The Fallen (Amos Decker #4)(121)

Fred Ross was wriggling in his wheelchair.

“You want to throw in your two cents?” asked Decker. He reached down and ripped the tape from the man’s mouth.

Fred Ross screamed, “Shoot the son of a bitch, Teddy. Kill his ass!”

“Shut up, Pop,” said his son derisively. He looked back at Decker. “Well?”

“Like I said, I think we can work something out.”

Ross looked at the mausoleum. “Okay, you tell us where it is and you can have mom and the daughter.” He pointed his gun at his father. “And you can keep him too, because I’ve had enough of his crap to last the rest of my life.”

Fred Ross screamed, “You little piece of worthless shit! I was the one that told you about it. You ungrateful bastard!” A long flow of obscenities followed, all directed at the man’s son.

“See what I mean?” said Ted Ross as he raised his pistol. “Shut up, Pop, or I swear to God, I’ll shoot you myself.”

Decker said, “Fred, you’re not that smart, are you?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, fatso?”

“You knew about the exchange. But when we got there, nobody would be around to exchange for you. So your son was going to leave your butt high and dry. You go to prison while he jets off to a new life.”

The elder Ross said nothing, but he now glared at his son.

Decker said to Ted Ross, “That was the other reason I knew your exchange request was probably a sham and that you were up here trying to get the treasure.” He glanced at the malignant Fred Ross. “Why would you want him back? The guy who was so cruel to you and your mother? Just so he couldn’t testify against you? Hell, if it were me, I’d take my chances over having to listen to this asshole and I think you would too.”

A fresh burst of obscenities from Fred Ross was only halted when Decker put the duct tape back on.

Decker looked at the hole next to the mausoleum. “You thought it was either under the potting shed or under the crypt? Because of the letter to the O’Reilly company?”

“Not nearly enough concrete for a textile mill addition,” said Ross. “Besides that, old man Baron would not have built one at that point, because the business was going south. But he used it for the foundation under his crypt. We know that now.”

Decker nodded. “Green told me about the textile business petering out when he was giving us a little tutorial on Baronville. Although he couldn’t have known that later I would see a letter that would put that knowledge to good use. So what do you think the treasure is?”

“Precious jewels, maybe. Coins. Cash would have rotted.”

Decker nodded. “Did you find anything down there?”

“A big hollow space inside the foundation they laid with all that concrete.”

“With something other than treasure?” said Decker. “Like some skeletons maybe?”

Ross said, “There are some bones down there. But how did you figure that?”

“Baron was an old man. He didn’t hide the stuff personally. So how could he leave behind the guys who did hide it? They’d just come here and try to steal it after he died, or else they’d tell somebody. And that space would make a convenient burial spot.”

“But where is the treasure?” snapped Ross impatiently.

“The O’Reilly order told you, but you focused on the wrong parts of the letter.”

“Then enlighten me,” growled Ross.

“I read a letter from Baron’s butler, Nigel, to his son. Costa read it too. That was a clue to the treasure.”

“Costa never told me about any letter like that.”

“But he obviously thought it was under the mausoleum.”

“Costa had done a ton of research. He’d read a lot about the history of the estate and he thought he had narrowed down the location, but he wanted to be sure. We needed somebody to come up here. So I called Toby Babbot.”

“Why Babbot?”

“He’d gotten hurt working on the FC. I was throwing him a bone. Anyway, he did some poking around. See, Costa had determined that there were only two new structures put up after Baron wrote the letter to O’Reilly ordering those supplies: the potting shed and this place. So Toby came up here and took precise measurements of both. He figured the footprint of either one pretty much aligned with a concrete foundation built with the materials that Baron bought from O’Reilly’s.”

“And Baron caught him trespassing and filed a police report?”

“Well, actually Mike Swanson was also up here when Toby was poking around. He and Baron chased him off the property. Swanson knew Toby and apparently identified him to Baron, and Baron filed the police report. But that was no big deal,” Ross added offhandedly.

“Actually, it was a very big deal for Babbot and Swanson. Because that signed both their death warrants, in your eyes,” added Decker. “Baron now had a beef and a possible motive against Babbot, so you could include him with the others you killed in order to incriminate Baron. And because of Babbot, you knew Swanson was up here, probably with drugs. You could also use that to frame Baron, and you needed to get Swanson out of the picture.” He paused. “And I think you had another reason to get rid of Babbot.”

Ross stared darkly at Decker but remained silent.