Max hated the idea of doing nothing even more than the danger of doing something.
They stopped at Walgreens and picked up a box of rubber gloves. Revisiting a crime scene was risky enough; leaving behind prints was downright insane. They made the rest of the drive in just under a couple of hours, the empty roads and a tailwind affording them better travel time on the return trip. By the time they pulled into the dilapidated and forgotten subdivision the clock read four thirty a.m. Liz pulled the Honda to within a few houses away and killed the engine. The headlights died with it, allowing the moonlight to illuminate the scene around them.
“There’s no police tape or anything,” Liz said. “Looks like nobody’s been here.”
Max looked around. One porch light remained on behind them, near the end of the street. A few cars were parked outside of houses, a few more parked in driveways. All the cars appeared to be empty. “I think this is as clear as it’s going to go get. Are you sure you want to go with me? You can wait in the car.”
“Not a chance,” Liz said. She picked up her purse and opened the driver’s side door.
Max followed.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Entering the house proved as easy this time as it had the last couple of times, the lock merely an inconvenience rather than a deterrent. The first thing Max noticed was the smell; not the smell of a rotting corpse, but the smell of old blood and hot, stagnant air. It smelled the way Max thought a slaughterhouse might.
Gabe’s body sat where they’d left it, the blood pooled beneath him a congealed, brown mass that looked like thick syrup. Gabe’s cloudy eyes remained opened, staring at nothing and into oblivion at the same time.
“Jesus,” Liz whispered as she gently closed and locked the door behind them.
“Let’s get this over with.” Max walked to the body and stood beside it for a few moments, preparing himself. A couple of years ago he’d been obsessed with meetings and sales figures. Back then his biggest risks were that his fly was down or maybe bad breath that would put off a potential client.
Now he was standing next to a dead man with a slit throat tied to a chair in a drug den used to make exploitative teen sex films. If someone would have told him back then where he’d be in a two years, Max would have laughed in their face. How quickly things change.
Max took a deep breath to calm himself, immediately regretting it as the smell of old blood and impending rot filled his nasal cavity. He felt his stomach do a little flip and for a moment he thought he might puke. Thankfully it subsided quickly enough.
He started with Gabe’s pockets, first the front and then the back. He appreciated the gloves for more than just their ability to hide his fingerprints. The cloth had been saturated with blood from the deep slash in his throat and had now dried stiff. Max held his breath as much as he could as he searched, breathing only when he had to. The smell of bleach from the basement wafted up, mixing with the rest of the odors permeating the room, creating a hellish ffconcoction from which he couldn’t wait to escape.
By the time Max finished with the pockets, he’d recovered a wallet, a set of keys and a receipt from a merchant Max didn’t recognize. He also recovered a phone, but the battery was dead; drained over the past two days in the heat without its owner alive to charge it.
“That’s everything,” Max said. “Phone’s dead.”
“Keep it,” Liz said as she watched through the back window.
“It won’t do us any good dead.”
“We can charge it. Maybe even cross reference it against Smith’s phone. See if any leads fall out.”
“What if it’s locked?”
“What if it’s not?”
“Good point.” Max removed the gloves and turned them inside out, balling them up before slipping them into his back pocket. He deposited Gabe’s belongings into his front pockets.
Max’s phone beeped with the sound of an incoming text.
Liz shot Max a quizzical look. “I thought you said his phone was dead?”
“It’s not his. It’s mine.”
“Who would be texting you at this hour?”
But Max already knew who, even before he looked. He retrieved the phone from his front pocket as Liz came over to have a look.
“It’s from that same number,” Max said.
“The mystery texter?”
Max nodded. He swiped the screen and unlocked the phone. A message appeared.
Get out now
A moment later the flashing ellipsis appeared below the text as the unknown sender typed another message. The second message appeared a moment later.
They’re coming around back
Liz looked at Max. “Go.”
Max didn’t hesitate. They headed toward one of the empty bedrooms. Max opened a window, casting a furtive glance from side to side. He saw the briefest flash of movement as a person disappeared around the corner of the house, headed around the back toward the door with the world’s flimsiest lock.
“You first,” Max whispered.
Liz followed his lead. Using his hand for balance, she sat on the window ledge, placing both legs out before twisting around on her belly and lowering herself to the ground only a few feet below. Her feet touched the overgrown grass of the side yard as Max heard the back door’s lock disengage.
With Liz safely out, Max climbed through the window himself, scraping his leg on the windowsill. He ignored the pain as he lowered himself quickly to the ground, joining Liz. He glanced up at the open window and saw a flash of light come from the kitchen.
Pulling himself up by the window sill, Max planted a foot on the wall and jumped up, gripping the window and pulling it down nearly closed. He saw the light flash again as he gently closed the window.
Liz gripped Max’s hand as they made their way through the tall grass of the unkempt lawn. Max’s heart raced in his chest. He expected to hear the sound of a gunshot or the gruff voice of a police officer ordering them to the ground, but no sound came.
They crossed over neighboring yards into the back yard of a house with pitch black windows and grass as equally overgrown as the house from which they’d just escaped. By all appearances, it was just as empty. After looking inside and finding the place devoid of furniture, Max tried the back lock. This one proved more difficult than the lock on Caldwell’s place, but a window with a busted lock was much more agreeable to entry.
Max gave Liz a boost and she slid in through the window with the agility of a woman half her age. Max followed, but with none of the grace and poise Liz had demonstrated. Once inside, Max closed the window. He and Liz walked to the front of the house and peered through the blinds to get a glimpse as to who had shown up on their heels. Two police cruisers sat in front of the house containing Gabe Harris’s body, their lights dark.
A moment later they heard footsteps approach from behind.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Max spun around, his heart hammering even harder in his chest as Liz scrambled to retrieve the pistol from her purse. It almost looked comical as she struggled with the latch before rummaging around inside for the gun.
Max turned out to be quicker, retrieving the pistol from his waistband and pointing it toward the shadows. “Come out where we can see you. Hands up.”
A moment or two passed, long enough to allow Liz to get her own gun and point it toward where they’d heard the footsteps.
A figure appeared from the shadows, hands extended. “Don’t shoot, man.”
Max pointed the pistol at the figure. “Who are you?”
“I wasn’t trying to steal anything, I promise,” the man said. “I was just crashing here for a few days until I get myself back on my feet, you know?” The man took a few steps forward, into the moonlight shining in through the house’s front window.
“Far enough,” Max said. “Did Caldwell send you?”
“Who?”
Liz glanced over. “Max, I think he’s homeless.”
Max stared at the man, his features
more visible now in the moonlight. He appeared to be mid-fifties with a scraggly beard and a few missing teeth. He wore a green camouflage jacket that seemed too warm for the weather, along with filthy jeans and work boots.
“Homeless?” the man said. “I ain’t a charity case. I work for my money.”
“But you don’t live here,” Liz said.
“Well, no. Like I said, I’m just crashing here. Ain’t nobody getting hurt by me just staying here for a few days until this place finds a buyer.”
“What’s your name?” Liz asked.
“Campbell. What’s yours?”
“I’m Liz.”
“Who’s the fella.”
Max told Campbell his name.
“Good to meet you,” Campbell said. “Now, any way you could put those guns down? Guns make me nervous.”
Max lowered the pistol slowly. Liz did the same.
Campbell sighed audibly. “Thanks.” He studied Max closely for a few moments. “I’ve seen you before.”
Max shot Campbell a quizzical look. “How?”
Campbell took a few steps forward, examining Max’s face in detail. “Don’t know right off hand.” He took a few more moments to look Max over, shifting his eyes to Liz before coming back to Max. He furrowed his brow in an almost painful expression before his eyes lit up. “I remember now. Maybe four our five days ago. I saw you go into that house a couple doors up. Early morning.”
“You saw me?”
“Sure did.” Campbell paused. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your wife.”
Max glanced at Liz. “She’s not my wife.”
Campbell grinned. “I know.”
It took Max a moment to catch up with their new homeless friend. “No, I’m not cheating on my wife with Liz. I’m divorced.”
“Sure.”
“No, really.”
“Whatever you say, man. I don’t judge.”
“It’s the truth,” Liz said.
“It’s not important,” Max said. He turned back to Campbell. “How long have you been squatting here?”
Campbell thought about it. “A week or two.”
“Truth.”
Campbell paused. “Okay, a year or two. Don’t be mad.”
“A year or two?” Liz said.
“They can’t give the houses away in this neighborhood, everybody knows that,” Campbell said. “No sense in my freezing to death or getting my throat cut on the street. The bank’s gonna sit on this property whether I live in it or not. I’m careful to clean up after myself. I want to leave the place no worse for me having been here, you know? I figure that’s only fair.”
“Are you usually up at this hour?” Max asked. “You said you saw me early in the morning.”
Campbell seemed surprised that he wasn’t about to get evicted. He hadn’t even asked why he and Liz were both carrying guns or why they’d pointed them at him. “Sure. I do my thing at night mostly. Not too many folks are out at that hour, so I’m less likely to get hassled by the fuzz. I like to fly under the radar.”
Liz glanced at Max. “Where are you going with this?”
Max continued with his questioning. “Campbell, do you know what goes on at that house? The one you saw me go into?”
Campbell shook his head.
“But you’ve seen people there?”
“Oh, yeah. I see people there all the time.”
“What do they do?”
“They come around at night.”
“Right, but what do they do?”
“They usually bring them in vans.”
“Bring who?”
“The girls. They bring them in vans. They unload maybe four or five of them, sometimes two or three. Depends. Sweet little things too, not like the kind of girls who would be caught dead with the likes of me. A lot of them are Mexican or whatever. You know, dark. A few black girls and some little white girls too. ‘Course some of them look rode hard and put away wet, but whatever.”
“What do they do with the girls?” Max asked.
“There’s only one reason a van carries girls to a place, you know? I was never first in my class, but even an old fool like me knows exactly what’s going on there.”
Liz glanced at Max. She had a guarded eagerness in her eyes, like she wanted to hear what came next and yet didn’t. Max felt the same way. “Go on, Campbell,” she said. “Tell us what else you saw.”
“Well, there’d be guys with them too. Usually, they carried duffel bags of some sort. Sometimes they had lights; you know, the kind that go on tripods. I figured they was doing some kinda photography in there, you know? Making dirty movies, but those girls…” Campbell trailed off.
“Go ahead,” Max said.
Campbell’s face screwed up. “They was too young. Looked it to me, at least. Even in the dark, you could tell they was just young things. Real skinny, you know? It ain’t legal to make those kinda movies. I’m the first to admit that I’ve beat off to my fair share of skin flicks, but I ain’t never whacked it to a kid. The fucking idea of it.”
“It’s sick,” Liz said.
Campbell’s eyes opened wide. “You’re goddamn right it’s sick. It’s fucking…perverted, that’s what it is.” His expression changed again, this time to wild wonder. It seemed Campbell might very well have the world’s worst poker face. “Are you two cops? You investigating this little house of shenanigans up the street?”
“In a way,” Max said.
“We’re undercover,” Liz added.
Campbell grinned wide. “I’ll be goddamned. I knew it. I fucking knew it.” He chuckled. “Guess that explains the guns, eh?”
Max nodded. “Yeah.”
“Oh, geez. Wow. I never helped with a case before.” Campbell’s expression changed again. “You ain’t gonna bust me for staying here, are you?”
“We have no interest in that,” Max said. “Our focus is on the house and what goes on in there.”
Campbell sighed audibly. “Sure, sure.”
Max continued his questioning, attempting to keep Campbell on track. “Have you seen anybody there lately?”
Campbell looked toward the ceiling as he searched his thoughts. “Come to think of it, no. You’re the first guy I seen there in a month or so. I just figured you was like a clean up guy, you know? I said to myself, ‘there goes a son of a bitch more desperate than me. Cleaning up used rubbers and whatnot.’” He paused. “No offense.”
Max couldn’t necessarily disagree with him. He was a desperate son of a bitch. “Did you ever see a man in a white suit come to the house?”
Campbell looked at Max earnestly. “He’s the big dog, ain’t he? The head honcho that you’re gunning for.”
“He’s a suspect,” Max said.
Campbell grinned. “I saw him the night you came. You just barely got out. I was rooting for you.”
“Campbell, do you have a cell phone?”
Campbell gave Max an incredulous look. “You think a guy like me can afford a cell phone?”
“They sell prepaid phones,” Liz added.
“When did they start doing that?”
“So you don’t have a phone?” Max said.
“No, sir. Honestly, I ain’t got anybody to call anyway. Seems little point in owning one. Why? Is that important?”
For a moment Max thought he might have found his mystery texter, but it seemed not. He had no reason to believe Campbell was telling anything other than the truth. He seemed to lack the mental capacity for duplicity. “It’s not important.”
Campbell looked away for a moment. He opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it.
“Is there something else you want to tell us?” Liz asked.
Campbell hesitated.
“You can tell us anything,” Max said. “Even if it’s bad, so long as it’s the truth. It might help our investigation.”
Campbell paused as if considering how to phrase his next statement. “I peeked once.”
“What do you mean?”
“I tried to look, you know? I was curious. Not to get my jollies off, mind you. I thought if I could prove they was doing something wrong I could maybe call the cops or something.”
“I believe you,” Max said. “What did you see?”
“Nothing, I swear. They got the windows all covered up, you know? I could hear things though. Sounds…it sounded like they was doing it. But that ain’t proof. For all I know they might be running one of those dirty phone call places, you know? Just making dirty noises. That ain’t illegal.”
“No, it’s not,” Max agreed.
“You didn’t see anything else while you were over there?” Liz asked. “Nothing at all? Maybe something about the men you saw? Did you get a close look at any of them? Did you overhear any conversations? Any names?”
Campbell thought for a moment. “I heard some talk, but it was in another language.”
“What language?”
“I don’t know exactly, but it sounded Russian to me. I could be wrong.”
“Anything else?” Max asked.
“Yeah…the vans. There was a name on the vans. Winehouse Rentals, which I remember because of that singer. You remember her, right? Big nose, dark hair. I think she O.D.d or something a while back.”
“Amy Winehouse,” Liz said.
Campbell’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, that’s it! I remember thinking about that when I saw the vans and wondering how many people here in the states got the name Winehouse. She was a Brit, I think. You know, English?”
“I remember,” Max said.
“Winehouse Party Rentals,” Liz said. “They rent tents for parties. Tables, chairs, stuff like that. I worked for a company a while back who hired them for an outdoor event.”
“Do you think it means anything?” Max asked.
Familiar Lies Page 17