Perfect Grave jw-3

by Rick Mofina

  “I know. But did they find his body?”

  “I’m not sure. Sorry, I just came back from sick leave, had surgery to remove two toes.” Kent paged through the file. “Nothing here says they found him yet. But I talked to Leon, maybe a week before he went there. He was despondent, like he said in his note.”

  “Do you have his note?”

  “I have a copy in here. I’ll fax it to you.”

  “Did Sperbeck ever talk about the Boland family or Sister Anne Braxton? Did they visit him inside?”

  “Let me grab his visitor sheet.” Kent sifted through the file. “What I know is that Leon was quiet, kept to himself and out of trouble. When he was assigned to me, his case didn’t need a lot of monitoring.”

  Kent flipped through reports, applications, test results for Sperbeck.

  “He served his full time and was no risk to reoffend. He had no family, or much of a support network. I helped him with his release plan, you know, contacting social service agencies, lining up job interviews. He had no violations and he got work as a janitor, but it didn’t last and he took it hard. Some guys can’t cope after being inside a long time. The world changes, they’re stigmatized.”

  Damn it. Grace had had enough.

  Sperbeck had fallen through the cracks. Violent felons were supposed to be tracked, even after release. Sperbeck had obviously staged his death. Those were his prints on the cup.

  “Herb. Stop. Just give me Sperbeck’s last known address now.”

  “Well, he had a couple. I’m still checking. He told me one place got flooded. The other was noisy.”

  “Herb.”

  “Here we go. This one in the northwest was his last. It’s off Market.”

  Grace took it down.

  “And, look here, the answer is, yes. Seems Sister Anne Braxton visited him several times at Washington State, then at Clallam Bay and Coyote Ridge.”

  “You can confirm that he had contact with her?”

  “The file here says she was instrumental in helping Sperbeck with his Moral Reconation Therapy and as his spiritual counselor-hello?”

  Grace hung up and alerted SWAT to roll on Sperbeck’s residence.

  The SWAT equipment truck and other emergency vehicles moved quickly to set up a command post in the parking lot of Wyslowleski’s Funeral Home, about four blocks from Sperbeck’s address.

  The field commander, Lieutenant Jim Harlan, examined detailed maps and blueprints of the small house where Sperbeck rented a room at the rear. Harlan then briefed SWAT and the Hostage Negotiations Team on the objective: Seal the area, choke off all traffic, evacuate all citizens in the line of fire by stealth. Get a visual on the suspect and the hostage, then determine if a blitz entry was viable.

  Police set up an outer perimeter well outside the hot zone and began diverting traffic, while cops dressed in work clothes eased a city utility van to a door down from Sperbeck’s building to confirm any movement in his apartment.

  Other plainclothes officers quickly and quietly evacuated every resident from the line of fire near the building while SWAT members set up an inner perimeter by keeping out of sight near the house. No one was home in the front section. Then Sergeant Mike Brigger led his SWAT team scouts closer to the building. They would determine safety points for other team members to follow and launch a rescue.

  As they waited at the command post, Grace and Perelli studied Sperbeck’s old crime, trying to piece everything together. A child hostage was killed in a $3.3 million heist. None of the money had ever surfaced. How did it all fit with the Bolands, Sister Anne, and Sharla May Forrest?

  And Henry Wade was one of the responding officers. Jason Wade’s old man.

  While Perelli worked the phone, Grace went over it again and again.

  Nothing made sense.

  “Hey, Grace.” Perelli finished a call and pulled her out of earshot. “Records says that around the time Sperbeck was released, an investigator for the insurance company that paid out on the claim made some enquiries on the old case. Guy by the name of Ethan Quinn wanted to locate the officers on call that day.”

  “Maybe this Quinn has new information?”

  A crackling radio interjected.

  “ We have movement in the subject’s residence. ”

  Tension tightened the air.

  The SWAT team scouts had been followed by the utility man, the breacher, the gas team, and sharpshooters, who moved tight up to the building. At the edge of the inner perimeter, SWAT snipers had taken cover to line up on the house.

  A window at the rear of Sperbeck’s building came into focus within the crosshairs of the rifle scope of the sharpshooter behind the Dumpster of a welder’s shop nearby.

  “Movement in the house. White male,” the sharpshooter repeated.

  Uniformed police at the outer perimeter called in on another channel.

  “We got press at the east point. WKKR.”

  Harlan cursed under his breath.

  “Cut his utilities and phone. We can’t risk him monitoring news reports.”

  Harlan was in charge. He had seconds to make a decision that could save a life, or cost him one. This is what he knew: The suspect resided here. The suspect had abducted a child, was violent, and wanted in two first-degree homicides. The suspect was an ex-convict who’d served time for killing a child hostage during an armed robbery.

  Negotiation was not an option.

  Swift attack.

  “Mike, you good to go?”

  “We’re in position.”

  “Then go throw chemicals, flash-bangs, go full bore, take him down and extract the hostage.”

  Brigger signaled his team and some thirty seconds later the quiet street echoed with the ker-plink of shattering glass as tear gas canisters catapulted into every window. A thirty-pound steel battering ram took down the door accompanied by the crack-crack and blinding flashes of stun grenades. The heavily armed squad in gas masks stormed the apartment.

  Flashlight beams and red-line laser sights probed thick smoke for Brady Boland and Leon Dean Sperbeck.

  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 Sperbec
k’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.”