the lady out.  I'm on the way" she replied.  Then to herself she said "wow, what is going on here?"

When Lane received the news, he was astounded.  His only thought was "I think the Kingpin is doing his best to wipe out all trails back to himself . . ."

But the time allotted for the Kingpin was winding down quite quickly.  But where was William?

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