by Davis Bunn
The DA told him, “If what you’re suggesting is true, it doesn’t say much for the charges brought by the new Homicide chief.”
“Actually,” Matt corrected, “it says a lot.”
The DA pointed to the patrol cars. “And they are?”
Connie answered, “Lucas said we ought to roll with backup.”
“Fed, cops, newspaper, DA.” Riva Pratt started for her car. “Sure hope this party isn’t for nothing.”
The road wound along the left-hand side of a tight valley, about midway between the river and the ridgeline. Oella was spread out over miles, forking off into several branch vales. It was more a geographic designation than a town with a center and a sense of life. A shotgun house with weeds and junk for a front lawn stood in schizophrenic fashion beside a million-dollar McMansion. Next came a pasture with a For Sale sign from Sotheby’s. Then a trailer with two rusting pickups and a fortiesera sedan on cinder blocks. Trees pushed in tight every now and then, further constricting the valley. Matt occasionally caught sight of the Patapsco River running brown and morose along the valley floor.
Riva Pratt turned left onto a one-lane road so pitted and scarred it was more gravel than asphalt. A half mile on it passed between two granite faces and dipped steeply into a forested ravine. The Hollows.
She parked in a small pasture and waited until all four cars crammed in. “If this is a for-real situation, we had better walk from here.”
Matt turned to the reporter. Before he could speak, Judy Leigh snapped, “Don’t even start. I’m coming.”
Their footsteps sounded harsh in the close afternoon gloom. Riva Pratt said, “Six years back, Oella erupted in gang warfare.”
The oldest of the cops said, “Sure, I remember that. Only they didn’t call it gangs.”
“Clans,” she agreed, the scorn in her voice deep. “The violence overwhelmed the local sheriffs. Before, Oella resisted being incorporated into the city. Then, they didn’t have any choice. Each of these Hollows is claimed by one clan or another. They set up meth labs here, gun shops, you name it.”
The old cop said, “I thought I recognized you.”
The DA glanced back. Said in a hard-timer’s voice, “How you been?”
“You know how it is. Same dance, different tune.”
Matt said to the cop, “Lucas said you had heard something about the guy we’re after.”
“Lucas being the homicide detective who took one last week, right? Yeah, I heard of this Grimes. Supposed to be all muscle and bad news.”
They passed through a copse of birch. Beyond, the ridge closed in, a steep-sided bowl with just enough room for the road to turn a tight circle around a pair of ancient elms. The property supposedly rented by Richard Grimes was an old humpbacked trailer that had morphed into a clapboard house. The raw stone cliff rose a hundred feet, perhaps more. The sky hung heavy and grim just above the ridge. Stunted pines and snarled undergrowth crammed into the sides of the house. Matt doubted the place saw more than an hour’s sun on the clearest day.
The DA said, “I checked the records. There’s no Richard Grimes on the rolls.”
The older cop replied, “Oella might be Baltimore now and the guns might be back in the closet, but these hollows run by their own rules. Out here, it’s a cash-only kind of life.”
“When the judge signed the warrant I’m carrying, she ordered me to use it only if I was satisfied.” Riva Pratt gave the old cop a very hard look. “You’re certain Richard Grimes lives here?”
“I checked with two locals who’ve done me good in the past. They both said this was his.”
“They tell you anything else?”
“Not a thing.” The cop squinted at the place. “Knowing them, that says a lot.”
“Okay.” The DA handed Matt the warrant. “You got your green light.”
The three younger cops had their weapons drawn before the DA finished talking. One of them weaved back and forth, two-handing his weapon. Already dead-aiming at the unseen target. The older cop said, “You. Fredricks. Holster your firearm.”
“Sir?”
“Lighten up. This isn’t the gun range, and the subject is not a confirmed suspect. Got it?”
All three cops eased back. The older cop, looking tired, asked Matt, “How do you want to play this?”
“If it’s our guy, he’s a bomber. We need a narrow way in, bathroom window, skylight, something he wouldn’t bother to wire.”
The old cop said, “Okay, you guys scout around.”
Connie found it. A narrow dip in the wall, like the house had once ended there and then been extended, had become dislodged. The young cop called Fredricks went back to his car and returned with a professional-length crowbar and Maglite. He and one of the other cops took hold of the clapboard panel and heaved. They pulled out four sections, enough for Connie to slip through. The young cops didn’t like the idea of a woman taking point. But they didn’t say anything.
Three minutes later she opened the front door. “Clean.”
They piled inside. The house had a sterile quality. The floors were old plywood, buckled and worn. But they had been swept and washed and scrubbed so hard Matt could see scars from the wire brush. Same for the walls. Only the windows had not been cleaned. They by contrast were so gray they looked painted in shades of slate.
There were five rooms in all. Each held only a couple of items of furniture. In one a bed. In the next a metal rack and two wooden crates for clothes. In another, one table and one chair and one floor lamp. The kitchen held one pot, one plate, spoon, fork, knife, mug, towel. Even the food was spare—mostly canned goods and sacks of dried beans and rice.
Riva Pratt watched the cops tap the walls and floors, use the chair to push aside ceiling panels, and declared, “This is such a total waste.”
Connie said, “We need to check the grounds.”
“Be my guest.” She headed for the door. When Matt followed her outside, she said, “Next time you speak to Hannah, be sure and thank her for me.”
Matt said, “Could you leave me your card in case we find something?”
She didn’t like it but fished one from her jacket. “If you bother me again, it better be with a signed confession.”
Matt stood in the dusty front area, staring up at where the sky should have been. The air felt densely compacted with all that had happened, and everything he could not decipher.
“Matt?”
He turned to where Connie and Judy Leigh were coming down the front stairs. “I need to go check something out. It’s most likely just another waste of time. But I have to be sure.”
Judy looked from one to the other and then said to Connie, “You need to tell him.”
“We don’t know anything for certain.”
“We know. We just don’t know what it means.”
“Then come with me,” Matt said to Judy Leigh. He asked Connie, “Can you finish up here?”
“You know the answer to that.” The calm concern was back in Connie’s face. “Are you all right?”
The unspoken was far clearer than her words. Enough so that he felt the steel grip of his internal locks grinding shut. “Yes.”
She turned away. Matt watched her disappear into the house, trapped once more by his inability to even pretend to be whole. The first drops of rain began falling as she stepped back into the shadows. He said to Judy, “Let’s go.”
Matt took the I-695 loop around Baltimore. It was longer and the rain slowed traffic. But he felt his ability to focus waning. Judy Leigh’s voice moved in and out with his attention. He plugged his car between two large trucks and let them forge ahead for him.
Judy Leigh talked the entire way. She sketched out the interlocking details of his father’s business in minute detail. On any other day, he probably would have classed it as grating yet important. Today it only competed with his rising headache.
When he took the turnoff for Lutherville, Judy asked, “What do you think?”
He told her the
truth because anything else was too much bother. “I don’t see what this gives us. Pop has spent his entire life buying stuff and rebuilding and selling and moving on. Now you’re telling me that in each deal he’s set a minority portion aside for people who can do him favors. Only in Downtown, he’s the minority guy and a lot of people you can’t identify own the major share. Right?”
“Pretty much.”
The rain was coming down so hard he almost missed the highway for Gunpowder Falls. “So?”
“He’s given total control to Sol Greene.”
“Sol is my father’s oldest friend. Maybe his only friend.”
“Still, he’s gotten into this Downtown deal because of Sol. We know that much. Now Sol is controlling the trust. Your father hasn’t put any balancing force into the trust’s control. It just seems radical for . . .” She stopped because of his expression. “What?”
“You didn’t tell me that. About Sol getting Pop into the Downtown project.”
“Sure I did.”
Matt did not argue. His body pulsed in time to his head. He could have missed anything.
“Why is that important?”
“I don’t know. It’s a first, that’s all. Pop loved the hunt, loved coming up with his next prey.”
“Sol Greene is connected to some major D.C.-based players. Maybe they put the Downtown deal together and just needed a local face to front for them.”
“Maybe.” But he had the feeling of a hook in his craw. Telling him he was missing something important. “When was this?”
She checked her notes. “Six years ago, close as I could figure. Maybe seven.”
About when his father first entered politics. “Sol was never interested in Pop’s business. Every time they got together, Sol would be after him to drop it and run for office. He always called it moving into the majors.”
“I don’t . . .” She hesitated when Matt swung off the main road onto the forested gravel drive. “Where are we?”
“Allen Pecard’s residence.”
“Really?” She peered through the rain. “Why?”
“I told you. I just need to check something out.”
The sheriff’s car was parked between the house and the garage. Matt pulled in close. A bored young man rolled down his window and said, “This is restricted property, folks.”
“Agent Matt Kelly.” Matt handed over his ID. “I’m just going to have one more look around.”
The deputy passed it back, streaking Matt’s wallet and his sleeve with rain. “You were here when the sheriff took the hit.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Got out this morning. What about your guy?”
“The doctors are saying Wednesday. Look, we’re going to be here at least an hour. Why don’t you roll out for coffee?”
“I could use a break, sure enough.”
“Front door open?”
“Sure is.” He gunned his motor. “You need anything, call the station.”
Matt cut his own engine and rose from the car. He waited for Judy Leigh to push herself out and draw the mini-umbrella from her purse. As they walked the gravel path, she asked, “What are we doing here?”
“Probably just wasting our time. But I have to be sure.” He opened the front door. “Watch out for the bomb pit there.”
She shied away from the squarish hole dug in the floor. “That was for a bomb?”
“Yes.” Matt shut the door. He stood there tasting the air. Waiting.
Then the shadows in the corner between the hallway and the kitchen coalesced.
Judy Leigh gasped and gripped both hands tightly around her stomach.
Allen Pecard stepped into the rain-washed light of his own living room. “You’re late, Agent Kelly.”
I’d almost given up hope,” Allen Pecard said.
Matt told him about getting zapped. “My brain still feels partly disconnected. Like some key synapses got permanently fried.”
“I can assure you from personal experience that this will fade.”
Judy Leigh was jammed into the living room’s far corner, her gaze racing back and forth between the two men. “Aren’t you going to arrest him?”
“He didn’t do it.”
Pecard gave him that tight glimmer of humor. “When did you arrive at this realization?”
“When you came through the door. Until then it was just a guess.”
Judy Leigh said, “Maybe you’re certain, but I’d be a lot more comfortable if you’d at least take out your gun.”
Matt continued, “The guy spoke when he shot me with the stun gun. It’s bothered me ever since. It could’ve been you. But I wondered.”
Judy was still not convinced. “Why can’t they be working together?”
“Everything about Pecard’s life is based on solitude. I never liked the idea that he’d suddenly brought in a partner.”
Pecard found that uncomfortable enough to turn his attention to the woman still cowering in the corner. “Who is your companion?”
“Judy Leigh, Baltimore Times.”
Pecard raised an open palm. His left forearm was bandaged where his sweatshirt rode up. “I don’t make it a practice to attack expectant mothers, Ms. Leigh.”
Matt asked, “You took a hit?”
Pecard pulled down the sleeve. “Our assailant is quite good.”
“This being Porter Reeves. Also known as Richard Grimes.”
“I am impressed, Agent Kelly.”
“You want to tell me how you got involved?”
Pecard crossed the room and eased himself into a high-backed chair from which he could see the front door. “Where is the deputy?”
“Having dinner.”
He kept his face angled so as to watch both Matt and the world beyond the room. “In the run-up to the final U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, I was based at the British embassy in Manila.”
“Military intelligence.”
“Such as it was. We received word of a substantial cache passing through certain dealers in a regular and disturbing pattern. Manila to London and beyond. Artwork, jewelry, gold, antiques. We questioned the local man and received almost nothing, save that the goods came from Saigon.”
“So you traveled over and worked with our guys.” Matt motioned for Judy Leigh to sit. She chose a chair by the rear door. As far from Pecard as she could be and remain in the room. Matt asked, “Was that Bannister?”
“Bryan was already on the case. Apparently a team were trading bogus passports and travel permits for major payouts. Which they then smuggled out to the Philippines on flights ferrying combat troops on R & R.”
“Barry Simms.”
“Or another cohort.”
“Which brings us to Porter Reeves.”
“Porter Reeves was what you might describe as a serious burnout. A number of snipers were. Senior staff kept the best constantly on the move. And Porter was quite good at his work. He liaised with intel and various ground units, flying about, doing his work, then taking leave. He would turn up in Saigon and blow an enlisted man’s annual salary in one week. Then he hopped back up-country again. We started tracking him, waiting to see who else we could pull into our net.”
“You got too close.”
“Porter took out my partner. I am utterly certain it was him, but there was no proof. Just an impossible shot from fifteen hundred yards, and my best mate was gone. I managed to save Bannister. Barely.” Pecard fingered the scar on his neck. “Porter gave me this. Before I was out of the hospital, Porter took a hit. Everything began shutting down. I was pulled out. End of story.”
Rain painted gentle streaks upon the window. Allen Pecard still looked intent and severe. But exhaustion etched his features into caverns not even the rain could ease.
“My father,” Matt said.
Allen Pecard gave no indication he had heard. “Last spring, I received a call from an ally within the craft. He had attended a major MIA rally, where to his astonishment he had spotted Porter Reeves. Coming from
anyone else, I would have put such news down to momentary strain. But my ally does not make such errors. I began checking out what I could. Naturally, no one in Washington took me seriously. After Bannister was assigned here, he helped some. All unofficially, of course.”
Pecard began tapping his fingers on the glass, almost mimicking the sound of pattering rain. “And then something rather strange occurred. I began hearing my name bandied about. In places and circumstances where I had never been. It was the only evidence I had that I was on the right trail. Porter Reeves considered me enough of a threat to set me up.”
Matt repeated his question. “How does my father figure into this?”
“We were fairly certain the scam originated from your father’s division. But we did not have a name. We never did.” Pecard looked at him square on. “And I do not deal in suppositions, Agent Kelly. Neither then nor now.”
“My father knew Porter Reeves before the war. They were in this together. They had to be.”
“The only thing I can say for certain is this. From the beginning, Porter Reeves has laid out a trail he wants us to follow. He could have taken your father out any time he wished.”
Matt worked that over, the seconds marked down by the falling rain and the beat of Pecard’s fingers upon the glass. “Today is November third, right?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
Judy Leigh said, “That’s correct. Why?”
“It was the day of the ambush. The date’s on my dad’s commendation. The one Reeves stole from our house.”
Pecard pushed himself from the chair, wincing as he did so. “In that case we must be off.”
“Where to?”
“I’ve been hiding in the crawl space under the roof, hoping you’d show up, pondering where Porter was aiming us. I think I might just know. But I need to go make certain. Can you give me a lift up the road?”
Matt’s response was cut off by the ringing of his phone. It was Connie, who said, “You’ve got to get back out here.”
“You’ve found something?”
Connie replied, “The guy. Your killer. Everything.”
Allen Pecard directed them down the highway to a ranger trail above Gunpowder Falls. He waited until Matt completed his call to Bryan Bannister, then explained that he had known about the arrest warrant for him as soon as it was issued, but would not say how, except that the warning had not come from Bannister’s office. Pecard had Matt drop him by a derelict Grand Marquis. As he slipped from the car, he said, “I will report in two hours.”