Vengeance Road

by Rick Mofina

  He was close. So close he could feel it.

  Gannon inhaled then went to the living-room window and searched for answers on the rooftops of his neighborhood.

  Earlier this morning, the Chicago Tribune, following the New York Times, reported that the FBI was looking into links between a Chicago truck stop and the murder of Carrie May Fulton.

  Other reporters were gaining on him. It was only a matter of time before someone put everything together.

  His line rang. Pruitt had called back.

  “My daughter said she cannot help you with Orly Styebeck, but she seemed interested in the new tragedies you’d mentioned. Her name is Crystal Palmer. She’s at work at Ranger River Psychiatric Center. It’s just outside of Houston. She’s the assistant director of admissions. Here’s her direct line.”

  “Thank you.”

  Gannon took down the number then called.

  “Crystal Palmer.”

  “This is Jack Gannon, I’m a freelance writer.”

  “Yes, Mr. Gannon.” Her voice was authoritative, officious. Her bureaucratic defense shields were up.

  “I’m hoping you might be able to help me, in the strictest confidence, on the case of Orion Styebeck.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m forbidden by policy and law to confirm, or discuss, the files of any patients, Mr. Gannon.”

  “I understand, but as you may know, my inquiry arises from recent and disturbing tragedies that should interest you.”

  “No. As I said, I am forbidden from discussing our patients. I just wanted to make that clear to you. Have a nice day, Mr. Gannon.”

  “Wait. Please. I’ll put all my cards on the table.”

  “I really don’t have the time.”

  “This is extremely important. It’s information you should know.”

  She sighed. “Please be brief.”

  “Thank you. And I’ll ask you to keep this confidential,” he said.

  Gannon began with the discovery of Bernice Hogan’s body and the link to Karl Styebeck, leaving nothing out, including his own firing. He told Palmer about Deke Styebeck’s disturbing past in Canada and why he needed to know more about Orly.

  “Do you have access to the Web?” Gannon asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “Go to these links, write them down.”

  “Mr. Gannon, I really don’t think—”

  “Please, it’s important and it won’t take long. Go to them now.”

  One by one Palmer clicked on stories about Bernice Hogan’s murder, Karl Styebeck, Jolene Peller’s disappearance, the mention of a mystery rig, Carrie May Fulton’s murder in Kansas, articles in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times.

  Gannon thought he’d heard Palmer’s breathing quicken as she scanned through the stories.

  “Now, you know more about Orly Styebeck than I do,” Gannon said, “because you have his file. I need you to understand that two women are dead, a third, a single mom with a three-year-old son, is missing. All have a link to Karl Styebeck. All I am asking for is information about his brother, Orly, a man I’m trying to find right now. Of course your inclination is to not help me. When I hang up, you’ll say, I’ve done my job, I’ve protected a patient’s rights. And when another woman’s corpse is found somewhere, you can tell yourself one more time, well at least I did my job and protected a patient’s rights. And you can keep telling yourself that for the rest of your life. As you try to blot out images of grieving families at grave sites, you can be assured that at least your files were kept safe.”

  “Mr. Gannon—”

  “All I am asking for, Ms. Palmer, is a summary of Orly Styebeck’s case and information on where I can find him.” He squeezed the phone. “Let me repeat, Ms. Palmer. Two women are dead, a third is missing. Now, it is clear by the fact I am unemployed that I protect sources, that I believe sometimes we must consider who we protect and who we hurt when we serve bureaucracy blindly and without question. I’m begging you to help me. If you need a reason, go back to those stories and look at the photos, the faces of the women who are now in the ground.”

  A long silence passed.

  “Mr. Gannon, call me back in two minutes on another number….”

  66

  All of the official inflexibility melted from Crystal Palmer’s voice when she answered on the second line.

  She spoke firmly but from her heart. “Losing my job for telling you what I’m going to tell you is the least of my worries.”

  “I understand.”

  “No one must know where you obtained this information, understood?”

  “Understood.”

  Gannon heard the clicking of keys on a computer keyboard.

  “About eleven months ago, Orion came to us complaining about hallucinations arising from his family’s history, a type of prolonged-grief reaction to his father Deke’s death. He died suddenly a few years after losing his job as a correctional officer in Huntsville, where he escorted condemned prisoners to their executions. Orion said it was primarily the fact his mother was ill and dying that resulted in his voluntary admission. He was subsequently counseled, treated and, after three weeks, released.”

  “Is there anything in there about his brother, Karl?”

  “He was estranged from Karl after his father’s death. It was a source of continued anguish for him and his mother.”

  “Was Orion violent when he was with you?”

  “Not physically, but he was verbally abusive to the female staff. Some patients are, but we cope with that.”

  “What did he say, specifically?”

  The keyboard clicked.

  “He called the doctors whoremongers, and the nurses, dirty whores who were guilty of sins for which they would be judged. I’m afraid I have a meeting. That is all I can tell you.”

  Gannon was taking notes.

  “One last thing. I need to ask, is Orion Styebeck’s profession listed? I assumed he was a guard or cop.”

  “Orion Styebeck is a truck driver. An independent, numbered company known as, wait—” Clicking on the keyboard. “It’s Swift Sword.”

  Gannon froze.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered to himself.

  “Mr. Gannon?”

  “Do you have an address?”

  “Yes, he’s renting near Lufkin, Texas, north of Houston. Here it is.”

  Gannon took it down, thanked Palmer.

  After hanging up he cupped his face in his hands.

  That’s it.

  The last piece had fallen into place. Everything aligned. Everything fit. Styebeck’s connection was through Orly, his truck-driving brother in Texas.

  This was it.

  It had to be.

  Karl was either protecting his brother, or working with him.

  He had to go to Texas to find Orly.

  And fast, before somebody else beat him to it.

  67

  That afternoon, the streets surrounding the Styebeck home were sealed off by the Ascension Park police, the Buffalo PD and the Erie County Sheriff’s Office.

  All traffic was diverted from the area.

  Officers refrained from using lights and sirens as they evacuated residents from neighboring homes in the line of fire. Police then set up an outer perimeter, clearing the way for the Buffalo FBI’s SWAT team.

  FBI sharpshooters settled into concealed, close-range locations and took aim at the doors and windows of the Styebeck house. Other SWAT members, clad in black armor, quietly took cover points against the house at the front, sides, back and garage.

  An eerie calm fell over the property.

  FBI SWAT commander Ben DeVoss observed it through binoculars from the hood of the command-post truck, among a clutch of other police vehicles down the street.

  He turned to state police investigators Michael Brent and Roxanne Esko who had the warrant. The tactical arrest was needed, given that Styebeck was a cop and possessed weapons.

  DeVoss made a number of whispered radio checks.

 
Everyone was ready. He nodded to Agent Daly, the SWAT negotiator.

  “Make the call, Kern.”

  Daly called the number and after three rings a woman answered. Daly pressed her and she identified herself as Styebeck’s wife, Alice.

  “This is Special Agent Kern Daly of the FBI. We have a warrant for the arrest of Karl Styebeck—”

  “Arrest?” Muffled anguish passed between them. “Arrest for what?”

  “Ma’am, that will be explained to Mr. Styebeck. Right now, we advise that Mr. Styebeck immediately come to the front door with his hands raised, palms forward, and proceed to the front lawn.”

  The request was met by a long silence then sniffles.

  “He’s not here,” Alice said.

  They always say that, Daly thought, and had the nearest squad car sound a siren three times then repeated his request.

  “This has to be a mistake. I told you, he’s gone. This is crazy!” Her voice was cracking. “I don’t know where he is. Please go away, you’re scaring me. Please. Just go away.”

  “How many people are in the house, ma’am?”

  “Just me. My son’s at school. Leave us alone!” she sobbed. “I have to find my husband!”

  “Ma’am, I want you to take a couple of deep breaths,” Daly said. “For your safety, could you please exit now through the front door with your hands outstretched, palms facing forward, and we can talk.”

  Alice took a long moment to find a measure of composure then she cooperated.

  The FBI took her into custody and into the command post while the SWAT team did a tactical room-by-room search of her home.

  Distraught and trembling in the command-post truck, she told Brent, Esko and the FBI the little she knew.

  “I don’t understand anything. Karl left in the night yesterday. Or maybe it was the night before. Oh dear God.” She thrust her face into her hands and shook her head. “He didn’t talk to me about it, or say where he was going. Or why. He’s been under so much pressure. It all started with that horrible story in the paper, accusing Karl of murder!” She touched the back of her hands to her eyes. “He tried so hard to help you, to help with the investigation.”

  Esko exchanged an “are-you-buying-this-crap” glance with Brent as Alice Styebeck continued.

  “I’m so scared. We have to find him. All he left was this note.”

  She withdrew a folded piece of blue-lined schoolbook paper bearing the handwritten note:

  I’m so sorry, I have to do this. I’ll be back to explain.

  I love you. Karl.

  Radios crackled with an update from the FBI SWAT-team leader in the Styebeck home.

  “The residence, garage and yard are clear. No one else here.”

  Alice searched the sober faces staring at her.

  “What is my husband charged with?”

  Karl Styebeck had slipped through their fingers.

  Brent’s anger strained the car’s interior as Esko drove them back to Clarence Barracks. His rage pulsed under his taut jaw, but they rode without speaking. No words would help. Every creak, rattle and bump emphasized what had happened: a supreme failure.

  For Brent, it was a matter of having to tell Bernice Hogan’s mother, Candace Rose in Wichita, and detectives in Hartford, that Styebeck, the key to clearing the case, had fled.

  After two hours of questioning Alice Styebeck, further checks with their bank, credit-card companies, phone and computer records, Brent was satisfied she knew nothing about her husband’s sudden disappearance.

  Styebeck knew how to vanish without a trace.

  Now, it was all Brent could do to keep from driving his fist through the windshield.

  “Mike,” Esko started. “We’ll find him. We’ll blast out a bulletin, the FBI will put him on their Most Wanted. We’ll find him.”

  Brent said nothing. Esko shook her head.

  “It was Kincaid, Mike, holding us back, playing games.”

  “No, Rox. It was me. I should have pushed back.” Brent looked at the world rushing by his window. “It was me. I dropped the ball.”

  Within one minute of their return to their office, Lieutenant Hennesy approached their desk.

  “It’s all bullshit, Mike. The captain’s on the phone to Kincaid’s boss.”

  Brent was removing his jacket and draping it over his chair.

  “Call Walt Stanton in Hartford,” Hennesy said.

  “They know already?”

  “I don’t know. Stanton left a message, wants to talk to you ASAP.”

  After Hennesy left, Brent looked to Esko, who shrugged and opened the couriered envelope she’d received earlier. She’d meant to open it sooner, but they got consumed by the planning to arrest Styebeck.

  Brent turned on his computer, then called Stanton in Connecticut, expecting a lot of grief at the other end. As it rang he glanced at Esko, who was studying documents with growing interest.

  “Hartford Homicide, Stanton.”

  “Walt, it’s Mike Brent. I guess you heard, Styebeck’s a fugitive from us.”

  “Yeah, tough break but we’ve got something here that might help.”

  “We could sure use a break right now. What do you have?”

  “I’ve sent you a file our ID guys just finished. Did you get it?”

  “Hold on.”

  Brent slipped on his bifocals, searched his e-mail, found the file and opened it. It was a slide show of stills taken from a security camera.

  “Got it. Pictures.”

  “Right. Taken from the truck stop near where Carrie May Fulton was last seen. The managers there are very good about keeping security footage. We scoured their archived stuff and compared it with the date and time the call was placed to Karl Styebeck’s home in Buffalo.”

  “Right.” Brent was encouraged. He glanced to Esko whose interest in the file she was examining was intensifying.

  “See, Mike,” Stanton was saying from Connecticut, “the cameras are superior quality. They picked up the guy at the public phone who made the call.”

  Tall, well-built guy in a checkered shirt, jeans and expensive-looking cowboy boots.

  “This is good,” Brent said.

  “Keep going through the pictures. See, they also picked up our guy walking to his truck, checking a side inspection door of his trailer. See?”

  “Yup.”

  “Now, Ident did some real nice work enhancing the frames, but see the name on the door of the truck?”

  “Swift Sword.”

  “We got the tag, too. The truck is registered to—”

  Karl Styebeck’s military records, a set not available to the public, plopped on Brent’s desk.

  “It’s his brother, Mike!” Esko said. “He’s got a brother. Orion Styebeck. He’s a trucker! I don’t know how we missed it.” Esko placed her hands on her hips and paced. “Something about a doubled letter in the spelling in Karl Styebeck’s name and one number on his SSN being off. I bet Karl did that, but it’s all there in his military records. No mention of Orion in his Ascension Park file. He’s been protecting his freaking brother!”

  “Hello?” Stanton said. “You still there, Mike?”

  “Go ahead, Walt.”

  “The truck is registered to a numbered company, which is registered to Orion Styebeck in Texas. Lufkin, Texas.”

  68

  After packing, Gannon took a cab to the airport.

  At the counter, he asked the airline-ticket clerk to get him on the next flight to Houston.

  “I need to be there now.”

  “Certainly, sir.” The clerk launched into swift keyboard tapping. “We may have something.”

  Gannon’s cell phone rang. It was Adell Clark.

  “Jack, where are you?”

  “At the airport. I thought you were out of town.”

  “I just got back. Things are happening. Big things.”

  “I know,” Gannon said. “What’ve you got?”

  “They’ve found another victim. White female.”
<
br />   “Another one? Where?”

  “California. In a remote part of the Sierra Nevada. I’ve got friends at the San Francisco Field Office. They’re moving fast on this one. They checked ViCAP then called Wichita. It’s fresh, brazen display, same pattern. A hiker found her.”

  “They ID the victim? Is it Jolene?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s more. They moved on Styebeck but lost him.”

  “Lost him?”

  “He’s gone. They’d sent Tactical to his home with a warrant.”

  “He’s been charged?”

  “With accessory in the Hogan and Fulton cases. But when they went to get him, he wasn’t home. Wife says he disappeared over a day ago.”

  “Where?”

  “No one knows. He’s going to make the FBI’s Most Wanted.”

  “He may be headed to Texas.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “Remember, Styebeck’s from Texas. He’s got family in Texas.”

  “What’s the connection?”

  “He’s got a brother there. The story’s in Texas and I’m trying to get there as fast as I can.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” the clerk interrupted Gannon. “I can get you on a flight that goes to Chicago with a very tight connection time for a flight to Houston. It’s boarding now. No time to check in bags.”

  “I heard that, Jack,” Clark said. “Get going and call me if I can help you with anything.”

  “Thanks. Yes, I’ll take that flight. I’ve only got carry-on.”

  “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

  The clerk reached for the phone and alerted the crew, then worked full bore to get Gannon his boarding pass. He rushed from the desk, excused his way through the lines and cleared security in minutes.

  69

  Some thirteen hundred miles away, on a back road south of Oklahoma City, Polly Lang warmed the coffee of her customer who sat alone, hunched over his map in the far booth of Tony’s Home-style Diner.

  Her steak, fries, Coke and coffee order.

  He was unshaven, wore a paint-stained ball cap and the haggard countenance of a man not to be messed with.