He let the lock hang, stood peering through the wire mesh. Dead still inside. A crow came swooping down overhead, cawing, and disappeared into the olive grove. Stillness again.
Call Joe Rinniak in Red Bluff? Not yet, not without some idea of what there was to find here.
Criminal trespass, like it or not.
Rinniak wouldn’t care if it helped catch his firebug. Kelso might, but Kelso didn’t have to know about it until later. A long time later, and word given to him by somebody else. Runyon didn’t want anything more to do with the deputy if it could be avoided.
He fetched his flashlight and the Magnum in its carry holster. Clipped the holster to his belt, shoved the torch into a pants pocket to keep his hands free. Then he unhooked the padlock, eased himself through the opening, and closed the gates again behind him.
Out on the frontage road an approaching vehicle made a low-pitched rumbling noise. Sounded like a pickup truck, heading from the south in the direction of Gray’s Landing. He stood still, waiting. The noise held steady as the truck passed by the compound; faded, and was gone.
The nearest of the buildings, the long shed, was off to his left. He went there first, fast-walking, the sun burning the back of his neck. Equipment and storage shed, probably. Two sets of doors, one on either end. The first set was locked. The second wasn’t. One door half-creaked loudly when he pulled it open; the sound froze him again for a drag of seconds. He readied the flashlight in his left hand, wedged his body inside.
Thick gloom, stifling with trapped heat, rank with a mix of smells—oil, dust, heat, dry rot, rodent droppings. When he switched on the flashlight, the beam sent something small scurrying across the floor into darkness. One cavernous room, an area along one side that had once been a workshop, all of it empty now except for the car parked straight ahead of him at the back wall.
Dark blue ’57 Impala with chrome rims, tuck-and-roll upholstery.
Both of its doors were locked. Runyon walked around it, shining the light inside through the windows. Empty.
He was running sweat when he stepped outside again. The heavy, breathless silence remained unbroken. He kept the flash in his left hand, his right on the butt of the Magnum, as he crossed to the shortish ell. A platform dock with two loading bays extended across two-thirds of the front. The one-third at the near end had once been the plant office. Two windows there, the panes all broken now, a couple starred with holes—probably the same sharpshooter who’d plinked the sign at the front entrance. Runyon poked the flash through one of the openings, switched it on. Debris, broken glass, an abandoned chair. Nobody had been here in a long time.
He climbed up onto the dock. Both metal doors secure. He found another door at the far end, this one a wooden single, and it was secure, too. Alongside it was a single window, the panes intact because they were protected from target practice by the back side of the warehouse building. A thick coating of grime wouldn’t let the flashlight ray penetrate the glass. He tried the sash, but the latch was either locked down tight or frozen shut. Forget it. Nobody here, either.
Another dock with loading bays ran across the rear of the warehouse building, the concrete cracked and chipped from age. Runyon crossed the yard, went up, and tried the metal doors there. Both locked tight. Down again, around to a single door set into the sidewall.
That was the one he was hunting for.
Shut but not secured. Opened inward a few inches as soon as he put pressure on it.
He stayed put for the better part of a minute, listening with his ear close to the opening. Silence inside. He drew his weapon, held it down along his side, and stepped into the gloomy interior.
A few thin rays of sunlight came through chinks in the outer walls, put a faint shine on the edges of the darkness. No other light. No sounds until he clicked on the flash—claws on wood somewhere nearby. He swung the beam in quick up-and-down arcs. Bottling room, judging from the long tables and left-behind jars and remains of a series of dismantled conveyor belts. Among the debris on the floor was a scatter of RipeOlive labels, some trod on and torn—the same kind as the fragment in his wallet. Dust lay thick and undisturbed except for a scuffed-up line of passage that led from the entrance door to an inner one in a partition wall straight ahead.
He followed the line, entered a second room. Faint brine smell in there, from the vats that lined it. Empty. The line bisected that room, too, extended through another doorway in a second partition wall.
Storage warehouse, twice the size of the previous two spaces. Dead silence, the air so heat and dust choked it was difficult to breathe. He swept the light around. Broken pallets, broken crates, other rubble. Vertical support beams marking off sections. New smell he couldn’t quite identify. He moved forward, widening the length and radius of the beam.
Halted its sweep, held it steady on what lay on the floor toward the far end.
Jerry Belsize.
Facedown, unmoving, arms outflung around one of the support beams, wrists bound together with a pair of handcuffs.
The kid was still alive—barely.
When Runyon knelt and touched him to feel for a pulse, his body jerked convulsively and then began to thrash, the arms pulling back until the cuffs clanked against the beam, the fingers hooking and spasming as if to fight off an attack. Runyon took his hand away. The thrashing stopped, but the spasming went on. The one eye turned his way didn’t react to the light; it was open wide and seemed blind.
Belsize had been here a long time, left like this without food or water. Probably since sometime last Friday. His clothing, a pair of Levi’s, Reeboks, a thin T-shirt, were torn and grimy. Face a mask of sweat-caked filth, lips cracked and swollen, a bloody wound on the right side of his head—the same kind of wound Runyon wore under the fresh bandage on his temple. Wrists and hands covered with dried blood, the skin ripped and abraded—the residue of frenzied struggles to free himself that had left the support beam splintered and deep-gouged from the chain links. Other marks were visible on the wrists and arms. Rodent bites. That was what he’d been trying to fight off in his delirium . . . rats, mice, attracted by the blood, making sharp-toothed forays in the dark.
Five days of nightmare.
Runyon had a strong stomach, but this type of cruelty was enough to sicken even the most case-hardened cop. Miracle that Belsize was still alive. Another day in here and he wouldn’t have been. The only reason he’d survived this long was his youth and physical condition. As it was, he might not make it, and if he did, there was no telling what kind of mental shape he’d be in.
Runyon knew who was responsible. Knew it for sure now. Who, and some of the why.
He propped the torch so that the light was off the kid’s face and steady on the handcuffed wrists. The arms and body were still quivering. Talked to him in a low, soft voice, telling him he was safe now, he’d soon be free, that he’d have to lie still so the handcuffs could be removed. He kept it up for several minutes, not sure if the words were having an effect until the quivering stopped and Belsize lay motionless once more. When he touched one wrist, it brought a spasm that lasted only a few seconds.
The cuffs were standard-issue. You could pick the locks on them without too much strain if you knew what you were doing and had the right tools. Two minutes with the awl blade and corkscrew on his Swiss Army knife, talking the whole time to keep the kid still, and Runyon had one shackle open. Worry about the other one later. The steel circle had cut a deep blood-sealed furrow into the skin; he had to pry it loose. Gently he brought both stiffened arms out from around the beam, then turned Belsize onto his back. Brief struggle when he knelt to lift him. He waited until the struggles stopped, then got Belsize up off the floor and cradled against his body the way you’d hold a sick child. The way he might have held Joshua if he’d ever been given the chance.
He held the torch pressed between his fingers and the kid’s body, the beam aimed downward to light the way through the building. But still he had to look straight down at his feet to s
ee where he was going, avoid stumbling over something, and it was slow going. The dust clogged his sinuses; he was coughing, wheezing, by the time he reached the doorway at the far end, finally emerged into the bright dazzle of sunlight.
He was able to move a little more quickly then. Around the shed, across to the rear gates—pouring sweat, the muscles in his shoulders, arms, thighs, aching from the strain. At the Ford he lowered Belsize’s feet, holding on to him with his right arm while he opened the rear door. Eased the kid inside, stretched him out on his back across the seat. His respiration was so slow Runyon had to check to make sure he was still breathing. He got the blanket he kept in the trunk, draped it over the inert form, arranged it so incoming sunlight wouldn’t lie hot on Belsize’s wounds. Before he slid in behind the wheel, he reset the padlock on the gates as he’d found it.
No question of calling 911 for an ambulance, waiting here until it arrived. Belsize could be dead by then. Make the hospital delivery himself, as fast as he could get to Red Bluff. And notify Rinniak on the way.
24
JAKE RUNYON
“Man, I hate this,” Rinniak said. “I hate stakeouts.”
Runyon stirred on the dark front seat of the county cruiser. Every time he shut himself down to make the waiting easier, Rinniak yanked him back. The man couldn’t seem to sit still or keep still for more than a few minutes at a time.
“I never met anybody who didn’t.”
“Some are worse than others. Like this one.”
“No argument there,” Runyon said.
“I’m still having a hard time believing it. The scenario you laid out, I mean.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. Neither would I.”
“I still hope you’re wrong. Despite Jerry Belsize and the condition he’s in.”
“I’m not wrong.”
“About tonight you could be.”
Runyon said, “They keep getting bolder, taking more chances. Two days from the Silvera murder to the fire at the migrant camp. Two days from then until now. If not tonight, then tomorrow night.”
“We can’t risk another stakeout after this one. Word is bound to leak out about Belsize being alive, and if they get wind of it who knows what they’ll do. We’ll have to make the arrest tomorrow sometime and hope that Belsize doesn’t die before he talks. What time is it now?”
“Almost eleven. If they’re coming, it’ll be pretty soon.”
They’d been there since eight o’clock, pulled well back among the olive trees at the rear of the RipeOlive compound. A pair of Red Bluff deputies were in a second cruiser parked behind this one. The four of them had pulled brush up over the front ends to minimize the chance of headlight reflection off glass and metal, but if the firebugs did come, Runyon figured it would be with their lights off. A half-moon on the rise cast enough shine to drive by.
Both windows were down to let in a faint breeze that had kicked up an hour before. But the night was still hot, sultry, even at this hour. Crickets in the trees and dry grass made a singsong racket that rose and fell all around them. Through the windshield and down an avenue between shadowed tree trunks Runyon could see the rear gate and part of the chain-link fence on both sides. At an oblique angle, a section of the county blacktop to the north was also visible.
Rinniak said, “Games, for Christ’s sake. As if arson and murder and false imprisonment weren’t enough.”
“It’s all wrapped up together.”
“Yeah. I should have tumbled to it myself, some of it anyway, but it got by me. I just didn’t see any of it.”
“Too close to the situation.”
“That’s no excuse.” Rinniak shifted position, blew out his breath in a hissing sigh. “Sick thrills. People nowadays . . . so damn jaded.”
“That’s part of it. See how far they can push the envelope.”
“Devil’s work. You suppose that’s why they killed Silvera?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s not the reason they intended to kill Jerry Belsize.”
“Retribution. Revenge.”
“It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“What the hell could he have done to them?”
“I made you a guess earlier.”
“That’s not enough to torture him like that, kill him.”
“It might be to them.”
“So goddamn normal on the outside, and on the inside, lunatics out of control . . . Christ, I just can’t seem to get my head around it. Nothing like this ever happened in this county before.”
“And probably won’t again.”
“Take a long time for people to get over it,” Rinniak said grimly. “And some of them never will.”
They lapsed into silence again. That suited Runyon. He’d been over it and over it with Rinniak and the sheriff, Macon, after he left the hospital and then again on the drive down here and during the long wait since. Rinniak couldn’t seem to let go of the concept. Just kept picking at it verbally, often enough to indicate that he was doing the same inside his head. Runyon didn’t blame him. He’d done enough thinking about it himself. Too much. He tried to turn himself off again, didn’t have as much success this time.
Eleven fifteen by the luminous dial of his watch.
The night breeze sharpened, then just as suddenly died. The cricket sound seemed to grow steadily louder, as if it were building toward some kind of crescendo.
Eleven thirty.
Eleven forty.
Rinniak said, “Headlights coming,” as he had each of the other few times a set had appeared from the direction of Gray’s Landing.
“I see them.”
The beams threw a sheen of brightness on the dark sky, made silhouette shapes of the RipeOlive buildings as they drew closer. The previous headlights had been hidden as the vehicles passed by, then reappeared briefly on the far side before they vanished. Not these. The car slowed as it came past the water tower, made a quick, sharp turn onto the plant road. As soon as it bounced up over the railroad right-of-way, the headlamps went dark.
“By God, Runyon, you were right. It’s them.”
“Looks like it.”
They watched the car swing over onto the dirt road, raise dust as it followed the fence line around. Pale moonlight put a sleek gleam on its metal surfaces. It rolled along slow to the rear gates, stopped close to it on the near side; the engine noise died. Nothing happened for a time, long enough to cause Rinniak to say, “What the hell are they waiting for?” Then both doors opened at once and the two of them got out. Both wore dark clothing, dark caps of some kind. One opened the trunk, handed out a pair of rectangular objects that had to be gallon tins of kerosene. The other things that came out were small, unidentifiable blobs. Timing device and flashlights, probably.
The shorter one carrying both tins, they went to the gate and inside at an angle to the far corner of the shed. Blended into the deep shadows cast by the building.
Rinniak was already out of the cruiser by then. Runyon and the two deputies joined him. Nobody said anything; they’d already worked out the logistics. Single file, each with a six-cell torch, the four of them picked their way out of the grove, across the road, and through the open gate. The deputies took up positions along the near side of the shed. Runyon followed Rinniak to the far end, into the heavy darkness along the sidewall. You couldn’t see the unlocked warehouse door from the front corner, but it wouldn’t matter unless the firebugs went the other way when they came out, and it didn’t figure they would.
It wasn’t a long wait. Voices drifted out of the shadows first, one louder than the other, angry. Shapes, then, the leader moving fast across the moonlit yard, the other one lugging the kerosene tins. Still talking to each other, the words distinguishable now.
“. . . how he could’ve gotten free.”
“Pulled the handcuffs loose somehow, damn him.”
“Oh God, he’ll tell on us. What if he already has?”
“Don’t get excited. He couldn’t’ve been
gone long. Or got far after five days in there.”
“You think he might still be around here somewhere?”
“Dead, I hope. We’ll look before we set the timer.”
“We’re not going ahead with the fire . . . ?”
“Like hell we’re not.”
Rinniak murmured, “Like hell you are,” and touched Runyon’s arm, and they stepped out together and put the lights on.
“County sheriff’s officers. Stand where you are.”
The stabbing glare brought them up short; the command rooted them in place. Sandra Parnell dropped both kerosene tins, one arm lifting to shield her eyes; she stood in a terrified freeze, like a jacklit deer. Ashley Kelso’s bugeyed stare held a mix of fury and disbelief.
The two deputies came pounding up, their lights joining the others. “Kelso’s daughter, all right,” one of them said. Another one having trouble coming to terms with it.
Rinniak started forward, saying, “You’re under arrest—”
The rest of it got lost in a sudden shrieked “No!” from the Kelso girl. She threw her flashlight at Rinniak, missing him, and bolted—a stumbling headlong charge toward the back fence.
Runyon was closest to her flight path. He cut her off, chased her down, managed to catch hold of her arm. She rounded on him, cursing, spitting like a cat, and clawed stinging furrows into the back of his hand, tried to get at his face with those flashing nails, tried to kick him in the groin. He threw the six-cell down and fastened grips on both arms, jerked her around, and bent her back hard against an upthrust knee. She kept on fighting him, screaming obscenities. One of the deputies was there by then and she fought him, too, tried to bite him. It took both men to wrestle her to the ground, Runyon to hold her down while the deputy shackled her hands behind her back.
The fight went out of her. But not the viciousness. She rolled over, sat up glaring at Runyon. “You!” she said. “You son of a bitch, you did this!”
Savages: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels) Page 18