by Chuck Dixon
The two teams spread out across the three-building compound in their bunny suits. The tox crew wore hoods and breathers and entered the lab building with steel cases of gear. The forensics nerds established a grid search pattern and began poking their way across the assigned area.
“There’s jack shit for me to do other than order them lunch,” Danny said to Trooper Durward. “Can you show me to Site Two?”
“You sure you want to hike it, sir? It’s rough ground,” Durward said. He squinted at the steep slope rising behind the lab building.
“My grandparents on my mother’s side were Cherokee. They used to tell me how a brave could run twenty miles up and down these hills without a break or a sip of water. Then run twenty miles back with a deer carcass slung over his back.”
“So, we’re hiking it, sir?” Durward said.
“Hell, no. You’ve got a four-wheel?” Danny said.
Durward nodded. Danny thought he saw a trace of a smile on the trooper’s stone face.
"And it's air-conditioned?"
“Like a meat locker, sir.”
“Lead the way, my man,” Danny said.
By evening it was Danny Huff’s turn to play second banana.
Two federal agents arrived from the FBI’s Nashville office. Agents Seffner and Greene needed a review of the twin mass murder scenes now determined to be a successful hijacking. It was down to Danny to bring them up to speed.
“A week to ten days ago this meth lab got hit presumably for product and cash. We’ll know more when the med-ex report bounces back.” Danny and the agents had taken shelter in the county forensics bus. They shared some not-horrible coffee and listened to the patter of fresh rain on the roof.
“Any idea if they got away with anything?” Agent Greene said. Or was it Seffner? They were both white guys in matching windbreakers and jock haircuts.
“No way to tell. The set-up suggests this lab was an earner. They had enough chems for a cook that could keep the whole state cranked up till New Years. There could have been a massive amount of the stuff here unless they’d already hauled it off.”
“And cash?” Greene or Seffner asked.
"Again, no way to say. We don't know how this crew was set up. If the money came back this way or somewhere else. But given the number of bodies, I'd say they were here guarding something. Cash or goods or both."
“Who were the dead guys?”
“Mexicans or like that? South of the border anyway. Covered in ink, most of them.” Danny handed over his tablet. The agents scrolled through photos showing torsos, arms and legs covered in tattoos.
“Zetas,” Greene or Seffner said.
“Cartel,” Seffner or Greene said.
“We get migrants through here. Mostly stoop work at local farms in the south end of the county,” Danny said. “Local deputies told me they’ve seen gang tags here and there for a year or so. But they had no idea they were up here cooking.”
“Any ballistics back? What kind of firefight went on here?” one of the pair asked.
“One-sided. Site Two, the one up the hill? Buckshot and forty-five rounds. We found empty casings from the shooters only. The three dead men never got off a shot even though they were armed.”
“And down at the lab?”
“More casings. Two-two threes. Chinese manufacture. The dead guys returned some fire but no sign they had any luck.” Danny tipped a bit more creamer into his coffee to cut the bitterness.
“You have any crews locally could have pulled this off?”
“We have our meth labs, sure. They grew up when cooking crystal became more profitable than distilling feed corn. But nothing like a cartel deal. Dudes cooking in trailers and hunting cabins back in the woods. Small time.”
"Another cartel then. A rivalry," Greene said to Seffner or the other way around.
“Sinaloa. Guats. Or a wildcard outfit,” perhaps Seffner said to Greene.
“So, this goes federal? Either you guys or DEA?” Danny said.
“We’ll get back to you,” one of the agents said.
“You’ll be contacted with where to send all follow-up reports,” said the other agent.
They stepped from the bus and into the rain never to be seen again.
21
Trey Wilkins wanted to be a cop more than anything else in the world.
A slight frame, fallen arches and the eyesight of groundhog crushed those dreams. Still, he majored in law enforcement online at Liberty University. He was looking for any job that would put him close to the world of cops. Hell, he’d work a lunch wagon outside a Highway Patrol barracks if it’s what he had to do to be close to the action.
When he found out that a few of the state police ballistics technicians were retiring he applied for the job. Almost a year went by and he got the call. His degree in police administration and his grades at Liberty recommended him. The state of Alabama sent him on an eight-week course in firearms forensics then put him right to work studying lands and grooves on spent rounds recovered from crime scenes all over the state.
He was in hog heaven dealing with actual evidence, lethal evidence, recovered from the bodies of homicide victims. It wasn't slinging a gun and driving a cruiser but it was still part of the game.
The collection of bagged and tagged rounds and casings recovered from sites One and Two (from a mass shooting incident designated ALEA #00978 Colby1 or Colby 2 5/24) was bewildering.
Almost two magazines worth of spent .223 rounds full metal jacket. .45 slugs. Some 7.62 X 39 rounds. And little baggies of buckshot which, from a ballistics study standpoint, were nearly useless. The empty shotgun cartridges found at the scene told Trey nothing. Deer rounds were common as dirt down in that county. The Walmart sold more shot rounds than anything else come the fall months each year.
Along with the crushed and malformed bullets came a collection of weapons found at both scenes. Semi-auto rifles. Handguns. No shotgun. No .45. Those must have belonged to the shooters.
Trey spent the time before lunch firing test rounds from each weapon into gel blocks for comparison to the various spent ammo. After lunch, he made the direct comparisons, scrolling through side-by-side shots of the magnified striations etched in each round by its passage through the barrels of the found weapons.
He squinted at the screen. Twiddled the mouse to impose one image over the other. He checked the reports coming along with the bagged evidence. One report, signed B. Huff, laid out the scenario of the mass shooting in something that read like a rough, artless short story.
“Something wrong there,” Trey said to himself.
Danny Huff was treating Trooper Durward to barbecue at a roadside stand outside Colby. A black dude was making art at a big old tank-style grill on a trailer. Gray smoke drifting into the treetops to telegraph the promise of fulfilling every redneck’s culinary desire for miles around. The dude’s four kids served up the pulled pork in a killer sauce on soft rolls along with a big scoop of carrot and cabbage slaw. The two cops sat on the dropped tailgate of the trooper’s state SUV, leaning forward to dig into the thick sandwiches so as not to drip the rich red goop on their clothes.
Danny’s Galaxy thrummed in his pocket. He pulled it out to find a text loaded with images.
"I like your ringtone, Danny," Trooper Durward said. Johnny Cash. The opening three-part riff to "Folsom Prison Blues."
“Sweet Jesus on a seesaw,” Danny said after a few moments taking in the text and grainy images.
“What is it?” the trooper said.
“The two-two-three slugs we picked out of the victims and walls at Site One? They came out of the ARs we found at Site Two.”
"But your timeline has Site Two happening first. Makes no sense, sir." They were back on the clock. It was 'sir' now. Trooper Durward was all about old school discipline.
“What we have here is a fucking mystery,” Danny said.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Some folks won’t listen to reason. Not even when reality is
gnawing on their ass asking for seconds.”
22
It was a question Levon had anticipated long before it was asked.
“When can we spend some of the money?” Dale said.
Levon stepped away from the engine stand in Fern's barn and eyed Dale with a hard look. He had the manifold covers off the Mustang's engine preparatory to tearing the whole thing down. The trannie was already stripped to pieces on a workbench.
“What do you need money for?”
“I don’t know. Mom’s medications ain’t cheap and my monthly check only goes so far.” Dale shrugged. He lived with his mother in a double-wide on an acre or two the other side of the county road.
“I’ll give you some money of my own. That do you?”
“What’s the difference between your money and the money we took?”
“No one’s looking for my money,” Levon said. He dipped his hand into a can of gritty detergent. He worked the dollop in his hands, lifting grease from his skin.
“I don’t think anyone’s looking. Been near to a month now. Even the cops have forgotten about it. Bunch of dead Mexicans in the woods. No one gives a shit.”
“Shows what you know.” Levon walked out into the noonday sunlight and headed for the house. Dale followed.
In the kitchen, Uncle Fern was making a peanut butter and banana sandwich while listening to Rush Limbaugh on a radio set on the counter.
“Want a sandwich?” Fern said to the men entering through the screen door. “I can brew some fresh coffee.”
“Dale isn’t staying,” Levon said. He headed up the stairs for his room.
Dale took a seat at the kitchen table to wait.
“How’s your mother doing?” Fern asked, setting a plate down on the table and seating himself. There was a glass and a carton of milk.
“Okay, I guess. Just telling Levon. She’s on blood thinners and shit still and the Medicare’s only so much help.”
Uncle Fern let out a snort.
“Damn doctors. They tell us to take pills but not how to pay for them. Clinic in Haley wanted me on those cholesterol drugs. I told ’em I’d just switch to drinkin’ blue john.” Fern poured himself a glass of skim milk from the carton.
Levon came back into the kitchen. He slapped down a wad of bills on the table in front of Dale.
“What I owed you for that favor,” he said.
"Sure. Sure. All good," Dale said. He stood to pocket the wad. A glance told him it was a half-inch thick stack of fifties.
“I’ll walk you out,” Levon said. He held the screen door for his half-brother.
“Fern know what we done?” Dale said when they were away from the house.
“He only knows we were up to something. And he knows that what he’s ignorant of he can’t tell no one about.”
“You really think someone’s looking for what we took?”
“These guys aren’t like cops. They don’t need evidence. They’ll move on a suspicion. You start spending big and draw attention to yourself? Step out of cover once. All it takes.”
“Sounds like you don’t trust me to have any common sense, Goose,” Dale said. He opened the door of his truck and stood to lean in the opening.
“Those tires. What they cost you?” Levon nodded to the four new Michelins with chrome rims highlighted in electric blue.
“That’s on me. I had some put aside,” Dale said. He tapped his pocket with his fingers.
“Don’t ask for more. You wait till I tell you it’s all good.”
“Shit, Goose. It was for my mother.”
“She’s not my mother, Dale.”
Levon walked back to the house. Dale raised rooster tails of dust peeling off Fern’s lot.
23
“Interdepartmental cooperation my ass,” Laura Strand said.
“No luck with our brothers and sisters in the intelligence community?” Nancy Valdez said.
Their daily morning briefing started all wrong.
The coffee station on their floor was out of creamer. So Laura wasn’t happy.
It was Tony Marcoon’s turn to bring the donuts. There were three with peanut sprinkles and Chad had a severe peanut allergy. So Chad Bengstrom wasn’t happy.
They were coming up on the deadline for their second review with Brett Sylvester in three days and had jack shit to show him. Nancy was deeply unhappy.
Tony liked his coffee black. Could eat his fill of donuts without fear of anaphylactic shock or gaining an ounce. And departmental reviews were speed bumps on the highway of life. So Tony was not happy but not unhappy.
“NSA. Navy Intelligence. CIA. Dickheads all of them,” Laura said and slapped her child-sized hand down atop a stack of folders tinted in shades of teal, lime green and gray.
It had the makings of a rant so the others remained quiet.
“Levon Cade was inducted into the Marines at eighteen. Went through boot camp at Parris Island then special weapons training at Pendleton. Typical career path for an eager young jarhead, right? Then it all goes dark,” Laura said.
"Redactions. Redactions. And more redactions. The only text remaining between the bars of black tells us he was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Colombia. We can guess he was at the Western Hemisphere Institute down there. A spook unit for hunting narcos. But who knows? Was he part of a deep cover hunter/killer team? Bodyguarding dignitaries? They know and won’t tell us.”
"Then, all of a sudden, he's back in Huntsville living like Joe Sixpack. He's married. Has a kid. Gets a prescription for Xanax from the VA for post-trauma. Just another returning vet. Works dead-end jobs, entry level stuff. Security guard. Delivery truck driver. Never stays anywhere long. And between jobs, he's gone like a ghost."
“The theory was he was still active with whatever agency was deploying him before,” Nancy said. She sipped black coffee and winced.
"And that's all it is. A theory," Laura said. "I dug into the Cade family financials. They lived within their means. A mortgage. Car loans. No sign of hidden income streams. She worked as a substitute teacher. He did his blue-collar thing. It all looked like they were living off their salaries."
“The American dream,” Chad said. He eyed the remaining donuts with a mix of desire and dread.
“Until his wife was diagnosed with cancer,” Laura said. “Combined bill for treatment up to the time of her death was well over a million dollars. Paid in full right after her funeral.”
“Her parents helped with that, right? Her father’s a surgeon?” Nancy said.
“I looked into their returns, too. The Roths did not show a payout to any of the hospitals or clinics that treated Arlene Cade. Not a penny. Someone covered the costs and it wasn’t them.” Laura reached out to pluck a cream-filled from the box.
“Three days, people,” Nancy said. “Three days and we have to show something to Brett to justify our work here.”
Laura munched her donut with a pensive expression. Chad looked at his open laptop sullenly. Nancy sighed.
“Well, I have something,” Tony said. He flipped open a notepad.
The others turned to him. Nancy spread her hands to welcome the former homicide cop’s revelation.
“The Roths. What happened to them?” Tony said. “Levon Cade first comes on the radar when he’s a person of interest in the death of his in-laws. Marcia Roth is found dead, shot through the head in their house which is burnt to the ground in a clear case of arson. Dr. Jordan Roth is never seen again. Cade was involved in a wicked custody battle over his daughter Meredith.”
“Cade was cleared,” Chad said. “He was hours away at the time of the murder and fire. Time-stamped video at a fast food drive-through.”
"That's not where I'm going," Tony said. "I'm looking at the father-in-law. He's suspect number one in his wife's murder. But nothing feels right about it. What's the motive? Where'd he get the gun? There's no record of purchase or registration. And a single gunshot to the back of the head is not your typical crime of passion
."
“Not seeing how any of this leads us to Cade,” Laura said.
“I think it’s worth exploring because of all the other shit happening at the time.” Tony flipped to a new page. “Cade was working security for Robert Joseph Wiley who owned a construction firm in Huntsville. Wiley’s daughter was abducted down in Tampa. Her body turns up in a swamp down there.”
“You’re reaching, Tony,” Nancy said. “The Bureau guys looked into it.”
“The feebs know fuck-all about homicide investigations.” Tony snorted. He wanted to wrap this up. He needed a cigarette after his coffee. “The girl’s body is identified and a couple of jerk-off bikers are nailed for it. But they say they only buried her as a favor for someone. They flip on these Russians and get some slack on their sentences. Only, guess what, the Russians they flip on are all dead.”
The others sat forward.
"In fact, lots of Russians are dead over a two week period before the Wiley girl's body is found. The Tampa cops are finding them all over the bay area. Somewhere in there Marcia Roth is shot dead and her house torched and her husband disappears. At the same time, Levon Cade is in the wind and off the grid with his daughter only to pop up on the radar a year later in Maine."
“And more dead career criminals,” Nancy said.
“Then a psycho road trip across the Rust Belt wasting felons along the way,” Chad said.
“Forget about that,” Tony said. “Look back at the situation with Cade and the missing girl.”
“What situation?” Nancy said.
“Cade’s boss at Wiley and Manners can’t find his daughter. I pulled the missing persons reports. No action from Tampa PD. He’s frustrated. His little girl’s missing and nobody seems to care. He sends this badass on his security payroll down to check things out.”
“With no idea who Cade really is.” Chad was nodding and smiling.
“Exactly. And Cade turns it all into a total clusterfuck,” Tony said. “Pissing off a shitload of Russians.”