“But he had to have made a copy, a copy that’s in that house somewhere, and the police or someone else will find it someday.”
Dave turned his head and smiled at Jack.
“Then we have to make sure that they never get the chance to do that.”
***
Pierce stayed late at the station, hoping that the feds would issue a preliminary report on their investigation.
As usual, he was the last man left in the squad room from the day shift. The two teams of detectives that made up the night shift were both out on calls. Pierce’s patience was rewarded at a little after seven, when the report came in.
Manny and Max Canto were both killed from rounds fired from guns that each other had been holding. The position of the bodies was consistent with the angle of the shots. Gunshot residue was found on both men, and both men had missed once, as bullet holes were found in the walls behind them.
Pierce nodded at that last part.
Both men missed from six feet away? No, whoever shot them needed to fire off shots while the guns were in their dead hands. That way we would discover gunshot residue.
The report went on.
The various forms of ID found had the Canto brothers’ prints on them. Autopsies will be performed before the final report will be released, but the results of the preliminary findings point towards Manuel and Maxwell Canto as the cause of each other’s death.
The phone rang. It was the desk sergeant calling to say that Val had arrived. She had called Pierce earlier about the case after hearing about Manny and Max, and he told her to drop by the station.
Val walked off the elevator and, without so much as a greeting, said, “It’s not them!”
It had been a few days since he’d seen her last and he could tell that they had been kind to her. The bruising she received from the attack had finally faded away and her steps seemed normal, as the limp caused by her damaged knee had also healed. Her nose was a bit crooked, but Pierce thought the slight bend added character, rather than detracting from her beauty.
“What’s not them? Manny and Max Canto? You’re saying that they’re not the men who attacked you?”
“They can’t be. It hit me on the way over here. They keep showing their pictures on the news and you can see that they both have swarthy complexions, but the man who attacked me was pale, white.”
“You said he wore a ski mask, didn’t you?”
“He did, but I could still see his eyes, his hands, the skin around his lips, he was white, pale white, and that’s not this Manny Canto or his brother.”
“I believe you, and it fits with what I suspect.”
“Which is?”
“That Manny and Max Canto are being framed, and if so, it’s a good one.”
Val looked around the squad room. The room was filled with desks and computers and looked like any other office, in other words, totally unappealing.
“Can we go someplace else to talk?”
“Sure, where would you like to go?”
Val stepped closer to Pierce and gazed up into his eyes.
“Let’s go to my place.”
***
2:26 a.m.
Dave parked his car on the street that ran behind Manny’s house.
The neighborhood was quiet and without traffic. He and Jack got out and started walking east. When they were a block away from where they had parked, they went left and up a wide driveway, past the house, and into the yard.
They were little more than two shadows, as both men were dressed all in black with their faces covered in ski masks. After climbing over a short fence, they passed through a second yard, down another driveway, and emerged six houses away from Manny’s, which was swathed with yellow police tape.
They ducked under the tape that warned them not to, and moved to the back door off the kitchen. They carried nothing with them, they knew from their former search of the house that everything they needed was already there. They were also aware that there was no one inside to hear them break a window to gain entry.
In a corner of the basement were shelves filled with tools and equipment. The lower shelf held paint brushes and rollers, and also a large tin can of paint thinner, highly flammable paint thinner.
Ten minutes later, they had emptied the can in strategic places, and had even augmented it with the contents of a gas can taken from the attached garage. After trailing the last of the gas out behind them, to act as a fuse, they lit the end of the stream and ran away.
They abandoned their old route and ran through Manny’s yard, headed for the fence at the back of the property.
As Dave ran along, he suddenly heard Jack let out a yelp. When he turned to look for him, he was nowhere in sight.
“Jack?” Dave said in a whisper. “Where the hell did you go?”
“Put up your hands or I’ll shoot!”
Dave spun around at the sound of the strange voice, and saw the silhouette of a man holding a shotgun.
A moment later, the blaze to his right grew in intensity and Dave could see that it was an old man wearing a bathrobe; he also noticed that the shotgun was pointed right at him.
The man’s name was Perkins. He often suffered from insomnia and it was Dave’s bad luck that this was one of those nights.
“Stay right there,” Perkins said, as he edged closer, and as he did so, he removed a phone from the pocket of his robe.
Dave wanted to run, but knew it would be a mistake. If the old man pulled the trigger on the shotgun, he’d be shredded.
Goddamn it, Jack, where the hell did you go?
Dave got his answer a second later, as he watched a hand rise up from the ground and grab the old man’s left ankle, grab it and yank hard.
Perkins went down with a thud on his right side, as the phone fell and the shotgun skittered away on the grass, then, Perkins shouted out in shock, as something dragged him down into a hole.
When Dave walked over and peered in, he saw Jack punching Perkins, who covered up his face with his forearms, as he plead Jack to stop hitting him.
Dave reached down to Jack.
“Give me your hand!”
Jack scrambled out of the hole and caught his breath. He then pointed at the yard around them.
“Watch your step; there are holes everywhere.”
Dave looked around. The house was fully ablaze and giving off plenty of light. There were so many holes dug in the yard that he marveled he hadn’t fallen into one as well.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Cops were digging for bodies, I guess.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They made their way past the holes and reached the fence, which was higher than the one they had to climb on the way in, but adrenaline powered them to the top, where they paused and marveled at the light and heat of the fire, a fire that was still in its infancy.
They dropped down into the next yard and ran for the street. Once they reached the sidewalk, they looked about for movement, but saw none. After reaching the car, they yanked off their ski masks and stared upwards through the windshield, to watch the glow of the fire brightening the night sky.
Then, Dave put the car in gear and drove slowly away. He dropped Jack at home, by letting him off at the corner, and then returned to his house and eased his car against the curb. After slipping in the back door, he entered the downstairs bathroom and shoved the clothes he was wearing into the hamper.
Just as he was closing the lid, he smelled it, gasoline. He went quickly, but quietly to the kitchen where he grabbed a white, plastic garbage bag. He then stuffed the clothes in it and, while sneaking back outside in just his boxers, he tossed the bag of soiled clothes into a neighbor’s trashcan.
As he was climbing into bed, his wife woke and asked him a question.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just got up to get a drink of water.”
“Oh,” she said, and then faded back to sleep.
Dave lay beside
her in the darkness and smiled, certain that he was safe at last.
CHAPTER 19
Pierce woke at six, as the light of a new day dawned.
His surroundings perplexed him for a long moment as his brain came fully awake, but then he remembered with a smile that he had not slept in his own bed.
He turned his head and saw Val, still sleeping. The cover had slipped down to her waist and he could see her firm breasts, and the memory of their taste and texture flickered across his mind. Her body was petite, but surprisingly strong, and she made love with quiet energy.
Their first time was quick, full of hungry need, but the second time they explored, they teased, they satisfied.
He sighed quietly. It had been a long time since he had not woken up alone, a long time since he’d been with anyone.
He rose quietly, found his clothing, and headed to the bathroom down the hall where he relieved himself before getting dressed. When he opened the door, he found Val walking towards him wearing only panties.
She gave him a peck on the lips before rushing by.
“I gotta pee, don’t leave before I come out.”
“I’ll be here.”
He walked into the living room and looked around. He hadn’t seen much the night before. They had barely entered the apartment when Val had turned and kissed him, and from there things just escalated towards the bedroom.
There was an entire wall of family photos. Pierce saw palm trees in the background of many of them. Florida, he thought. Although he knew it could just as easily be California or a dozen other locales. However, Florida was his first thought.
He strolled past a bookcase filled with bestsellers and went into her kitchen, where he thought about making coffee, but didn’t want to be too forward.
Just because she slept with him, it didn’t mean that she wanted him to make himself at home.
There was a door in the kitchen and when he walked over to it, he saw that it opened out onto a miniscule porch and a set of back steps. Her apartment was on the third floor of an old, five-story apartment house made of red brick. It was in a good section of the city and close to the main highway.
Val walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, wearing a robe. When she looked over at the coffeemaker, she pouted.
“I was hoping you had started the coffee.”
“I didn’t want to assume that you wanted me to stay long enough to have coffee.”
She went to him and fell into his arms.
“I want you to come back to bed, but only after coffee, I need coffee.”
Pierce looked at his watch.
“I wish there was time, but I have to go home and change before I go into the station.”
Val set-up the coffeemaker and when the pot had brewed, she grabbed a pair of white china mugs and filled them both to the top. Pierce stared at her as she took her first sip.
“Why are you staring at me?”
“You’re drinking it black; you’re the only woman I’ve ever seen do that.”
“I like it black, but if you want milk or sugar I can—”
“No, I drink it black too, always have.”
They sat at the kitchen table and she asked him what he was going to do that day.
“Not much I can do, your case and the murder I was investigating were seemingly solved yesterday. Right now, I’m just waiting to get a look at the autopsy report. I’m hoping they find some inconsistency that keeps the cases open.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then, I suppose the feds will tag Manny and Max Canto as the men who attacked you.”
“Did either of them own a white van?”
“No.”
“Where were they when I was being attacked?”
“Max Canto’s wife swears that her husband was home on the night of the twenty-fourth. She was on the local news last night, right before you came to the station.”
“Can she prove it?”
“No.”
“There’s something I don’t get. If those two men... what were their names again?”
“Murphy and Owens?”
“Yes, the men with the white van, Murphy and Owens, if they’re framing the Canto brothers then why not tie them to the bodies too? It seems to me that it would make the frame airtight.”
“My guess is that they’re worried about their DNA being on the bodies.”
“So... those women’s families will never know for certain what really happened to them?”
“Not until we find the bodies, or get someone to talk.”
“If the Canto brothers are named as the killers, what happens to Murphy and Owens?”
“They’ll no longer be considered suspects.”
“And so they’ll just get away with it?”
Pierce smiled.
“Not on my watch.”
***
When he returned home, he showered, and as he was dressing, he put the TV on. The first thing he saw was an aerial view of Manny Canto’s house, which was little more than a charred pit.
He sat down on the bed as his mind began to race.
Why burn down the house? There must have been something in that house that could hurt them, some evidence against them, and maybe Manny Canto wasn’t just an innocent dupe after all.
***
Once Pierce reached work, he found that he had a case. An old woman had died the night before in her home and the cause of death was unknown. He and Jerold had no sooner gotten into the car to head to the scene, when the call came in.
“It’s a suicide, Pierce,” Coke said. “The old lady’s daughter just received the suicide note by FedEx.”
“She FedExed a suicide note?”
“Of course, you know you can’t trust the mail.”
“Where’s the daughter live?”
“Wisconsin, the cops out there will verify the note.”
“All right then, we’ll just go to the scene and look around.”
They found nothing at the scene that appeared suspicious and within two hours they were back at the station. Pierce spent the next hour at his desk, outlining his case against Jack and Dave.
He really had no proof that they were guilty of anything. He did trust Val’s gut feeling about them, as well as his own, and then there was the Ford van, and also the fact that they had been friends since childhood. That van was the key. If it had been used to abduct all those women, then there would surely be some trace of DNA evidence inside it, a drop of blood, a tiny hair, a single skin cell.
He stood and grabbed his jacket.
“Let’s go for a ride, partner.”
“Where to?” Jerold asked. He had just come back to his desk after taking a bathroom break.
“I want to see a man about a van.”
***
Pierce drove to Jack’s place of business and discovered that he had called in sick. He then drove to Jack’s home and was surprised to see a police cruiser in the driveway. Jack was there as well, and he was talking to the cop from the cruiser.
The car belonged to a Hillside Township cop named Gunther Jones, who Jerold knew. They were members of the same church. Jones was a large blond man in his thirties. His uniform looked loose on him, as if he had recently lost some weight.
Jones watched them walking towards him and recognized Jerold.
“Hey, Bob, what are you doing here?”
Pierce pointed at Jack.
“We came to talk to Murphy about his van.”
“His van was stolen last night; I’m here making out the report,” Jones said.
Pierce couldn’t hide his frustration. It seemed as if Murphy and Owens were always a step ahead of him. He cursed under his breath as he stared at Jack.
“That’s very fucking convenient; your van gets stolen just as I’m coming here to talk to you about it.”
Jack just sent him a shrug.
“It’s not convenient for me. Now I have to buy another vehicle, that is, unless you find it and get it back for me.�
�
“That’s not going to happen though, is it, Murphy? You and your pal, Owens, probably parked that van at the bottom of a lake somewhere.”
Officer Jones stared at Pierce as he spoke to Jerold.
“Bob, what the hell is going on?”
“We believe that Murphy’s van was the van used in a series of abductions and murders.”
“What? Like the Canto brothers?”
“They were framed,” Pierce said. “I know it and Murphy here knows it too, don’t you Murphy?”
Jack looked at the faces of the cops surrounding him and then backed up to his door and stepped inside. Before closing it, he stared at Pierce.
“I have nothing to say to you, and I’m getting a lawyer.”
When the door closed, Jones crumpled up the report he’d been writing.
“Son of a bitch, the Canto’s were really framed?”
“Yeah, now all we have to do is prove it,” Pierce said.
His phone rang; it was the lieutenant.
“What’s up, Coke?”
“The feds got the coroner to move up the Canto brothers’ autopsies; word is they just started cutting.”
Pierce waved goodbye to Jones as he walked back towards his car.
“We’re on our way.”
“Where to?” Jerold asked.
“The morgue, they’re doing the cutting on the Canto’s,”
“Great, and I was just thinking of going to lunch.”
“You can stop and grab something after.”
“You know that I can never eat after watching that, oh well, I can stand to drop a few pounds anyway.”
“More like thirty,”
“Shut up,” Jerold said.
***
The morgue was in the rear basement of the old courthouse, downtown.
Pierce and Jerold entered the autopsy room. The two FBI agents looking into the serial killings were named Rogers and Abrams. Rogers was the senior agent and did all of the talking.
Rodgers was of average height, forty, balding, but seemed to be in good shape. His partner Abrams was about the same age and had reddish blond hair cut short. Unlike Rodgers, Abrams had a gut and seemed to keep his mouth parted slightly, as if he were having trouble breathing.
“The doc found something interesting in the stomach contents of Manuel Canto. It was a flash drive. The lab boys have it, and I’m waiting for a report,” Rogers said.
Monsters (A Detective Pierce Novel Book 1) Page 9