Vengeance Road

by Rick Mofina

  Gannon got in.

  31

  Jolene Peller was rising.

  Surfacing gradually, her senses adjusting with every breath she took.

  The droning had halted. Her mobile prison had stopped dead.

  The other woman hadn’t stirred.

  All was still.

  The darkness roared with Jolene’s breathing and heartbeat.

  Wait.

  She held her breath as she noticed the far-off sounds of machinery. Growling engines, creaking, hissing. Big machinery but far away.

  So distant and faint.

  Where were they?

  Jolene pressed her ear tight to the wall, straining to listen.

  Voices! Muffled but definitely people far off!

  “HELP!” she called. “HELP!”

  Jolene’s pleas were absorbed by the heavy insulated walls of their small space as something stirred near her in the dark.

  The other woman began groaning to Jolene.

  “Nooooo.”

  Jolene moved to her.

  Time had loosened their gags. Their captor didn’t seem to care, or bother to secure them whenever he’d stop to toss a half-eaten hamburger, cold fries, chocolate bars into their chamber, just enough food to survive their nightmare.

  He seemed to be less vigilant.

  Jolene seized the chance to attract help.

  But now the other woman was panicking.

  “No, it’s okay,” Jolene said. “It’s good. I hear voices. We’re near people. They can help.” Jolene turned to the wall and screamed: “HELP! PLEEEEASE HELP US!”

  “No,” the woman rasped. “Stop…must be quiet.”

  “No, it’s okay. Try to stay calm.”

  Jolene resumed fumbling around for the flashlight batteries. Maybe by shouting and creating a ruckus she could draw attention.

  “I’ve got to find the flashlight batteries. I haven’t looked under you,” she said. “I’m going to feel under you.”

  The roar of engines rose and fell, delivering hope as Jolene’s fingers felt for the batteries. She found a small round tube, then another.

  “Yes!”

  Fumbling for the batteries’ button top Jolene inserted them into the flashlight. But as her thumb held them in the cylinder, she realized that the light wouldn’t work without the tiny contact cap to keep them in place.

  How would she ever find it in the dark?

  Jolene cursed then screamed.

  “HELP!”

  She got to her feet.

  “OH PLEASE HELP!”

  Exhausted. Terrified. Thirsty. Hungry. Filthy. Angry. Jolene gave in to an emotional, uncontrollable outburst and slammed her shoulder into the wall, screaming, pounding, kicking.

  “Noo. Stop!” the injured woman pleaded.

  But Jolene ignored her, until she felt something tighten around her ankles. The woman had gripped Jolene.

  “Stop!”

  “Honey, we have to scream for help!”

  “No.” Her grip on Jolene was hurting.

  “Honey, let go.” Jolene lowered herself to the woman. “It’s okay.”

  “No, if he hears, it will be bad. I’ve seen what he does.”

  “Then we have to fight. We have to get out.”

  “No. If you try to escape, it will be worse than anything you can imagine.” Her voice broke. “I’ve seen what he does. I’ve felt it!”

  “But if we do nothing then we make it easy for him and I refuse to let the freak do what he likes. Not without a fight.”

  “You don’t understand what he did to me.”

  “No, you don’t understand! All my life I’ve had to fight. Honey, I understand that you’re hurt, you’ve been through hell. I need to get you to a hospital. Now, I’m telling you that crazy son of a bitch does not get me without the fight of his sick life.”

  Broiling with rage, Jolene pulled away as the woman pleaded in vain.

  Jolene removed her shoes and used them to hammer the walls with unrestrained fury.

  “HEEEEEELLLLLLLP!”

  32

  “The Killing Floor.” Here we go, baby. Can you dig it?

  As Jack Gannon saw the depot vanish in his rearview mirror, Ross Lowe—listening to Jimi Hendrix on his mp3 player—jumped from his forklift truck to size up his last order in Building 7.

  Oh man, this one was Brownie’s job, not his, Lowe thought.

  Why did he always catch that slacker’s work at the end of his shift?

  Lowe bit down hard on his pen and repositioned his earphones. While Hendrix raged through the classic Howlin’ Wolf tune, Lowe studied the shipment’s bill of lading.

  Look at this thing. It’s a freakin’ mess.

  The operator’s an independent. Rolled up to dock 75 a few days ago, partially loaded from Buffalo and Rochester, and waited for the rest of his freight, which took a couple of days to arrive at the depot and process.

  Then this guy’s got to pinball over the country hauling deliveries once he got him loaded. Lowe didn’t know what sort of cargo the dude was already carrying and he didn’t care because now he had to drive his forklift to the extreme end of Building 7 for the goods to load on the trailer.

  Look at this.

  Tires, cosmetics, chairs, tables, books and clothes—all in the far end of the building. Lowe cursed. He was going to be late for his band rehearsal tonight. Why did they dock him way the hell up here at 75. Probably because nobody looked at the bulletin.

  Thank you, Brownie, you useless goof.

  Lowe spit into the steel trash bin then slapped his gloved palm on the red button, activating the dock’s automatic door.

  It rose to the yawning maw of the forty-foot trailer, releasing a rush of rank air that enveloped Lowe. As he stepped into the lip to take stock of its darkened reaches, The Who pumped “Won’t Get Fooled Again” into his earphones.

  He hit the floodlights and got a better look. Large crates, resting tight up front. The trailer was only a quarter full. Its walls, scarred from loading grazes, were white and insulated. A converted reefer, he thought, nodding with the music.

  He started back to his forklift when something caught his eye. Light-colored replacement boards in the trailer’s blackened floor, the telltale sign of rotting wood.

  Lowe had the fresh memory of the time a trailer’s floor collapsed and his forklift sank partway though. Scared the hell out of him. He’d jumped off without getting hurt. A close call he never wanted to repeat, so he walked into the trailer to check the floor, bouncing up and down on it.

  Solid.

  Curious about the crates, he continued on when the trailer tremored.

  Christ, what was that?

  Lowe yanked off his earphones.

  What the hell was that?

  Still ringing from Keith Moon’s drumming, Lowe’s ears adjusted to the outside noise of rigs navigating throughout the depot. Their rumbling was muted by the trailer’s insulated walls.

  No.

  Whatever that was, it came from here. And he’d felt a slight vibration that seemed to have originated from inside one of the crates.

  Was this guy hauling a living, breathing item?

  He remembered the time Perkins found that anaconda that got out of its box and everyone came running to see before animal control came.

  Lowe tensed as he placed his hand on the crate to sense more movement.

  Nothing happened.

  He saw no airholes or shipping stamps. No markings on the crate.

  Weird.

  Maybe it was a load shift? But this thing’s been here for days.

  Lowe found a foothold and heaved himself up to see if he could find any markings topside of the crates. There was nothing but shadow in the one-foot gap between the top and ceiling.

  “What are you doing with my load?”

  A man stood at the back of the trailer, silhouetted against the blinding floodlights.

  “I thought I heard something,” Lowe said.

  “I don’t thin
k so.”

  “No, really.”

  At that moment a semi clamored by. It took several seconds before the deafening work of a rig grinding through lower gears subsided.

  “Get away from my load.”

  Lowe approached the man.

  “Know what I think, sport?” the man said. Tendrils of smoke curled from his cigarette and the tip glowed red. Smoking inside the depot was a violation. “I think you were fixing to steal from me.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I heard something.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Normally, Lowe could deal with anything truckers dished out, but something about this guy, something about his ice-cold calm, was threatening.

  The cigarette dropped and a large snakeskin boot crushed it.

  “Get on your forklift and do your job before I report you to your supervisor.”

  The man tapped a steel tire billy in the palm of his hand.

  Cursing under his breath, Lowe inserted his earphones and continued on without ever looking at, or speaking to, the trucker. When he finished, and after both men had signed the bill of lading, the stranger edged his rig forward enough to close his trailer’s doors. Lowe clamped on a seal then watched the guy walk to his cab.

  What a prick.

  The driver’s door swung open; Lowe glimpsed the writing on it: Swift Sword Trucking.

  I’m going to remember you, asshole.

  33

  East of Buffalo, at State Police Clarence Barracks, Karl Styebeck sat in an interview room.

  Interview room was a euphemism.

  Investigators knew the intent of such rooms. Small and sparse, with hard-back chairs, a table and white cinder-block walls that seemed to be closing in on you. These were battlefields where truth waged war against deception.

  Michael Brent, having returned from Las Vegas with Roxanne Esko, wanted to tear answers from Styebeck.

  But Brent knew better as he inventoried the detective from Ascension Park PD sitting before him. Styebeck’s eyes were webbed with red threads. Strain was carved deep into his face, accentuating whiskers his razor had missed.

  This was a man bearing a shitload of stress.

  Or guilt.

  Forget the hero crap, Brent regarded Styebeck as a disgrace, a man who’d lied to them about his ties to Bernice Hogan and Jolene Peller.

  Brent wanted to rip the truth out of Styebeck. But Robert Kincaid, the district attorney, was not making things easy for Brent. He’d cautioned him: “You still lack a solid case for me to take to a grand jury. You’ve got no DNA, no strong physical evidence linking Styebeck to Hogan’s murder.” And Kincaid, now watching with Captain Parson and Lieutenant Hennesy from behind the one-way mirror, added: “Despite the break with Jolene Peller’s cell phone, everything you have is circumstantial.”

  All they could do was try to pop Styebeck, making it Brent’s job to outmaneuver another detective.

  “We appreciate you coming in, Karl.”

  Styebeck nodded.

  “Hope you don’t mind us talking in here, it’s more private.” Brent raised his head from his files.

  “We just wanted to update you on the Hogan case. You know, get your thoughts,” Esko said. “We’re sorry about what happened with Alice after your last round with Jack Gannon, that idiot from the Sentinel. How’s Alice doing, Karl?”

  “She’s fine. Thank you.”

  “Given all you’ve been through,” Esko said, “we appreciate your agreeing to help us.”

  “I want to help.”

  “Good, Karl. That’s good because we need it.” Brent said. He had to be careful with the information they had and how they revealed it to Styebeck.

  “As you know, Bernice Hogan’s friend, Jolene Peller, was seen talking to Bernice the night before the body was discovered.”

  “Yes, I’ve got that from the missing-person’s report on Jolene.”

  “You said you were on Niagara that night talking to Bernice. Did you have any contact with Jolene that night?” Brent asked.

  Styebeck’s bottom lip shot out before he shook his head.

  “I don’t think so. As I recall, Jolene had left the street some time ago. Our group had helped her out.”

  “You also told us that you were down there that night before Hogan was found, looking out for the girls on Niagara because a strange truck was ‘creeping them out’?”

  “I was collecting information from CI’s and heard there was some guy in a truck, yes. I told you that before.”

  “Why were you on Niagara in a rental, if you were on the job?”

  “Well, I’m not going to use my personal vehicle, and criminals can easily spot a tag on a departmental unmarked.”

  “Why not take a vice, or seized drug car? Or an abandoned impound?”

  “Nothing was available.”

  “I see.” Brent touched the tip of his forefinger to his tongue then touched it to another page in his file to flip it. “Understandable.”

  Styebeck nodded.

  “What I don’t get, Karl, is why some of the women allege you’re a client, and others say you insult and harass them?”

  Styebeck’s face cracked with a grin that spread as he shook his head.

  “Mike, come on. I get intel from them. I try to broker deals, favors. Some of them don’t like it. Some bullshit me, hoping I’ll help them with a beef. Some of them get pissed off, they’ll tell you lies. You have to look at what they are.”

  “And what’s that, Karl?” Esko asked.

  Styebeck’s eyes met Esko’s. Then went to Brent.

  “‘Whores, drug-addicted scum, a waste of skin, society’s excrement in need of flushing.’” Esko read from her notes. “That’s what some of the women claim you call them, Karl.”

  “They’re tragedies. Every one of them. It is a brutal life down there. I accept they’d be pissed at me when I can’t make their dreams come true.”

  Styebeck looked into his empty hands and swallowed.

  “I’ve got a family. A job I love. I work hard as a cop. I believe profoundly in the outreach work my volunteer group does. Then—” Styebeck clapped his hands together, startling Esko “—this reporter, Gannon, and his paper destroy everything!”

  “Do you know where Jolene Peller is, Karl?”

  “I wish I did. Maybe she knows something about Bernice.”

  “Well, did you ask her when she called your home on these dates?”

  Brent slid a page bearing the call history from Jolene’s cell phone to Styebeck. Beautifully played, Esko thought, just beautiful.

  “Because,” Brent said, “it would help us to know what she said to you and where we can locate her.”

  Brent had just paid out a little rope for Styebeck to hang himself.

  “Yeah,” Styebeck said. “She was stoned, almost incoherent. I tried to make sense of what she was saying, where she was, but I couldn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Roxanne or the task force about these calls, what with Jolene being a material witness and all? We could use the help, and you’re a smart crime fighter, Karl.”

  “I know. I know. I got all tripped up. Man, the Sentinel was accusing me of murdering Bernice Hogan!”

  “Did you kill her, Karl?”

  “What?”

  “Maybe she made you angry,” Brent said. “Maybe you lost it, things got out of hand. You’re thinking, who’d miss the dirty little drug-addicted whore? Am I right?”

  “I know the game, Mike. No, I did not kill Bernice Hogan. You want to polygraph me?”

  “It’s an option,” Esko said.

  “But you did in fact talk to Jolene Peller, the woman reported missing?” Brent said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you told no one?”

  “She wanted to keep it confidential.”

  “Excuse me? She wanted to keep it confidential? Karl, do you do that with every person who is key to a homicide investigation? Hold back information from the primary investigator in a manner that coul
d be construed as obstruction?”

  “Obstruction? Are you nuts? Look, I’ve been through hell and I wasn’t thinking right.”

  “In that case, how about you volunteer all your phone, credit-card, banking and personal-computer activity for us to review, to ensure you haven’t overlooked anything else that might help us?”

  “Or,” Esko said, “we could get warrants, but you know how the press likes to jump on those things.”

  Styebeck swallowed.

  “I got to think it over, do it right, maybe with a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer?” Brent said. “Why would a solid, dedicated cop—a hero, like you—need a lawyer to help us investigate the murder of a woman you were with the night before her body was discovered? You need a lawyer to help us investigate the disappearance of her friend, who just happened to call your home a few times? Have I got that right, Detective?”

  Styebeck tapped his fingertips on the wood-veneer table as he looked at the walls.

  Those white cinder-block walls seemed to be getting closer.

  34

  Jack Gannon returned to his apartment, dropped his bags on the floor and fell onto his sofa.

  He wasn’t certain he’d actually seen a blue rig with “sword” on the door at the Cargo Depot in Chicago.

  But his gut told him he was close to breaking this story.

  Setting his laptop on his chest, he checked the Sentinel and Buffalo News Web sites for anything new on Styebeck, Bernice Hogan or Jolene Peller. Just superficial updates. He called Bernice Hogan’s foster mother, then Jolene Peller’s mom, for any developments.

  Nothing.

  He scrolled through his e-mails for anything new on the document searches he had going.

  Not much there.

  He took a shower. Revived by the hot water, he decided to pursue another angle into Styebeck’s past.

  While eating a ham-and-cheese sandwich, he flipped through his hard-copy files, this time concentrating on the fat folder of news stories that carried any mention of the Ascension Park Police Department for the last seven or eight years.

  After some forty-five minutes of reading small items, Gannon grew drowsy thinking it was futile. All of this stuff was inconsequential.