I Warned You_Welcome to Fall River Read online

  I

  WARNED

  YOU

  Welcome to Fall River

  A Matt Ryan Novel

  Copyright 2017 by Shawn Underhill

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by The Cover Collection @ thecovercollection .com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No one was harmed in the making of this book. None of it actually happened. No animals were harmed.

  The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

  —Henry David Thoreau

  Chapter 1

  The guy in the stolen Chevy was fairly clever. In his own mind. Living proof of the fallible nature of subjective opinions.

  With all the planning and hard work behind him, the final detail in his scheme was the simplest. Well before arriving in the little town of Fall River he pulled over at a park and ride and used a screwdriver to remove the rental tag from the Chevy’s front bumper.

  He smiled as he got back in the car, placing the tag and screwdriver on the passenger seat. Everything was accounted for. All bases covered. By executing that final detail, the day was as good as won.

  The money was as good as his.

  He drove on, silently congratulating himself. No way would he roll into a strange town looking like some tourist in a rented car. Locals would surely notice and wonder. Nor would he risk the exposure of using his own vehicle, because he was no fool. He thought things through, and everything was coming together perfectly. None of the local idiots would give him a second thought now. Just a regular guy in a Chevy Cruze. A plain four-door sedan. Inconspicuous and moderately respectable.

  Practically invisible.

  Two miles from I-93 he passed through some traffic lights at a three-way intersection and continued north. The road was a simple two-lane, flat and straight, running south to north. To his right he saw cornfields sloping down to a wide stretch of river in the distance. Closer on his right, a white farmhouse and a long red barn. To his left, a few houses set way back in the trees, barely visible from the road.

  A wooden sign.

  Welcome to Fall River.

  He’d seen most of it before, apart from the sign, from the slightly different perspective of an internet map. Easy to find. Easy entry, easy exit. So he drove on feeling good and familiar, secure in his plan.

  A quarter-mile north of the lights the town became a Main Street community. Side roads branched off here and there, mostly to the left, and there were random businesses lining either side of the main road. Some were old houses converted to offices. Two were newer chain buildings, a Dunkin’ Donuts and a Burger King. Nothing exciting. Not as much as a strip bar or a roadside casino, or even a discount liquor store.

  Nowhere USA.

  Lame.

  But it didn’t really matter, because was only concerned with the storage place.

  Where the money was stashed.

  Near the center of town he spotted is destination, up ahead on the left. Fall River Storage. A wooden sign before some decorative fencing and landscaping. A long driveway going back off the road and forking, one lane leading left to a lone office building, the other leading to the complex of metal storage buildings.

  He hung a right into Hometown Market’s parking lot across the street. Stopped before the gas pump island. Cut the wheel and carefully backed into an alley, nose-out between two businesses, nesting the Chevy harmlessly in the shade between the market and the Pinewood Motel.

  He smiled again, silently praising himself for his sound tactics.

  He was in.

  The money was practically his.

  The stolen Chevy’s front bumper was roughly parallel with the market’s long front wall of red bricks, and the rear bumper was a few feet ahead of the market’s dumpster. To the guy’s right was the market’s side wall of red bricks, and to his left there were hedges and small trees bordering the yard of a white house. The nearest side of the white house was twenty yards away. It had a big wooden motel sign out front and served as the office, with the individual cabins being out back, overlooking the river.

  What he couldn’t see from his vantage point was the white and red No Parking sign over the dumpster he was blocking in the alley.

  The guy buzzed the window down and cut the Chevy’s motor. The money was close. He could feel it. Almost his. He shifted around in the seat until he was comfortable and then lit a cigarette and leaned his head back to relax while he watched the storage place.

  The Chevy’s nose was roughly fifteen yards back from Hometown Market’s self-serve gas pump island, and roughly two yards from the nearest white and red No Smoking sign.

  He took a long drag and blew the smoke toward the motel office, feeling good and confident.

  Practically invisible.

  ***

  Matt Ryan had no clue about the money. Yet. But he did spot the strange Chevy Cruze within minutes.

  Lenny the furnace guy had just stepped out of the small office after conducting his yearly furnace checkup, and Matt Ryan stepped out after him. The front of the office was roughly eighty yards back from the road, and maybe a hundred and twenty yards back from the nose of the rented Chevy. Ryan couldn’t see the driver clearly, but in that brief first impression he assumed the driver to be male.

  Several factors figured into his assumption. Females weren’t as likely to back a vehicle into a parking spot. Males were more likely to commit armed robbery. And he could see a hand with wisps of smoke rising up through the open window. Plenty of women smoked, sure. But even from a distance the scale of the hand in contrast with the car’s door wasn’t right, and therefore didn’t strike him as belonging to a female.

  Unless she was descended from the Nephilim.

  Lenny the furnace guy got into his white service truck and started it up. He waved and pulled away, and Ryan stepped back into his office. A plain building with brown siding that could pass for clapboards from a distance. He closed the door and moved to the nearest window. Peered out over the window air conditioner he hadn’t bothered to remove for winter. For several seasons now.

  “What are you looking at?” Rosie Clare asked. She was wedged in behind the desk, six or seven feet behind Ryan. The office wasn’t large. Just a rectangular space wish a five-foot L-shaped desk, some file cabinets, a shelf, a small bathroom, a closet containing some office supplies and other odds and ends, and a door to the small utility room.

  “An idiot,” Ryan answered her.

  Rosie said, “Oh.”

  “Could be a thief,” he added. “Casing the neighborhood.”

  Rosie took a sip of Pepsi and shifted in the office chair, making it groan.

  “He might be working up the nerve to rob the market,” Ryan said.

  “Oh,” Rosie repeated. Took another sip of Pepsi. Sweet and comforting.

  “Maybe he needs money for opioids or meth.”

  “I hope not.”

  Ryan turned and faced Rosie. Twenty-four, blonde. A big girl from a big family. Pale but healthy complexion, pink cheeks. Nice smile. Total sweetheart. The whole Clare family was heavy. They all looked the same. Some of the nicest people ever, all of them huge. Easy going folks, almost always smiling and positive. Unconcerned about vanity and style and measurements. They were who they were. It was in their genes.

  Rosie had been working for Ryan since she was seventeen. Her first and only job. She considered herself a positive person with a positive outlook, and few who
knew her would disagree.

  Ryan considered her those things, but also naïve. Meek and mild. People would walk all over her unless someone stuck up for her. She’d never last working in a big office somewhere full of competitive people. They’d run right over her.

  She asked, “Are you sure?”

  “Something looks off,” Ryan answered. “There’s a car with no front plate backed into the alley. Nobody local would park there. Not even Gary Lampson when he’s drunk.”

  “Maybe someone got a new car,” Rosie suggested.

  “No temporary plate on the front.”

  “Test driving?”

  “No dealer plate.”

  “Maybe they’re lost, reading a map.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Staying at the motel?”

  “Why not park there?”

  “Maybe they’re just registering.”

  “All five spots in front of the office are open,” Ryan said.

  “What else could they be doing?”

  “Looking to rob places in a small town where nobody will recognize them.”

  “Oh,” Rosie said.

  Ryan changed the subject and set her at ease by saying, “Two weeks until Thanksgiving, Rosie.”

  “I can’t wait,” she said.

  “I want stuffing.”

  “I want pecan pie.”

  “I second that.”

  “I should make one early,” she said. “You know, a practice run. So the real ones on the big day come out perfect.”

  Ryan nodded, and on that positive note he stepped past the desk to the doorway at the left of the office. He went through to his apartment in back and got his coat. Gave his dog a cookie. Told him to stay and be good and then he stepped out the back door.

  ***

  The outside air was crisp, the sun barely warm. Just the way Ryan liked it. November. Little patches of frost here and there.

  He came around the side of the brown building with the fake clapboards and went up the driveway toward Main Street. As he walked he kept an eye on the black Chevy, his navy Patriots hat shielding his eyes. He had on Timberlands and a brown L.L. Bean field coat, like any decent New Englander. Because he was a believer in purchasing locally whenever possible.

  He waited for a few cars to pass before crossing Main. Then he strolled along casually, pretending not to notice the Chevy in the alley. He said hi to Lenny again, now filling his truck at the gas pumps, and continued on toward Hometown Market’s doorway, located at the center of the wide brick building. He lost sight of the Chevy’s bumper a few strides out from the door.

  ***

  The guy in the Chevy watched Matt Ryan cross the road. He was low in the seat, with a hat pulled low over his eyes, still imagining himself to be practically invisible.

  ***

  Meredith Glines looked up at Matt Ryan. She was working the register amid a big square island. Behind her and the island was the small kitchen and restaurant section of the place. Bar stools, tables, chairs. Sparse menu. Simple breakfast and lunch options. Only one customer was present at the moment. Wayne Swanson, a regular, taking his two-hour break from delivering the mail. Reading the paper, sipping old coffee. Scratching behind his ears every twenty seconds, a compulsive nervous tick.

  “Hey, Matt,” Meredith said. “Smokes?”

  “You watching the cameras?”

  She stopped halfway through the motion of reaching overhead for the cigarettes and glanced over at the security monitor. There were two outdoor cameras and two indoor. Moderate quality, a few years old. Not fantastic resolution.

  “There’s some guy parked in the alley.”

  “I wonder why,” Meredith said, leaning in and studying the monitors.

  “Might be a thief,” Ryan said. “Waiting for a quiet time to run in and rob you.”

  “You think?”

  “It happens.”

  “This place has never been robbed. Not that I know of.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “There’s a first time for everything. You see the news each morning. The southern part of the state’s going to hell with all the drugs. You think crime won’t make its way up here sooner or later?”

  Meredith didn’t answer. She couldn’t see much of the Chevy on the monitor. The best view was from the roof of the gas pump island, looking back toward the building in a wide frame. All she could really make out was a dark bumper and part of a hood. Dark car, shaded alley.

  “Should I call Chief Clare?”

  Ryan nodded and said, “Tell him to come in quiet. No lights.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m about to sneak up on the guy around the back. I don’t want him getting scared and taking off if he hears sirens.”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “I’d like to rattle his cage a little bit, find out who he really is.”

  Meredith made a skeptical face. She was short with long curly brown hair and bright white teeth. She was chomping a piece of Trident like she was mad at it. Keeping those teeth pearly white so the compliments would keep on rolling in.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  “Hey, an honest person will move their car right away when confronted. They’ll apologize. But not a bad guy. He’ll get defensive and try to argue and justify himself.”

  “I guess.”

  “Trust me,” Ryan said. “I’ve seen interviews with FBI and CIA people before. That’s how they evaluate people.”

  “Crime shows,” she said.

  “No, real interviews with real agents. They give lectures at conferences and write books and everything.”

  Meredith Glines didn’t appear convinced. Matt Ryan was standing there in his pajamas.

  “Go on and call the chief,” he said.

  “Maybe you should wait,” she said. “If he’s a real bad guy, he might have a knife or a gun.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “He’s not the only one armed, Meredith.”

  “Are we suddenly in a Western movie?”

  “Get three coffins ready.”

  “What?”

  Ryan waved her off and said, “It’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  Chapter 2

  Meredith picked up the landline and dialed the chief’s cell. Ryan waited until she was speaking with him, then went outside and hung a right. He lit a cigarette after going around the corner and walked around the back of the long rectangular building. Then he peeked up the alley. Saw the dumpster. Leaned out a little more and saw the car. He saw the guy in the side mirror, smoking, staring straight ahead. Not worried about anything behind him. The dumpster was apparently as good as a flaming moat. In his mind.

  Ryan edged up closer, stepping softly, slouching behind the dumpster. He peeked again.

  There was a cigarette butt on the ground below the car’s door, and another one burning in the suspect’s hand. The guy was littering. Ryan hated littering. Especially in his town. The guy was still staring straight ahead, unconcerned with anything behind him. The plate on the Chevy’s rear was from Florida. A sticker on rear the bumper served as a rolling business card for a nationwide rental company.

  Ryan waited until his own cigarette was halfway gone and then he walked up fast and surprised the guy in the Chevy.

  It was hard to tell much about him at a glance. Not old, but not very young. He wasn’t fat and wasn’t in great shape. Didn’t look very tall or short. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt and a dark cap, the gold standard outfit of many armed robbers. He was fairly pasty. Not likely from Florida, soaking up the rays and sucking oranges.

  The guy jumped slightly when he appeared and then glared hard, as if Ryan had cheated by using some unfair magical powers to suddenly materialize by the Chevy’s door. A faint flash of recognition crossed his face and then quickly gave way to the hard glare.

  Hey, you were supposed to walk back out the front, not show up behind me.
r />   A sudden and unexpected twist in the plot for the man with the plan.

  And it all went downhill from there.

  ***

  “You lost, buddy?” Ryan said.

  “Huh?” the guy grunted.

  “Lost?”

  “Me?”

  “No, the squirrel over there on that pine tree.”

  “Where?”

  “Are you lost?”

  “Who says I’m lost?”

  “You look it.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Need directions?”

  “No.”

  “There’s no shame in asking.”

  “I don’t need any.”

  “Ever seen a sasquatch?”

  “What?”

  “Directions,” Ryan said.

  “Not from you.”

  “What’s wrong with me? You’re the idiot blocking the dumpster.”

  “Who you calling idiot?”

  “You.”

  “Get lost.”

  “You’re blocking the alley.”

  “What, you’re the alley police? The trash guy?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Yeah, is this trash day?”

  “Depends who you’re meeting here.”

  “What did you say to me?”

  “Big date?” Ryan pressed. “Meeting her right here? Man, I can’t wait to see her.”

  “You’re asking for it.”

  “Clint Eastwood. Want an autograph?”

  “Get out of here.”

  Ryan said, “You get out.”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “You look stupid.”

  “Me? Look at you in your pajamas.”

  Ryan glanced down at his flannel pajamas, a nice blue plaid. The perfect weight for November in New England. Not too light, not too warm. Then he looked back up at the idiot in the Chevy.

  The guy said, “Take your pajamas and get lost.”

  Ryan said, “Or else?”

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “I said get lost.”