by R. D. Cain
A woman’s voice said, “Communications.”
Carscadden said, “Hi, this is Greg Kavanaugh. I need to speak with Detective Dennehy immediately.”
There was typing. She’d be checking the screen to see if he had logged on anywhere. Detectives didn’t always bother, so the task was most likely futile, unless the call-taker was just looking for a reason to dump the call.
“He’s not signed on anywhere. Can you call back tomorrow?”
“I’m calling in relation to the murders he’s investigating. He needs to call me in the next thirty seconds, if not sooner.”
She asked, “Who is it I’m speaking to again?”
Impersonating a police officer was a crime he could easily avoid. “I’m Dr. Greg Kavanaugh of the FBI Behavioural Sciences Unit. He asked me for a consult. Well, I consulted. He needs to speak to me as soon as possible.” Carscadden waited a moment. “Listen, I have the chief’s home number, but I don’t want to go that route. I just need you to page Dennehy, text him, call him and put a general broadcast out on all of your radio channels — do whatever it is you need to do.” He reiterated, “Detective Dennehy of Homicide.” Carscadden gave her his cell number and she put him on hold. Seeming fed up, he handed the phone over to Nastos.
Nastos weaved through traffic, following Viktor, who was a dozen car lengths ahead. The stayed on the 404 north out of Toronto and into York Region. Most of the high-rises were disappearing behind them. Traffic was lighter and the highway wider. Nastos looked at the speedometer; the needle was steady at 110.
The call-taker’s voice burst in. “Doctor Kavanaugh, here you go.”
The line sounded dead. Nastos said, “Hello?”
“Doctor Kavanaugh, do I know you?” Dennehy asked. His voice was tired, his speech slurred.
“Next time answer your fucking cell phone.”
“Steve Fucking Nastos. It was in the charger, dickhead — take a Midol.”
Nastos shook his head and said, “For fuck’s sake,” to himself. To Dennehy he said, “This is important, Dennehy. Wake up.”
“It’s like, five-something in the morning, Nastos. This better be important. Let’s hear it.”
Nastos gripped the wheel tightly and became more animated. “Try to pay attention. We know where the missing girls are. We’re going there right now. You said you’d help us if we help you — well, here you go. We solved it for you. Now give your head a shake and start throwing some clothes on. We’re following the suspect into York Region. We’re probably forty minutes ahead of you if you leave now. Hurry up if you want to be the hero or we’re going in without you.”
Nastos could hear background noise on the other end of the phone.
“This better not be bullshit, Nastos.”
He gave him the directions and asked Dennehy to call if he had any problems, now that his cell phone should be all charged up, then hung up the phone. He turned to Carscadden and tried to lighten the mood. “It was a lot more satisfying back in the day when you could slam a phone down on the hook to hang up. Now you have to squint your eyes to find the little red button and delicately press it in case the phone explodes in your hands.”
Carscadden stared though the windshield with no reaction.
Nastos tried something else. “Not many cases of serial killers working together. I can think of the Hillside Stranglers.”
He didn’t think Carscadden was going to bite. Finally there was a reply, in a monotone.
“Or gay. Not too many gay killers, are there?”
Nastos started rhyming off names. “John Wayne Gacy, Jeffery Dahmer. Only they focused on male victims. Serial killers tend to choose their victims from their pool of sexual interest. Why are these two different?”
Carscadden thought for a moment. “They aren’t thrill or impulsive killings. Judging by Anthony’s big show coming up, it’s a financial arrangement.”
Nastos asked, “Okay, so which of the two is in charge, Anthony or this guy? Sure, this guy is the muscle. And Anthony is the brains.”
“This guy is in charge,” Carscadden said. “Anthony has money, but this one, whoever he is, has the power over life and death, and ultimately, that’s all that matters.” Carscadden didn’t look away from the road ahead. “And I’m not waiting for shit. When I get there, I’m going in.”
26
Carscadden’s phone rang. It was Viktor. “I just turned off the 404. We’re going east on Stouffville Road.”
Nastos said, “Okay. Why don’t you back it off and we’ll move up?”
“Traffic is only two lanes. If you want to move up, do it fast.”
Nastos hit the gas and caught up as best he could. He worked his way into a position where there were three cars between them and the old van. They were all compacts, so Nastos and Carscadden had a clear view.
Stouffville was little more than a village. Stouffville Road became Main Street. Century-old row buildings, an independent Build-All, a Legion and a Tim Hortons coffee shop. Small-town Canada hadn’t changed much in decades. Carscadden sent a text message to Dennehy with a location update. There was no response.
The Cuervo Perdido van stopped at the York–Durham Line, then turned north. Nastos backed right off. Even with cars in between, he didn’t want to get too close. The van turned east onto Webb Road. Nastos decided to drive past.
“Viktor, follow him down Webb Road — I’ll turn back and get in behind you.”
“Okay.”
By the time Nastos did a U-turn and doubled back to Webb Road, Viktor and two other cars were in front of him.
Viktor said, “And I heard about what you did at my restaurant. If you ever want a job, just let me know. I could use a daytime manager.”
Nastos shrugged. “And give up all this excitement?”
“You’re the kind of man that excitement follows. Anyway, he just turned off to the south into a field. I found a safe place to stop; come meet me.”
Nastos pointed to the van driving through the field up ahead. “Perfect, we’re here.” He hit the brakes and stopped at the side of the road. It was a narrow gravel shoulder. He peered ahead, unable to make out where the turnoff was.
Viktor said, “I’ve pulled in a driveway up here on the right. There’s trees — he can’t see me.”
Nastos wasn’t convinced. “Be careful.”
Viktor’s voice sounded excited for the first time since the pursuit began. “There’s a parking area on the north side of the road farther east. Drive there. You can drop the car and it won’t be as conspicuous. I’m heading there right now myself.”
Nastos checked his blind spot and moved to where Viktor suggested. Once both vehicles were parked, they met up to talk face to face.
Nastos studied the scenery. Their surroundings were desolate. The road was paved but neglected, fractured and without streetlights. Tall, dark trees bordered the country road. The morning sun was still eclipsed by the horizon, leaving them in a colourless twilight, feeling like they were forgotten.
Nastos noticed the intensity on Carscadden’s face. His eyes were desperately searching in every direction. He crept up to the edge of traffic, fixated on where the van had driven into the field.
Nastos joined him. He could make out the hydro lines that dropped from the top of the poles, sagging before climbing to another pole until they disappeared into distant fog.
Carscadden said, “Just up here.” He pointed to the south side of the road, a hundred yards ahead.
Nastos knew what he meant. “The hydro pole. There’s a line heading south. I see it.”
Carscadden, Nastos and Kalmakov crossed the road and jogged up to the pole. Carscadden stood there looking up. He pointed to the hydro cable that led into the treeline. “Okay, the house is back here. Let’s go before the sun burns off the fog.”
The last thing Nastos wanted to do after finally
finding the place was rush in blind. Somebody would get hurt. Unfortunately, cooling Carscadden down wasn’t going to be easy. He’d have to think of some busywork to assign, something reasonably convincing. He looked at Viktor, who seemed to be thinking the same thing. There was a good chance that what Carscadden was going to find up there was going to send him over the line, whether it be homicidal or suicidal. Nastos started with “Listen, we have to be smart here.”
“Come on, Tara’s up there, for Christ’s sake. Let’s go.”
“Let’s go take a look around and see what we’re dealing with. The cops are on the way —”
Carscadden didn’t wait for Nastos to finish the sentence; he crossed the street, jumped the ditch and began pushing aside the low tree branches over the abandoned driveway. Nastos sighed and jumped across after him, and Viktor followed. So much for slowing him down.
There was a double-track trail, mostly grown over, with grass separating the two lines. The large weeping willows with their long, hanging branches alone would have been enough to shroud them from the sun. Even at nearly six in the morning the branches made these trees look melancholy. It was like walking between draglines cast by monstrous spiders. Black on grey. The distant fog suffocated any sounds outside their field of view. The fog trapped among the trees — thick, cool air — obscured them from the living world.
The trail began to bend to the east. Willows gave way to maples, partially skeletonized by the season. The sun appeared again, but as a ghost of itself, obscured by the mist. Nastos noticed a large black mass looming in the distance, blanketed by the thick greyness. The structure was the same colour as the black between the stars. It felt like they were walking into a monochrome alternate universe.
Once Carscadden could make out the house, he started for the front door. Nastos grabbed his arm, stopping him.
Carscadden wrenched his arm away. “What are you doing? We found it.”
“Yeah, we found a house. Now we have to do this right. He could have a bomb rigged to blow the whole place up, for all we know. We’d take this whole mess to the grave.”
Carscadden checked the signal strength on his cell phone. “Nothing.”
Nastos immediately realized the mistake they had made. “Dennehy was supposed to call us when he got here. We’re going to have to go back and get him.” Carscadden wanted to race in; maybe this would slow him down.
“We may not have time.” Carscadden squinted, looking at the house. As their eyes adjusted to the coming light, the house, its bare wood, windows like the hollowed ocular cavities of a skull, remained black. “I’ll go in. You wait.”
“Not a chance. We stay together. Let’s check out the area before we go in.”
Barely suppressing his anger, Carscadden hissed, “That’s my goddamned life in there. I’m going in.”
Nastos could see the tears in Carscadden’s eyes and realized that there was no stopping him. Nastos was merely prolonging his misery, the possibility that Hopkins and Lindsay were dead.
Nastos exhaled. “Come on, then. It’s time for answers.”
27
Nastos, Carscadden and Kalmakov approached the building from the north, getting as close as they could before they came through the treeline. They kept a quick, low pace across the field of waist-high grass. Kalmakov dropped a knee to the ground and offered, “We could split up, approach on three sides. We can conference call with our phones. It would be like having walkie-talkies.”
Nastos felt something inside twinge at the thought. “I’d rather we stick together. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I wish we had weapons.”
“There are three of us, we’ll be okay,” replied Kalmakov.
As if to confirm Nastos’ concerns, it was then that the music started. Coming from the house at the volume of a rock concert: “Mama” by Genesis. The windows were blacked out, painted on the inside. They rattled in place with the bass, their sound easily drowned out by the speakers, their movement betrayed by the way they quivered like terrified children. Nastos saw the truck parked out back. The doors were closed up. If the back doors had been left open, he’d expect the man to come out soon, probably with a body over his shoulder. Maybe he had some carving to do first.
Nastos turned to Kalmakov and Carscadden, who were both on his left. He pointed toward the house. “Must be planning to stay a while.”
Carscadden said, “He won’t hear us coming with that noise going on.”
“You’re right,” Nastos said. “Looks like it’s go time.”
They jogged to the house in single file: Nastos, Carscadden, then Kalmakov, the older man, last. They drew up close to the north wall and began walking counter-clockwise toward the main door on the west side.
At the corner, Nastos saw that there was a long porch four feet from the ground with six-foot-tall windows. When he glanced back, he caught Carscadden’s leg bouncing with anticipation. “The front door opens outward. Carscadden, you’re going first. When you get to the door, have your ass to the hinges, then reach out and pull the door open toward you. Viktor and I are going to rush in full speed, then you come in right after us.”
“And if it’s locked?”
“I start kicking it in; I’ll make noise. You stay with me and Viktor goes to another door.”
Carscadden was contemplative, as if the plan wasn’t to his liking, but reluctantly he agreed.
Nastos said, “On you. Go.”
They ran flat out, hoping the element of surprise would give them an edge. When Carscadden pulled the door open, Nastos was amazed. He had expected it to be locked, that they would have to choose another option like jumping through the windows. Instead, he found himself going near full speed through the main door. There was a kitchen–living room common area to the left and he went to the bigger room. He felt more than saw Viktor peel off to the right, then Carscadden came to back him up.
When Nastos rounded the corner and turned into the living room, he saw the man standing near the sink, looking in a mirror and painting his face with a small brush. Nastos charged with a war cry, shoulder-tackling the man at full speed and driving him into the kitchen counter. Nastos went for a choke hold, both of his hands wrapping around the man’s thick neck from behind. The man was muscular; it was like trying to strangle an ox. Shorter than Nastos and stocky, he seemed to have superhuman strength. He shoved the heel of his hand into Nastos’ chest — it felt as powerful as a kick — and shoved him back. The man leapt toward him with a lightning-fast right hook that connected and spun Nastos’ head at a dizzying speed. Nastos dropped instantly to the floor.
Carscadden only hesitated for a moment before jumping on the man’s back and trying to force him to the ground. Viktor came around the corner and kicked the man in the right shin full force, then grabbed two fists of hair and drove his knee repeatedly into the man’s face. After three strikes — which should have knocked him unconscious — the man pivoted to the side and swept Viktor’s legs out from under him, taking him down to the ground. Carscadden was little more than an inconvenience, and found himself tossed on the counter and careening to the floor.
Nastos flailed against the wall, finding a gas line to the stove to pull himself up. His ass hurt from falling on the handcuffs in his back pocket. He frantically pulled them out as a plan came to him. He locked one side around the cast-iron gas pipe, leaving the other side for the wild animal.
The man was fighting for his life. When he had Viktor on the ground, he tried stomping on his face, missing narrowly. Carscadden lunged for his throat but was knocked back, kicked to the ground.
Carscadden saw what Nastos had in mind with the cuffs; all they had to do was push this man back and Nastos could hook him up to the wall. As Viktor distracted the man with a flurry of punches, Carscadden tackled him backward toward the wall. Nastos gripped his wrist, Carscadden clenched him by the hair and punched his face, and Viktor rolled over an
d, with some kind of wrestling move, locked up the man’s legs with his own.
Nastos’ shout of “I got him, I got him!” was barely audible over the music. All three of them stood back from the man. Amazingly unhurt from fighting all three of them, he could see that he was trapped by the handcuffs and the cast-iron gas line.
The man paced from side to side, able to cover maybe six feet as the handcuffs slid along the pipe. His body language taunted them, asking them to get closer to him. Nastos noticed a coat on the kitchen counter and went through the pockets, pulling out a wallet and driver’s licence. “Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Mr. Chavez Vega Alvarez.”
Makeup was smeared all over his face, like war paint. Chavez sucked air and tried to pull the cast-iron pipe from the wall, his tendons and veins writhing like severed worms under the skin of his neck. He wore a white, sweat-soaked shirt; a tear revealed a chiselled physique, with the kind of musculature you expect on a wild animal. Chavez’s eyes were narrow and hungry.
Nastos regretted trapping him in the kitchen where there would be knives or other weapons, but at the time it had been essential. He crept forward, testing the limits of Chavez’s reach, and started pulling the drawers out of the cabinets. He tossed back the cutlery, of which there turned out to be very little.
Carscadden had found the stereo and kicked it until the music stopped. When the noise stopped, the relief felt like taking the lid off a pressure cooker. He picked up a BBQ tool, the kind with two sharp four-inch prongs, and approached Chavez. “Where are they?”
Chavez didn’t say anything. He paced back and forth and tried to yank the handcuffs apart. The entire house seemed to be creaking from his strength when he pulled on the pipe.
Viktor found a heavy, cast-iron frying pan. “You two go look. I’ll watch our friend.”
Carscadden spit a glob of blood from his cut lip at Chavez. In turn, Chavez lunged. Viktor stepped forward and swung as hard as he could. The strike hit Chavez squarely on the head, sending him to the ground.
