The Garbage Man

by Candace Irving

  She thought about explaining why she'd withheld the information about both. But in the end, she couldn't. It was hard enough admitting to herself that, for a while there, she'd feared she was losing her mind. But she did apologize.

  Especially to Lou. "I think Burke used them to try to jog my memory."

  The sheriff's frown had grown darker during her briefing, especially as she revealed the developments she'd withheld.

  Walker's nod, however, had become firmer. "This all fits with my theory. I believe Burke is frustrated. According to his record, he suffered a traumatic brain injury when he lost his legs. I suspect the portions of his brain that regulate his moral code were affected. He's spent the years since planning every step of his revenge. The recovery of your memory appears to be a crucial element. But as far as he knows, those memories have still not cooperated. This would explain why he left Grant Parish's remains on your property. He hoped to stress your mind further to see if the memories he sought to restore would surface."

  "Well, he succeeded."

  "But he doesn't know that. Which can only have increased his frustration. And since the sheriff informs me Burke effectually shed his stolen identity at the shelter by failing to show for his meeting with the priest, we can assume he knows that you, at the very least, are now aware of who he is not. Unfortunately, this is not enough for Burke. And if he's neared the end of his plan for revenge, and he feels your memories aren't cooperating to his satisfaction—"

  "Then you do think he was lying in wait, intent on getting me alone."

  The BAU agent nodded. "I do. He may now hold you personally responsible for not remembering after everything he's done to ensure it. Or he may simply want to talk to you, to lay out his grievances with someone he feels is a kindred spirit. The hidden escape vehicle, the location of Agent Cordoba's blood and the shattered phone on that path? It all supports both theories. It's possible Cordoba surprised Burke while the staff sergeant was waiting for everyone to leave so he could confront you alone. But Cordoba's presence on that path forced him to take action—and take Agent Cordoba instead."

  She was right. This, too, was her fault.

  Another friend lost to this barbaric organ and tissue racket. Just like Max and all the soldiers who died in that ambush, and in that compound later. Unless she figured out where Joe was in time to prevent it, certain death was in his very near future too. If she held any hope of preventing it, there was only one place to start.

  The past.

  "Agent Walker, I need that copy of Staff Sergeant Burke's military record. I also need Tanner Holmes' record and a copy of the CID investigation into his death—including his autopsy report. I'd also like a copy of Major Grant Parish's records and those of Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell Brennan, along with the CID investigation into Max's death and my own capture."

  Liz was right. She was an emotional ostrich. If she hadn't been such a bloody coward in avoiding that write-up of her own POW experience, she might've remembered Max's strange statement during his execution and that subsequent, stranger visit from Burke years sooner—and begun to piece Madrigal's filthy scheme together in time to prevent the bulk of the subsequent deaths.

  At least of those homeless vets.

  The BAU agent nodded. "Absolutely. When I pulled Burke's record, I discovered that Agent Cordoba had already requested the files for Tanner Holmes following our earlier discussion. They were just sent to his email, so I requested copies as well. I'll forward those to your Braxton PD email address along with Burke's file, as soon as I put in the request for the remainder of the records on your list. If you'll excuse me?" His phone already out, Walker headed for the corner of her deck to place the call.

  Kate turned to find her boss brandishing his own phone. She sent Ruger into the yard to do his canine business as Lou wrapped up the human, verbal cop variety.

  Lou dumped his phone on the table as he finished. "That was the governor's aide. The warrant for the pet crematorium and all related grounds is approved. I'd planned on executin' it at dawn so we could see what the hell we were doin', but with Cordoba missin', we'll go in once everyone's mustered up and briefed. You, Deputy Holland—" Lou retrieved his phone as he stood. "—will remain here and work those records. We don't need some defense attorney arguin' conflict of interest at trial."

  Kate nodded. She fully agreed. So long as there was a trial. "You'll call—"

  "Just as soon as I know who's who and what's what. You have my word."

  It was enough to tide her over. Kate stood, waiting as Ruger loped across the clearing and up onto the deck even as Lou, Seth and Agent Walker filed off.

  Walker gave her a thumbs up as he passed. "The first set's already in your inbox. The rest is on its way."

  "Thanks."

  Kate opened the glass door and waved Liz and Ruger through. She turned to make one last check of the darkened clearing, only to discover Braxton PD's newest rookie approaching from the driveway side of her house. Regret tinged the young man's face as he caught sight of her.

  "Hey, Moonie. You just missed the sheriff."

  "I know, ma'am. I'm here to see you."

  The regret deepened, turning awkward as she noticed the small white envelope in his hand. Shit. As junior man, Officer Moonier had most likely been stuck out at the Parish farm after everyone else had left.

  "What happened?" She actually hoped the stress of half their department combing through everything on that farm had been enough to send Abel's stolen heart into a full-blown rebellion. It was the most humane of the only two logical explanations for Moonie's presence.

  But instead of answering, the officer extended the envelope. Her name had been penned on the outside, via a shaky hand.

  "No. Please, tell me that idiot didn't—"

  But Moonie was already bobbing his sandy head. "I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. We thought he was napping, but I think Abel heard the nurse and me discussing the discovery of those bags with his son's body inside 'em. The nurse went outside to take a call from her husband afterward. I was still in the living room with Abel when he appeared to wake. He said he needed to use the bathroom. He was only gone for a few minutes. I didn't even realize he'd stepped into the kitchen, let alone that one of the bottles was empty when he left. That envelope was on the kitchen table, on top of the Sunday paper."

  "Did he suffer?"

  "No, ma'am. He just drifted off to sleep. The nurse didn't suspect a thing 'til his breathing ceased."

  Kate took the envelope from Moonie's hand. "Thank you. Let Seth know what happened. It's his call, but tell him I recommend not telling the sheriff until after they execute the coming warrant." The knowledge that Abel had taken his own life because of all of this would only further screw with Lou's head when he needed the distraction least.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Kate slumped into the chair she'd recently vacated. She was still out on the darkened deck, trying to absorb the horror of Abel taking the image of Grant's body, hacked and bagged up, to his own death, when Liz came out to check on her.

  "Are you okay?"

  She shook her head. "Abel committed suicide. He found out Grant was dead and swallowed the contents of one of those bottles of pills before anyone realized it."

  Liz braced herself against the door's frame for several long moments, her gaze glistening in the light bleeding out from the den. She finally straightened, nodded silently to Kate, then turned and went inside.

  For once, Kate was glad Ruger hadn't come out to make sure she was on her way in.

  If he had, she'd have lost it. That was something neither she nor Liz needed.

  As it was, the Shepherd's absence allowed her to stitch her guilt and regret together long enough for her to stand and follow Liz. She found her friend at the sink, hand washing the dishes that had begun piling up from the moment she'd left to examine that first set of bags out on Old Man Miller's drive.

  She knew Liz well enough to leave the woman to it, and headed for the computer desk in
stead.

  Liz would talk when she was ready. She might as well get started on those files while she waited.

  She pushed the envelope Moonie had handed her to the rear of the desk and opened her laptop. She was nowhere near ready to read Abel's goodbye and formally accept his loss, along with yet another piece of innocence from her childhood.

  She'd implode in front of Liz for certain.

  Accessing her email, Kate found both Burke's and Holmes' records waiting. She clicked on the attached PDF file for Staff Sergeant Holmes' autopsy and began to read.

  Six minutes later, she stiffened.

  She'd found it. Right there in the write-up attached to those damning close-ups that were more blackened and charred than any collection of autopsy photos should ever be. Max, and possibly Staff Sergeant Burke, had to have noticed the same discrepancy.

  As she'd expected, Tanner Holmes' body had been missing organs. Specifically, his kidneys, liver, pancreas and stomach. But the explanation for their absence didn't make sense. The coroner stated that the organs had been most likely dragged off and consumed by wild dogs. But while wild dogs had roamed the bombed out sections of many Iraqi cities, there was no evidence of bite marks on the charred viscera that remained.

  In fact, the only marks she could make out in those bile-churning photos had been caused by something slender, sharp and flat—like a scalpel or knife.

  Instinct caused Kate to minimize the autopsy and open the laptop's internet browser. She typed the coroner's name and credentials into the search field and hit return. Skimming the list of links, she selected one dated six months earlier; the one titled "Former Iraq Doctor Dies in Bouldering Accident."

  Three paragraphs in, she was all but certain the man's death was no accident.

  It seemed the coroner was an extreme rock-climbing enthusiast with twenty years' experience. He'd been bouldering in the Gunks in upstate New York early one morning when he'd had the misfortune of slipping on a large level stone and plunging a mere twelve feet to his death. His sole injury: a broken neck. Though foul play had been considered at the time, local detectives had been unable to find so much as a stray boot print. They'd finally determined the man's death to be an accident and had closed the case.

  Kate made a mental note to petition for its review as she returned her attention to the files Agent Walker had sent. She opened the CID report on Staff Sergeant Holmes' desertion, only to have the world spin dizzyingly and completely away as she spotted the name in the investigator's block: Special Agent Joe Cordoba.

  Kate jackknifed to her feet, denial sending nuclear-grade shockwaves throughout her body as she swung around to yell for Liz—but didn't. Liz was already behind her, on the couch, asleep. Ruger was crammed up beside her on the cushions so Liz could hug his body close.

  Heart still pounding, nerves screaming, Kate left her friend to the surcease she desperately needed and whirled back to the screen, hoping, praying she'd misread that block...but she hadn't. The implications were fierce and nauseating.

  Damn it; it wasn't possible. She'd known Joe for over a decade. Not only was Joe not connected to Madrigal, he was as honorable as they came.

  Except...when she'd mentioned Tanner Holmes to him following her search of Jason Dunne's condo, Joe had told her Mike Barnes had worked the case. Obviously, he'd lied.

  Grant.

  She thought she'd known him too. Hell, she'd trusted that man so completely, she'd let him into her bed.

  And there was more.

  What had Joe said to her as they'd left the Parish farm with her battered soul still attempting to reconcile the enormity of Grant's and Abel's crimes?

  Some people will do anything, risk anything, for someone they truly love.

  His wife.

  Elise Cordoba had diabetes. Kate had never given it much thought before now, but the seemingly healthy and vivacious woman had been diagnosed while she was still in diapers. Elise had been dependent on her daily insulin injections ever since.

  How much of a toll did a chronic disease like that take on the human body?

  Kate was almost too terrified to find out.

  She forced her own body to resume its seat in front of that tattling laptop. She minimized the desertion investigation and opened a fresh browser window, praying as hard as she had the day her mom had died as she typed "diabetes, organ transplant" into the waiting search bar.

  She hit enter.

  Her prayers disintegrated as link after damning link crowded the screen. She clicked the first one and crossed her arms to keep the muck contained as she read.

  She needn't have bothered.

  Halfway into the article, she had her answer...and Joe's motive for betraying not only his sacred oath as an investigator, but also his fellow man.

  But before she condemned him completely, she needed proof. The kind that would stand up in a court of law.

  She knew just where and how to get it.

  Kate slipped her phone from her pocket and nudged her stiff fingers into motion once more, opening her contact list. She located Joe's home number much too quickly, and dialed.

  His wife answered on the first ring.

  Even more damning given that it was barely two in the morning in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. "Hello?"

  "Elise? Hi, this is Kate Holland. Remember me?"

  "Of course I remember you. Is Joe—"

  "Just listen, okay? I know you know what's going on out here. And I know Joe's up to his lying teeth in it. What I don't know is which organ he obtained for you—pancreas or kidney?"

  Silence filled the line. The seconds ticked out as it continued to grow and distend, until the truth that spawned it had become a monstrous, breathing thing, coiling through the connection as it prepared to choke them both.

  "Elise?"

  "Yes?"

  "Joe's been kidnapped. He's—"

  "What? Oh, my God! Kate, you have to—"

  "Stop. Just listen. Then answer my damned questions—honestly. Joe's life depends on my finding him before it's too late. Even if I can locate him, I'll need to be armed with all the facts or I won't have a hope in hell of lancing a boiling, righteous rage that's been five long years in the feeding. Now, I asked you a question. Which organ?"

  "Both."

  The nauseating scheme shattered on Elise's end as the rest tumbled out, each piece of the conspiracy uglier than the last. "You know I'm diabetic, or I was. I'd begun to show symptoms of autonomic neuropathy. My digestive tract was already affected and my kidneys were beginning to fail. My prognosis wasn't good. With my antigen profile, I was a difficult match. And then the diabetes began to affect my heart. I started fainting for no reason. When I had my heart attack, Joe was deployed to Iraq. He freaked. He called two weeks later with a solution. He said he knew someone in Pakistan who brokered organs. They'd found someone willing to donate a kidney and part of his pancreas—and we were a perfect match. I swear to God I didn't know I'd be getting the entire pancreas and both kidneys. I only found out after my doctor let something slip. Though I'd begun to suspect something was off."

  Kate gripped her phone and forced herself to remain calm and questioning, to not test the bounds of physics and attempt to reach though the line to strangle the woman on the other end. A woman she'd once called friend. "You said you were diabetic?"

  "Yes. That's why I had suspicions. A few months after the surgery, I discovered I no longer needed insulin. Also, my neuropathy and heart issues actually reversed themselves."

  So while Holmes lay disgraced, murdered and buried in some swept-under-the-rug, out-of-the-way plot—and his best friend left little more than a seething mass of wounded vengeance—Joe and Elise had been getting on with their rejuvenated, sunshine-and-flowers-filled lives.

  "When?" It was all Kate could manage.

  "I told you, a few months—"

  "The surgery. When did it occur."

  She heard Elise swallow a fresh batch of tears, before hiccupping on the next. "Five years ago.
I flew to Pakistan on June 29th. I was admitted to a hospital in Lahore the next day."

  Kate glanced at the date on that CID report, the one which had officially branded Tanner Holmes as a deserter. They matched. She'd located three of the staff sergeant's missing organs...and so had his friend and former brother in arms, Thomas Burke.

  "You have to believe me; Joe wasn't there for the surgery. You can check his military records. He was in Mosul. He had—"

  "—a murder to cover up." A spectacular Special Forces career to tarnish. And then another murder to plan...this time, in the form of an ambushed convoy—a year later and several hundred miles away—in another war zone.

  An ambush which would end up costing the lives of countless additional innocent soldiers. Along with her sanity, and the guilt-stained remnants of her own tattered soul.

  And Max.

  "Please, Kate, that's all I know. You have to find Joe. I don't know who runs things or how to contact them. Or where they are. I swear on Joe's life. I—"

  Kate didn't hear the rest. She'd already hung up.

  She stared at the phone in her hand as she finally accepted the truth. Not only was Joe not the man she'd believed him to be, he was up to his blackened, traitorous heart in Staff Sergeant Holmes' murder...and by association, the murders of all the active-duty soldiers and vets who'd been slaughtered since.

  Her stomach was still folding in on itself as her phone rang. It was Elise, calling back.

  Kate ignored it. She'd already obtained every scrap of information Elise had. She'd be damned if she'd pick up simply to listen to the woman's pleas or, worse, excuses.

  She was too busy rearranging the evidence she'd obtained earlier that night. For all his otherwise excellent educated guesses, Agent Walker was wrong about one crucial thing. Burke wasn't fixated on, much less after her. Joe had been his final target all along. Though, admittedly, the former Special Forces staff sergeant wasn't above shoving yet another collection of clues in her face, this time in the form of that last morbid set of bags.

  Why else had Burke plunked Grant's limbs out along the drive of the cabin where Joe had been staying?