by David Grace
“You got it. You want me to get you another one to replace it? I’ve got an Astro I can give you a good deal on.”
Yeah, right, Paulie thought. The cops are on to you so naturally we’ll want to have you get us another van. Moron.
“I’ll handle it myself. What did you tell him about me?”
“About you? Nothing. Nada. Zero. Shit, Paulie, I’d never give you up. Hey, you can depend on me. I don’t talk to cops. Everybody knows that.”
Paulie? Sturdevant thought. The fucking, lying, asshole, moron knows my name! Shit!
“Yeah, Tony. Everybody knows that. You hold off on filing that police report until late tomorrow.”
“You got it,” Tony said into a dead line.
A minute later Sturdevant was back on the phone. “K, we’ve got a loose end we’re gonna have to tie up right away. . . . Yeah, tonight.”
A minute later Paulie snapped his burner phone closed and headed for the door.
Chapter Nineteen
“He lives in this dump?” Kyle Neddick asked Paulie as they maneuvered around the piles of wrecked machines.
“He’s got a trailer parked behind there.” Paulie pointed to a row of crushed cars stacked up like bricks in a garden wall. Having long ago disabled the Mercedes’ dome light the two men slipped out of the car in almost total darkness. In addition to his forty-caliber Sig Sauer, tonight Kyle also carried a pistol-grip shotgun whose barrel had been cut down to twelve inches. You couldn’t hit anything much beyond fifteen feet with it but up close it was concentrated death. Paulie shoved his S&W M&P 40 into his belt in order to leave his hands free to carry the thirty-six inch wrecking bar he had bought just after dinner.
The broken asphalt made a faint, crunching sound as they rounded the last pile of scrap between themselves and the junkyard office. Paulie had assured Kyle that Gershner didn’t keep dogs, but Neddick peered intently into the darkness nevertheless. Kyle made for the front door but Paulie waved him away.
“That’s the office,” he whispered. “Tony lives in the back.”
A pole-mounted flood cast harsh shadows across the parking area and the two men hurried into the gloom behind the trailer. Three steps led to a small porch fronting a scarred metal door cut into the back wall.
With a jiggle of the shotgun’s barrel Kyle motioned Paulie forward and Sturdevant quietly climbed the stairs. He paused for a moment at the top then shoved the bar’s tip into the gap between the door and the jam. The door creaked and moved back half an inch then froze. Paulie stabbed the tip into the widened opening and pulled again. Shards of metal clattered from the shattered lock and the door sprung free. Raising the bar like a club Paulie raced inside with Kyle following five steps behind.
“What the hell?” a sleepy voice muttered followed by a cry and the crack of steel hitting bone.
“You broke my hand! You broke my hand!” Tony whimpered and began to moan.
Kyle took a moment to survey the squalid room then turned and quickly checked the rest of the trailer to make sure that Gershner didn’t have some hooker sleeping over. Bad luck for her if he did, Kyle thought. A few moments later he returned to the bedroom and took the wrecking bar from Paulie’s outstretched hand. Kyle flicked his fingers at Tony in a “come along” motion and led the way outside. Grabbing Tony’s shoulder with one hand and his neck in the other, Sturdevant shoved the sniveling man ahead of him toward the door.
“Where is it?” Kyle whispered, his words swallowed up by the night.
“Straight ahead, then left,” Paulie replied.
For the next few seconds they walked without speaking, the only sounds Tony’s low moans and the crunch of the gravel beneath their shoes. A ragged, black mound grew larger ahead of them and slowly resolved into a lumpy pile of autos fronted by a steel-framed box as big as a freight car. Up close Kyle could make out the rusted outline of an Oldsmobile Rocket 88 lying in the center of the machine.
Kyle moved close to Tony and asked, “How do we turn it on?”
“What? Why are you doing this? You broke my fucking hand!”
Kyle handed the crowbar to Sturdevant then asked Tony, “Do you want him to break your other hand?”
“No, please.”
“Then show me how we turn this thing on.”
Tony hesitated for an instant, but when Paulie raised the hooked end of the bar he hurried to a control panel at the left end of the machine. Kyle followed close behind and switched on a tiny LED flashlight when Tony squinted blindly at the controls.
“Show me,” Kyle ordered. Tony gave him a quick, frightened look then pointed at a hinged piece of black plastic.
“That’s the power,” he said, flipping the cover up and pressing the green button underneath. A couple of tiny lights blinked on, emitting a weak glow. Tony smiled like a dog expecting a treat.
“How do you make it go?” Kyle asked in a dead, flat voice. Tony searched Kyle’s face in vain for some hint of human compassion then, almost in tears, pointed back at the panel.
“The yellow button starts it. It resets automatically when it completes the cycle. The big red one,” Tony pointed to a stop-sign colored piece of plastic the size of an Oreo, “is the emergency stop.”
Kyle pressed the yellow button and electric motors whined to life. An inch at a time a massive steel plate began to creep toward the Oldsmobile’s front bumper. Kyle watched it for a second then pressed the red button. The box emitted a series of loud clanks and thuds and a couple of seconds later the plate slowly retreated to its original position. Kyle smiled then turned to Tony and said, “Get into the car.”
Gershner gaped at him then looked wildly around for some way to escape, but there was none. Paulie had already grabbed his shoulders and was twisting him toward the machine.
“No! Please! I didn’t tell them anything! Please!” Tony pleaded while he flailed wildly, kicking and squirming.
“Get him in,” Kyle ordered.
Paulie pressed Gershner up against the side of the box but Tony pulled one of his arms loose and tore at Paulie’s face.
Kyle scowled and swung the crowbar like the infield coach at ground-ball practice. The steel made a dull thunk as it bounced off the top of Gershner’s skull. Stunned, Tony fell to the ground.
“Get him in there,” Kyle ordered.
Paulie draped Tony’s chest over the waist-high railing then toppled the rest of him over the side. Gershner collapsed in a groaning sprawl next to the Oldsmobile’s left front tire.
“Don’t just stand there. Get him into the car,” Kyle ordered.
Paulie gave the machine a nervous glance then climbed over the railing and tried, unsuccessfully, to open the driver’s door. Wordlessly, Kyle handed him the crowbar and after a couple of yanks Paulie managed to spring it free. Kyle held out his hand and accepted the bar then waited while Paulie maneuvered Gershner into the front seat. Half a minute later the bottom foot and a half of Tony’s legs were still sticking out of the door. Paulie turned to climb back over the railing.
“Jesus,” Kyle cursed, “get all of him into the fucking car.”
“I’ve pushed him as far as I can,” Paulie complained.
“Then get into the front seat and pull his legs inside. Come on, we don’t have all night!”
Paulie twisted his mouth in distaste then, reluctantly, crawled into the center of the front seat. With his back pressed against the dash he began to pull Tony’s knees deeper inside. The left ankle caught for a moment on the “B” pillar than finally came free. Paulie turned and gave Kyle a smile that changed to open-mouthed horror as Kyle pulled the shotgun’s trigger. The blast smothered Paulie’s scream before it could leave his throat. Kyle pumped the action and fired another burst, this one into Tony’s twitching body. He paused for a moment waiting for the echoes to die away, then turned back to the control panel. He pressed the yellow button and the machinery whined to life. Inch-by-inch the Olds creaked and groaned and collapsed upon itself until nothing was left but a two-ton cube of
compressed steel leaking water and antifreeze, brake fluid and blood.
When it was over Kyle pressed the power button, wiped off his fingerprints, then closed the black, plastic cover. He paused for a moment to survey the scene. The junkyard was strangely quiet, the only sounds were the wind whistling over the mounds of twisted metal and the distant echo of a freight train clanking through the night.
Satisfied, Kyle Neddick turned away from the hulking machine and walked back to his car.
Chapter Twenty
The next morning Janet held a team meeting to plan how best to exploit Stan’s new lead. Late the day before Carl Montgomery had pulled Paulie Sturdevant’s rap sheet and had begun building a list of names: who Sturdevant had been arrested with, the name of every jail he had spent time in, and the dates of his incarceration, the names of any attorneys he’d hired, a list of all of his still-living relatives, where he grew up, what schools he went to, who he was friends with.
“It’ll take some time to get the list of all of his cell mates,” Carl added.
“Have the DOC email you the records,” Janet told him. “If they tell you it’ll take them a few days to get around to it tell them that we don’t have a few days. If that doesn’t work I’ve got the Mayor on speed dial and he’ll make a call to Lansing.” Montgomery nodded and made a note. “Stan,” Janet said, turning to Kudlacik, “are you still tight with Nate Halleck in Major Crimes?”
“He still owes me a couple of favors.”
“Good. I want you to call them in. I want them to get the word out to all their CIs that we’re looking for Paulie Sturdevant. We’ll pay for any information on where he’s living, who his friends are, who he hangs out with, who he’s working for, who his girlfriends are, who owes him money, who he owes money to, the places he frequents, what kind of car he drives, what he eats on his pizza, what his favorite color is, everything. The rest of you get together with Stan and divide up the balance of the department, Gang Unit, Special Investigations, everything. I want every snitch in the city questioned about Paulie Sturdevant. Anything I’ve missed?” Quinn waved his hand. “Virgil?”
“I’m still wondering about this Tony Gershner. Stan, what are the chances that he knows more than he told you?”
“He’s greedy, crooked and dumb as a rock, so what do you think?”
“How do you want to play it?”
“I’m thinking that if we cuffed him and threw him into a cell for a couple of hours he just might remember something else, like Sturdevant’s phone number.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Virgil agreed.
It took most of the morning to divide up the work and get things rolling, but a little before noon Virgil and Stan pulled into Steel City Wrecking & Salvage. In a last gasp of summer, early that morning a south wind had begun blowing in from Lake Erie.
“Jeez, I don’t want to be out here when that hits.” Stan pointed at a massive cliff of blue-black clouds scudding across the lake, then led the way to Gershner’s sagging trailer. When he grabbed the knob he found that the door was locked.
Virgil glanced at his watch. “You think he’s at lunch?”
“Lunch for a moke like him is a beer and a baloney sandwich,” Stan muttered. “Hey, Tony!” Stan pounded on the door. “Tony!”
Both men waited a few seconds then uneasily looked around the deserted yard. Stan pounded on the door with the meat of his fist one last time then gave Virgil a nervous glance. A gust of wind smelling of rain tugged at their coats. A moment later they heard a hollow bang from someplace behind the office. Without a word they climbed down the steps and circled around the building. The back door hung open a foot or so then slammed against the shattered jam on the next gust.
Both men drew their guns and climbed the tiny porch with Virgil in the lead. Once inside they split up. It took them only a few seconds to confirm that the place was empty.
“Stan,” Virgil called from Tony’s bedroom. Kudlacik entered warily, his gun angled down but still ready. “I’ve got blood,” Virgil called out, pointing to a smear of red on the sheet near the head of the bed.
“Oh, shit!” Stan muttered, more to himself than Virgil. “I told the stupid son of a bitch not to contact Sturdevant.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because the greedy moron probably figured this was the perfect time to sell Sturdevant a replacement van,” Stan answered, his anger warring with disbelief.
“I guess we’d better look for him,” Virgil said, holstering his gun.
Stan glanced out the filthy window at the towering piles of trash.
“Good luck to us.”
They checked the area around the trailer in a widening spiral, barely able to do more than look for a newly dug hole or a body lying in plain sight. After that they spent twenty minutes circling the piles of twisted steel in the vain hope that they might spot a carelessly protruding arm or foot. They would have passed the crusher by without a second glance except for the rats. Almost a dozen of them were crawling over the freshly minted steel cube, shoving their snouts into the crevices and licking for all they were worth.
Virgil looked at Stan. Stan looked at Virgil.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Stan cursed. “Unbelievable.”
“We’re going to need some collection bags,” Virgil said. “You’ve got Tony’s DNA in the system, right?”
“Oh, yeah, but we’re going to have to get these rats out of here before they eat all our evidence.” Stan reached for his gun.
“Hang on.” Virgil pulled a broken rear-view mirror from a nearby pile and threw it at the cube. The rats squealed and skittered off in a hail of broken glass.
“Man oh man, Rogers is going to hate this,” Stan said a moment later and began to laugh.
“What?”
“Can you imagine how much it’s going to cost the department to transport that cube and then have a team of welders cut it into pieces so that we can recover the body?”
As if in answer to Kudlacik’s question a rolling boom echoed from the blue-black clouds racing toward them, followed a moment later by a bolt of lightning that slammed into the lake’s growing chop.
Eventually it cost the DPD almost ten-thousand dollars to transport the remains of the mangled Olds Rocket 88 and slice it into manageable chunks, but on the plus side the cube yielded two bodies instead of just one. The fact that the second corpse belonged to Paulie Sturdevant was viewed by the members of the Felony Fugitive Squad as both a blessing and a curse.
Chapter Twenty-One
Elaine dumped her backpack on the couch, and on the way to the kitchen called out, “Mom, I’m home.” It took her only a few seconds to run an inventory of the refrigerator and discover that except for one yogurt cup everything was still there. She found the Dannon container, still half full, at the bottom of the garbage bag under the sink.
Elaine headed down the hallway and called out, “Mom” just before reaching her mother’s bedroom door. She waited a couple of seconds, knocked, and went in. Phyllis, formerly Helen, lay propped up against the headboard, her laptop open at her side.
“I must have dozed off,” Phyllis said, glancing at the colored screen-saver balloons bouncing against the edges of the display. “What time is it?”
“Almost five. What would you like for dinner?”
Phyllis frowned and gave her head a little shake.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not hungry.”
“Mom, you have to eat something.”
“I’m fine. I had a big lunch.”
“Half a yogurt? How about a chicken from the Safeway and some of their Greek salad?”
“Get the chicken for yourself. I’ll have some later when my acid reflux calms down.”
“Mom, please! We both know it’s not acid reflux. We both know–”
“Elaine, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. I looked up those pills you’re taking on the Internet. Matulane, Ceenu. We need to talk about this.”
“No, we don’t
. I’m doing what the doctors told me and I’m going to be fine,” Phyllis insisted, but already her eyelids were drooping and her hand had unconsciously begun to rub her stomach.
“You’re doing it again. Every time I try to talk to you about this you pretend that you’re not sick and that everything will be all right. Mom I know what glioblastoma–”
“You’re just a child, not a doctor. Now stop arguing with me.”
Elaine glared at her mother and muttered, “I wish dad was here.”
“Even if your father were alive it wouldn’t make any difference,” Phyllis said with sudden energy. “He wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t even care. He’d still be out chasing down a drug dealer or a bank robber. You keep pretending that he was some hero instead of a selfish man who didn’t care about either of us.”
“Mom, I–”
“No, don’t argue with me. You didn’t know him like I did. Victor Quinn abandoned us and then got himself killed. He’s the reason we’ve had to hide from the drug dealers. He’s the reason I couldn’t get health insurance for all these years. Maybe if I’d been able to go to a doctor I wouldn’t be sick today. If you want to know why I’m so sick now it’s because of him. So, don’t tell me you wish he was here!” By the end of her tirade patches of color had returned to Phyllis’ cheeks, and she’d pushed herself up a little straighter against the pillows. For five seconds neither spoke, then Phyllis gave Elaine a weak smile. “Why don’t you go out and get that chicken and I’ll set the table.”
Phyllis closed the laptop, then wearily swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Elaine reached out to take her arm but Phyllis waved her away.
“I’m not an invalid, Elaine. Take some money from my purse and go get dinner. Go on.” Elaine hesitated a moment while her mother tottered to her feet, then, reluctantly, left the room.
The Safeway was busy and Elaine watched people streaming in and out for a moment then brought up the Google screen on her phone. She tapped in “Victor Quinn police officer” and got links to various Victor Quinns but nothing pointing to her father.