Son of a Gun (A David and Martin Yerxa Thriller - Book 2)

by Ed Markham

  “So Ganther worked for you back in September?” Martin asked him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And have you seen or spoken with him since then?”

  Schreyer shook his head. “Nope. He put in his six weeks of work and that was that. I’ll call him again this spring to see if he’s interested in coming back.”

  David considered all this. He asked Schreyer, “Do you have information on the teams who buy soccer uniforms here? Rosters with the kids’ home addresses, or anything like that?”

  Schreyer nodded. “Most of them. We ask for addresses, and we send out coupons and reminders to a lot of the families before the start of the season.”

  “May we take a look at those rosters?”

  Schreyer looked at David for a moment and then excused himself to a back room.

  David turned to his father, who was standing with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking up at one of the mannequins.

  Martin looked at the mannequin for another second, and then started to speak. But the storekeeper emerged from the back room with a spiral notebook in his hands.

  “Okay, here you go,” Schreyer said. He set the book on the counter and swiveled it so David could read the information. “These are all the names and addresses I have for the last few seasons. They’re alphabetical. I put them in my computer at home and make them into spreadsheets.”

  David thanked him and flipped open the book. He scanned the pages for the names of the victims. No Stephenson. No Merchant. No Bush. No Grow.

  When he was finished, he turned back to Martin. “No,” he said, answering the question he saw in his father’s face.

  Martin nodded, and David thanked Schreyer for his help. As he had with Ganther’s next-door neighbor, he handed the shopkeeper his card and asked for him to call if he heard anything from Ian.

  “Will do,” Schreyer said.

  David turned and motioned to his father for them to leave, but Martin waved his son over.

  “What is it?” David asked him.

  Martin put a hand on his shoulder and pointed up at the mannequin. “See someone familiar?”

  David looked up. At first he missed it. But then he took a closer look at the mannequin’s face, which was almond shaped and expressionless except for the rough outlines of a nose, mouth, and eye sockets. He nodded to his father.

  The mannequin’s face matched the paper-maché masks left on the heads of the murdered children.

  Chapter 49

  “YOU HEARD ME. Ian Ganther is now our principle suspect.”

  Martin spoke to Omar Ghafari as David drove them back toward Ganther’s house on Crandle Street.

  “Put the word out to all local and state authorities,” Martin said into the speakerphone of his son’s car. “We’ll also need a search warrant for his home as soon as you can get it to us.”

  “Do you want local backup for the search?” Omar asked.

  Martin glanced at his son and recalled how his last decision to eschew backup had ended with David chasing a meth addict through the woods of Central Pennsylvania. “Why not,” he answered. “But we need them immediately. We’ll be back to Ganther’s in about fifteen minutes, and I don’t want to sit in this car waiting for them to show. How long will that search warrant take?”

  Omar said, “That depends on what the judge thinks of your mannequin-mask lead, the fact that Ian’s missing, and the connections between the current murders and his father’s confession.”

  “Make a guess.”

  “I’d say an hour minimum. Maybe two. But I’ll be sure to remind him a child is still missing, and an hour could make a difference.”

  “Tell the local police we’ll be waiting for them in front of Ganther’s house. Call us when you have our warrant.”

  When David and Martin pulled up in front of Ian Ganther’s home, a Bethlehem PD cruiser was waiting for them. Two policemen—one white and young, the other black and middle aged—climbed out of the squad car as David pulled his Lincoln up to the curb. The cops introduced themselves as Wagner and Strauss.

  “Like the composers,” Martin said, grinning.

  The cops nodded, but didn’t seem to get the joke.

  “You know why we’re here?” David asked them.

  Wagner, who was the older of the two, nodded. “We’re conducting a search, and the owner may be involved in the child murder over in Emmaus.”

  Wagner was at least six inches taller than his partner, and he stood with his thumbs in his belt, looking from David to Martin with an attentive but calm expression.

  David nodded. “As of this morning, Ian Ganther’s our principle suspect.”

  “What can we expect in there,” the younger of the two cops asked. He was barrel chested and stocky, and his eyes were positioned very close together in his face, almost like they were pinching the bridge of his nose. Unlike his partner, he was shifting from one foot to the other, crossing and uncrossing his arms and looking back over his shoulder at the house.

  “Probably not much,” David said.

  When he heard this news, Strauss seemed a little disappointed but also more relaxed. He nodded and wedged his thumbs into his belt, imitating his partner’s posture.

  “What are we waiting for?” Wagner asked.

  “A search warrant,” David said.

  “But you guys are the FBI?” Strauss put in. “I thought if you wanted a warrant, you’d have it in thirty seconds.”

  Martin laughed out loud, and David started to reply when he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket.

  “Your search warrant is approved,” Omar said.

  “That was quick,” David said.

  “There’s a good reason for that. Right after I spoke with Martin, I got a call from our DNA team. They’ve finished comparing the Stephenson sample to James Ganther’s.”

  “And?” David asked.

  “And it was a partial match. Identical Y chromosome, different X chromosome. That means the sample on the victim could only have come from Ian Ganther, Phil Ganther, or one of their children, if either had any.”

  Chapter 50

  “YOU DON’T WANT to play with me?”

  Josh was standing at one end of the air hockey table, holding one of the plastic strikers and looking plaintively at Carson.

  When Carson shook his head again, Josh’s disappointment deepened.

  “Come on, one game,” he said.

  “I don’t want to,” Carson said from his seat on the couch.

  The boys had spent the night together in the basement. Carson had woken in the morning to find Josh already up and flipping through a comic book he’d pulled from the room’s lone bookcase.

  There’d been a little food left over from the night before, and both had eaten. Carson had thought again about showing Josh the loose panel and the draft in the bathroom, but again he’d decided against it. He couldn’t explain exactly why, but the relief he’d felt to have company had evaporated sometime in the night as he slept. He didn’t want to hang out with Josh anymore, and the other boy’s constant prodding to play games was starting to grate.

  Josh shrugged and put down his air hockey striker. He walked to the couch and plopped down theatrically at Carson’s side. “How about we play Altered Beast again?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to,” Carson said. Then, without giving it much thought, he said, “I miss my family.”

  He hadn’t realized how much this was weighing on him until he said it.

  Josh nodded sympathetically. “I miss mine, too.”

  “You don’t seem like you do,” Carson said. He glared at the other boy, feeling suddenly angry with him. “You’ve been here a lot longer than me, but you seem okay with it, like all this is no big deal.”

  Josh frowned, and seemed angry himself. “That’s because it just makes me sad to think about it. Plus I’m not a little baby who’s going to cry because he misses his mommy.”

  The insult was unexpected and stinging, and Carson felt his anger flare
.

  “I’m not a little baby,” he said, his mouth tightening. “I just don’t like being locked up in a shitty basement where I have to play games with a loser all day.”

  Now the anger on Josh’s face turned to fury. He lifted a fist above his shoulder and leaned forward like he was going to throw a punch. Carson reflexively held up his palms to protect himself. But Josh seemed to change his mind almost immediately, and he lowered his fist. His eyes suddenly filled with tears, and he turned away from Carson.

  “I miss my family a lot, okay?” he said, his shoulders tense and heaving. “But if you’d been stuck here with this psycho as long as I have, you’d understand it doesn’t help to think about it. You’ve got to think about other stuff, or you go crazy. That’s why I want to keep playing games all the time. I just don’t want to think about it.”

  Carson didn’t say anything. He didn’t like what he’d seen in the other boy’s face. The flash of fury, however brief, had been startling, and now he felt frightened of Josh as well as annoyed with him.

  After wiping at his face, Josh got off the couch and kneeled down by the Sega Genesis. “I’m going to play Altered Beast. Do you want to play with me or not.”

  “No,” Carson said.

  “Fine.”

  Josh switched on the TV and started playing the video game by himself.

  Carson sat watching him from the couch. He thought about his family, and he thought about how much he wanted Josh’s watch to beep so the boy would leave and he wouldn’t have to be around him anymore.

  Chapter 51

  DAVID AND OFFICER Wagner—the larger of the two Bethlehem police officers—stood in front of Ian Ganther’s front door holding a small battering ram between them. They’d already knocked twice without receiving an answer. Martin stood a few yards away at the base of the steps leading to the front door, and Officer Strauss had gone around to the rear of the house to keep an eye on the back door and windows.

  “On three,” David said to Wagner.

  The cop nodded, and they brought the ram back and then forward as David counted.

  “One . . . two . . . three.”

  The front door splintered open, and both men stepped inside quickly, dropping the ram on the carpeted floor of the main room.

  David left his firearm holstered, but he didn’t protest when Wagner drew his service weapon and held it pointed at the ceiling.

  “Just in case,” Wagner said, and David nodded his agreement. They both scanned the room for signs of movement.

  The room was about twenty feet by forty, with a staircase against one wall and a fireplace against the other. David saw a couch, a sitting chair, and a coffee table covered with books, magazines, and dishes. The beige carpet was mottled with stains, and an old television set was positioned in the corner of the room near the fireplace and one of the front windows.

  “Stay here and keep an eye on the stairs while I check out the back rooms,” David said to Wagner.

  The cop nodded and turned his attention to the staircase.

  Pushing through the room’s lone swinging door with the elbow of his suit, David found himself in the kitchen he and Martin had peered into a few hours before. It smelled of spoiled food.

  His presence disturbed the resting flies, which lifted off from the edge of the sink. He peered into it and smelled something rotten, like expired chicken. A few mold-covered dishes sat in the sink alongside scraps of decomposing food.

  He pushed through a second swinging door on the left side of the kitchen and walked into a dining room. The space was still and neat. A rectangular wood table dominated much of the room. Against one wall stood a china cabinet partially filled with a few cheap looking serving dishes and wine glasses, along with one very nice looking silver platter he guessed had belonged to Ian Ganther’s deceased wife.

  He left the dining room and opened the back door for Strauss. Then the two of them joined Wagner in the front room.

  “You can come in,” David called to his father.

  Martin stepped in through the front door and paused to look around the room.

  “Anything jump out at you?” he asked.

  David shook his head. “Not yet. I thought you and I would take a look upstairs together.”

  Martin nodded, and David instructed Wagner and Strauss to wait downstairs for them. He was sure now that nobody was home, and he paused to pull on a pair of plastic gloves.

  Taking the lead, he and his father made their way up the wooden steps to the second floor. They found a short hallway containing three doors—two that opened toward the back of the house and one toward the front. All of the doors were closed, but windows at the top of the stairs and the end of the hallway let in plenty of light for them to see. Tracks of carpet stains marked oft-walked paths from the top of the stairs to each of the doorways.

  David walked first to the lone door on his right. He turned the knob and pushed open the door, revealing a master bedroom. The curtains and blinds were closed, but he could see the room was tidy and well kept. He flipped up the switch to his left, and an overhead light and ceiling fan switched on.

  A queen-sized bed took up half the room and faced twin bureaus and a small vanity. The bed was made. Small bottles of perfume sat on the vanity alongside a few aging photographs and trinkets. There were no clothes on the floor, and an examination of the closets and bureaus revealed neatly hung and folded garments.

  “Pretty squared away,” Martin said.

  David wiped a gloved finger along the top of one of the bureaus. He held it up so his father could see the dust. “I don’t think anyone’s used this room in months,” he said.

  After looking around for another minute, they left the room and tried the door at the far end of the hallway. It opened onto a small bathroom. Unlike the bedroom, this space had clearly been used recently. Blue streaks of toothpaste smeared the sink, and the trashcan in one corner was filled with used tissues and discarded bottles of shampoo and other toiletries. The shower floor was filthy, and the oval dish suctioned to one tile was filled with hardened soap residue.

  David opened the cabinet above the sink and saw nail clippers, as well as various deodorants, aftershaves, a retainer case, contact solution, and other half-used grooming amenities.

  He glanced at his father.

  Martin said, “You’d think a guy who would keep his bedroom tidy would leave his bathroom in better shape.”

  David didn’t answer. He left the bathroom and walked back toward the stairs and the last unopened door. He turned the nob, above which was a large padlock, and pushed inward.

  The door opened onto darkness, and again David felt with his plastic-covered hands for a light switch. He found one, and flipped it on.

  The ceiling light revealed walls covered in robot-themed wallpaper. The floor was littered with figurines and comic books. A small sticker-covered television stand, minus a television set, sat against one wall of the room near the foot of the twin-sized bed, which was unmade. The comforter and sheets were crumpled to one side of the mattress, and the pillows were dented.

  Near the bed, an open closet door revealed a laundry hamper and a mess of children’s clothing and toys. A small dresser stood with most of its drawers at least partially open. The lone window at the back of the room was obscured by blinds and curtains, and appeared quite dark.

  David walked into the room, careful to avoid stepping on any of the toys littering the carpeted floor. He looked at the TV stand, and saw a large section where the dust was streaked and not so thick as it was around the stand’s edges.

  “Whoever was staying here took the TV with him when he left,” he said.

  He turned and saw his father examining the dresser drawers.

  “Took a lot of clothing with him too,” Martin said. He pointed at the dresser drawers. “Most of these are empty.”

  David walked to the window and examined the thick curtains. He moved them aside, and slats of daylight rushed in between the closed blinds. He tu
rned away from the window and looked at his father. Both men were silent for a moment, and then Martin said, “Something very strange is going on here, son.”

  David nodded wordlessly.

  Martin looked at the bed and then through the open doorway to the master bedroom across the hall. “Let’s get Forensics in here for a look,” he said. “Find out who’s been using Christopher Ganther’s bedroom.”

  Chapter 52

  GINA CARR WATCHED her partner as he wheezed out of the black SUV they shared.

  Brian Kerrigan’s scowl was so pronounced it was almost comical. He coughed twice into his fat fist and spat onto the sidewalk in front of the vacant house—a five-bedroom, two-story white colonial located just a few blocks from Rosemont College.

  Carr kept her eyes on him but said nothing. She knew what was coming.

  On cue, Kerrigan said, “This is a bullshit errand, you know that?”

  “No, Brian,” she answered. “I don’t know that.”

  He made a “Come on, Gina” face at her.

  As they started up the front walkway, several other members of the Pennsylvania State Police—including one German shepherd—climbed out of the two vehicles parked behind theirs.

  “Don’t gimme that shit,” Kerrigan said to her as they approached the front door. “You know this is a runaround. They’re just trying to keep us occupied and out of their way.”

  “Who’s they?” Carr asked.

  Kerrigan scoffed. “Don’t start. You know. Those FBI pricks.”

  Carr didn’t answer. She had her own doubts, though she wasn’t about to admit them to Kerrigan.

  When they’d begun the property searches of the homes Graham and Lori Grow had on the market, she’d seen the validity of the chore. But as each inspection failed to produce anything but a mound of paperwork, she’d started to suspect the same thing her partner had been griping about for days; namely, that the FBI had sent them on a fool’s errand.

  In fact, she probably would have abandoned the searches a day earlier if not for her extreme disinclination to agree with Brian Kerrigan’s whining.