Adamant

by E. H. Reinhard

  “What’s the plan here?” I asked.

  “Get out to the diner, sniff around, and see what we get, I guess,” Beth said. “About all we can do until we get a hit on the woman’s vehicle or Bill and Scott get something on their end.”

  When we were in the air, we’d gotten word that the woman from the diner had been identified. A BOLO on her vehicle had gone out to all the law enforcement agencies in the area. As far as what measures were currently being taken to spot the vehicle—whether it was roadblocks, on-the-ground patrols, or aerial surveillance of major highways—we didn’t know. Bill and Scott had flown out right before we did and were currently in a rental car, making the two-plus-hour drive to the prison. They would update us after they concluded that visit.

  As we sat in the conference room and waited for Spear to return with the other agents, Beth and I picked up the conversation we’d been having on the plane. She’d found what she could as far as Burr’s friends and family before we left for Texas—it wasn’t much.

  “No family at all west of Louisiana?” I asked.

  “Not that I found.” Beth pulled a notepad from a pocket of her blazer and flipped a few pages. “Burr’s father is shown as living in Purvis, Mississippi. Mother is deceased. No siblings that we’re aware of. No aunts or uncles that I could locate. Burr is a father himself, has a son who lives outside of Shreveport.” Beth flipped her notepad closed. “We’ll try to make contact with Burr’s father and son after we wrap with the diner thing. See if they can tell us anything.” Beth pointed at the meeting room door. Agent Spear approached with a pair of agents in tow.

  “Harper, Rawlings, these are Agents Jim McManus and Rob Alper,” Spear said.

  We greeted the men, and they sat. Alper looked somewhere in his forties with a short graying beard and salt-and-pepper hair. McManus was a little younger with a mustache that looked straight out of the 1970s. Both men carried file folders—I imagined filled with whatever they’d put together at the diner.

  “Why don’t you just go through this morning with us,” Beth said. “From getting the call to getting on scene and all that.”

  I pulled out my notepad and pen—the former cop in me still preferred handwritten notes even though I could have just as easily taken them on my phone.

  “The 911 call came from the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office,” Spear said. “Where this happened is just inside of their southern jurisdiction. The sheriff’s office called our resident agency in Bryan. They got it over to us.”

  The bureau’s resident agencies, which numbered almost four hundred across the US, allowed us to have a presence in places where a larger field office wasn’t a necessity, yet anything like what we were dealing with and they’d kick it up to the closest field office—which was apparently what they did.

  “Did the guys from the local office show to the scene?” Beth asked.

  “They were there,” Alper said. “Agents Sandler and Pearl. They got on scene about twenty minutes after everything went down and stayed on scene until we got there, and they turned it over to us.”

  “All right.” Beth spun the pen she held between her fingers. “What about a contact at the sheriff’s office?” she asked.

  “Lieutenant Emily Gehrig,” Agent Alper said.

  “Got it.” Beth wrote the name down. “So, let me get this right,” she said. “A 911 call comes into the local sheriff’s office, reporting the sighting of an FBI most-wanted fugitive, and the vehicle he is supposedly traveling in, and the local sheriff’s department dispatches two deputies to the scene? Was that all the force they had to spare? Because it seems a little light for the situation. Especially in light of them both being killed in the process. And if they only had two guys, why wouldn’t they wait and try to coordinate with the local FBI?”

  “We asked all of that.” McManus pointed at himself and Alper. “And it’s not like Brazos County or the department is that small. I mean, College Station is, like, a hundred thousand people by itself. But College Station, or the school, rather, was the reason for the lack of available deputies. Apparently, they’ve got a protest going on up at the university that’s turning out to be a bit of a powder keg. It sounded like the local law enforcement had their hands full with it. More deputies did show, within minutes of what happened. Unfortunately, they were too late, and Burr was gone.”

  “Any video from this diner?” I asked.

  “None. No cameras,” Alper said.

  “That’s kind of a rarity this day and age,” Beth said.

  The agents nodded but said nothing.

  “All right, so the original 911 call came from a waitress at the diner?” I asked.

  “That’s correct. She said that she couldn’t believe her eyes. She thought she was imagining it,” Alper said.

  “She said that she could see the guy through the windshield. That it was a hundred percent him. That she saw the Louisiana tag on the car. She left the table, shot back into the waitress station, and dialed 911.”

  “She turned the television off so Burr wouldn’t see himself on it if or when the news cycled back to the story,” Alper said.

  “So, she gets the call off just as Burr is walking in and taking a seat. She goes through the motions of greeting him and tells him she has to check on the other table. Her regulars. Well, she goes over there and quietly tells them to leave. They do, and she goes about taking Burr’s order. I guess as the cook was getting his breakfast fixed up, the waitress told him about Burr. That she was going to try to keep him there until the sheriff’s office arrived. As Burr was eating, the woman who we’ve come to identify as Heather Serra came in.”

  “She was the one who was deceased in the parking lot,” Beth said. “The owner of the vehicle we believe him to be in.”

  “That’s correct.” Alper nodded.

  “Okay. Continue,” Beth said.

  “He’s eating his breakfast, and this Serra woman comes in and is taking forever to pick out her doughnuts. This was what the waitress said. Then, just as the deputies pull up and box in the car Burr was driving, Mrs. Serra notices them and says something along the lines of ‘What the heck’ or ‘What the hell.’ Whatever she said alerted Burr to the presence of the deputies. He produced a firearm and went for the entrance. The waitress, a—” Alper went to his notes. “A Susanne Waingrow said that as soon as she saw him with the firearm, she ducked under the diner counter. She said she heard a couple of shots followed by a pause and then a couple more.”

  “We figure he shot the one deputy entering the diner then located the other at the back door and took his shots on him,” McManus said.

  “Neither deputy got a shot off?” I asked.

  I got headshakes from both agents.

  “Ok, he downs both deputies and then what?” Beth asked.

  “The waitress said that he stepped back into the waitress station and kind of looked around a bit. She’d said that the cook, a—” Alper again checked his notes. “A Bernie Klatten had slipped out of the back door. Anyway, he puts eyes on the waitress, leaves her be, and snatches up the woman at the doughnut case.”

  “Serra,” Beth said.

  “Mrs. Serra, yes. I guess he dragged her outside. Ms. Waingrow said that she’d gone to the restaurant windows to see Burr standing over the woman on the ground. I guess he was going through her purse or something, took a few things, and then basically…” Alper leaned back in his chair, rubbed the back of his neck, and let out a breath. “Executed her.”

  The room was quiet for a moment.

  “He took her phone?” Beth asked.

  “Correct. But not very far,” McManus said. “We ran the number once we got her ID. The phone was a quarter mile up on the side of the road. Tossed. The wallet was found nearby as well. No cash, but credit cards were there. We put up an alert on all of her cards just in case there was activity.”

  “How did we end up ID’ing her?” I asked.

  “Her husband heard some radio coverage about what went down at the din
er while he was working. He knew she was going there that morning. Tried calling her. She didn’t answer. He made more calls. Finally, he left work and showed to the scene.”

  “Ugh,” Beth said.

  “Yeah. It was right after we got there, and it wasn’t pretty,” Alper said.

  “The phone and the wallet, did we get that stuff processed?” I asked.

  “It’s at our forensics lab,” Alper said.

  “Is the forensics division in the facility here?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Did we pull a call log from the phone?” I asked. “Not that Burr used it for some reason before tossing it.”

  Alper looked at McManus, who shook his head. “I’m not sure where the forensics guys are at with it,” Alper said.

  “We’ll put you in contact with Josh Kobin. He’s our forensics lead,” Spear said.

  “Appreciate that,” I said. “What was the scene when you guys left?”

  “Everything was pretty much wrapped up. The coroner took the bodies. I imagine to wherever their facility is in the county. Forensics gathered everything that they needed. Figure that they’ll have a report done by the end of the day. About it. We wrapped up once we finished with the interviews and made sure an alert on the vehicle had been distributed. Got back here maybe forty-five minutes ago.”

  “Okay,” Beth said. “I think we’re going to head that direction and just kind of put eyes on everything ourselves and then touch base with the forensics department to follow up there. As far as the vehicle that Burr commandeered, belonging to the Serra woman, what was the make, model, and tag?”

  “Seventeen Chrysler Pacifica,” McManus said. He rattled off the tag number, and I jotted it down in my notepad along with everything else I’d written during the interview.

  Chapter 7

  Chuck had taken every back road that he could, zig-zagging his way northwest to Waco. His driving time had been spent watching his rearview mirror, searching the sky for planes or helicopters, and wondering just what the hell he should expect when he got to his destination. The bar he headed for, the Iron Mug, was mentioned to him by a biker that he met in prison, Leland Walters. The pair had been on laundry detail together and formed a friendship over the better part of a year. They bullshitted and talked about outside life. Chuck spoke of how he had no intentions of serving out his sentence. Leland told him that if he ever did escape and needed a friendly place, he should go to the bar and ask for someone named Jerry.

  After almost an hour of aimlessly driving around Waco, Chuck realized he wasn’t going to stumble upon the place. Waco was too big, and driving around in a dead guy’s truck wasn’t the smartest thing to do—especially when he was the reason for the guy being dead in the first place. Chuck pulled into a ratty-looking gas station, parked off to the side, and headed in.

  A lone man looking somewhere in his early twenties sat on a stool behind a pane of security glass. The guy stared at his phone and didn’t pay Chuck any attention. Chuck walked to the window and waited. He put eyes on the television hanging near the rack of cigarettes. The screen showed the local five-day forecast—nothing but sun and highs in the upper seventies. It sure as hell beat a dank jail cell. The guy, glancing up and finally noticing Chuck, slid off the stool. He continued to stare at his phone for another few seconds then set it down and came to the glass.

  “Do you have a phone book or something here?” Chuck asked.

  “Nah,” the guy said. “What are you looking for?”

  “A place called the Iron Mug. It’s a bar.”

  “I’ve never heard of it. Did you try looking it up? Searching it?”

  Chuck’s eyes went to the television, which had switched to live coverage. The diner appeared on screen. He needed to get the hell out of there, but he also needed to know where to get the hell out of there to. With the guy’s back to the television and the volume muted, Chuck was still in the clear.

  “Um”—Chuck took his eyes from the TV and looked at the clerk—“no phone.”

  “Why don’t you have a phone?” The guy scratched at the side of his head beneath his chin-length hair and gave Chuck a look that said he was truly baffled by the fact that Chuck didn’t have a phone.

  “I lost the damn thing. Apparently, someone at this bar has it. I was supposed to meet them there fifteen minutes ago, but I can’t find it. The bar is supposed to be somewhere around here.”

  “I can’t say it rings a bell,” the guy said. “Wait.” He paused. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  “I don’t think so,” Chuck said. “Think you could maybe try looking the place up for me?”

  “Hold on.” The guy grabbed his phone and tapped away at the screen.

  As Chuck waited for the guy to look, he again glanced up at the TV only to see his own face staring back. His name ran below the old driver’s license photo. The TV showed the kind of minivan the woman from the diner had owned and gave the tag number. With the news giving the van information, it was safe to assume they hadn’t yet found the van or the old man in the appliance store.

  “You’re a couple miles away from the place. It’s up by Baylor.” The guy turned his phone in hand and pressed it to the glass.

  Chuck leaned forward and looked at the map on the guy’s phone. He saw the dot that showed their current location and the pin mark of where the bar was located. He needed to head north on I-35.

  “Are you sure that I don’t know you from somewhere? You look familiar.”

  “Nope. Just passing through,” Chuck said.

  “Then how does someone have your phone at a bar if you were just passing through?”

  Chuck didn’t have a rebuttal for the guy’s quickness.

  “Wait,” the guy said.

  Chuck saw the clerk’s eyes widen.

  The guy started fumbling at his phone, trying to tap at the screen.

  “Dammit.” Chuck’s head snapped to the door, where he saw no one. The fuel pumps outside were empty. He yanked the gun from the back of his waistline.

  “Bulletproof, genius,” the guy said as he held the phone to his ear.

  Chuck took aim at the guy’s face behind the glass and fired a single shot. The glass splintered, but the round didn’t pass through. The clerk shrieked like a woman and ducked down, disappearing from view. “I guess it is, but you’re still going to die.”

  Chuck turned his back to the front counter, jammed his pistol into his waistline, and rushed up and down the aisles until he put eyes on what he was after—isopropyl alcohol. He grabbed two bottles from the shelf, jogged to the counter, and grabbed one of the few dozen lighters that were for sale. Chuck stared in at what he could see of the guy ducked down on the floor inside the room. He didn’t hear the clerk talking to anyone on the phone.

  “Are you on hold, buddy?” Chuck asked.

  The clerk didn’t respond.

  “You better hope they’re on their way.” Chuck unscrewed the lid of the bottle and splashed it through the metal pass-through into the room. Chuck tossed the empty bottle and grabbed the second one.

  “What are you doing?” the clerk yelled. He dropped his phone and scrambled to the far side of the little room.

  “Burning you alive,” Chuck said.

  Chuck popped the top of the second bottle and squeezed it violently as he held it to the metal pass-through. All but a little hit the floor inside of the enclosed employee area.

  “Time to cook.” Chuck held the lighter next to the pass-through and flicked it. The flames chased the liquid from the counter in a blue hue.

  “No, no, no!” the guy yelled. He tried stomping at the flames spreading across the floor, which only ignited his shoe. Chuck watched him frantically kick off the burning shoe, which ignited the other one then his sock and the hair on his leg.

  “Better hurry,” Chuck said.

  The clerk rushed for the door and fumbled with the lock. Chuck walked over, gun in hand, ready to put an end to the guy the second he ran out. The door pull
ed open, and the guy came bursting through, flailing about and on fire. The clerk slammed into an ice cream chest on the back wall of the building. Chuck smirked as he watched the man twirling about and screaming. While the show was enjoyable, there simply wasn’t enough fire to completely engulf and kill the guy. He lifted his gun, took aim, and put a pair in the guy’s chest. The guy stopped flailing, dropped to his knees, then went facedown on the gas station floor.

  Chuck jammed his pistol into his waistline and made for the door. Just as he was about to shove it open, he stopped cold.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Movement outside caught his eye.

  “You have to be kidding me,” Chuck said.

  A beat-up-looking white Ford truck had pulled up to the pumps closest to the building. The truck was hauling a trailer filled with a lawn mower and lawn care equipment. Three guys hopped out. Two of the three wore cowboy hats. Chuck glanced over his shoulder. The gas station clerk lay dead in clear view. The fire was starting to grow. He put eyes back on the men, who walked straight toward him.

  Chapter 8

  Beth had just gotten off the phone with Lieutenant Emily Gehrig from the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office.

  “Tomorrow morning?” I asked.

  She set her phone in her lap. “Yeah, I told her that we could be up that way around nine or so,” Beth said. “Which means we’ll have to get on the road around seven thirty-ish. Looks like it should be about an hour-and-a-half drive. Maybe a few minutes more.”

  “All right. She’ll notify us if they get any kind of hit on the van?” I asked.

  “She said she’d call right away, yeah.”

  “Good.” I pointed out of the windshield, having spotted the diner ahead. The little restaurant was set back behind a waist-high chain-link fence nearer the road. The place looked like a converted subway car that had extensions off the back and sides. A guy stood on a ladder next to a piece of plywood resting against the front of the building. As we pulled into the gravel lot, I could see the blown-out front glass that I imagined the man was about to hang the plywood over.