Violet Darger | Book 7 | Dark Passage

by Vargus, L. T.

“Anyway,” Loshak went on. “Heider worked as a contractor for a couple of years after that, the bulk of it in Western Pennsylvania. He mostly oversaw the construction of prefab homes. By all accounts, he was a moderately successful local businessman in the Allegheny County area. Sponsored a Little League team for a few years. Showed up in the newspaper for a few other charitable events. Real man of the people type. Nothing noteworthy in terms of a criminal record. A couple speeding tickets. No other priors.”

  Loshak ate a single chip, crunching, chewing, and swallowing before he went on.

  “From there, he kind of falls off the map. We’ve got nothing as of about 2009. No known address for a seven-year period. His business had been shuttered by that time, possibly for quite a while even before then based on his tax returns, which he abruptly stopped filing in 2005. Then in 2016 he shows up in the paperwork in multiple shell corporations we’re still digging into. A couple of those are filed in Pennsylvania, six more in Delaware, all reporting serious income — eight figures annually for a few. Problem is, with the crisscross of companies and paperwork, we don’t know where the money is coming from.”

  Darger’s phone vibrated from inside her pocket. The display screen said, “Luck.” She swiped left to ignore it.

  Loshak crunched more chips, looking from the phone to Darger. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.

  Movement at the house caught both of their attention then. Darger sucked in a sharp breath, and Loshak’s next Dorito stopped shy of his lips.

  A flutter of light and shadow filled one of the window frames in the upstairs of the house. At first the movement was indistinct, some indecipherable shifting of a silhouette.

  “That’s him,” she said, her voice coming out breathy and quiet. “It’s gotta be.”

  “Are you sure?” Loshak said, still holding that chip about two inches from his mouth.

  Then the cowboy hat drifted into plain view, held there in the center of the window frame for a few seconds. As he moved his face up toward the window, Darger could make out the chrome sunglasses beneath the hat’s brim — a pair that instantly made her think of Elvis Presley and Guy Fieri. Looking lower, she saw the horseshoe mustache, dark bristles bending down from his lip all the way to his chin. Then he turned, and his ponytail trailed out behind him like a scarf.

  A single laugh puffed out of Loshak involuntarily.

  “Well, the kid was right about one thing,” he said. “This guy really does look like Joe Exotic.”

  Chapter 48

  Darger kept her eyes on the house while Loshak called it into Ambrose. She could hear every word the detective said as Loshak’s phone was turned up so loud.

  “Judge signed the warrant twenty minutes ago, so that’s all ready to go, and the SWAT boys are ready to roll. On their way as we speak,” Ambrose said, sounding even more chipper than usual. “Give it another fifteen minutes, and we’ll be ready to kick this shit heel’s door down before he has any clue what’s happening.”

  Good, Darger thought. We’ll just keep an eye on the house until the SWAT unit gets here. Easy peasy.

  “Cavalry is on the way,” Loshak said after he hung up.

  “So I heard,” Darger said. “Do you always keep your phone volume cranked like that?”

  Loshak’s eyes shifted back and forth like the silver balls of a Newton’s Cradle as he answered.

  “What? Yeah. Wait… no. Wait… I don’t know. What do I say here so that you don’t make fun of me for being old? Like… uh… maaaaybe.”

  Darger opened her mouth to respond, but Loshak cut her off.

  “Blah blah hearing aid. Blah blah AARP discount. Blah blah early bird special at the Old Country Buffet. That good enough? You want to go on and run it into the ground? Really give this dead horse a good and thorough flogging?”

  Darger stared at him for a long moment before she responded.

  “You’re going to damage your hearing is all I’m saying,” she said, keeping her voice smooth and sincere. “And how would you enjoy your Bing Crosby records after that?”

  Loshak shook his head. They were silent for a while, and then Loshak spoke up again.

  “My dad had all those Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass records when I was a kid.”

  Lights flicked on at the front of the house. Two sconces, one on each side of the front stoop, flaring to life. Darger’s eyes went wide.

  “Had some Jonathan Winter comedy records, too. And one time—”

  “Shh!” she cut Loshak off. “Something’s happening.”

  The big steel slab of the front door swung out of the way then, the murk of dusk shifting around it. A figure stepped through the gapped place.

  Cowboy stood on the front porch, looking ganglier than Darger had expected. Long-armed and scrawny of limb. Shoulders slightly stooped. The bootcut jeans and distressed denim shirt paired with the standard cowboy boots and hat made him look like a country singer walking out on stage, or maybe someone dressed as Toby Keith for Halloween.

  He keyed a number pad to lock the digital deadbolt on the front door before strutting his way over to the driveway. Ponytail whipping and bouncing.

  “Oh, shit,” Loshak said, his voice drifting down toward a whisper. “Is he leaving? Should we grab him now?”

  Darger’s lips moved, but she couldn’t answer. She could only watch.

  When Cowboy reached his truck, he opened the driver’s side door and kicked one cowboy boot up onto the nerf bar. But just as his body touched the threshold of the doorway, he stopped dead. Froze there. Motionless for the length of three heartbeats. The dome light reflected little glowing spheres in his sunglasses.

  Darger held her breath as he slowly craned his neck. His head swiveled to face her. Stopped there. Stared straight at her. His horseshoe mustache twitched.

  “What the fuck?” Loshak said in a whispery falsetto. He scrunched down in his seat as though that might help conceal them.

  Everything held still for a moment. The whole world gone quiet, gone motionless.

  And then Cowboy bolted back for the house. Didn’t even bother to close the truck door. Just ran. Boots clapping against the concrete of the front walk.

  Darger’s fingers fumbled for the door handle. She climbed out and gave chase. Blood thrumming in her ears.

  Footsteps fell in behind her as she darted across the street, Loshak and the officers from the unmarked cars, she knew.

  Just as she reached the driveway, the front door opened, and Cowboy disappeared inside.

  Chapter 49

  Darger zipped across the concrete walk. Vaulted up onto the stoop. Launched herself through the gapped doorway, a forearm knocking the door out of her way.

  The foyer opened before her, and Darger slowed, drawing her weapon and pointing it at the floor. Observing. Listening.

  High ceilings yawned overhead. Slate tiles tapped out brittle ticks beneath her footsteps. She paced across the space and stared into the house beyond, gun drawn.

  Multiple potential pathways lay before her. A den to the right with a back hallway stretching out from there. A staircase leading up next to that. And the kitchen straight ahead.

  If Cowboy was moving somewhere near, she couldn’t hear it over the sound of her heart thudding in her chest.

  Her mind raced. He could be destroying evidence right now. Why else run for the house instead of jumping into the truck?

  She clenched her jaw. Fought down the urge to bound ever forward. Forced herself to wait there on the precipice of the living room.

  Loshak and the others filtered through the door right behind her, two detectives and a couple of plainclothes officers joining her partner. They drew up alongside her place at the edge of the foyer, and then everyone looked at one another.

  They communicated with hand signals and nods, Loshak taking point. He motioned to them one by one, ordering each individual toward one of the doorways with a wave of his hand.

  From there, they fanned out and pressed deeper
into the house. Two of the officers veered right into a den that led to a back hallway. Another pair took the staircase next to that, veering up and out of sight.

  Darger proceeded straight into the kitchen alongside Loshak, each of them winding around one side of the island. Their footsteps were careful. Quiet. Darger’s eyes scanned everything.

  Shiny concrete countertops gleamed gray under the pendant lights, and a hulking stainless steel sink made a canyon-like vacancy in the center of the counter, seemingly fit for a restaurant. Shaker cabinets faced outward from the walls above and below the counters, the matte finish a muted blue like flax. Small appliances squatted in strategic locations: blender, coffee grinder, espresso machine, juicer.

  The entire wall ahead was comprised of three industrial-sized refrigerators set side by side. A fourth fridge sat in the corner next to those, with glass windows like a convenience store soda cooler revealing endless Tetra Pak cartons of coconut water inside, lined up in neat rows.

  Loshak lifted one hand from his Glock to point at the closed door opposite the Vita Coco display, and Darger nodded. She knew what he was thinking right away.

  They edged toward the wooden door. Darger got there first and pulled it open.

  The basement steps trailed down from the open doorway. Light streamed up from the chamber below. She could hear his boots clicking down there.

  He was in the basement.

  Darger raced down the steps. Eyes locked on the smooth concrete of the floor below.

  At the bottom, she wheeled to her left, lifted her gun.

  He was there. Hunched over a large piece of furniture, arms wrapped around the dark bulk, trying to shift its weight. His feet kicked at the floor behind him, heels of his cowboy boots scrabbling and sliding over the smooth concrete floor like hooves. He torqued his hips. Hurled himself into the piece of furniture. His ponytail jerked and flopped along with his strain, swishing over the back of his shirt like a brush.

  “Freeze! FBI!” Darger said.

  Her gun floated up into her field of vision, the site lining up with the curved place where his ponytail connected to the back of his skull, just along the brain stem.

  Cowboy struggled with the bulk in his arms another for another second, scraping it over the floor. Then he dove for the concrete, belly slapping hard against it, arms and legs clambering to push him forward. He tried to slither into the narrow gap in the floor next to the end table. The tunnel.

  “Freeze!” Loshak said, shuffling up next to Darger.

  Cowboy’s head disappeared into the breach, his cowboy hat knocked off by the bottom of the table, tumbling down beside him. He crawled forward, but his shoulders caught there, jammed between the bottom of the end table and the jagged concrete edge. Stuck.

  He wriggled. Tried to use serpentine motions to worm his shoulders through the tight space.

  “Grab his legs,” Darger said, holstering her weapon and diving for the wiggling idiot.

  She clutched one ankle, and Loshak grabbed the other. Together they yanked him free of the hole.

  His emerging skull somehow reminded Darger of a turtle head poking out of its shell.

  They pulled him straight back. Legs lifted up. His top half still facedown on the floor.

  He lurched to grip the edge of the hole, fingers catching the lip, arms quivering as he tried to pull himself toward the gap.

  But the agents wrenched him free and kept backpedaling. Watched him claw at the concrete, fingers curled into talons, fingernails scraping over the smooth cement.

  When they were well clear of the hole, Darger leaped onto his back. Thighs straddling his ribcage.

  She yanked one of his arms behind him and bent the hand up toward his shoulder blades, felt the limb grow taut until it quivered. She hurried to work the first loop of the handcuffs toward his wrist. Snapped it into place with a metallic click.

  “Be-itch!” he said, suddenly aware of what was happening.

  He kicked. Flailed. Bucked his hips and arched his back. Tried to throw her. Every tick of his body language screamed out a toddler-like tantrum. Ponytail whipping.

  “Be-itch! Be-itch! Be-itch!”

  Darger held on. Clenched her thighs tighter around his middle and felt this flexing cluster of muscles going wild beneath her. Thrashing around. A bronco at a rodeo.

  One of her hands gripped a wad of his shirt up near the scruff of his neck. The other arm reached out for balance, drifted in the air beside her.

  This close, the stench of too much Stetson cologne rolled off of him in waves as though the pores of his skin were secreting it. Sharp and faintly soapy. Something familiar in it, Darger thought. Maybe sandalwood.

  She watched the cuffs whip back and forth from his wrist as she held on. Thought about when she might be able to grab the loose side and get them on his other wrist.

  All at once he went limp beneath her. Let his head and arms go slack and sink to the smooth concrete. One big breath made the ribcage between her legs puff up, and then the air came seeping out, reducing him, smaller and smaller.

  Darger jerked his hands behind his back once more and cuffed the other wrist. He didn’t resist.

  Then she climbed off him. Stood. Took a few deep breaths. Eyes never leaving his heaving back, that ponytail jutting from the back of his head, his face turned away from her.

  Loshak helped her turn him over so he was sitting upright, each of them scooping beneath an armpit, and Darger braced herself for a second round of struggling, feet set wide, core tensed.

  But he kept his head down. Lips pouted. Chin quivering ever so faintly which made the bottom of his mustache flutter. He looked like a scolded child about to cry.

  The other officers had made their way down to the basement by now, and they all watched this from the bottom of the steps. Held rapt there. Quiet. Hesitant, it seemed, to move fully into the room.

  “What a piece of work,” Officer Primanti said, shaking his head.

  That seemed to break whatever spell had held them at the threshold, and they all came over and surrounded Cowboy. Trying to get a better look, Darger thought. One of them ripped his silly chrome sunglasses off, and they all observed him in silence for a beat.

  “Jesus Christ,” one of the officers said. “Dude really does look like Joe Exotic. Except, like, really sad.”

  With the suspect secure, Darger crept over to the piece of furniture he’d been struggling with. Saw the grooves in the floor where the thing had gouged the concrete.

  Then her eyes drifted lower, to the open place in the floor.

  The hole into the tunnel seemed to remove any lingering doubt. This was their guy — Keith “Cowboy” Heider.

  Darger stepped closer. Peered down into the dark tunnel, a black hole, and shuddered. She wondered what horrors must lie down there now. Waiting in the dark for the light to lay them bare.

  “Well… we got him,” Loshak said behind her. That pulled her out of the gloom, drew her back to the light. “It’s been good to work another case with you, Agent Darger.”

  She turned around and headed that way. Saw the crooked grin on her partner’s face. Then she saw his raised hand next to that, though it took her a second to realize what he wanted.

  She gave Loshak a high-five, feeling a little weird about it.

  The other officers seemed downright giddy now, huddling over their sad Joe Exotic, faces aglow with triumph.

  Chapter 50

  By the time they were ready to perp-walk Cowboy up the steps and out of his home, the full brunt of the police force had descended upon the scene.

  Agent Zaragoza appeared, barking orders at no one in particular about how she wanted the interior search conducted, voice lifted so all could hear. Meanwhile, Detective Ambrose talked with the SWAT team about regrouping for the impending raid of the tunnel below.

  Crime scene techs swarmed through the house in disposable white coveralls — bunny suits. They flitted like moths from room to room. Cameras flashing everywhere. Evidence l
ogged and bagged. Excited voices tangling over each other.

  Darger walked behind Cowboy as they mounted the basement steps. When they reached the top, she gripped his upper arm and guided him through the mess of law enforcement toward the front door.

  He still seemed listless. Stoop-shouldered and silent.

  The scene swirled around Darger. She felt some kind of hyper-awareness kick in. Every detail made sharp. Vivid. Like her mind was recording this, needed to collect every sensory detail.

  The way his boots clicked and echoed over the floor. The strobe of a camera flash. The faint scent of almonds.

  She gripped Cowboy’s arm tighter as they rounded the corner in the kitchen, and the foyer came into view. Her eyes snapped to the front door and danced around its edges. She was beyond ready to pass through it, to load him into the back of a patrol car and get him to an interrogation room. Aching to fill in the rest of this story.

  The answers were close now. Finally.

  Three paces shy of the home’s entrance, Cowboy’s arm started to shake in her hand. She squeezed tighter still, thinking he was maybe going into shock and might grow woozy or faint.

  The full convulsions began after that. His body quaked. Wrenched free of her grip. He shook back and forth in place, violent shudders. Limbs jerking and kicking.

  Darger gazed into his face. Saw a blankness in his eyes. An utterly vacant stare, focused on nothing. Then they rolled back into his head, and he tipped backward and went down.

  He crashed flat onto his back. Body thumping down. Writhing. Chest popping.

  Foam pulsed from his open mouth. Froth heaping there and spilling from the corners, looking like lacy beer suds where it clung to the rim of his mustache.

  “We need an ambulance!” Loshak said, his voice sharp with tension.

  The room had gone still. Hushed.

  All those swirling crime scene techs and detectives and SWAT team members turned their heads this way. Held their breath and watched.

  “We need to turn him on his side,” Darger said. “So he doesn’t choke.”