Vengeance Road (5 page)

T
hat night in a quiet neighbourhood of Ascension Park, Karl Styebeck sat alone before his television.

It was the only light in his darkened living room. Flickering images lit up the creases of his taut face. As he surfed from channel to channel, he chewed on his thumb while his wife descended the stairs after checking on their son, who'd gone to bed.

“Goodness, why are you keeping it so dark in here?” She swept into the room and switched on a light.

“Keep it off, Alice.”

“Why?”

“Just keep it off.”

“Fine, you vampire.” She smiled and switched the light off. “Don't you think you're taking this a little too seriously, Karl?”

“Taking what too seriously?”

“You lost the game and some of the parents got upset. Taylor told me what happened at the diamond.”

“No. It was a good game, could've gone either way. Nobody got upset.”

Alice retrieved her needlepoint from the sofa and tapped his shoulder.

“I'm going to need some light, here.” She switched on a low-wattage table lamp and he didn't object. “Would you
find something to watch. I hate it when you channel hop. Men. Sheesh.”

Styebeck landed on a local channel just as it offered a brief news update between commercials, reporting,
“No new developments on the murder of Bernice Hogan, the former nursing student from Buffalo State.”

“That's such a sad case,” Alice said. “Well, Taylor told me some guy you were talking to at the game made you mad.”

“No, it's nothing.”

“Is it work? You're awfully pensive these days.”

“Something like that. I'm getting a drink, you want anything?”

“Some water would be nice, thanks.”

In the kitchen Styebeck poured himself a glass of orange juice, stood at the window over the sink, looked out at his yard and continued ruminating.

Immediately after that reporter, Gannon, had confronted him, Styebeck made a round of calls on his cell phone to detective friends. It was odd. Few of them had time to talk, and those that did seemed cagey.

“Yeah,” a cop from Erie County told him. “There was a joint-forces case-status meeting today out at Clarence Barracks. Hush-hush. Mike Brent was running it. You didn't miss much, just a bunch of wild-ass theories about suspects.”

“Any names come up?”

“Names? No, Karl, they had no names on the board. As far as I'm concerned, Brent's a prick. They've got no evidence and the way he's headed, he'll never clear this. Sorry, Karl, I have to go.”

Why hadn't he been called to that meeting?

Now, as he finished his glass, Styebeck asked himself again.

Why wasn't he invited to that meeting?

He didn't know Brent, but he'd talked to him and his
partner earlier about his theories on the Hogan homicide. They'd come to him because he had a lot of confidential informants downtown.

That's what they said.

Then this reporter, Gannon, bushwhacks him with this crazy allegation.

Where the hell was that coming from? What did he know?

“Oh, Karl, I forgot to tell you.” Alice entered the kitchen, startling him. “Some guy called for you when you were out.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. He didn't say. He didn't leave a message and the number didn't come up. I figured it had something to do with the game and told him you were at the park.”

He said nothing.

It was likely Gannon
, he thought.
Well, he wasn't worried. There's no way the
Sentinel
would run a story based on that B.S. he was peddling. No one could possibly know what he knew about Bernice Hogan's murder
.

“Karl, is something going on? We've had quite a number of strange calls over the last few weeks. And you've been so edgy. Is there something you're not telling me?”

Styebeck turned away from his wife and went back to searching the night through the kitchen window.

“No, Alice. It's all work related. Everything's fine.”

J
olene Peller surfaced through the haze of semiconscious-ness.

A low monotonous rattling sounded in her head as memory and awareness fell upon her in ominous drops.

Where was she? What happened?

Bernice.

She'd had a bad feeling and had gone to help Bernice; had followed her into the night where she'd heard pleading.

Bernice begging in the confusion then a scream.

The man.

Jolene had glimpsed him in the chaos
and he saw her
; hit her with a blazing light, blinding her, locked onto her, chased her,
hunted her
.

She ran but could not outrun the darkness.

It was a nightmare. She'd had a nightmare. Okay, then wake up.

Wake up!

SHE WAS AWAKE!

Jolene's heart thumped as her memory gave way to an onslaught of crushing fear.

What was happening?

Bernice? What happened to Bernice?

What's going to happen to me?

The blood rushing in her ears roared with the droning.

What was that noise?

Why was this happening?

Why her?

The air smelled of old wood, cardboard and something foul. Oh God. Oh God. She trembled, her stomach roiled. She kept her eyes shut tight, fought to stem her mounting hysteria and clear her mind.

Think.

You're alive.

You've got to get out of this.

She was lying on something padded. A disgusting-smelling mattress. Her tongue burned with an awful aftertaste and her jaw ached. Something between her upper and lower teeth was splitting her mouth open. It felt like a leather belt strapped so tight to her head her eyes hurt.

She raised her hand to try to relieve the pressure, but her hands were welded together by something cutting into her wrists. Some sort of binding.

Breathe
.

The stench of the air was choking.

Jolene clawed at the buckle at the back of her head in vain. Her nose was clear. If she stayed calm she could breathe.

Did she dare open her eyes?

She had to.

Okay. All right. Easy. Breathe.

She opened them wide to absolute blackness.

She raised her hands to her face and saw nothing. It was as if she'd been disembodied.

As if she were dead.

She was terrified of the dark.

Terrified of being buried alive.

Overcome with vertigo, she was consumed by a sickening sense of whirling and falling. A muffled whimper escaped from deep in her throat and echoed in the silence.

Breathe, she told herself. Stay calm.

You're alive
.

If you're alive, you can fight to survive
.

Be strong. Don't cry. Fight
.

The earth shifted.

Jolene was jolted across the mattress. Humming, hissing and, now, mechanical grinding grew louder.

What was happening?

The world started moving.

Jolene's dark prison was now mobile and gathering speed.

T
he next morning, victory called out to Gannon from his front-page story.

On every street corner with a
Buffalo Sentinel
newspaper box, his exclusive took up six columns on page one, above the fold, under the headline:

This was a clean kill against the competition, the
Buffalo News
. Those guys had squat. Looking at the bank of news boxes while waiting for a downtown traffic light to change, he savored the rush of pride.

Don't get cocky. Glory was fleeting in this business, where you're only as good as your next story.

But a cop? Man, he'd hit this one out of the ballpark.

His story was the line item in the
Sentinel
's morning edition. It went to homes, stores and news boxes across Buffalo, across Erie, Niagara and eight other counties; everywhere the
Sentinel
battled the
News
for shrinking readership. It also anchored the
Sentinel
's Web site, where most people went for their news these days.

He had scored. No doubt about it. Buffalo radio and TV morning news led with the story, wire services picked it up.

It was the win he needed.

The light changed and Gannon continued through traffic, turning into the
Sentinel
's parking lot, concentrating on the reason he'd come in early today: to work on a follow-up. Beating the competition always meant they'd come back at you big-time.

He was not going to lose this one
.

He grabbed a paper from the security desk in the lobby before stepping into the elevator. Ascending alone, he studied the front-page photo of Styebeck's handsome hero face next to one of Bernice.

What a heartbreaker
.

During his years on the crime desk, he'd encountered tragedies every day: the deaths of children, school shootings, gang murders, fires, wrecks, calamities, manifestations of evil in every form. He went at things wearing emotional armor.

But something about Bernice Hogan's tragedy got to him.

Looking at her face, he vowed to see that, in death, she received the respect that had eluded her in life.

The elevator stopped and he went to the newsroom kitchen for coffee.

The best follow-up to this morning's exclusive would be a feature on Styebeck. He'd go into Styebeck's life, his upbringing and how he came to be a hero cop and suspected killer. Maybe he'd call some criminal profilers, talk about cases of murderers leading double lives.

He'd need a few days but it might work.

“You're in early.” Jeff kept his eyes on his computer screen where he was playing solitaire.

“Anything going on out there?”

“It's deadsville, Jack. Nice hit on the cop. You blew away the Buffalo Snooze.” Jeff nodded to the managing
editor's glass-walled office across the newsroom. “Nate's been trying to reach you.”

“About what?”

“Don't know. Can't be good. I'd give it a minute.”

Gannon didn't like the scene he saw playing out in the office. Nate Fowler kept jabbing his finger at Ward Wallace who kept throwing up his hands. Their voices were raised but Gannon couldn't make out what they were saying. As night editor, Wallace never came in at this hour unless there was a problem.

A serious problem.

“What's going on in there?” Gannon set his coffee down. “What's Wallace doing here?”

“Beats me. Oh, and there's a lady here to see you. I told her you usually get in later, but she's been waiting in reception for about an hour.”

“She say what she wants?”

“No. I'll get her.”

Gannon did a quick check of e-mails and sipped some coffee before he saw Jeff direct a woman in her fifties toward his desk.

She wore no makeup, had reddened eyes and unkempt hair. Her sweater and slacks had frayed edges. She held a slim file folder, her fingernails were bitten.

“You're Jack Gannon, the reporter?”

“That's me. And you are?”

“Mary Peller, and I really need your help, Mr. Gannon.”

“It's Jack.” Gannon cleared a stack of justice reports from an extra chair for her. “How can I help you?”

“My daughter, Jolene, is missing.”

“Missing? How old is she?” Gannon fished a notebook from a pile, flipped to a fresh page.

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty-six? What's the story?”

What came next was a tale Gannon had heard before. Jolene's dad walked out on them when Jolene was eleven. When Jolene hit her teens, Mary lost her to drugs and the street. A year ago, after Jolene nearly died from overdosing on bad drugs, she started going to church and decided, for the sake of her three-year-old son, Cody, that she had to get clean.

Jolene got a fast-food job, took night courses, and through a service, landed a junior motel manager position in Orlando.

“Jo was over the moon because it was her chance to start a new life. She wasn't proud of the things she'd done to get drugs…” Mary Peller's voice trailed off and she stopped to regain her composure. “We don't have much money, Mr. Gannon. Jo left last week on the bus to Florida. She was supposed to set herself up then return for Cody. But I haven't heard from her.”

“Nothing?”

“Not a word. She never arrived. She should've been there days ago. It's like she's vanished.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Police here, police in Florida, social workers. Nobody cares.”

“You consider hiring a private detective?”

“I can't afford it.”

She passed her folder to him.

“I was hoping you could do a story, it might help me find her. You're good at finding things out. Please, Mr. Gannon, you're my only hope.”

Gannon looked at the folder's contents, beautiful pictures of Jolene and Cody, some letters, personal papers, numbers, addresses, more pictures. One photo stopped him.

Man, she looks like Cora in this one
.

A shadow fell over them. When Gannon lifted his head, Nate Fowler was there.

“Excuse us, ma'am,” Fowler said, turning to Gannon. “I need you in my office, now.”

Fowler left.

Gannon closed Mary Peller's folder, gave her his card and stood.

“Can you leave this file with me?”

“Yes.”

“I won't guarantee I'll do a story. But let me look it over. I have to go. One way or the other, I'll call you.”

Mary Peller took his hand and shook it.

“Thank you. Thank you for listening.”

“Jeff will show you out.”

In Nate Fowler's office, Ward Wallace's haggard face conveyed the climate. Gannon had stepped into a shit storm.

“Shut the door.” Nate twisted a rubber band around his fingers while staring at Gannon.

“Jack, as managing editor of this paper I sit on the boards of many charitable organizations that do a lot of good work for this city. Did you know that Detective Karl Styebeck is also a board member of some of these groups?”

He didn't know that.

“And did you know, Jack, that I was reminded of that fact this morning when I got a wake-up call from the publisher, who got a wake-up call from a police commander, who said your story was wrong?”

“Wrong?”

“He called it a fabrication and demanded a retraction.”

“You've got to be kidding.”

“Am I smiling?”

“My story's not wrong.”

“It should've been verified before the presses rolled. I should have been called.”

“We called you, Nate,” Wallace said.

“I got in last night off a late flight from Los Angeles and had no messages.” Fowler glared at Wallace, then Gannon. “Give me your source's name so we can confirm and stand by the story. Otherwise we run a retraction.”

Gannon swallowed, took quick stock of Fowler's office, the citations, framed news pages, including Gannon's for the Pulitzer nomination. There were photos of Fowler with city, state and federal politicians. His wife had a power job with the New York State attorney general's regional office. His brother was married to the publisher's daughter.

Fowler was a political player and Gannon didn't trust him.

“I can't give you my source's name.”

Nate looked at Wallace then back at Gannon.

“You can't? Did I hear you right?”

“My source has too much at stake.”

“And you don't?” Fowler glared at him. “Do you have any documents supporting the story?”

“No.”

Nate Fowler glared at Ward Wallace then Gannon.

“Jesus. So we have nothing in our possession. No warrant, no affidavit, no court record?”

Gannon shook his head.

“Do you have a source or not, Jack?”

“I have a source, but I can't give them up to anyone. I gave my word. You have to trust me.”

“The hell I do! As an employee conducting business for this company, you are required to advise your managers of your source, or be considered insubordinate.”

“Jack,” Wallace said, “just tell us who your source is and where they work.”

“I can't. My source would lose more than their job.”

“Job?” Fowler said. “Let me tell you about jobs,
Gannon. If we print a retraction, we rupture the paper's credibility at a time of eroding readership. At a time of possible staff cuts. Do you understand what's at stake here?”

“I do. I swear my story's good.”

“Is it? Without so much as a thread of evidence, you've accused an outstanding member of this community of murder! A man recognized for putting his life on the line, a man who volunteers to help street people. Your story claims he killed a goddamn prostitute!”

“A human being. A troubled nursing student, that's what she was.”

“A drug-addicted hooker.”

“My story's not wrong, you have to trust me.”

“Trust you? We're way beyond that.” Fowler thrust his finger at Gannon's face, then the door. “You're gone!”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm suspending you indefinitely, effective now and without pay.”

“My story's not wrong, Nate.”

“Then give me your source.”

“I can't.”

“Then get the hell out of my newsroom.”