With a Vengeance

by Annette Dashofy

  Pete’s jaw tightened. “Did they run the photos of his ATV’s tires I sent?”

  “Yep. Perfect match. Looks like your mechanic is our killer.”

  Pete yanked his phone from his pocket and punched in Kevin’s number.

  “Who are you calling?” Baronick asked.

  “Kevin Piacenza. I have him watching Bud’s place.”

  “Good.”

  Except the phone rang several times and then went to voicemail. “Kevin, where the hell are you?”

  Zoe sat reading a horse lover’s magazine in one of the well-worn easy chairs in the crew lounge, her legs folded under her. The rest of the crew was taking turns shouting answers—or questions—at the TV, trying to best the Jeopardy! contestants. The sound of tones drifted back to them from the office.

  Earl climbed to his feet. “That’ll be for us.”

  “Maybe the old lady passed out again,” Tracy said, “and the son needs us to transport her after all.”

  Zoe stuck one of the loose subscription cards between pages to mark her place and tossed the magazine onto the end table with the rest of the assorted reading material. “I hope not. It’s been almost an hour. He darn well better have her in the ER by now.” She uncurled her legs and stood to follow Earl.

  He paused at the door to the office and gave her a playful nudge. “Got your life insurance paid up?”

  “Not funny.”

  Tony waited for them, holding out the note with the address. “Guy called in complaining of severe chest pains. Male. Sixty-two years old. Says he was trying to drive himself to the hospital, but the pain got too bad and he’s pulled over waiting for the ambulance.”

  Zoe snatched the note on her way past. “Ridge Road?”

  Earl hesitated and met her gaze, his jaw tight. “Not much traffic out that way.”

  She hated this nagging fear. The dread of doing a job she loved.

  “Should we call the police?” Earl asked.

  “Let’s go.” She gave him a gentle push toward the ambulance. “If there’s any question once we get there, then we’ll call.”

  With Earl behind the wheel, they rolled onto Main Street. He flipped on the lights and sirens.

  Zoe unclipped the mic. “Control, this is Medic Two en route to Ridge Road.”

  “Ten-four, Medic Two. Nineteen twenty-one.”

  “You got nothing on us. Let us go.” Hector glowered at Pete through the bars of the holding cell.

  Lucy hugged her knees close to her chest and pouted in the other cell.

  Pete knew as soon as Andrew McCoy got there, he’d demand Pete cut them loose, but until the lab told him the rifles didn’t match, he planned to keep both Livingstons on ice for as long as possible.

  In the meantime, he had bigger concerns. Like why Kevin wasn’t answering his phone or responding to the radio. Pete wanted nothing more than to charge out to Kramer’s place himself, but he had Hector and Lucy to deal with. Instead, he’d called in Seth and Nate, and Baronick ordered his two officers, who had escorted Lucy, to meet them there.

  “Are you listening to me?” Hector barked.

  “I hear you.” Pete checked his phone in case he’d missed Kevin’s call. But he knew he hadn’t.

  “And?”

  “You might as well sit back and relax, because until I get a report from ballistics, you aren’t going anywhere.”

  “I’m telling you, they aren’t gonna find anything because we didn’t shoot anyone.”

  “Give it up, Daddy,” Lucy said. “Snake’s uncle will get us out.”

  Hector blew a raspberry. “Lawyers. They’re as useless as tits on a bull.”

  The bells jangled on the front door, and voices drifted back to them. Pete recognized McCoy’s as one of them. Moving away from the holding cells, Pete headed to the intersection of the T in the hallway where he could see two men, one in a suit and the other in oversized jeans, standing at the window to Nancy’s office. “McCoy,” he yelled. When the attorney looked Pete’s way, he waved them back.

  Pete met McCoy and Snake halfway and aimed a thumb over his shoulder. “Hector and Lucy are in the holding cells.”

  McCoy scowled. “I’d rather talk to them one at a time and in your conference room.”

  Which was where Baronick had set up a temporary office.

  “You’re probably only going to get one of them to talk anyway,” Pete said. “I have business to attend to right now. If you want Lucy moved to the interrogation room, you’ll have to wait until I check on the status of my men.”

  McCoy made a face as though he’d sucked on a lemon. “Fine. I’ll talk to them back there. For now.”

  The attorney brushed past Pete. Snake started to follow, but Pete planted a hand on the kid’s chest. “Not you.”

  “But—”

  Pete grabbed Snake’s shirt and spun him toward the front before giving him a firm shove. Slump-shouldered, the tough-guy wannabe lumbered down the hall ahead of Pete. When they reached Nancy’s office, he held up a finger at the kid. “Stay.”

  Mumbling, Snake leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

  “Any news?” Pete asked his secretary.

  She shook her head. “Nate should be on scene any minute now. Seth said his ETA is five minutes. And the county officers should get there somewhere in between.”

  “Did you have any luck raising Bud Kramer on the phone?”

  “None. No answer at the garage or at his home number. Detective Baronick is trying to track down his cell phone number.”

  Pete rubbed the space between his eyes where a tension headache brewed. “Come on, Nate,” he said under his breath.

  Nancy gave him a tight smile. “A watched radio never squawks.”

  He glanced at the closed conference room door and contemplated checking in on Baronick while he waited. But Nancy had said Nate should be at Kramer’s any time now.

  A perplexed look on Snake’s face caught Pete’s attention. “Do you need to use the restroom?”

  Snake met Pete’s gaze and shook his head. “No. What was that name you just mentioned?”

  “Detective Baronick?”

  “No, no, no. Bud. Bud…?”

  “Kramer?”

  Snake’s eyes brightened. “Yeah. That’s him. That’s the name of the guy who bought my quad.”

  Twenty-Six

  With no real address to go by, Earl eased around Ridge Road’s blind curves and sped down the straight stretches, although the bumps and ruts of the tarred and chipped country road limited the definition of “speed.”

  “He’s gotta be along here somewhere.”

  Zoe wasn’t sure if Earl was talking to himself or to her. “Unless it’s another false alarm.” She glanced over at her partner whose jaw twitched. “False alarm” held a whole new cause for concern these days.

  The woods with its branches stretching across the road overhead created the illusion of dusk with charcoal clouds preventing any sunlight to penetrate the patchwork green, gold, and orange leaves. The ambulance rounded another bend and broke into the open mown hayfields rolling away on either side.

  “There,” Earl said. Ahead, a familiar-looking brown Chevy pickup sat half on, half off the road facing them. He gunned the ambulance, closing the distance.

  A knot of tension squeezed Zoe’s chest. “That looks like my truck.”

  “I’ve seen at least four other trucks like yours in the area. Brown Chevys aren’t exactly unique.”

  Which was true. Besides, this one had a load in the bed, covered with a tarp. And hers wouldn’t start. She tamped down her fear and reached for the mic as Earl braked. “Medic Two to Control. Show us on scene.”

  “Ten-four, Medic Two. On scene at nineteen thirty-two.”

  Earl threw open his door, but Zoe caught his arm. “I have a bad feeling abo
ut this. Let me call Pete.”

  “Look.” Earl pointed at the pickup. They could clearly see a gray-haired man slumped over the steering wheel.

  “We have a patient who was complaining of chest pains,” Earl said, “and it took us too darned long to get here already. Get the jump kit and let’s try to save this guy.” He jerked free of her grasp and bolted for the Chevy.

  “Wait,” she called after him. But he was already halfway to the truck. She leapt out, yanked open the side compartment door, and snatched the jump kit. With her free hand, she dug her cell phone from her pocket and pulled up Pete’s number, ready to hit send if needed, as she jogged after her partner.

  Earl had been right about there being a number of other brown Chevys in the area. And there may have been other two-toned ones like hers. And like this one. The knot of tension grew into a screaming banshee when she came up behind Earl, he opened the driver’s side door, and she spotted the horse-head seat covers. Her horse-head seat covers.

  “You expect me to believe you didn’t know who Bud Kramer was?” Pete had long known Snake was an imbecile, but this was a new low, even for him.

  Snake’s eyebrows and shoulders both shrugged as if controlled by the same marionette string. “I never used his garage. My buddy’s a mechanic and does all my work cheap.”

  “And you neglected to mention the guy just happened to be in a wheelchair?”

  “He didn’t have a wheelchair when I saw him.” Snake’s voice had slipped into the nasally whine realm. “I only saw him that one time, and the dude was sitting at one of the tables in the bar. He might’ve had a cane with him, but there wasn’t a wheelchair.”

  “What about when he picked up the ATV? Or did you deliver it?”

  “Neither one. He sent someone with a flatbed tow truck to get it.”

  Pete clenched his fists, fighting the urge to belt the kid. “I don’t suppose the flatbed had a logo on it? Like Bud Kramer’s Garage?”

  Snake frowned in deep thought. After a moment he nodded. “Yeah. I think it did.”

  Pete’s phone rang, distracting him from lunging at Snake’s tattooed throat.

  Before Pete could answer the call, Nate’s tense voice came over the radio. “Vance Base, this is Unit Thirty-Five. I’m here. Kevin’s car is parked across from Kramer’s Garage, but he’s not in it.”

  “Don’t move,” Pete told Snake. He let the call—yet another from Chuck Delano—go to voicemail, charged into Nancy’s office, and snatched the mic from her hand. “Is there any sign of him?”

  “None. No sign of a struggle either. Looks like he just left his vehicle.”

  “Backup’s on their way. As soon as County and Seth get there, check out the garage.”

  “Roger that, Chief.”

  “What’s going on?” Baronick asked from the doorway.

  Pete’s phone chimed indicating a message. Probably also from Delano. “We can’t raise Kevin Piacenza on the phone or radio.” Pete relayed Nate’s report. “Do you have anything new?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been talking to the lab. Not one of the guns we took from the Livingstons’ house is our murder weapon. Basically, we have zilch on them.”

  “Good.”

  Baronick looked perplexed. “Good?”

  “Nancy, get the keys to the holding cells and kick Hector and his darling daughter out of my station.” Pete shouldered the detective out of his way. “You,” he said to Baronick, “are driving me to Kramer’s Garage.”

  Pete monitored the progress over the radio as Baronick jammed the accelerator to the floor. By the time they arrived, Nate’s vehicle had been joined by the County officers’ cruiser. Nancy reported state troopers were en route as well as more units from County.

  Baronick wheeled into Kramer’s lot, gravel flying, and stood on the brake. Pete leapt out before the car came to a complete stop and broke into a lope toward the building.

  “Unit Thirty-Five, this is Unit Thirty on scene,” he barked into his mic. “Status?”

  “We’re searching inside the garage, Chief,” Nate responded. “No sign of him yet. And no sign of Kramer either.”

  Pete punched through the door to find Nate coming out of Bud’s office.

  “Clear,” the officer reported.

  “Where are the others?”

  “One’s checking out back. The other one’s checking the stock room.”

  Pete dug his cell phone from his pocket. “Get them on the radio,” he told Baronick, who had followed him into the garage, “and tell them to stop and listen for a minute.”

  Baronick looked puzzled, but then realized what Pete had in mind. “On it.”

  Pete keyed in Kevin’s cell number. Waited for Baronick to inform his two county officers. And then clicked send. Inside, the garage remained silent except for the soft trill coming from Pete’s phone.

  “I hear something,” one of the county officers shouted over the radio. “I’m behind the garage, and I hear something!”

  Pete, Nate, Baronick, and the other county officer charged toward the garage’s back door. By the time they joined the officer who had reported hearing Kevin’s phone, the call had gone to voicemail.

  “Which direction?” Pete demanded.

  “I couldn’t tell. The ringing stopped before I could home in on it.”

  Once again, Pete ordered quiet and redialed Kevin’s number. Nearby, a muffled ringtone broke the silence.

  “There.” Nate pointed at one of the wrecked cars parked in the back lot.

  The four men spread out and approached the mangled heap. Pete kept one hand on his sidearm and knew the others were equally prepared for whatever.

  The car’s windshield had been shattered and peeled away, probably by the fire department in order to extricate the occupants. The driver’s door had been forced open at one point and was now jammed back into place, although not latched. The back door and window, however, were intact. Pete edged up to it and peered through the dirty glass. Inside, a man in uniform lay across the backseat, motionless.

  “He’s in there,” Pete said and yanked the door handle. It snapped back out of his fingers without opening. Swearing, he reached through the missing driver’s side window. Fumbled for the lock. On the other side of the car, Nate and one of the county officers were struggling to get either of the doors open. Who the hell stuffs a body in a wrecked vehicle and then locks the damn doors?

  Pete found the lock, flipped it, and heaved the back door open. “Kevin!”

  The young officer was on his side, his head toward the opposite door. He didn’t budge. Pete leaned in, trying to find Kevin’s wrist to check for a pulse, but his arms were bound behind him.

  “Help me get him out of there,” Pete said.

  Nate and the other officer came around as Pete and Baronick grabbed arms and legs and handfuls of uniform, dragging Kevin out of the car and easing him onto the ground.

  Pete flipped open his knife and cut through the zip-ties binding Kevin’s wrists. Baronick pressed his fingers to the grove in Kevin’s throat.

  “He’s alive,” the detective said.

  Pete grabbed the mic clipped to his shoulder. “Vance Base, this is Unit Thirty. We found him. Get EMS out to our location now.”

  He was vaguely aware of Nancy’s confirmation as he patted Kevin’s cheek. “Hey. Kevin. Hey. Wake up.”

  The young officer’s eyelids fluttered, but remained closed.

  Gravel crunched behind them. Pete glanced over his shoulder to see Seth approaching at a jog.

  “What’s going on?” Seth asked, his voice shaky, either from concern or from running.

  Nate started to update him, but Pete interrupted. “Go find Bud Kramer. I want his ass in my jail.” Pete looked at the two county officers. “You two go with him. I want every police officer and state trooper within a hundred miles out there looki
ng for him. His ATV’s not here, so he’s probably on it or is hauling it. Put a BOLO out on his truck too.”

  Baronick already had his phone in his hand. “I’ll call it in.”

  Nate cleared his throat. “Um…”

  “What?” Pete snapped.

  “Do you know if Zoe picked up her truck yet?”

  Pete’s nerves chilled. “No. She hasn’t. Why?”

  “Because the last time I was here it was parked inside, and now that bay is empty. I didn’t see it out in front.” Nate gestured to the collection of wrecked cars surrounding them. “And it’s not back here.”

  Damn it. Zoe. Pete sent up a silent prayer that she and Earl would be the ones responding to his call for EMS.

  Without waiting for Pete to tell him, Baronick said, “I’ll put a BOLO out on it too.” He moved away, the phone pressed to his ear.

  As Seth and the county uniforms jogged toward the garage’s back door, Kevin moaned.

  Pete called his name and dug a knuckle into the young officer’s sternum. If that didn’t wake him up…

  “Ow…” Kevin groaned.

  “Piacenza,” Pete ordered in the voice he’d been told could wake the dead. “Get up!”

  Kevin clearly wasn’t dead. “I’m up,” he said, although he sounded like he’d tied one on the night before. His lids opened, revealing dazed eyes.

  Pete couldn’t help smiling in relief. “Good to see you. What the hell happened? Where’s Bud Kramer?”

  “Kramer?” Kevin reached up and grimaced in pain as he touched his head. “Ow. Where am I?”

  “You were tied up in the back of a wrecked car behind Kramer’s Garage. Do you remember how you got there?”

  Kevin tried to sit up, but fell back with a groan. Pete slid an arm behind his officer’s back and helped him into a seated position.

  Nate dropped to his knees and helped brace him. “EMS is on its way.”

  “Good.” Pete caught Kevin’s chin when his head started to loll forward. “Stay with me, son.”