She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be

by J. D. Barker

  “Are they still here?”

  Brier said nothing.

  Stack said, “If I’m dead, and I’m still in the house, can I somehow see them?”

  “What, like a ghost?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You want to haunt your own house?”

  “I want to see why they came here. What they were after.”

  Brier leaned forward on the chair, the legs tipping slightly. “This investigation is over for you, Terry.”

  “Fogel’s still out there,” Stack muttered.

  “Out where?”

  “Chasing a lead. Someplace called Charter outside Chadds Ford.”

  Brier didn’t seem surprised by this. “Tell me about Charter.”

  Stack tried to reach for the notepad he had left near the door, the one with his notes on Charter, but his arms and legs wouldn’t work. “Why can’t I move?”

  “Dead people don’t move.”

  “You’re moving, though,” Stack pointed out. “My head, neck, eyes, can move. Only my arms and legs are stuck. Why?”

  Brier shrugged. “God works in mysterious ways when you’re alive, but he pulls out all the stops after death. Shit gets crazy.” He leaned back in his chair. “How did you learn about Charter?”

  Stack told him about the note Fogel had found in Thatch’s hotel room, the connections he made to several past employees. “The white vans showed up right after I started making those calls,” he said. “They’ve got to be from Charter. It’s all connected.”

  Brier slammed a hand down on the desk.

  Stack jumped.

  Brier grinned. “Sorry, buddy, you seemed to be losing focus. Needed to bring you back.” He glanced around the room. “So everything you’ve learned over the years, all the data on this case, it’s all here in this room?”

  “Most of it,” Stack said. “Fogel has the official records at Pittsburgh PD for some. The rest is here.”

  Brier thought about this for a moment.

  Stack frowned. “You don’t remember that? You kept the files going after I retired. Kept the investigation going. Fogel has your files.”

  “Things get fuzzy after you die,” Brier said again.

  “I still remember. Is that because I just died?”

  Brier said nothing to this. He leaned back in his chair, then forward again, rocking on the back legs. “What do you know about David Pickford?”

  “Who?”

  “David Pickford.”

  “Never heard of him,” Stack replied.

  “He’s a beautiful man.”

  “Okay.”

  “The most beautiful man.”

  Stack didn’t reply.

  Brier reached for the glass of water, now full again. “Want some more?”

  Although Stack was still thirsty, he shook his head.

  Brier set the glass back down and fixed his gaze back on Stack. “You’re sure, outside of the information here, and whatever this Fogel has at Pittsburgh PD, there is nothing else? Nobody else has copies? You haven’t told anyone else what you’ve found over all these years?”

  Stack said no, and that was strange because he didn’t want to answer Brier’s question at all. The word came out anyway.

  Brier leaned back in the chair again and rolled his head toward the door. “Get in here and take it all!” he shouted. “Take every last scrap!”

  Three men came through the door, all in their late twenties, early thirties, wearing long, white trench coats like the man Stack had shot on the stairs. Two of them began carrying out the file boxes, while the third started taking everything down from the walls.

  “What is this?” Stack muttered, turning back to Brier.

  Brier was no longer sitting across from him. Instead, he found a young man with dark hair and darker eyes and the most horrible burn filling the entire left side of his face. It hurt Stack just to look at it.

  Stack tried to stand again, couldn’t move. He looked down, and for the first time saw the ropes binding him to the chair at his arms, legs, and torso. He tugged at them, but they were tight, didn’t give at all. He looked back at the man across from him. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m David Pickford.”

  “You are a beautiful man.”

  “Thank you.”

  Stack’s eyes fell to the glass on the table. It was dry and filthy, covered in dust. Looked like it had sat empty for days, probably since the last time Fogel was up here. No water at all.

  The men in white continued to remove everything from the room, nearly half of it gone already.

  A phone rang. David reached inside his black leather jacket and took out a cell phone. He glanced at the display, then back at Stack. “I need to take this. It was a pleasure speaking with you. You’re going to fall asleep now.”

  Stack did.

  David Pickford pressed the phone to his ear, turned from Stack, and faced the corner of the room. “What?”

  Latrese Oliver’s heavy breaths came over the tinny speaker. He swore he smelled the stank rot coming up her throat over the line. “We just missed them on Whidbey.”

  David shook the image of her picking at her stump of an arm out of his head, tried not to think about whatever was happening on the inside of her scarred, half-dead body. He couldn’t wait to kill that miserable bitch. “I wouldn’t have,” he said.

  “Well, you’re not here, are you?”

  “I can’t be everywhere.”

  Oliver ignored him. “Edward Thatch, Cammie Brotherton, Dalton, Stella, and the boy are all together now.”

  “We had people at the ferry terminal, and you came down from Deception Pass. How did they get past you?”

  “Edward Thatch kept a seaplane docked at the base of the cliff beside his house. We caught sight of it taking off from Puget Sound when we arrived.”

  “A seaplane? How could we not know about a seaplane?”

  Oliver didn’t reply.

  David Pickford leaned against the wall and drummed his fingers on the windowsill. “Doesn’t really matter, I suppose. We know where they’re heading.”

  Oliver drew in another breath. “What do you want me to do here? With the house?”

  David shrugged, the answer obvious. “Take anything useful and burn the rest. Burn everything.” He considered this for a moment and added, “Is Dalton’s car there, the black GTO?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want that car. Have someone drive it back. Burn everything else.”

  “Okay.”

  “Fly back in the Charter jet when you’re through. I’ll need you here.”

  Oliver said, “It’s almost over.”

  “Yeah, almost.”

  16

  My father’s house on Whidbey Island sat perched atop a tall cliff overlooking Puget Sound. Shortly after making my phone call, we wrapped Stella in a thick blanket so I could carry her with our various bags wrapped over our shoulders. Preacher carried Hobson, who continued to squirm in his bindings. Cammie and her daughter followed behind us, all eyeing the man nervously, toting their own bags. My father led the way, his beaten body fighting him every step. He took nothing from the house, said he already had a go-bag packed and waiting.

  We followed him across the backyard toward the cliff, then down a rickety set of wooden steps attached to the cliff face with heavy metal bolts and anchors. At the base of the stairs, built on large concrete pylons sunk into the sands of a small private beach, was what appeared to be a boathouse. I fully expected to find a speedboat of some sort inside, so when my father opened the door revealing a plane on large floats, I think I was as surprised as everyone else.

  “This is a 208 Cessna Caravan. I bought it a few years ago after receiving my pilot’s license, mostly to get back and forth from the mainland faster, but it’s got range and they won’t be able to follow us. If I keep low enough, I won’t need to file a flight plan.”

  Preacher circled the aircraft, running his hand over the wing. “This is big. We can take the guns
.”

  “Like I said at the house, this isn’t about space, it’s about weight. Every pound we add shaves miles off our travel distance. Miles we can’t afford to lose. If we stop to refuel, we’ll end up in a database. They can use that intel to track us. This is a one-way trip.”

  “To where?”

  The “where” turned out to be Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, and my father was right—by the time we touched down on the water, we had nothing but fumes in the tank. The flight took us nearly seven hours. My father had removed the last two passenger seats, and I was grateful for that. Preacher and I positioned Stella in the back of the plane on the floor in her blanket so she could rest. She stirred several times during the flight but only woke once. When I told her where we were, she only nodded and drifted back off to sleep. About an hour into the flight, Preacher tied a makeshift blindfold over Hobson’s eyes. Once he was unable to see Cammie, he stopped squirming and returned to the docile state he had been in while driving with Stella and me. To be safe, we kept his hands and feet tied up.

  My father landed the plane on Devil’s Lake with the practiced hand of a veteran, and I considered all the things I didn’t know about the man. Twenty years of life lived. I imagined learning to fly a plane was only one of many secrets.

  He maneuvered the plane to the northern edge of the lake and guided it gently to a long dock. Preacher opened the door and grabbed a rope as we sidled up beside it. I jumped out and tossed him a second rope I found coiled up in a plastic storage container fastened to the wooden planks. With my father barking out instructions, together we secured the plane.

  The dock led to a well-maintained sloping lawn. Beyond that stood two buildings—a small log cabin and a large metal shed. My father said he bought the property nearly a decade earlier but rarely stayed there. He paid a caretaker to maintain the place for him. I had yet to learn how he afforded such things and planned to ask him when we finally arrived at our destination, but for now, questions had to wait.

  I carried Stella this time. Preacher held Darby’s sleeping body in his arms, with Cammie beside him, as we followed my father past the cabin to the outbuilding. He entered a code on the security panel at the metal door. There was a loud buzz, and the door swung open. The lights turned on automatically. Inside were three Cadillac Escalades, white, with wires trailing out from under the hoods.

  “I keep them gassed up and on trickle chargers. There’s cash in the glove boxes for gas. They should get us where we need to go.”

  “Why white?” Preacher said.

  “They won’t be looking for us in white vehicles. They blend,” my father said, eerily echoing what Stella told me a lifetime ago.

  Preacher drove the first SUV with my father, Cammie, and Darby. I drove the second vehicle, with Hobson in the passenger seat and Stella asleep and stretched out in the back.

  Our journey would end where it began, and with each passing mile, I felt Pittsburgh growing near.

  17

  Reid Migliore stood waiting for us at the mouth of the road leading to Carrie Furnace, an AR-15 cradled in his hands. Two other men I didn’t recognize leaned against the black SUV parked directly in our path about ten feet back. All three perked up as we approached, Reid in particular, his eyes nervously darting over Hobson, then Preacher and Cammie in the SUV idling behind me. He approached my open window, with the barrel of his assault rifle pointing at the ground. He had a fresh scar running along his right cheek.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  He ignored my question and glanced over at Hobson in the passenger seat—tied up and blindfolded. “What is this, Thatch? Dunk didn’t say nothing about kidnapping.”

  I tied Hobson back up at the last gas stop. “Dunk knows.”

  “Well, he didn’t say nothing to me. I don’t like any of this.”

  Stella groaned from the back seat.

  Reid leaned in a little closer. “That her?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  It was my turn to ignore his question. “Where is he?”

  Reid took a step back from the SUV and pointed the barrel of his assault rifle back toward the old steel mill. “Park where we did a few weeks ago, at Blast Furnace #7. He’s inside.”

  I put the SUV back into gear and followed the overgrown road toward the large metal monstrosity.

  I parked in nearly the same place we had the last time and shut down the engine.

  Preacher pulled up beside me and did the same. He stepped out of the SUV and surveyed the buildings, the catwalks, the men slowly pacing back and forth along all of it, their eyes on the surrounding fields. He said softly, “Are you sure about this?”

  “Nope.”

  A girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen, walked up from the side of the brick building. Like Reid, she carried an AR-15. Unlike Reid, both her arms and half her neck were covered in colorful tattoos of snakes. The mouth of a cobra opened below her chin, ready to strike. She said something into a small Motorola radio before dropping it into the pocket of her green army jacket. “I’m Adella Fricke. Follow me.”

  “Where’s Dunk?”

  “In a few minutes. We need to get you settled first.” She glanced back at Stella. “Bring her. The others, too.”

  Preacher looked at me, uncertain. I could only nod.

  Adella led us through the brick building, out the other side, and down a long, wide hallway. Rusty water dripped from the ceiling and puddled on the floor. The walls glistened with it. Machinery long ago abandoned slept in every corner, left to die years ago. The men and women who worked for Dunk—gang members, runaways, homeless—I didn’t really know how to describe them. They watched us silently as we passed. Twenty, thirty, probably more. They were everywhere. The youngest looked no more than twelve or thirteen, and the oldest I spotted—a man wearing faded coveralls—might have been in his late fifties.

  We took a set of stairs up to the second level, then followed a catwalk under a sign that simply read BARRACKS. Stella’s arm was over my shoulder, and although she wasn’t quite awake, she was able to walk on her own. The long walk was still exhausting, though. I was grateful when we entered a large room lined with bunk beds on the outer walls and tables in the middle—she hadn’t spoken in over a day. Her breathing was horribly labored, and sweat openly trickled from her pores. I settled her into one of the beds near the back, and she curled up facing the wall.

  Preacher set Hobson down in a chair at one of the tables. Still blindfolded, the man did not move.

  Cammie helped Darby into another open bunk. The little girl’s eyes were half shut, fighting sleep. She was out the moment her head hit the pillow. Cammie sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her hair. My father collapsed into a bunk of his own. The bruising on his face thickened into a nasty shade of purple. He grunted and rolled onto his side, off his damaged ribs.

  Adella said, “Come with me. I’ll take you to him.”

  When Preacher started to follow, she stopped at the door without turning around. “Just Thatch.”

  “No way,” Preacher said. “I’m still not sure we’re staying.”

  Cammie looked up at me. “Take him with you. The second pair of eyes will do you good.”

  Adella started down the hall. “Whatever, just hurry up.”

  Ten days ago, when I visited Dunk in this place, I got the impression he and his people simply took it over for the day. Camped out at that first building and cleared out shortly after I left. As Adella walked us deeper into the mill, I realized that wasn’t the case at all. Dunk set up shop here. He ran his business from this place. He ran his business with a small army.

  Everyone was armed.

  Most had more than one gun.

  I thought about what Brier and Detective Horton had told me all those years ago in the hospital. They had no idea how large this had all become.

  I didn’t see any drugs. I also didn’t see anyone doing drugs. Knowing Dunk (or, at the very least, know
ing the kid I once knew as Dunk) he was smart enough not to keep that kind of thing anywhere near where he worked. Most likely, he played some kind of shell game with that stuff, moving it around the city faster than the cops could track it. I honestly didn’t really care. My only concern was keeping Stella safe.

  Eyes followed us everywhere, averting when I caught them looking. Whispering to each other.

  Adella led us into the former office building for Carrie Furnace—dozens of offices, most abandoned. Dunk was in the largest, the last door on the left. When Adella ushered us inside, he stood in the far back corner with a cell phone pressed to his ear, most of his weight balanced on a cane, looking out a grimy window at the mill grounds. He glanced back over his shoulder.

  Relying heavily on the cane, he turned and started toward us, mumbling into the phone. When he finished the call, he disconnected and held the phone out to me. “Hold this for a second? Being a cripple, I sometimes find I don’t have enough hands to multitask.”

  I took it from him.

  Dunk brought up his cane and slammed the silver head into Preacher’s gut. He doubled over, and Dunk’s right fist shot up and slammed into his nose. I heard the crunch of bone as Preacher stumbled backward. “You broke my nose in ’92, you arrogant fuck. You’ve had that coming for six years,” Dunk said.

  Two of Dunk’s men came in from the hallways and grabbed Preacher’s arms before he could retaliate. They stood on either side of him as Dunk took a white handkerchief from his pocket and held it up to Preacher. “We’re square now, shitknocker.”

  Preacher nodded, shrugged off both men, grabbed the handkerchief, and pressed it to his nose. “Square,” he muttered, tilting his head back.

  I shook my head. We didn’t have time for macho bullshit. “They’ll be here soon. Are you ready?”

  Dunk used the cane to take several steps back toward the window. “Get with the program, Thatch. They’re already here, and yes, we’re ready.”

  “What?” Preacher said, going to the window.

  Dunk pointed out toward the west. “Look past the trees. Two white vans out there parked off Whitaker. The first one got here about ten minutes after you did. The other one pulled up a few minutes ago.”