A Perfect Grave (25 page)

Chapter Sixty-One

A
t that moment, miles across the city near Seattle’s southern limit, Jason Wade and his old man rolled through an urban nightmare.

It was at the fringe of Rat City in a zone still infested with rundown scuz bars and porn shops, a stumble and stagger away to the heartbreak of worn Second World War houses that stood like the ghosts of broken promises.

“Dad, who is this guy that you need to see?”

“Leon Dean Sperbeck.”

“Sperbeck took the hostage, the boy who died in your arms?”

“He got out of prison a few months ago and about six weeks back he left a suicide note on a tree near the Nisqually River in Mount Rainier National Park.”

“Suicide? So, what are we doing here?”

“Unfinished business.” His old man pulled Sperbeck’s bank security photo from the file on the front seat of his pickup. “Used an alias to cash a welfare check a couple of days ago. He look dead to you? Sperbeck’s up to something, and I’ve been waiting for twenty-five years to put this all to rest.”

Jason stared at Sperbeck, growing increasingly uneasy with the situation and his old man’s icy resolve.

Henry Wade stopped his truck near a wheel-less eviscerated Pinto mounted on cinder blocks in front of a duplex with a warped frame, blistered paint, fractured windows, and a roof that was missing shingles.

“Let’s go. Sperbeck has the dump on the right.”

They knocked on the door, unable to ignore the baseball bat–sized splintered gouge rising from the bottom, as if someone in a fit of rage had taken an ax to it.

“He ain’t home,” came a voice.

They turned to see the speaker climb from under the Pinto. White guy, midthirties. Beer gut straining his filthy jeans and torn Sonics T-shirt. His grease-coated hands held a bouquet of tools and a small part.

“He rents from me and my mom and he owes us.”

“When did you see him last?” Henry Wade walked toward him.

“Couple days ago. I think I heard him come in late last night. Mighta had a girl. But he took off this morning. Looked like he was taking a trip.”

Henry showed Sperbeck’s picture to the mechanic who took a moment to study it.

“That’s him.”

“Any idea where he was going?”

“I couldn’t say. Likely camping, from what I could see, he put sleeping bags and a couple Seven-Eleven sacks of food into that hunk of junk Chrysler Concorde he’s been driving.”

“You know the plate?”

“No.”

“The year or color?

“Dark blue. Ninety-five. Are you guys cops? Got any ID?”

“No, we’re not cops. We have business with Mr. Sperbeck.”

“Sperbeck? He told us his name was Kirk Stewart. Does he owe you money, too?”

“Something like that.”

“Hey, want to buy this starter? Ten bucks,” the mechanic’s smile exposed brown teeth.

Henry shook his head, reached into his wallet, and held up a fifty-dollar bill.

“This, for some time alone in his place to look around.”

Jason shot his father a look of disbelief.

The mechanic eyed the bill, giving it his full consideration. His mom was at the clinic. He knew where she kept the key. They could have take-out chicken and cold imported beer tonight. Hell, he could almost taste it.

“Fifteen minutes and you don’t take, break, or tell.”

“Of course.”

The mechanic went for the key and they waited at Sperbeck’s door.

“Dad, I don’t have a good feeling about this. Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?”

“Do not doubt it for a second, son.”

The mechanic came back with the key, slid it into the lock, opened the door a crack, and stopped. “I go in with you, or it’s no deal.”

“Fine.”

His open palm waited until Henry covered it with the fifty.

Inside they were met with air reeking of alcohol, cigarettes, body odor, and dog.

“Is there a dog in here?” Jason asked.

“Naw. Mom’s got a no-pet policy on account of the last mental case that lived here let his pit bull piss on the floor. We’re going to repaint, redo the place like on those home improvement shows.”

The duplex was cramped, with a small living room, kitchen, a bathroom, and two small bedrooms. The chipped coffee table was covered with porn magazines, newspapers, maps, empty beer cans, and take-out containers.

Henry Wade went to the kitchen counter and shuffled through letters and bills, copying down information, then checked the bedroom. More porn, beer cans, and crap on the nightstand. Nothing that drew his interest, except for one thing.

“You got another seven minutes.” The mechanic scratched himself.

At the coffee table, Jason noticed how parts of his stories on Sister Anne’s murder had been circled with a red ballpoint pen.
What’s up with that?
he wondered.

His father came out of the bedroom with a neatly folded page from the travel section of the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
He showed it to Jason.

A feature on Wolf Tooth Creek.

“Looks like he’d been giving this a lot of thought,” his dad said, then went to the trash can in the kitchen and examined its contents. Atop the beer cans, junk food wrappers, cigarette packs, he focused on a yellow paper ball. It was a page ripped from a phone book and balled up.

Henry flattened it on the counter. It concerned businesses. Cottage and cabin rentals. One was underlined in ink. Wolf Tooth Creek Cabins’s display ad put its location near the Mount Rainier National Park Area.

“You said you saw Sperbeck leave this morning with sleeping bags and groceries, like he was going camping?” Henry asked.

“Yup.” The mechanic was holding the door open. “Time’s up.”

“Thanks.”

When they got back into the truck, Henry turned the ignition.

“I think he went to Wolf Tooth Creek. That’s where we’re going.”

“Dad, I have to get to work soon. I can’t be away from the city.”

“It’s only an hour to get there and its early. Call in. Say you’ll be late.”

“How about we go later, after my shift?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for twenty-five goddam years, Jay. We’re going now.”

“Dad, what’s going on?”

“Sperbeck does not get to walk out of prison, start a new life, and leave me behind in hell. Today, I’m going to bury all my shit with that fucker!”

“Jesus, Dad!”

Jason grabbed the armrest and the dash as the pickup growled and Henry Wade’s tires squealed until they raised smoke from the pavement.

Chapter Sixty-Two

A
t the takedown off Market, the SWAT team rushed from the aftermath with a suspect.

A white male, early twenties, about five-ten, 175 pounds, faded jeans, AC/DC T-shirt. Clean-cut, doubled over vomiting and coughing from the tear gas. His hands were handcuffed in front of him. Somebody spritzed water in his irritated eyes.

“Where’s the boy?” A SWAT cop shouted under his Darth Vader gas mask.

“What boy? What’s going on!” he coughed, spit, tears streamed down his inflamed face.

Inside, SWAT members searched the living room, the bathroom, the bedrooms, kitchen, halls, closets. They tapped the ceilings, walls, floors for body mass. No immediate sign of another person. After clearing the residence, crime-scene people went in while detectives dealt with the suspect.

“What’s your name, sir?” Grace Garner asked.

“Darrell Stanton. What’s this?”

Grace examined the contents of his wallet.

“I’m a student at the University of Washington. I’m from Canberra, Australia. My passport’s in my desk. Shit! My eyes are burning!”

Perelli dispatched a SWAT member to get the passport.

Stanton was spritzed again, handed a towel to pat his face, then Leon Sperbeck’s photo was held in front of him.

“Do you know this man?” Grace said.

“Albert Crawley.” Stanton coughed then looked. “He used to live here.”

“Where is he?”

“How the hell should I know?” Stanton coughed. “Haven’t seen him for weeks ever since I sold him my car. The bastard owes me money. Shit, my eyes!”

A uniformed officer sprizted Stanton.

“He leave a forwarding address?”

“No, he’s an asshole.”

“Describe the car you sold to him.”

“A 1995 blue Chrysler Concorde. I told him it’s got problems and let him have it cheap. He owes me six hundred bucks. Is he the guy you want?”

Perelli had his cell phone pressed to his ear when he held up Stanton’s passport, nodding to Garner, Harlan, and Boulder.

“Stanton checks out. He’s not in the system,” Perelli said.

As Boulder stepped away to take a call, Detective Gilbert Bailey took Grace aside. “Just talked to the guys at the Boland home with the mother.”

“Any more calls from Sperbeck, any demands?”

“Nothing. She’s going through hell,” Bailey said. “The FBI and KCSO said the two other addresses DOC had for Sperbeck are washouts.”

“Sperbeck’s likely aliased up the wazoo, Gib. Can you help us prepare an alert to blast out ASAP, the vehicle and photos of Sperbeck and Brady.”

After Boulder finished his call, he pulled Grace and Perelli from Stanton for a private moment.

“We’ve got press. The national networks are threatening to go live. And we’ve got word from the Command Post that Ethan Quinn’s arrived. They’re bringing him up now.” Boulder indicated the marked car roaring toward them.

Ethan Quinn got out carrying a briefcase. Grace, Perelli, and Boulder walked him down the street to talk quietly.

“You’re investigating Sperbeck’s original crime?” Grace said.

“Yes, the robbery-homicide. My client is the insurance firm that paid out.”

“Why are you investigating after all these years?”

“The stolen money never surfaced. We had most of the serial numbers. We suspect the cash is still out there, largely intact.”

“Exactly what do you know, or suspect?” Perelli said.

“I don’t want to jeopardize my investigation.”

“This is
our
investigation, Slick,” Perelli said. “If you think you’re going to collect some sort of finder’s fee on this, think again.” Perelli jabbed a finger into Quinn’s chest. “If you possess material information relating to this child’s kidnapping and two homicides, you’d be wise to cooperate right now. So let me ask you again, what do you know?”

Quinn surveyed their faces.

“There were a lot of cops there the day it went down and the money vanished,” he said. “It’s unusual that Sperbeck, the only person convicted, never named the others involved. Most of the players are dead, including the ex-cops who owned the armored-car company.

“Several units responded to the heist and it’s my belief that, whether it was planned, or a reaction to the child’s death, maybe officers took the $3.3 million, and covered up the shooting of the little boy. You may recall that the autopsy and ballistics reports were inconclusive on the shooting victim.

“I think Sperbeck worked a deal, pleaded guilty, avoided the death penalty, and expected to be rewarded with his cut in exchange for his silence and his time. Maybe they tucked it away in some interest-bearing off-shore account.”

“It’s an insulting theory,” Perelli said. “And it doesn’t fit because there are other pieces at play here.”

“What pieces?”

“Nice try. Fuck you.”

Grace looked hard at Quinn. “What else do you have to support your theory?”

“Henry Wade was one of the many responding officers.”

“With Vern Pearce, his partner,” Boulder said.

“Henry Wade is now the only surviving officer.”

“Henry quit the job and crawled into a bottle after Vern shot himself,” Boulder said. “Not many people talk about it. A few old bulls say it was the case, the boy getting shot, all that crap.”

“Wade’s a private detective now, working for Don Krofton,” Quinn said. “You guys should check to see if Krofton was at the scene that day.”

“I think you’ve watched one too many bad movies, Ethan,” Perelli said.

Quinn shrugged and opened his briefcase.

“Not long after Sperbeck’s release from prison, he staged his own death. Then Henry Wade just happens to follow the ‘dead man’ to a bank where Sperbeck had some sort of transaction. It’s all here. I was surveilling Wade.”

Quinn held up a disk from his video recorder.

“Don’t you move.” Boulder waved a uniform over to keep Quinn company while he took his detectives for a short walk.

“What do you make of Quinn’s shit, Grace?” Boulder said.

“There’s a lot at play here. Look at the facts. Sperbeck’s our guy for Sister Anne, Sharla May Forrest, and Brady. And Sister Anne visited Sperbeck in prison.”

“But some twenty-five years ago,” Perelli said, “after the robbery, she enters the convent, with over a million. It has to be a link. And her real identity is not what she claimed, according to the
Mirror.
Maybe she was holding the money for Sperbeck.”

“But somehow, Sperbeck thinks Rhonda Boland’s husband owes him,” Boulder said. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“The pieces are there. They just don’t line up yet,” Grace said. “Like why did Sperbeck kill Sharla May?”

“That one seems obvious,” Boulder said.

“Right,” Perelli said. “It was around the time of his release. Remember, Roberto Martell pimps her date with Sperbeck at the Black Jet Bar. Leon likely couldn’t get it up, so he took it out on Sharla May. When I worked vice the ex-cons always had problems with hookers because prison messed them up.”

“That seems the most likely scenario for Sperbeck doing Sharla May,” Boulder said.

“Okay,” Grace said. “That brings us back to Quinn’s crazy theory on Sperbeck and corrupt cops being involved in the heist.”

“I think we have to ask Henry Wade some questions.” Boulder looked at his watch. “First we gotta move fast to get that alert out and hold a news conference. We’ll do it right here.”

Grace nodded and walked away to be alone as she thought of Brady Boland and her two homicides. This was so damn complicated. Nothing made sense.

Everything was at stake.

Was Jason’s father caught up in this?