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

by Ed Markham

  He supported the scoreboard with one hand and worked hurriedly to remove the screw. When he had it out, the elbow-shaped pipe came loose in his hand. He stood admiring it for a moment, feeling triumphant, and then he left the scoreboard dangling askew from its single arm.

  He walked quickly to the bathroom, praying the pipe wouldn’t be too long to wedge inside the gap in the wall panels.

  It was too long, but only by a couple of inches. By angling the elbow of the pipe down, Carson was able to make it fit. He wedged its tip into the wall panel, and then started to push down on its free end, levering the panel away from the wall. He felt it start to separate immediately, and he was sure it would pull loose at any moment.

  But then a noise stopped him.

  With his face drooping in horror, Carson heard the faint sound of a door opening and closing overhead, and then footsteps moved across the floor above him.

  He stood frozen, grasping the metal pipe in his hands, waiting for the sounds of the locks sliding in their tracks. He realized the broken scoreboard might be visible from the top of the stairs, and if the man brought food down himself, he’d certainly notice it. Carson’s only hope was for Josh to come down alone. He’d have to tell the other boy what he was doing and hope that he’d go along with it.

  But the sound of the locks opening never came. Carson heard the footsteps for a time, and then all was quiet.

  Still standing with the pipe in his hands, he looked at the loosened section of paneling. He wanted to pry it loose, and thought he could have done it with his bare hands now. But he couldn’t be sure the man wasn’t within earshot. If he were, he’d certainly hear the panel breaking free. Carson tried to peer in behind the wall, but it was still too dark to see anything, though the draft of cool air was stronger now.

  Walking back to the main room, he carried the elbow shaped piece of pipe to the air hockey table and, as quietly as he could, screwed it back into place. He nearly dropped it once as he glanced up the stairs, wondering if the man could hear what he was doing. He let out a great sigh of relief when the pipe was back in place. He collected the broken pieces of video game and hid them under one of the couch cushions, which he then sat on.

  He stayed there for a long time, listening and hoping he’d hear the sound of a door opening and closing upstairs, signaling that the man had gone again. But the sound never came. Every few minutes, Carson heard the footsteps.

  Eventually he curled up sideways on the couch, pulling his knees to his chest. He fell asleep.

  Saturday, November 9

  Chapter 61

  THE SMELL OF coffee brewing woke David a little before six a.m. He sat up in bed and swung his feet onto the floor, feeling the coolness of the wooden floorboards. He was rubbing his eyes when his father pushed open his bedroom door.

  “Good, you’re up,” Martin barked. He reached in and set a mug of coffee down on the top of the guest room’s dresser. “Breakfast is ready. Let’s eat and get going.”

  The two had returned to Martin’s home late the previous night when it was clear there wasn’t much else they could do at the Philadelphia field office. David had left instructions for the agents on duty to call him if they heard from Ian Ganther.

  After he’d dressed, he walked down to his father’s kitchen.

  Martin handed him a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. “I heard you talking with Lauren on the phone last night,” he said. “How’s she doing down in Georgia?”

  “Fine.” He recalled her playful crowing about being awarded “Top Shot” for her training class. “She knows hot to handle a weapon. She flies back this afternoon.”

  Martin nodded. “We still planning to visit Phil Ganther this morning?”

  “First thing,” David said in between bites of egg. “I just want to put a call in to Lynn. See if she’s made progress on those bones.”

  He finished his plate and walked to a window looking out onto Martin’s small rear patio and garden. Outside the sky was overcast and gray, and he could see a morning breeze agitating the leaves of the basil and mint plants.

  “Looks cold out there,” he observed as he waited for Lynn to pick up. He sipped at his coffee.

  When the forensic pathologist answered, he could tell by the sound of her voice that she’d been up all night.

  “We’re working on the DNA analysis now,” she said by way of greeting. “I should have that for you in two hours. Three tops.”

  She yawned audibly.

  “Any idea how he died?” David asked her.

  “We found some markings on one of the spinal vertebra that might indicate a gunshot wound. Difficult to tell, but at this point that’d be my educated guess. Also signs of fractures on the shoulders and chest, but they look much older to me, so I don’t think they’re related.”

  He considered this as Lynn paused to collect her thoughts. “There’s something else,” she said. “I was about to call you when you beat me to it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We found another body buried a couple feet farther down than the first. Looks smaller, but I can’t tell the sex or if it’s an adolescent. I’m working on it.”

  Chapter 62

  TEN MINUTES AFTER hanging up with Lynn, David and Martin were on the road heading north toward Allentown and the home of Phil Ganther.

  Once they’d made it onto Interstate 476, the traffic began to break up, and David asked his father to hand him the photograph of Phil from his file. He glanced at it as he drove, and again took note of Phil Ganther’s blond hair, which was like his brother’s, and his blue eyes, which were anything but. More like his nephew’s, David thought, remembering the photograph of Ian Ganther with his wife. Apart from their eyes, James and Phil’s features were very similar; same nose and ears, David thought. Same abbreviated neck and strong forearms. He regarded Phil Ganther’s lopsided wince-smile, as though the police camera had flashed a second too early.

  As they exited the highway onto the Lehigh Valley thruway, wispy snowflakes began to fall from the sky. After a few miles they turned north, away from Allentown, and the scenery outside their vehicle quickly changed from middle-class suburbs to sparsely populated country roads. They made a series of turns, passing little more than thick stands of trees, lone gas stations, and the occasional farm.

  “Take a left up here on Weimark,” Martin said. “We should see Ganther’s on our right after half a mile.”

  David did as he was told, and slowed when he saw the two-story white house built onto the tree-covered hillside. Martin peered through the windshield at the number on the mailbox at the foot of the dirt driveway. “This is it.”

  At the end of the drive, they parked on the grass behind a rusted out Oldsmobile. They climbed out and looked up at the house.

  The place was shutter-less and filthy, and the paint was flaking away from the warped wood siding like strips of bark from a birch tree. All of the windows were dark, though David could see they were blocked by gray blankets, not curtains. The place was still and lifeless apart from a small metal chimney pipe on the rooftop, from which a steady cloud of steam was pouring out into the November air.

  David mounted the three steps that led to the front door. As he knocked, Martin stood on the slab of cement at the base of the stairs, regarding the house and the gray clouds above it.

  They waited for a full minute, and then David knocked again. Another minute passed. He thought he could hear movement inside, but no one answered. There were no windowpanes in the door for him to peer through.

  He looked down at his father. “I doubt he has two cars. He should be here.”

  As he spoke, he heard a rustling on the other side of the door. He turned just as the deadbolt slid in its lock and the door opened.

  Chapter 63

  “HELP YOU?”

  David recognized the youthful blue eyes from the mug shot he’d examined during the drive up. He also recognized Phil Ganther’s high-pitched, nasally voice from their conversations on the telephon
e. The man’s moustache and hair were still blonde, though he wore his hair shorter now.

  “Mr. Ganther, I’m David Yerxa. From the FBI. We spoke on the phone yesterday about your brother.”

  One corner of Ganther’s mouth pulled upward, mimicking the wince David had seen in his mug shot. The creases in Ganther’s forehead and cheek deepened as he looked at him sideways.

  “How could I forget,” he said. He extended a hand, and David shook it.

  “What brings you fellas all the way up here?” he asked.

  David peered past him into the dark room behind him. He couldn’t make out much of anything, but he could feel a lot of heat escaping from the open doorway.

  “First of all,” he said, “we wanted to offer you our condolences.”

  Ganther’s wince went slack for a moment, and then he nodded. “Oh yeah, well, I appreciate that. Only got one brother you know. Our parents is gone, so I guess that just leaves me now.”

  David nodded. “Just you and your nephew. Have you seen or heard anything from Ian.”

  “Ian?” Ganther said, looking surprised. He pursed his lips and rubbed at his cheek, which David noticed was pink and smooth. He could never have grown a beard like his older brother’s. “I ain’t seen or talked to Ian in a while. At least a year I guess. After his boy went missin’, we sort of stopped talking.”

  “I understand you were close with Ian’s son Christopher.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ganther said, smiling a little wistfully and dropping his eyes. “He was a good boy. I taught him to fish and shoot up here. Broke me up when he disappeared.”

  “What can you tell us about that?”

  “About him disappearing?” Ganther frowned. “Not a whole lot. I get a call from Ian and he says Chrissy’s gone missing. Asked me if I’d seen or heard from him. I told him no, and he asked me to keep an eye out. When he didn’t turn up, I drove over to Bethlehem and helped look around for him. Knew it wouldn’t do no good, but I felt like I had to do something. Police asked me a bunch of questions about it like I mighta took him myself, and that was it. He was just gone. Like I says, broke me up for a long time. I cared for that boy.”

  “How did Chrissy get along with his dad?”

  Ganther settled his hands on his hips and his expression darkened. “Oh, not too well I guess.”

  David waited for him to elaborate.

  Phil Ganther’s face ticked up again on one side. “I don’t think they understood each other much. Chrissy used to tell me strange stuff. Said his daddy wasn’t normal. Said he was always pretending, but no one seemed to notice it but him.” Ganther shook his head. “I never quite understood what he was getting at, but then Chrissy was a lot smarter than me. He and his daddy got all the brains in this family. But I think that’s why he and I was close. Chrissy could talk to me about stuff like that—about his daddy I mean.”

  “Did you ever suspect your nephew might have had something to do with Christopher’s disappearance?”

  Ganther sucked in a deep breath and his mouth pinched inward in a way David didn’t know how to interpret.

  “Well,” Ganther said. He glanced from David to Martin, and then his eyes settled in the distance. “I remember Ian was pretty shook up after Chrissy went missing. Pretty upset.” He nodded a few times, his eyes still lost somewhere over the top of David’s car.

  Watching him, David had the sense he was choosing his words very carefully.

  Ganther raked the back of a thumb against his Adam’s apple and winced again, his eyes returning to David’s. “I did suspect him, but I don’t really believe he had anything to do with Chrissy going missing.” He took another deep breath. “I feel sorry for my brother’s boy. Growing up without a daddy. That’s something I never had to deal with myself, and I can see you never did neither.”

  As he said this, Ganther nodded at Martin.

  “You’re right,” David said. He gestured toward his father, but didn’t take his eyes from Ganther. “And yes, this is my father, Martin Yerxa.”

  He couldn’t quite understand where the feeling came from, but he sensed an aggression in Ganther’s remark—as though he’d imparted a silent warning.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Ganther said to Martin.

  He turned his eyes back to David, and the two stood looking at each other in silence for a few seconds.

  “Do you live here alone, Mr. Ganther?” David asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No wife or girlfriend?”

  Ganther shook his head. “Confirmed bachelor.”

  “How would you feel about us taking a quick look around your place?”

  Ganther sucked air in again through his nose, as he’d done before. “I guess I wouldn’t like it much,” he said.

  David nodded. “Would you like it less if we came back with a search warrant?”

  Ganther smiled, the first David had seen from him. “I guess if that were the case, it wouldn’t matter much if I liked it or not.”

  “That’s true,” David said. “It wouldn’t.”

  Ganther stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, looking at him with that smile still creasing his face. “Don’t take it personally, sir. But as an honest American citizen I feel a sorta duty to say no when a G-man knocks on my door and asks to look around at my private residence. I’ll answer your questions, and if you get your warrant I won’t make no fuss. But a man’s gotta draw the line somewhere.”

  “No offense taken,” David said. “And I think you’ve answered all the questions we have for you today.”

  “All right then. You and your daddy have a nice day.”

  Ganther’s crooked smile was still twisting one side of his face as he closed the door.

  “What did you think?” David asked when he and Martin were back in their car and headed down Ganther’s gravel driveway.

  “Tough to say.” Martin turned up the temperature on his side of the car and buried his hands deep in his jacket pockets. “Strange what he said about Ian and Christopher, but not out of line with what we know about them from the journals.”

  “It wasn’t his words that bothered me,” David said. “It was his look.”

  The two rode in silence until they reached 476. As David pulled onto the interstate, he retrieved his cell phone from his car’s cup holder. He saw he had a message from a Quantico number, but he wanted to get Omar Ghafari started on the warrant request first. Without any evidence linking Phil Ganther to the crimes, he knew it would probably take a day or two to arrange.

  “Omar,” he said after calling him on his car’s speakerphone. “I’m going to need another search warrant. This time for Phil Ganther’s home in Allentown.”

  “Yeah I just got off the phone with Lynn. Already working on it.”

  David was quiet for a second, not following him. “What are you talking about? I haven’t spoken to Lynn.”

  “What? You need to call her, man.”

  “Why? Has she made progress on the second body?”

  “No, but she got back the DNA results on the first.”

  “We have an ID?”

  “We do,” Omar said. “It’s Phil Ganther.”

  Chapter 64

  CARSON WOKE WHEN he heard the door close above him.

  He sat up on the couch and rubbed at his eyes, the gravity of his situation returning immediately; he was still in the basement, still a captive.

  His eyes went to the ceiling. He sat very still for nearly a minute, listening, but he heard no footsteps.

  He’s gone, he thought.

  Standing from the couch, he walked quickly to the bathroom. He paused a moment longer to listen. When he heard no footsteps overhead, he slipped the tips of his fingers behind the loosened wall panel and began to pull. It tore away from the wall with a muted crack.

  Carson stumbled back a step when the panel broke free. He gaped at the two-foot opening in the wall and at the space behind it.

  At first he saw nothing. Just a dark emptiness. Then he mad
e out the old brick and crumbling cement of the foundation wall. He stepped closer, and noticed a rusted square panel bearing the word “Majestic.” The panel was metal and positioned about four feet off the ground. It had a small handle on one side, and Carson realized it was some kind of chute.

  Standing closer to it now, he could feel cold air leaking out of the panel’s cracks.

  He reached up for the handle and tried pulling on it. Nothing. Not a budge. Wrapping both of his hands around it now, he yanked on it as hard as he could. He felt the handle twist counter-clockwise a quarter inch. Now he understood. He had to turn the handle before pulling on it. He twisted hard, and the handle jerked down with a screech. Then the small door pulled away from the wall.

  Dirt and soot and a stream of filthy water leaked out from the base of the coal chute, and Carson took a step back, his heart racing with excitement and hope. Inside the chute, he could see that a gray, clumpy material loosely filled the space. He touched it, and some of it came away easily in his fingertips. He tried to think of what it could be, and he remembered one autumn weekend when his father had asked for his help working in the attic.

  “Feel how much colder it is up here than in the rooms underneath us?” his dad had asked him.

  Carson had nodded as he watched his father unroll large strips of a spongy pink material that resembled cotton candy. His dad had handed him a pair of gloves and explained, “We need to keep that cold out with this pink stuff, which is called insulation.” He’d pointed at the space between the attic’s floor beams. “There’s insulation up here now, but it’s old, and it needs to be replaced.”

  He’d showed his son how to pull up the old rock wool insulation, and Carson thought now that the material packed into the coal chute looked a lot like what he’d helped his dad remove from their attic.

  He reached forward again and pulled out two large handfuls of the material. He felt a light stinging on his palms, and when he looked at them, he saw his skin was already becoming red and irritated.