The Garbage Man

by Candace Irving

  Shit. "Liz, don't panic. I'm in Little Rock. I'll be back in town in half an hour. Can you get to the farm?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay, go. Get Abel calmed down and keep him that way. Grant told me his cancer's back and it's terminal."

  "Oh, Lord."

  "I know. I'll see you soon." She hung up and grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair. The waitress had left during the call. Kate pulled out her wallet to leave cash, only to freeze as Fremont reached out and laid his hand over hers.

  "No."

  "But—" The man was homeless, damn it. And despite their argument, a fellow vet.

  "I knew you'd try to pay, so I took care of it when I ordered. I get a disability check." He squeezed her hand briefly, firmly. "Now go. You've got my number; call when you've got time to talk about this—really talk. Just let me add one thing first. It's important. You remember it when you think over what we've said. Your friend's death was not your fault."

  That was the problem. Deep down in the dregs of her soul, she knew it was.

  And, now, she was on the verge of losing another.

  12

  By the time Kate reached Braxton, four cars were haphazardly racked into the gravel drive of Grant's childhood home. She didn't recognize any of them. She did, however, spot Joe jogging down the steps of the wraparound porch as she vaulted from the Durango. Clearly, he'd taken her phoned plea to drop everything and get here yesterday to heart. Thank God.

  "Is Abel okay?"

  Joe grabbed her arms, steadying her as they met at the corner of the lawn. "Mr. Parish is fine. We've managed to calm him with a little help from an injection your friend Dr. Vogel had in her bag. Don't worry; she said the sedative's mild. Agent Walker's with them. We haven't interviewed the man yet. Mostly because the sedative's just kicked in, but also because Ed and I thought it best to wait for you given your relationship with his son. From Abel's conversation with Dr. Vogel, I understand you two were also good friends with his younger son as well?"

  "The best." Los Tres Amigos. The irony lashed in. Here she was, about to climb the steps of that rambling farmstead house where she'd spent a good deal of her high school years. Liz would be inside again, but no Dan—and, now, no Grant. From what Grant had relayed last night, Abel wouldn't be around for long either.

  The sludge she'd been swimming in for days surged up and did its best to drag her under, damned near succeeding.

  Joe cupped her chin. "You okay? You don't need to do this, you know. Hell, this is perilously close to conflict of interest, as it is."

  "Yeah, I do. I know Abel. He's not going to open up to anyone else, except perhaps Lou—and the sheriff's stuck in an ass-covering meeting with the governor and the state police over those newspaper articles." Plus, this was Braxton. Everyone in her department was experiencing a conflict of interest today.

  The town was that small. Which made Grant's disappearance all the more horrifying—and suspicious.

  She dropped her forehead to Joe's chest as the guilt pummeled in. "It's because of me, isn't it?"

  "No!" He hauled her closer and squeezed hard. "Good God, there's no way anyone can know that."

  But there was. And she did.

  Grant had disappeared somewhere between her house and this one, last night of all nights. The same night Ruger had staked his watchdog credentials on his belief that someone had been in their home, uninvited. "I talked down the threat, Joe, because I just didn't want to accept it. But Ruger knew. And from Ruger's reaction, the bastard left minutes before I arrived home. He was probably hiding in the trees, watching, while Grant and I were talking in my drive. And now Grant's missing, and according to Lou, his cellphone's been cut off. If I'd accepted Lou's offer of a bodyguard then, or even yours to sleep on my couch—"

  "Stop." Joe grabbed her chin and forced her to meet the determination in that iron stare. "It wouldn't have made a difference, and you know it. Come on, Kate. Suck it up and start thinking like the agent I know you still are. You can do this. You will."

  He was right. She could do this, and she would. Starting now. That he'd used the same phrase Fremont had slapped her with less than forty minutes earlier in that diner, helped.

  Suck it up.

  Kate pulled the cold noon air into her lungs and did just that. She released the lapels of Joe's jacket and shoved her hands in the pockets of her own as she nodded and took a step back. "Thanks, friend. I'm good to go now."

  "You sure?"

  "Absolutely." Her fingers had found Max's tags with unerring, subconscious accuracy. She knotted the beaded chain around her hand, holding on for support as they reached the steps to the porch she'd helped whitewash all those years ago.

  It could use a fresh coat.

  The screen door creaked as Joe opened it.

  Kate thanked him again as she entered, then turned into the living room. The lanky, vibrant man she'd chatted with outside the post office four short weeks ago was now slumped in his favorite brown La-Z-Boy recliner, silent, bleak and somehow aged by an additional seventy years.

  It wasn't from the cancer.

  It was terror.

  Though dulled by the drugs, fear was still achingly visible amid those pale blue eyes that had somehow become paler, and in those pinched, quivering lips.

  "Katie?"

  "It's me, Poppa Abel." She let go of the tags and leaned down so she could wrap her arms about his shoulders for a gentle squeeze as she pressed her lips to his lined, papery cheek. Christ, he was frail. Little more than brittle bones with a bit of muscle stretched across, here and there. This was definitely the cancer, and this time it was eating through his body, hard and fast.

  How could she have been so blind?

  Kate choked on her tears as she straightened. She caught the subtle tip of Liz's head and knew there was something else going on. Something Liz needed to share. Kate turned to where the BAU agent had struck up a quiet conversation with Joe.

  "Agent Walker?"

  "Yes, Deputy?"

  "Would you mind sitting with Mr. Parish for a bit?"

  "Sure thing." The shrink redeemed his entire profession as he crossed the room and gently drew Abel into a conversation about the array of photos on the mantle that actually had the old man smiling.

  With Abel distracted, Kate led Joe into the large kitchen at the back of the house. Liz followed. Her unease increased as Liz closed the door behind them.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I'm not entirely sure. But something is." She walked them over to the pine beadboard cupboard Mrs. Parish had designated as the family pharmacy and first aid station when Grant was in diapers. "It's in here. Rather, they're in here."

  Kate and Joe waited, bemused, as Liz plucked a succession of pharmacy-grade, orange pill bottles from the cupboard and lined them up along the butcher block counter. There were over a dozen when she finished, all prescribed to a name and address Kate had never seen before.

  "Who's Theodore Stewart?"

  "Abel."

  Kate retrieved a bottle to take a closer look. Abel's name was nowhere on the label. "I don't understand."

  "Neither do I. Not completely. As I'm sure Agent Cordoba told you, I decided to be proactive. I brought a selection of sedatives with me. Because you said Abel was out of remission, I took the time to come in here and check his medications to make sure nothing was contraindicated with what I thought would best calm him. I found these."

  "And he admits they're his?"

  "No. But he didn't deny it. And that's not the bizarre part." Liz tapped two bottles in the middle of the line. "These aren't used to treat cancer. They're immunosuppressants. They're designed to negate a body's normal immunological response to foreign tissue. In effect, to prevent the rejection of said tissue. Or in Abel's case, an organ." She tapped a bottle to the right. "This one prevents infection. A critical precaution for someone taking immunosuppressants."

  Kate shook her head as she tried to right her spinning brain. It wasn't that she hadn't und
erstood what Liz had said. It just didn't make sense. "Are you telling me Abel had an organ transplant?"

  "Yes. From the scar running down his chest, I'm guessing he received a new heart about a year ago, possibly two. Please note; I'm estimating that timeframe off the scar I've seen on a patient of mine who received one three years ago. But that's not the stunning part."

  It was to her. Grant had never mentioned this. Hell, he hadn't even hinted at it.

  Liz turned to address Joe. "I don't know if Kate told you, but Abel was first diagnosed with colon cancer when we were sophomores in high school. Fortunately, it was caught early and the cancer went into remission. But the fact that he'd once had it should've prevented him from being placed on the national waiting list with the United Network of Organ Sharing. And when you add on Abel's age at the time of transplantation—well, let's just say he had two strikes against him and you don't get any with UNOS. They abide by very rigid criteria. They must. There are simply too many people who need organs and too few available."

  Kate stared at the name on the bottle in her hand. There was only one explanation that made sense for a transplant that shouldn't have been and the obvious secrecy surrounding it.

  Black market.

  She returned the bottle to its slot in that long line and swallowed the bile that threatened. "I know there's a thriving market for illegal kidneys in certain countries." China, India and Pakistan readily came to mind. "But hearts?"

  Even the truly desperate tended not to sell those, because you couldn't walk away from the table once the transaction was complete. Even if he had found someone willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, Abel had never been outside the country. Ironically, Abel had volunteered that himself during that visit outside the post office last month. At the time, he'd been admiring a resident's new passport as he bemoaned the fact that he'd never needed one.

  That meant the surgery had taken place in the States, possibly in Arkansas. But that wasn't the most appalling part. There was only one person Abel knew with the skills to track down a black-market heart who would also have been willing to risk his professional reputation and freedom to obtain it.

  Grant.

  But she had to be sure. She caught Liz's stare. "Did you ask him point blank about the transplant?"

  "Yes."

  "What did he say? His exact words."

  "'Grant took care of it.' Then he clammed up. Moments later, Agent Walker arrived so I didn't push it."

  The betrayal cut to the bone as Kate sagged against the maple table she'd dined at a mere six weeks ago with both Grant and his father, three feet from that collection of damning pills. At the time, she'd have sworn on Ruger's life that neither man—but especially Grant—was capable of such heinousness. But now? With that confession? Worse, with three meticulously hacked up bodies in the state morgue, all devoid of their vital organs?

  Ten minutes ago, she'd assumed Grant had been kidnapped and was the next likely victim. Now, staring at those pills, she didn't know what he was. Surely, he was innocent of murdering his co-workers, at least?

  Please, Lord. Give her that much.

  Instinct and experience combined to warn her she'd likely come up empty.

  She'd believed she was the cause of Grant's disappearance. She might be right—but for the wrong reason. She'd all but laid out her investigation for the man in her driveway last night...and he'd immediately vanished.

  Had he simply gone off the grid?

  The bile rose once more as she recalled that burner phone. The one she'd blithely handed over following Grant's revelation regarding the re-emergence of Abel's cancer. A revelation she now believed he'd had no intention of making anytime soon. He'd deliberately abused her sympathy to get himself out of a jam—with her.

  Lest that bountiful breakfast she'd shared succeed in its relentless upward quest, Kate pushed off the table and zig-zagged toward the door at the rear of the kitchen.

  "Are you okay?"

  She waved Liz off as she continued her dogged path. "I just...need a moment. Alone."

  Or a million.

  Would any amount of time be enough to pull herself together to face the man who'd been more of a father to her at times than her own? To question him, and treat him like the suspect he now was?

  Kate stumbled down the back steps of the house, grateful there were only three. She stared out over the stone patio at the old semi-truck tire swing hanging from the limb of a gnarled oak.

  She closed her eyes against the memory of Liz pushing Dan so hard he'd flown off and landed in the dirt. He'd bruised his tailbone so badly he hadn't been able to sit properly for a month. She could still hear Grant laughing.

  Grant.

  Good God, how could he?

  Kate lurched off the patio and turned toward the old ramshackle barn that served as a detached garage, desperate for another memory of simpler times, before her childhood innocence and her town had gone to crap. She focused on those that'd begun in this very barn. She and Liz sneaking out here late at night during the summer of their junior year. They'd help Dan open the barn's rear doors and shove his mom's old Buick into neutral so they could roll it out and push it down the lane where they'd finally gather their nerves and fire it up.

  She'd spent most of those midnight rides terrified someone would recognize them—most especially, her dad. Now, today, she wondered if her father had known all along and had simply accepted that she'd needed that tiny spark of rebellion.

  The bittersweet memories of the past merged with the sour denial of the present to carry her up to those barn doors. She opened the one on the right and slipped inside.

  Of course, Mrs. Parish's old Buick wasn't inside. She hadn't really expected it to be. But neither had she anticipated this.

  A Land Rover.

  The bulk of the British SUV was camouflaged amid the hay-strewn shadows, but it was definitely green...just like the one Cal Burgess had spotted a week ago Tuesday morning in the parking lot of the Baymont building. The one the security guard had seen driven by a man who'd argued with Andrea Silva.

  Kate's nerves bellowed like a wounded calf in the chilly silence of the barn, warning her to turn around.

  Close the door. Run.

  Go back inside that kitchen and pretend she hadn't seen what she'd seen. What this was.

  She listened to her cop instincts instead, and stepped deeper into the barn. She hooked Max's dog tags around her neck so she could retrieve her cellphone as she approached the passenger side of the SUV. Thumbing the phone's flash, she prayed with every step that the evidence she'd culled from not one, but two of Braxton's roads did not match the Starblaze tread patterns in front of her.

  But they did.

  And there was more.

  Kate swung away from the Land Rover as the bile that had been threatening finally breached her throat. She slammed her phone onto the barn's workbench and braced herself as she deposited the bulk of that much-too-bountiful breakfast into the hay at her feet.

  It didn't help. She could still see that trio of nicks and voids that Emmett had pointed out to her at the edge of the road near the pet cemetery. They were seared into her brain.

  Along with those coldly sectioned body parts.

  She voided her stomach once more and used a rag from the bench to dry her mouth.

  "Feel better?"

  It was Joe. Thank goodness. Lord only knew what Liz would think, finding her in this position twice in two days.

  Kate traded the soiled rag for her phone and turned to face the man who'd seen her through straights equally as rough as this. "Not really." She waved him deeper into the garage, toward their most recent and damning piece of evidence yet. "Take a look."

  Joe switched on the flashlight of his own smartphone as he moved closer to the Land Rover. "What am I searching for?"

  "Did you get a good look at the tread impressions back at the lab?"

  "Yeah—why?"

  The moment his beam hit the tread of the right rear Starblaz
e, he knew. It was in the sharp pull of his breath. Joe expelled his breath just as sharply as he hunkered down beside her. The pain ground in deeper as she held out her palm to double-check its measure against that distinctive trio of flaws.

  "Holy shit, Holland."

  "Yeah." No doubt about it. This was the SUV that had left its mark out on the edge of that gravel road beside Jason Dunne's body. The same SUV that had almost run her down at her cabin.

  So who had been driving? Grant, or his father?

  Did she even want the answer anymore?

  Her stomach threatened another rebellion. Odd, because there was nothing left inside with which to rebel.

  Not even froth.

  And for some reason, she was freezing.

  She was dimly aware of Joe taking her phone from her nerveless fingers and helping her to her feet, then leading her out of the barn. She grabbed his arm as he guided her around the corner.

  "Wait. We need photos. I have to call Lou and brief him. And the crime unit. And then the—"

  "No, you don't. Kate, you're in shock. Hell, so am I—and I didn't grow up in this town with these folks. Just let me get you to that pair of Adirondack chairs I saw out by the patio and I'll make the calls while you...process."

  He supported her body and soul the entire way, gently nudging her into the closest chair upon their arrival. She fell back against the slats of the weathered wood, grateful she hadn't removed her jacket. She was so cold now that her hands were shaking, too. She shoved them in her pockets in a desperate attempt to warm them.

  "You want me to get Dr. Vogel?"

  Kate shook her head firmly. She couldn't see Liz just yet. Nor did she want to go back inside. She knew she had to face Abel—but, again, not quite yet.

  Joe nodded. "All right. I'll phone the sheriff. You sit here and let things settle for a minute. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  She did as ordered, staring dutifully, if blindly, at the scuffed toes of her boots as her former fellow investigator moved far enough away to give her what privacy he could while he made the call that would swing the entire focus of their investigation around to the man she'd been crawling into bed with for the past six months.