Limbus, Inc. Book II

by Brett J. Talley

  But then, when Police Headquarters moved to the new building in 2012, a few of the old taco houses fell out of the rotation, Tommy’s being one of them. I knew a detective from back in Fehrenbach’s day would remember it well, though.

  I also figured there was little chance of running into my fellow detectives from Homicide. Joining a retiree for breakfast was an easy explanation. Spreading a seventeen-year-old case file on the breakfast table was tougher to justify.

  So I pulled into the parking lot next to Tommy’s and waited for Fehrenbach to show up.

  An hour went by, and he never showed.

  Curious, I called his number.

  He answered on the third ring.

  “Lieutenant Fehrenbach?” I said. “Sir, this is Detective Becker. We spoke just a little bit ago.”

  “Oh,” he said. He sounded distant and preoccupied, like he wasn’t all there. “I’m sorry, I can’t…I gotta go.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Lieutenant, wait, sir. Please.”

  “No, I—” He broke off with a gasp of surprise.

  “Sir, are you okay? Lieutenant Fehrenbach…sir?”

  But he hung up on me.

  The phone clicked to let me know the connection was lost, but I stayed there holding it to my ear for a long time, wondering what in the hell was going on.

  I didn’t like the way he’d gasped before he hung up.

  Something was wrong. I knew it. I could sense it. I don’t know how, but in that moment I knew it.

  Fehrenbach didn’t live far away. His house was a small blue and white one story off Martin Street, just west of downtown. There was a blue GMC pickup in the driveway that looked about two years old. The yard and garden were well tended, and the chain link fence that surrounded the front yard had a latched gate that was hanging open.

  I scanned the front of the house. There were several windows and the blinds were drawn on most of them. I could see inside the house, but nothing seemed to move.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  Nothing.

  Frowning, I went up to the house and climbed the steps to the porch. I peered into the windows and saw somebody moving in there in the shadows toward the back of the house. I knocked hard on the door.

  “Lieutenant Fehrenbach,” I yelled. “You in there?”

  Again, no answer.

  I looked at the window, and the shape I saw toward the back of the house suddenly became two.

  Somebody was in there with him.

  It was a man in a dark suit, and there was something weird about his head. It was too big, and strangely shaped. I saw Fehrenbach staggering away from the figure, his hands up in front of his face like he was ready to fight. Or perhaps fend off a blow.

  “Hey!” I yelled.

  The man looked up, and in that instant, I froze. He had huge, bat-like ears and an elongated face that tapered into a snout. It looked like he was wearing a pig mask or something.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  But he was already running out the back door. I heard a screen door screech open on rusted springs and then slam shut. I pulled my gun and ran around the back of the house. It only took me a few seconds to get to the back yard, but the man in the mask was already slipping over the six-foot wooden privacy fence that separated Fehrenbach’s back yard from an overgrown service alley.

  I tried to follow, but the alley was thick with a tangled screen of huisache and briars. The thorns cut up my hands after only a few steps. They didn’t seem to bother the man in the pig mask though. He was already well ahead of me, and increasing the distance with every passing second.

  I gave up and went back to Fehrenbach’s house.

  The back door was closed and locked.

  I knocked on the doorframe. “Hey, Lieutenant Fehrenbach, it’s me, Alan Becker. Are you alright, sir?”

  No answer.

  I beat on the door with my fists. “Lieutenant Fehrenbach? Sir, open the door. I’m gonna kick it down!”

  “Don’t,” he said. It sounded like he was standing just on the other side of the door. His voice was faint, but I could hear the strain in it. He peeked through the curtains next to the door, met my gaze, and then let the curtains drop. “Go away,” he said. “I can’t help you.”

  “Who was that guy?”

  “Just go away.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No, I’m fine. Go away, Detective. I told you, I won’t help you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “Less than two hours ago, you were excited to talk to me about the case. What’s going on?”

  “I can’t talk to you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Go away,” he said.

  “Did they threaten you? That man, if he threatened you, I can put him away. Tell me what’s going on. What did that man say to you?”

  “This isn’t a case anymore, Detective. There’s nothing for you to investigate.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Somebody got to you. Tell me who the hell that was.”

  No answer.

  “Lieutenant Fehrenbach, I need you to help me. I can’t do this without your help.”

  “There’s nothing to do,” he said. “There’s no case. Gary Harper doesn’t exist.”

  I hit the door again, but all my strength was gone. The best I could do was a dull slap against the wood.

  I leaned my forehead against the door.

  “Talk to me, Fehrenbach. Why won’t you help me?”

  “You don’t have the first clue what this is really about,” he said, and from the sound of his voice I guessed he was leaning against the other side of the door, head against the wood, same as me. “Maybe Hell is real. Did you ever think of that, Detective Becker?”

  “What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.”

  When he didn’t answer, I beat on the door again.

  “Open up, Fehrenbach! You hear me? Somebody got to you. I want to know who. Open the door. Talk to me, dammit!”

  I reared back to kick the door, but before I could, Fehrenbach threw it open and leveled a pistol at my face.

  “Whoa!” I said. I backed up, my hands in the air.

  His face was pale as ash. His eyes were wide and wild. I looked into the barrel of the gun. His hands were trembling and his finger pulsed against the trigger. Runners of sweat dripped from his brow.

  I kept backing up until I was in the grass.

  “What’s going on, Fehrenbach? What happened? Who was that guy?”

  He raised his chin and shook his head in warning. He was breathing hard through clenched teeth.

  “You get out of here,” he said. “Don’t ever, ever, come back here. You leave me alone.”

  “I’m looking for answers,” I said. “Why won’t—”

  He jabbed the air with his pistol and that shut me up straight away.

  “Easy,” I said. “Just talk—”

  “I won’t tell you again. You leave me alone. Get out of here!”

  I didn’t like the way his eyes were bulging from the sockets, or the way his finger kept tightening on the trigger. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

  He watched me as I rounded the side of his house and headed up his driveway, the pistol still leveled at my back.

  I felt like a coward walking away.

  Someone had gotten to him. Someone had scared him so badly he was willing to pull a gun on a brother officer.

  I looked back. He was still standing next to his garage. He’d lowered the weapon to his thigh, though. His eyes had lost their wild stare, and the color was coming back to his face, but he still looked small, shrunken by fear. Fehrenbach shook his head and raised the gun a few inches.

  “Just leave,” he said. “And don’t come back here.”

  *

  As I pulled away from Fehrenbach’s house, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any other cars when I pulled up. The man in the pig mask had escaped into the alley, but where had he come from? Had there be
en a car waiting for him, and if so, where was it? It wasn’t like he could have counted on me being there to drive him into the alley, not dressed in that black undertaker’s suit of his, so it didn’t make sense that his car would be parked anywhere but in front of his house.

  It made me wonder if he was still around.

  I rounded the corner at the end of Fehrenbach’s street and parked near the entrance to the alleyway. I pulled up to the curb and watched it for a few minutes, trying to figure out the man’s next move.

  It was late April, but summer had already come in hard and mean. According to the thermometer on my dashboard, it was ninety-two degrees, and I was willing to bet my drinking money that the guy in the pig mask wasn’t going to be running around in this heat in a suit. Or a mask for that matter. And besides, this wasn’t exactly a suit kind of neighborhood. He’d stand out for sure, and a pro would be smart enough not to draw attention to himself.

  So he was in a car by now. That much I could be sure of.

  It also seemed logical that he’d still be in the area. After all, I’d interrupted whatever it was he was doing to Fehrenbach.

  It made sense that he’d come back if he could.

  I circled the block around Fehrenbach’s house, then went one street west and circled that one. My plan was to make a series of widening circles around Fehrenbach’s house and look for a car that didn’t belong.

  Unfortunately, they found me first.

  I had just made another right turn when I heard an engine roaring behind me. I glanced in the rearview mirror just as a big black Chrysler that looked like something straight out of 1966 smashed into the back of my Honda and pushed me toward a line of parked cars.

  The wheel shook in my hands and I felt the back end of the car start to drift. My instinct was to mash down on the brakes, but I knew from my tactical driving training back in the Academy that hitting the brakes would allow the Chrysler’s momentum to take over and put me into a spin. And if these guys were half the pros I thought them to be, they’d pin me against the parked cars, climb out, and shoot me like a fish in a barrel.

  I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  I put my foot down on the gas. My Honda revved, shuttered, and broke free of the Chrysler. I yanked the wheel to the left and missed the line of parked cars by inches. I sped up, ran the stop sign at the next intersection, and kept going, bottoming out the car and kicking up a cloud of leaves and dust as I lengthened the distance between us. So long, Pig Face, I thought. And then I looked in the rearview mirror. They were gaining on me, the front of their car looking like a mouth full of teeth rising from the depths.

  “Shit,” I said. I hit the brakes and turned hard to the right, cutting down a side street.

  The Chrysler skidded through the intersection, backed up, and came after me again. It wasn’t going to work. I could see that. The Chrysler handled like a boat, but they wouldn’t have any trouble catching me on the straightaways. My Honda just didn’t have the legs their car did. I needed to get to a busy street where I could get lost in the crowd. And even if I couldn’t lose them, I could at least attract the attention of a patrol car. The end result would be the same.

  But I had to get there first, and that was going to be a problem. The nearest major street was Zarzamora, and that was a good ten blocks to the west. I’d have to risk a straight shot to get there.

  I made a few quick turns, enough to put some distance between us, and then turned my car west and floored it.

  My lead fell apart fast though.

  A van crossed in front of me at an intersection and I had to lock up the brakes to avoid smashing into it.

  The bug-eyed look on the driver’s face would have been funny if the roar of the Chrysler’s engine hadn’t suddenly filled my world. I tried to speed up, but they were already coming up alongside me on the passenger side. The narrow suburban streets didn’t leave much room to maneuver. Their car was twice the size of mine, and they used that advantage to force me to the left. There were parked cars up ahead, and I had to do something before they made me crash.

  I rolled down the passenger window and pulled my pistol.

  Their driver’s window came down at the same time, and I got a good look at the driver with the pig’s head and I thought, Oh dear god, that isn’t a mask. I lost focus when I realized what I was looking at. I nearly dropped the gun. My Honda started to drift to the left. The man, pig, whatever it was, flared its nostrils, opened its mouth wide enough to reveal a pair of short tusks, and then rammed the Chrysler into mine.

  That woke me up. I slammed on the brakes and slid into a trashcan, but managed to miss a parked car.

  The Chrysler skidded to a stop in the middle of the road.

  In that moment my training took over. I threw my car in park and jumped out. If I could get on them before they had a chance to exit the vehicle, I had a chance of beating them. I pulled my weapon, trained it on the driver’s side window, and started firing as I advanced on the car. Shooting a pistol while running with any accuracy at all is next to impossible. They train us at the Academy to do it at a walk. Slow yourself down, focus on the target. Be relentless, but be accurate. Nobody ever won a gunfight by missing what they were aiming at. I landed five or six hits before I heard a shriek that didn’t sound like any kind of noise a man would make, and the next instant the Chrysler peeled out and shot down the road, leaving me standing in the middle of the street.

  I lowered my weapon.

  Score one for the good guys, I thought.

  Only then did I turn my attention to my surroundings. People were looking at me from their doors and windows. More than a few of them were on the phone, calling the cops no doubt.

  I’ve been a member of the San Antonio Police Department’s Officer-Involved Shooting Team for five years. From past experience I knew how this scene would play out if I stayed around for the cops to show up, and I wasn’t about to allow myself to go through all that right now. There was no way I could explain it anyway.

  So I got in my car and hauled ass out of there. As I drove away, I heard the wail of approaching sirens.

  *

  I drove until I couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. I spotted a McDonald’s and pulled into the parking lot, feeling like I was about to come unhinged. I think if I’d driven any longer I would have completely lost my mind and caused an accident. As it was I put the car in park and stared down at my lap, unable to catch my breath.

  That wasn’t a mask.

  How was that even possible?

  I looked at Fehrenbach’s case file on the passenger seat and thought of what Robinson had said about others looking for Gary Harper, others who wouldn’t concern themselves with issues of legality.

  I’d thought he’d simply meant there were violent men on Harper’s trail.

  But they weren’t men at all.

  Oh dear god, that wasn’t a mask.

  I sank low into my seat and ran my hands through my hair.

  What in the world had I gotten myself into?

  *

  Fehrenbach’s file.

  I’d been sitting behind the wheel, watching the traffic pass by on the street for I don’t know how long when I realized I’d referred to the file as Fehrenbach’s, not Robinson’s.

  It’s funny how the mind works. I’d been so focused on getting Fehrenbach to tell me what he knew that I’d completely disregarded what he’d already said. When I asked him about loose ends, he’d said he was sure there were plenty. And he’d also mentioned that there’d been more than a little jurisdictional cock blocking going on. That was nothing new. I’d experienced it before, especially when dealing with the Texas Highway Patrol and the Texas Rangers. But the San Antonio Police Department and the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office had long since gotten over their differences, and getting information from them was a piece of cake these days. In fact, I had direct links to their local databases saved in my favorites.

  I went to the downtown branch of the public library, found
a computer, and signed on to my Citrix account. Once I had that up, I had all the County’s criminal records at my fingertips.

  I searched for the license plate of the car that had killed Officer Robinson and hit pay dirt right away. On the same day the car was purchased from the fat man Fehrenbach told me about—and two days before it was involved in the crash that took Officer Robinson’s life—a seventeen-year-old kid named Thomas Brandt was issued a ticket in it for Excessive Display of Acceleration.

  Apparently the Precinct Two Justice of the Peace dismissed the ticket two months later, without explanation, but that was no matter.

  I had a name now, a real name, something I could work with.

  Thomas Brandt, white male, thirty-four years old, five-ten and a hundred eighty pounds, it turned out, was no stranger to the police. Aside from the dismissed ticket back when he was seventeen, he’d racked up four DWIs and eleven arrests for driving with a suspended license. He even had a warrant outstanding for his latest DWI, and as it was his fourth, and therefore a felony, I had legal authorization to kick in his door if need be.

  And as I sincerely hoped there was going to be a need, I printed up the warrant and slipped it into the case file.

  I was close. So close my palms were sweating.

  Thomas Brandt was about to be mine.

  *

  He lived in a subdivision called The Hills at Sonora Parkway. I didn’t see any hills. Just a bunch of low-budget homes that had seen better days.

  Brandt’s home was a squat one-story with blue paint and sagging gutters. The yard was cut and the hedges trimmed, but the house still had a look of quiet desperation about it, like it was two steps from falling in on itself.

  I studied the house from my car, looking for signs of movement.

  Nothing. It was quiet, no lights on in the windows.

  I folded the warrant and put it in my shirt pocket. Then I went to the trunk and got my radio. Last thing I needed was for a neighbor to call me in as a burglar. At least this way I could answer up if the dispatcher put a call out at my location.