Vengeance Road

by Rick Mofina

  Then he sat upright.

  An article had seized his interest. The story went back four years.

  How did he miss this one?

  Vic Trainor, a veteran detective with the Ascension Park PD, had been charged with criminal possession of cocaine and heroin.

  There were a number of clips from Trainor’s indictment, his trial and his conviction. Gannon read them quickly. He hadn’t covered the story but he recalled the case as he picked out the information he needed.

  Trainor was tried for allegedly supplying hookers and pimps with dope that arose from an organized network out of Newark, New Jersey. He pleaded not guilty and throughout the case Trainor’s lawyer argued his innocence.

  Trainor lost.

  He was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison and a year of post-release supervision.

  One article in the Buffalo News said the case was chiefly built upon evidence presented to the D.A. by Trainor’s former partner.

  Detective Karl Styebeck.

  “Well, now. Isn’t this interesting,” Gannon said to himself.

  The item said Styebeck attended his ex-partner’s trial for one morning, never testified and refused to comment outside the court.

  Gannon wanted to talk to Trainor about Styebeck.

  The ex-cop would have been out for about two years now, Gannon figured, setting his laptop on his kitchen table to start searching for him. He expected Trainor would keep a low profile, so this might not be easy.

  The first online search yielded three Victor Trainors: one died in Knoxville in the early 1900s, another was in a retirement home in Europe, and the last was a teenage soccer star in Miami.

  Phone-number searches for New York State gave Gannon seven residential listings. They were in Albany, Rochester, Syracuse and four in New York City. None of them were for Victor or even V. Gannon called them anyway, starting with Albany.

  No one answered there.

  The Rochester number for Phillip Trainor was answered by a man with a small, high, soft voice.

  “Victor Trainor? I’m afraid he’s not at this number.”

  “Sorry to disturb you.”

  Gannon was about to hang up when the man said, “Vic lives in Niagara Falls, I think.”

  “Do you have a number?”

  “This is embarrassing, seeing that he’s my cousin, but we lost touch. I think he runs a garage or body shop. Something with Eagle in the name. Try there.”

  Gannon went back online and found a Niagara Falls listing for Golden Eagle Collision and Repair.

  The man who answered practically shouted Golden Eagle.

  The loud staccato whine of a power wrench, hammering, tools clanking on a concrete floor and a radio playing seventies classics all spilled into Gannon’s ear.

  “Would Vic be there? Vic Trainor.”

  “Hang on. VIC! PHONE!”

  Gannon heard “Born to Run” before the line was picked up.

  “Trainor, how can I help you?”

  “Mr. Trainor, this is Jack Gannon. I’m a freelance reporter in Buffalo. I’m researching Bernice Hogan’s murder and Jolene Peller’s disappearance.”

  Trainor said nothing.

  “Sir, you may know that there’s some question of Karl Styebeck being involved in these cases.”

  The noise of the shop filled Gannon’s pause before he continued.

  “I know he’s your ex-partner and I was wondering if you might have a moment to talk to me, confidentially, about his background?”

  A moment passed.

  “You know,” Gannon said, “kind of enlighten me a little about him.”

  Maybe it was the rhythm of Trainor’s breathing, or something emanating through the line, but Gannon sensed that years of pent-up bitterness had been made molten and started to ooze from him.

  “Go along the river about three miles south of the Falls, across the street from the Mobil. There’s a place called Rachel’s. Meet me there tomorrow at one. I’ll be wearing a T-shirt that says Golden Eagle on it.”

  Rachel’s Diner was a clean, quiet place run by a long line of owners since it opened in the fifties. An original neon beer sign hung inside the entrance where Gannon spotted Trainor alone in a booth.

  “Vic?”

  Trainor studied Gannon, nodded then shook his hand.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Gannon said.

  Trainor’s eyes were cold black cherries. His muscular arms were laced with tattoos and a stud earring glinted in his left lobe. Whatever special hell ex-cops endured in prison, Vic Trainor had emerged a harder man.

  “I can give you fifteen minutes.” Trainor took a hit of coffee.

  Gannon waved off a menu from the waitress.

  The only thing he wanted was information.

  “Let’s get to it then. Tell me what I should know about Styebeck.”

  Trainor snorted, turned to the window and contemplated the Mobil station across the street.

  “He set me up because I’d learned the truth about him. He’s whacked.”

  “The truth? Do you mind if I take notes?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “So what’s the truth?”

  “He was banging young hookers and feeding them dope,” Trainor said. “He’s a cobra. Keep your distance from him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, it’s a long story, but I knew what he was doing when we were partners. He claimed he was getting good intel from his CI’s but I knew he was getting more than that. I knew the truth about him.”

  “Did you threaten to expose him?”

  “No. First I told him to shape up, that he was risking his job, family, everything. Then bam, before I know it I’m being read my rights. Erie County’s finding drugs in my home, my locker, my car. I’m dead. It’s over.”

  “But couldn’t you have told Erie County what you knew?”

  “I tried. Nothing I had could be used in my case, never allowed in court. And none of the girls would confirm a word because they feared Karl.” Trainor looked out the window. “And I had a complaint from my university days, got drunk and shoved my girlfriend. Styebeck had that. Man, he had me by the balls and squeezed because I threatened to expose the hero as drug-dealing scum.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “He was an iceman. When we were partnered he rarely spoke, barely acknowledged me. But he’d stop at nothing to save himself.”

  “What about now? Didn’t the detectives come to you for help on the Hogan murder?”

  “That’s funny. I’m an ex-con, an ex-cop with an ax to grind. Ain’t nobody coming to me. Besides, I’d refuse. I want nothing to do with any of them. I lost my wife, my kids, my job to a system that thinks the sun rises and sets on Karl Fucking Styebeck.”

  “Can you tell me anything about Styebeck’s past, his family?”

  “I gotta go.”

  “Wait, please. I’d heard he blamed his father for his troubles.”

  Trainor glanced at his watch.

  “There was this one time. We were sitting on a house, waiting in the car all night. Karl starts opening up to me about how his old man was a guard on the execution team in Texas and was responsible for some terrible tragedy that haunted Karl every day of his life. He blamed his old man for his own problems.”

  “Any idea what the tragedy was?”

  “Nope, he clammed right up, like he’d said too much. Went back to being an iceman.”

  “Do you know his father’s name, or when this happened?”

  Trainor shook his head.

  “All I know is there’s something seriously wrong with Karl Styebeck. I’ve read your stories. Sooner or later it’s all going to come to an end. My question is, how many people will he take with him?”

  35

  The night after Brent and Esko had taken a run at him, Karl Styebeck was in his garage making preparations.

  He wrapped duct tape around a small box he’d covered with a plastic trash bag, grabbed a shovel and
a flashlight then headed into his backyard.

  Brent, Esko, Gannon; all of them were getting close. But he remained calm. He wouldn’t get a lawyer. That would look like he had something to hide. He’d volunteer, cooperate.

  Then he would do whatever he had to do.

  His shovel bit into the earth behind the shrubs at the far corner where he started digging.

  Everything he’d built was at risk.

  Like a ghost, Orly had stepped from his past and intruded into his life, threatening to pull him back down into the world he’d buried long ago…Back to…1964 in Huntsville, Texas…

  Karl and his younger brother, Orion, were in the empty prison cemetery, known as Peckerwood Hill.

  White crosses pierced the morning mist.

  The boys stood before a grave, freshly dug by inmates for Vernon Lugo, sentenced to die for murdering two Dallas police officers in a bank robbery.

  Karl was nine years old. Orly—nobody called him Orion, except their mother when she got impatient with him—was seven.

  Their daddy, Deke Styebeck, towered over them, contemplating the hole and the neat mound of red earth on the well-tended green grass. Deke was now boss of the execution team that would take Lugo to the electric chair.

  “Boys, I brought you here to teach you something important before it’s too late. Do you know from your bible class where evil comes from?”

  “Hell, Daddy,” Orly said. “Evil comes from hell.”

  “That’s right. And it’s my sworn duty to send evil back to hell. For the likes of Vernon Lugo the doorway is through this grave. And I guarantee you, come tomorrow, Vernon Lugo is going to pass through it.”

  Deke considered his sons, deciding that now was the time; they were old enough. Bending his knees, he lowered himself.

  “Karl. Orly. You’re going to find out soon enough that in this life, some people are defective. They come into the world damaged, not fully human on the inside, like Vernon Lugo, and most of them others out at Ellis on death row. These men have done evil, such terrible evil that the law has sentenced them to pay with their life for the wrong they’ve done, for all the hurt they’ve caused. That’s what we call a death sentence. And I am authorized by this great state to ensure the sentence is carried out. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, sir,” Orly said.

  “Never forget, I am at war with evil. Now there’s talk that up in Washington they’re fixin’ to change the law. My hope is that reason will prevail, but what’s going on is all politics and not for us to worry over, understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Orly said.

  “I brung you here to promise me on this spot today that, no matter what happens, when you grow up you will carry on my battle to remove the blight of evil. It is a righteous lifetime job and I want you to do your daddy proud.”

  “I promise, daddy,” Orly said.

  “Good.”

  Deke placed his big hands on their little shoulders, the same hands that would position Vernon Lugo into the electric chair, which everyone in Huntsville called “Old Sparky.”

  “Karl, you’re being awfully silent. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m just wondering, is all.”

  “About what?”

  “Daddy, how does it feel when you kill them in Old Sparky?”

  The question stung.

  Blood drained from Deke’s face. The warmth of his hands on his sons’ shoulders turned cold as he removed them, stood and gazed upon the crosses, reflecting on all the condemned men he’d dispatched.

  “I don’t kill anyone,” he said. “I carry out the court’s order. I do what the people want, according to the law of the land.” He looked at Karl. “But if truth be told, I feel it is a privilege and a great honor to wield the sword of justice.”

  The sword came down the next day.

  Vernon Lugo gave the last of his private property—a radio, a watch, a model ship—to other death-row inmates at Ellis Unit, located on the old Smither Farm. Then Deke’s team put him in shackles and got him into a prison truck. It rolled beyond the dark river, the forest and farmland. No one spoke. All that was heard in the truck was the clink ofLugo’s chains for some twelve miles as they traveled south to Huntsville.

  At The Walls, they placed him in the death house and under the death watch.

  When Lugo’s time came, the warden told him all legal avenues to delay his sentence had been exhausted. The governor would not intervene. Lugo had to face his fate like a man. As Deke Styebeck and his team walked him from his death cell toward the gray steel door, it opened to the small room with the electric chair. Lugo’s legs gave out, but Deke and his men kept him standing, kept him walking.

  Then Deke and his team strapped Lugo into Old Sparky. The electric generator hummed like a requiem hymn as the chaplain read from the Bible.

  When Deke finished inspecting all the straps, he whispered into Lugo’s ear, “I’m sending you back to hell where you’ll burn for all eternity.”

  Moments later, the warden read the sentence then nodded for the switch to be thrown. Lugo’s eyes bulged and his body fought in vain against the restraints. Then the doctor pressed his stethoscope to Lugo’s steaming chest and confirmed death had arrived.

  A thunderstorm let loose afterward as Deke walked in triumph to the administration building with the paperwork. Another one done. He glanced back at the prison’s gothic clock tower three stories above the north entrance. Sheets of rain raked across the brick walls, turning the runoff red.

  As if the building were bleeding.

  I have seen the glory, Deke thought.

  A hearse delivered Lugo’s body to the local funeral home. No one claimed his remains. His body was put into a suit then a coffin, both of which were made in prison shops.

  Then, just as Deke had guaranteed, Lugo was interred in the very grave Karl and Orly had stared into at Peckerwood Hill. To the inmates who tended it, the graveyard was known as the cemetery of the unwanted and unloved.

  As was his custom after an execution, Deke affirmed his devotion to his duty by reading Scripture by candlelight with his wife, Belva.

  Sometimes they held hands as they read.

  But tonight, after Lugo was executed, Belva felt the first prickle of trouble coming from deep in the shadows of Deke’s eyes.

  “You going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

  “All this talk coming out of Washington about stopping the death penalty and we got Gaylon Melk next week. His lawyers just launched three last-minute appeals.”

  “Lawyers appeal all the time, Deke. And so far the law hasn’t changed. It’s not your worry.”

  “But I can’t help it, Bel, when you look at what he done. I swear it’s just eating me up inside, just tearing at me.”

  The next week came, bringing Melk’s death date closer. As no court had issued an order to delay, Deke’s team headed to Ellis to transfer Melk to The Walls.

  At this point, most inmates were usually resigned to their fate, scared but dignified in their cooperation. Not Melk. He sneered and smirked throughout the entire process. In the van he sang vulgar songs, grabbed his groin and taunted Deke and his men.

  “Shut up and behave!” Deke said.

  “Or what?” Melk giggled. “What will you do, boss?”

  As Melk laughed, Deke seethed, thinking about Melk’s crimes. He’d abducted three children, raped them, killed them, then decapitated them.

  Deke’s anger bubbled as he looked upon Melk, thinkingthat this “thing” disguised as a human being needed to be returned to hell.

  At The Walls, they put Melk into the death cell where he talked in hushed tones with his lawyers, two crusaders up from Austin. Melk declined a last meal or a visit from a spiritual adviser.

  Some twenty minutes before Melk’s execution was to take place, one of the two dedicated telephone lines rang. The warden took the call and absorbed the clerk’s message from the court of appeal.

  “Melk’s been stayed. The dis
trict judge says it’s all tied up with that Supreme Court business in Washington. Everybody stand down. Deke, allow your prisoner time with his attorneys before you transport him to Ellis.”

  Deke’s team escorted Melk into a small, secure room for five minutes of privacy with his lawyers. Melk’s whooping escaped into the hall.

  “What the hell’s that all about? His stay won’t last long.”

  “I don’t think that’s it so much,” J. D. Priddy, one of the guards, told Deke. “I read in the Houston Chronicle today that they figure all executions will soon be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.” Priddy watched Melk through the door’s secure viewing window. “Could mean a halt on all death sentences while they sort this out. Could mean commutation to life.”

  “What?”

  “Melk’s likely just got hisself a free ride,” Priddy said. “Likely what his lawyers are telling him right now, Deke.”

  “That’s not right.”

  Deke’s keys jingled as he unlocked the door.

  “Time’s up.”

  “Can we have a few more minutes?” one lawyer said.

  “Time is up, sir.”

  After the lawyers said their goodbyes and left the area with one of the guards, Deke and the other guards entered to collect their prisoner.

  “It’s a beautiful day.” Melk stood, thrust two middle fingers at Deke, exposed his jagged tobacco-stained teeth with a grin. “Ain’t nobody can touch me now, boss. I’m going to outlive your sorry low-paid dog ass and there’s not one damn thing you can do about it. And just think, them kids I done. They coulda been yours, boss, so you chew on that, then you can chew on this.”

  Before Melk could grab his groin, the room exploded with the sound of keys, shackles and snapping bones as Deke tackled Melk then beat him with his chair until the other guards pulled him off.

  Deke’s attack left Melk in a coma for seven days.

  Melk had cheated death twice but emerged a mute, for Deke’s beating permanently destroyed his ability to speak. Melk’s lawyers tried to have Deke criminally charged.

  They failed because the other guards said Melk “threatened” Deke.