Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (27 page)

On the drive back to the Perspective, Howard and David spoke little. One’s frustration mirrored the other. They did not know what
to do next. “We could call the ERs at Lutheran and Denver Health Medical Center,” David offered. “To see if any car accident victims have been brought in the last few hours.”

Howard took his eyes off the road and glanced briefly at David. “Good idea,” Howard said. “At least that’s a start. If she’s there, we’ll find her. And we could get Sgt. Bud King out of bed, too.”

“I heard Sam talking to some police detective at her desk this afternoon. She stopped by my desk later and said an Amber Alert had been issued for April,” David said.

Howard cast a sideways glance at David. He could see the skepticism in Howard’s demeanor, a carbon copy of his own.
“By the time they issued that alert,” Howard said, his eyes shifting from David to the rearview mirror and back to the road before him, “I’m sure they already had April right where they wanted her.” Howard was silent a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know why Sam waited so long to bring in the authorities.”

“She was instructed in the e-mail not to.”

“Yes, I know, I know,” Howard said, feeling stymied, his face set in frustration. “But after April, the rules of the game changed.”

David drew a deep breath and nodded. They drove in silence, only the sound of wheels turning on the pavement breaking the stillness. It was almost 3:30 a.m. when Howard turned off Sixth Avenue and began heading north on Wadsworth toward the newspaper. The four-lane busy boulevard was nearly deserted at the late hour. Howard was about to flip on his turn signal for the Perspective parking lot, when David stopped him.
“No, Howard! Don’t turn on your signal, just keeping driving to the traffic light!”

“What do you see?” he asked, doing as he was instructed.

“Follow my nod,” David said and nodded at a car waiting at the southbound stoplight on Wadsworth Boulevard. “Look at the damage to the front end of that car up there. On the passenger side, look. The headlight is out.”

Howard looked in that direction and slowed the car and it coasted to the stoplight. The light turned green moments later, but Howard hesitated before going through the intersection. They watched as the shiny black sedan rolled through the light with only its left headlight illuminating the road.

“It’s a Lincoln Town Car,” David said as the car passed along side them. They watched in their respective mirrors as the vehicle continued south on Wadsworth Boulevard and headed for the Sixth Avenue exit ramp. “That’s the shiny black car Sam told me about,” David continued, now looking over his shoulder, watching the sedan with its right turn signal flashing.

“I’ll turn around up here,” Howard said. “We’ll hang back just far enough, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll take us right where we want to go. Hopefully this tuna-boat of a car won’t attract too much attention from our suspects.”

Howard took a right at the first street, passed the intersection and swung the big brown station wagon around. He made a left turn back onto Wadsworth Boulevard. It took just enough time to see the shiny Town Car exit westbound onto Sixth Avenue. Howard and David cast sideway glances to each other and could not help their smiles.

“Come to papa,” David said just as Howard punched the accelerator and the wagon lurched forward, barreling through the intersection.

“Don’t get too close,” David said, keeping his eyes locked on the Lincoln’s taillights in the distance. Howard nodded casually as he merged the Chrysler wagon into the late-light traffic on Sixth Avenue to maintain a comfortable distance. The number of cars was a blessing and a curse. A blessing that it was easy to see the Town Car a quarter mile away, too few cars, however, made it easier for them to be noticed.

Howard glanced at his watch as his car passed beneath a streetlamp. The silver waterproof Timex with an expandable band that Frances Marino had given him a few Christmases ago showed nearly 4 a.m.
“It’ll be daylight in a few hours,” he said.

David nodded and they kept their eyes locked on the black car not too far in front of them. For a time neither spoke. When the Lincoln took the exit that led to Chester Street, David took his eyes off the car and looked over at Howard. His eyebrows had drifted, apparently feeling the same surprise.

“Howard, you don’t suppose…” David’s voice trailed off. He looked at the Town Car signaling to make its turn off the highway and watched as it disappeared, heading down the exit ramp. “That we’re going back toward Chester Street?”

Howard shrugged as he maneuvered the wagon into the right lane and prepared to exit. “There’s no way they’re going back there,” he said.”There’s nothing or no one inside that house. We already know that.”

David nodded lost for a moment in thought as he rubbed a hand over his chin, a scratchy sound from more than a day’s beard growth lightly filled the interior of the car. Howard slowed the Chrysler as he took the exit the Town Car took minutes earlier. They coasted to the stop sign at the corner, lit up with a streetlamp. Here traffic could only proceed left or right, before them was a thicket of bushes and trees. Howard looked left and David right.

“There,” David said and pointed.

Howard looked to his right, catching the last of the Lincoln’s taillights disappearing around the coming corner. “They’ve gotta be going back there, or at least somewhere close by,” David said. The disappointment from when they left the meth house earlier was beginning to lift. This Lincoln Town Car was taking them right to Wilson and Sam and her little girl.

Howard steered the wagon in the direction they last saw the Town Car. “Can’t let them get too far ahead,” he said.

***

The moment Juan and his men left the room, Wilson let go of April and she ran to her mother’s side. Wilson hobbled. April was shaking Sam by the shoulder. She leaned a little closer to her ear. “Mom! Mom! Wake up!”

When Sam didn’t respond, April shook her harder. Wilson lowered himself to the floor and put his hand softly on April’s back. “April,” he spoke lightly, hating that she had to see this. “April, don’t shake her too hard, we don’t know how badly she’s been hurt. Move back a little and let me see if I can get her to open her eyes.”

April scooted away from Sam, giving Wilson more room. He made a quick sweep of Sam’s face and body, remembering Juan’s comment about her driving. He bent down to check her breathing. He felt her warm breath on the side of his face. Relieved, he touched her face lightly, rubbing it softly with the back of his hand. He allowed himself a small smile at finally seeing her again. He had begun to wonder if he ever would. He cleared the matted hair away from her face and lightly scratched off the bit of mud that had dried on her chin. “Sam?” he called lightly.

Nothing. Not a flutter of eye movement. Not a sound from her lips.

He called again and tapped lightly against her cheek, trying to rouse her. He looked at her knee. A small area just above it was, in fact, covered in blood. He guessed her knee was either broken or dislocated. A sudden cramp in his own leg forced him to move quickly against the abruptness of pain. As he moved, he knocked Sam’s left arm with his own, trying to reach his leg to massage the cramp. She cried out, desperately in pain, so loud that her cry made Wilson and April jump. April looked on wide-eyed. Wilson frowned deep in concentration. It was hard to tell with Sam’s bulky sweater, but he suspected from the way her arm was positioned after she was dumped on the floor that it was probably broken.

Sam took a deep shuddering breath and opened her eyes. Immediately her face contorted into a grimace of pain. She blinked once, twice, swallowed hard. “Sam? Can you tell me where it hurts?” Wilson asked, his hand resting lightly on top of her shoulder. She stared up unseeing into the dull-watted bulb, her eyes closing, fluttering open. Another grimace. Trying to process over pain. “Sam! Stay with me! Tell me where it hurts,” Wilson said and he could feel April leaning heavily against his back, resting over the top of his shoulder, watching her mother as he spoke to her.

“M … my … my arms … both of them and … and uh my … my knee … they hurt, I, uh, think they’re bro …” Sam stammered, swallowed hard, trying to say her words again. “I … think they’re, uh, broken.”

“Sam, do you remember what happened?” Wilson continued softly, slowly. “You were in an accident. Do you remember?”

Sam continued to stare at the bare bulb, her mind thick with pain, fuzzy with details. “Yeah, uh, I was driving, Wilson, uh … trying to get away … they were chasing me, trying to … to kill me. I … I came to find you and April, had the address to, uh, the, uh, meth house. Remember?”

“Yes, Sam, I remember.”

“I went there … you … you were gone … but they … they were, uh, there waiting for me.”

“It was a trap, Sam,” Wilson said.

Sam closed her eyes and nodded.

“Do you remember what else happened?” Wilson asked, wanting nothing more than to punish the sons of bitches who had hurt her.

Sam blinked several times, trying to process. “I was ra … I was rammed from behind, uh, a couple of times, I think, but, I can’t … remember now how many times and, uh, I lost control of the car … they, uh, grabbed me and I tried to kick them, but my, uh, knee hurt … then I was pulled through the mud, screaming ’cause uh, they were pulling me by … by my arm and it hurt so much …” Sam’s voice trailed off. A tear escaped and rolled down the side of her face.

April caught sight of the tear. “Mommie,” she cried and dropped to the floor. She managed to stop the tear before it disappeared along the side of Sam’s scalp.

The moment Sam heard April’s voice, her eyes opened wide. For one brief second she forgot her pain, her lips tried to form a smile. “April, sweetie,” Sam said, trying to muster what strength she could to talk. “Sweetie, I’m here … and … I love you so, so much.”

April bent into her mother and Sam kissed her as many times as she could before she pulled away. “Mommie, don’t worry. Don’t worry. K? We’ll help you,” April said and took hold of Sam’s left hand and pulled it toward her, unaware of what it meant to have broken bones. The slight movement sent a shock of pain reeling through her arm. Sam cried out, in so much pain, that her back arched up off the floor. April let go of Sam’s hand, pulled away, startled at her mother’s intense reaction. Sam closed her eyes, lost in an envelope of pain and semi-consciousness.

“I’m sorry, Mommie, I’m sorry.”

Wilson hugged April. “It’s all right, April. Your mother knows you didn’t mean to hurt her.”

Sam’s teeth began to chatter. “It’s s … s … so co … cold in here.”

Her lips were dry and chapped. When she spoke and tried to lick them, Wilson saw that her tongue was coated with a white pasty film. He struggled to his feet and told April to stay near her mother. He hobbled to the door, muttering obscenities under his breath. He started banging on the door as hard as he could. “Hello! Hello! Anybody out there?!” Wilson yelled out as loudly as he could and pounded harder. “Hello! Anybody there? We need some water in here! And some blankets! Hello! We need help!”

***

The Lincoln Town Car did turn onto Chester Street, just as Howard and David had done in the Chrysler not more than an hour ago. They looked at each other
,
uncertainty building in their eyes.

A few yards from the street corner Howard pulled the wagon to the side of the road out of sight from the Town Car and killed the headlights, then the engine.
“Let’s get out and walk to those bushes by that house over there,” Howard said looking over at David. “We’ll be safe under the cover of darkness.”

They got out of the car, careful not to close
the doors. They followed their breath, not noticing the cold and walked as far as the house on the corner. They stood behind a collection of bushes. The angle still allowed them a view of the meth house just down the street. The streetlamp at the corner provided enough light to see the Town Car pulling into a driveway. Howard and David saw a man walk out from the garage to the driver
’s
side window. He leaned into the window and stayed there for several minutes.

“Do you think that’s the meth house?” David asked, whispering.

“I don’t see how it can be. I don’t see any yellow tape,” Howard whispered back. “It’s got to be one or two houses away from it.”

Howard thought a moment. His intuitions had always served him well and he had long ago learned to trust his instincts. “My guess,” he said, his eyes still fixed on the Town Car. “Is two houses. We were so close earlier and didn’t even know it.”

“Forest for the trees,” David said, nodding before turning his attention back to the driveway. David watched for what seemed a long time before he spoke again. “Could it be they have another house close by where they’d do…” his voice trailed off, as he realized he had no idea what drug smugglers and meth makers did behind locked doors.

Howard finished his sentence. “Whatever it is they do?”

“Yeah, whatever it is that they do,” David said.

They watched as the man at the car window stood up and stepped back so the vehicle could pull into the garage.
“They’ll have to keep it in there now,” David said. “Too bad there wasn’t a cop out patrolling the streets earlier. A nice, shiny car like that with a headlight busted out and a good chunk of front-end damage would’ve made any police officer wonder. Don’t you think?”

Howard nodded in agreement and moved back from the bushes. He began to stroke his chin, trying to come up with a plan.

“How many of ’em do you think there are?” David asked Howard, still behind the bushes studying the house.

Howard shrugged. “Maybe a half-dozen, maybe eight, but probably less. I have no idea. Can’t be too many since they only have Wilson and April.”

“And now Sam,” David said.

Howard thought a moment more. “And it’d be my guess that Wilson’s not in any shape to put up a fight.
This had to have taken a toll on him.”

The silence that had been between them was broken by the sound of a small-engine aircraft flying somewhere in the darkness overhead.
“Let’s get back in the car,” Howard said. He turned and walked to the Chrysler with David following.

In the car, Howard said, “The layout of that house has to be like the meth house. All these houses are more or less the same.”

“Yeah,” David said. “’Cept you can bet the others don’t have meth labs in the basement.”

“I can’t think about April and Sam having to go through this,” Howard said. “We have to get them out of there.”

David flashed Howard a skeptical look. “Howard, even if there are just a couple of thugs in there, are we really going to go in and overpower them with just a tire iron and an ax handle and a few flashlights?”

“Don’t forget your Glock,” Howard added.

David laughed. “Yeah, a lot of good that’ll do us. Who knows what kind of weapons they have? Probably the same kinda guns that shooters use to shoot the masses in movie theaters and elementary schools. They’ll blow us away at the goddamn door.”

A smirk spread slowly across Howard’s face. He lifted his big frame out of the car without a word, walked back and opened the back door. He looked this way and that before leaning inside the station wagon. David looked over his shoulder and saw that Howard had pulled the cover off the spare tire. His eyes lit up when he saw Howard emerge with a pump-action single barreled shotgun and a box of bullets.

Howard reached back in the wagon and pulled out what David thought looked like a 357 Magnum. He shook his head in amazement as he watched Howard lower the pistol at an angle into the front waistband of his Levis. Howard closed the door quietly, looking around. He returned to the driver’s side holding the shotgun by his leg. He set the shotgun by the door and removed the 357 from his waistband set it between them in the middle of the seat, the nozzle pointing toward the dashboard.

Before Howard got in the car, he lifted his right leg up and rested it on the seat. He pulled his pant leg aside to reveal a hunting knife strapped to his ankle. He pulled it out and turned it over several times in his hand, the six-inch blade catching light from the streetlamp and glistening.

David could not help his smile. “Howard,” he said, laughing. “I would’ve never taken you to be a Rambo kinda guy.”

Howard stuck the hunting knife back in its holder and pulled down his pant leg. His smile was brief before a solemn look clouded over his face. The blue in his eyes turned dark. “When it comes to my family,” Howard said, his voice firm and direct. “I don’t fuck around with this kinda shit.”

Howard got in the car and put the shotgun next to the 357. He set his palms at the ten and two o’clock positions on the steering wheel, his fingers extended, every one of them straight except the arthritic middle one on his right hand.