by L. T. Vargus
Less than twenty minutes after the news hit, a call came in from a motel manager claiming the brothers were currently renting a room in his establishment. When the operator asked if he knew what type of vehicle the brothers were driving — a detail they had not released to the press yet — the manager promptly identified the black Jeep Wrangler.
They were taking no chances with the motel room. In addition to the sharpshooters, three police helicopters were standing by in case the brothers attempted to flee. For the moment, everyone simply hoped they would take the Foleys by surprise.
The radio on the dash crackled and spit out a burst of chatter from the approaching SWAT team.
“You go to Sammy’s last night, Ron?”
“Nah, not last night. Phoebe had a dance recital.”
Despite the mundane topic, Darger heard the tension in those voices. The men were charged, practically hyper. It wasn’t a wonder why: The men they sought had killed a dozen people now. She hoped this would be the end of it, with no more bodies added to that toll.
Dawson had passed the binoculars to Loshak who now handed them off to Darger. She adjusted the width of the eyepieces to fit her face. Holding the lenses up to her eyes, she spun the focus until the features of the motel were crisp. Each room had a single window, a wall-mounted air conditioner, and a bright blue door. The units appeared identical apart from the brass room numbers. She scanned down the row until she found it. Room 113.
Through a crack in the shades, she could see that a lamp was on. And was it her imagination, or had the edge of the curtain fluttered slightly? Her skin prickled with anticipation.
The voices of the SWAT team filtered through the small space of the car.
“Gettin’ close, boys.”
“Yeah. Real close.”
“Hand me that flashbang.”
There was a sound like two pieces of Velcro being ripped apart. The yammering slowed now that they drew near.
“Alright, boys. Bring ‘em in.”
In her mind’s eye, Darger saw them all putting their fists together like a football team huddling before a game.
“You know the drill. Focus. Watch each other. Stay safe.”
“Make sure you’re chambered.”
The armored BearCat rolled into view and halted two doors down from the motel. Darger lowered the binoculars.
“Game time.”
The team hopped out, outfitted in their vests and helmets and other tactical gear. Each man carried an M4 carbine.
They formed a line on the sidewalk, each touching the shoulder of the guy in front of him. One man toted a Blackhawk battering ram.
“Let’s go.”
Each lifted his rifle, and they skulked toward the motel in single file.
“I got left,” one voice said. “Eyes on the left side.”
The group converged on room 113, and the man closest to the door hammered a fist against it.
“Police department! Search warrant!” A voice barked.
The officer at the door turned and nodded at two team members assigned to the window.
“Bust it.”
With a glassy explosion of sound, the front window burst into a thousand shards.
“Hit ‘em, Ron!”
One of the SWAT officers tossed something through the broken window. There was a loud pop and then a bright flash of orange light. Darger gasped until she remembered it was only a flash grenade.
“Go! Go! Go!”
The battering ram splintered the flimsy motel room door with a single blow.
Darger held her breath as the first member of the SWAT team stormed over the threshold.
Chapter 53
What seemed like more voices than went inside were suddenly shouting over the radio.
“With you!”
Another crash sounded inside, along with the thud of boots on the ground. Darger hated not being able to see what was happening. Were the brothers there or not?
“Bedroom’s clear!”
Her hopes sank a little, and then a frantic voice over the radio called out, “Get that door. Somebody get the bathroom door!”
“Right behind! I got it.”
A pause. Darger’s fingertips gouged divots into the padding of the seat in front of her.
There was another loud thump.
“Clear!”
Her chest constricted. Please at least let there be something they could use. A clue. Anything.
“One more.”
She sat up a little straighter again.
“Look right, I’ve got left.”
After what seemed like an eternity, the words came over the radio:
“All clear.”
“This is McIntosh. Place is clear. Oh! Dear God…”
Darger sprang out of the car. She couldn’t wait any longer.
The brothers weren’t there, but it was clear that SWAT found something in the motel room. What was it?
It occurred to her then that maybe they’d found no one alive inside.
Maybe they’d found their bodies. It would be over then.
That possibility propelled her over the parking lot with extra vigor. It felt strange for the prospect of finding corpses in the room to give her hope, but it would mean an end to the bloodshed.
As she approached the door, she heard the voices of the SWAT team still milling around inside.
“Thought you said it was clear, Bobby.”
“Huh?”
“You missed Andre the Giant over there.”
Several men laughed.
“Missed what?” one of the younger voices said.
Darger reached the door in time to see one of the men gesture toward the double bed with the stock of his rifle. In the center of the floral bedspread was a pile of human feces.
She wanted to scream. And to punch something. She settled for kicking at a dandelion sprouting up from the sidewalk. The fluffy seedpods took flight, floating through the air like miniature parachutes.
A hand clapped on her shoulder. She turned, and Loshak gave her a commiserating frown.
“Why’s it called a Andre the Giant?” the young man said.
“You’ve never heard of that?” Loshak asked, stepping up to the threshold.
The man’s black helmet shook back and forth.
“Well, there’s a famous story from years ago, back when professional wrestling was first taking off. Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant were staying in the same hotel, and one day Hogan got an urgent sounding phone call from Andre, demanding that he come to his room. When Hogan got there, he found a mammoth turd resting in the center of the bed, and there was Andre the Giant, rolling around on the floor laughing about his… output.”
Darger leaned against the white siding of the motel, crushed by defeat. They had failed again. Luke and Levi were on the move, planning their next attack. She knew it.
On the stoop, she could hear that the topic had moved away from the soiled bed. Now the SWAT guys were teasing the one who’d manned the battering ram.
“I thought you were gonna dive right on through with the ram, Jeff.”
“Yeah, I didn’t expect it to break so easy like that,” the man chuckled.
A third voice chimed in.
“Fifty-pound ram ain’t no match for a shitty particle board door like that. Might as well be taking a sledgehammer to a piece of cardboard.”
“Would’ve been hilarious if it just bounced off.”
More laughing reverberated in the small room.
“In other words, you get razzed if it’s fifteen hits to take down a door or one. You can’t win.”
Darger understood why the SWAT team was in high spirits. Their missions generally had one simple goal: get in and secure the scene without losing any of your guys. Having done that, they were in a celebratory mood.
It was another story for the investigators. They had reached yet another dead end.
Echoing in her mind were Detective Horst’s words from the previous morning.
&
nbsp; Diddly-fucking-squat.
Chapter 54
Once SWAT had cleared out, Darger joined her partner and Agent Dawson in the dank little room.
Loshak pulled a tape recorder from his pocket, and she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
“Started taking my notes dictation style,” he explained.
“Boldly leaping into 1986 technology, I see.”
He pursed his lips into a scowl.
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“I mean you could use your phone like everyone else,” she said, wiggling her cell in the air.
Loshak smirked.
“Thing about the phone is that then people call me and want to talk to me.”
She didn’t follow his logic. He still carried a phone. And he answered when she called. Usually.
“Does that mean when you don’t answer my calls, you’re ignoring me?” she asked.
He answered without hesitation.
“Sometimes.”
Darger scoffed, feigning offense. His face didn’t show an ounce of remorse.
Loshak pressed a button on the recorder, held the mic input to his mouth, and began to speak.
“We are in room 113 of the Forty Winks Motel just outside of Atlanta. It is four minutes after 8 AM on Sunday, July 30th.”
Loshak sniffed.
“Note the smell of charred paper intertwining with that of human feces.”
Darger turned, wrinkling her nose.
“Charred paper?”
“You don’t get a faint smokiness?”
She had been breathing through her mouth since they came in, trying to avoid any revolting odors. Now she inhaled fully through her nostrils. It was there, though. That acrid, ashy smell of burnt pulp.
A brief search revealed a metal garbage can next to the bed. There were scorch marks inside, along with bits of ash. And something clinging to the side. Darger called one of the techs over, and he removed the scrap with a pair of tweezers, placing it in a plastic baggie. She waited for him to enter it into the evidence log, and then he handed it back.
Darger, Loshak, and Agent Dawson clustered together, examining the shred of paper.
“Newspaper,” Loshak said. “Look at the perforated edge.”
“Why burn a newspaper?” Dawson asked.
“Maybe they were looking at their coverage, got sheepish.”
Darger met his eyes, and they exchanged a glance. No.
There were a few words visible beyond the blackened edge, but most were partial. She could read: “-ation” and part of a dot-com address. Nation? Population? Darger noticed something else about it, too.
She pointed out a thick line of ink that had soaked through both sides of the paper.
“Whatever it is, they circled it with a marker. Like the school newspapers we found in Levi’s closet.”
“We need to get copies of the local papers for the past few days so we can figure out what the hell they were so interested in,” Loshak said.
“I’m on it,” Agent Dawson said. “I’ll send someone to find a newsstand.”
From her pocket, Darger’s phone vibrated against her hip. She checked the screen. It was Owen Baxter. Impeccable timing.
She swiped the screen, ignoring the call. She needed to think. To focus. To figure out what the hell they were going to do next, because she was out of ideas.
The phone droned again, and it took every ounce of her willpower not to borrow the SWAT team’s battering ram to smash it into pieces.
Christ, she needed coffee. And sleep.
When the phone began to buzz a third time, she caved. She took a long, slow breath to keep from screaming an expletive into the receiver instead of a greeting.
“Owen, I’m a little busy right now.”
“I know. Come outside.”
“What?”
“Come outside the motel.”
She stepped to the door and saw Owen waving from behind the line of police tape. She hung up and crossed the lot.
“What are you doing here?”
“That’s a hell of a question. Why didn’t you call me and tell me you got a name? Or should I say names? I had to see this shit on the news this morning.”
He held up his phone with a story from one of the local papers.
“What was I supposed to do?” she asked.
“We both know you wouldn’t have gotten that name without me. You’re supposed to keep me in the loop.”
“When did I agree to that?”
“I thought it was unspoken. Damn it, Violet! I helped you out.”
She couldn’t deny that. “So what do you want from me now?”
“I want a peek inside that motel room.”
“You’re a civilian, Owen.”
“And these assholes shot my brother. I’m not looking to meddle in the investigation. I just… want to know nothing gets missed. I thought you of all people might understand that.”
She did, of course. And it wasn’t necessarily against any particular rule, a civilian being present at a crime scene. Fitzgerald wouldn’t like it, but fuck him. She could trust Owen to be discreet. Besides, another set of trained eyes couldn’t hurt.
Sensing her hesitation, Owen crossed his arms.
“If you won’t let me in, I’ll go ask Agent Dawson. You think she’ll be able to say no to this face?”
He blinked with wide-eyed innocence. Darger rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help but laugh a little too.
“Alright. But keep a low profile.”
She held the tape for him, and he ducked under.
“Much obliged, ma’am,” he said, flicking his fingers over his ear in an informal salute.
Darger led the way through a throng of law enforcement personnel, and Owen stuck close, not wanting to be separated.
They passed Loshak and Agent Dawson, who were huddled together over her phone. Still trying to figure out what newspaper the clipping in the trash can had come from, she figured.
Loshak glanced up at Darger, and she wondered what he’d think of Owen’s presence. But he only nodded absently at her and fell back into his conversation with Agent Dawson.
When Darger reached the motel room door, she paused at the threshold. There were two crime scene techs still working on lifting prints while Detective Horst directed a third technician in bagging the remaining evidence.
She swept a hand in front of her, gesturing for Owen to enter as if it were some kind of theme park attraction.
“After you,” she said. “And remember what I said.”
“Right, right. No touching, no pictures, no real names… oh wait, those are strip club rules.”
She scowled at him, and he responded with one of his devilish grins.
Owen stopped a few paces into the room and put his hands on his hips.
“You didn’t tell me there was an Andre the Giant in here.”
She snorted, wondering if she and the rookie kid on the SWAT team were the only two people on the planet that hadn’t heard of an Andre the Giant.
The heel of Darger’s boot had just made contact with the grubby motel carpet when room 113 exploded.
Chapter 55
The first sensation Violet felt was the spasm of her chest as she coughed followed by a choking dryness in her throat.
Thirsty.
She needed water.
Her eyelids fluttered and immediately closed again. Something like sand scraped over her corneas, and the sting caused her eyes to fill with tears. What the hell?
She swiped a hand over her cheek. She was covered in a fine layer of grit. And now it was in her eyes.
Violet looked down through the tears and noted the red-black smear of soot mixed with blood on her hand. And then she remembered the explosion.
The scene came into focus all at once, the surge of adrenaline clearing her head.
The bitter smell of burning carpet. The patter of debris falling back to the ground. And above all, the stifling cloud of smoke and dust tha
t hung about her.
She recalled something else then, and all thoughts of water or the burning of her eyes left her.
Owen. Owen had been right in front of her when the explosion knocked her flat.
Violet tried to move for the first time. She was on her side, snugged up against the tires of a police car. A chunk of foam from a mattress or maybe a couch lay across her legs, along with a few scraps of the bright blue door. She kicked the refuse away and rolled onto her stomach. The movement sent a sharp, blinding pain through her head, and she had to crawl forward instead of walking until it passed.
A car alarm blared somewhere off to her right, but her ears were ringing, making everything sound distant.
She pushed to her feet finally, still hunched against the throbbing sensation in her head. She found a pile of rubble. Boulders of concrete and bent lengths of rebar. A hand protruded from the wreckage, and Violet ran to it. She pulled away some of the smaller pieces of material, gasping at the sight she found. The right side of the body was a mangled horror show of blood and tissue. His arm was gone, as was most of his leg. The sticky pink coils of his intestines spilled out from his belly. And the blood. So much blood. The man’s face was unrecognizable, burned and battered beyond recognition. But it wasn’t Owen. By the vanilla swirl of hair on top of the head, she knew it was Detective Horst.
He was dead, she knew, but Violet checked the side of his neck for a pulse anyway. Nothing.
Moving on, she scrambled from one pile of ruins to the next. She found an arm. Only an arm. She tried not to panic.
A few feet away, a leg protruded from beneath a panel of drywall, still swathed in yellow insulation. The leg was clad in denim, and Violet knew it had to be him.
Clearing away the flotsam, she prayed the leg was not another severed body part, that Owen would be alive. The sheet rock thunked to the ground. Owen lay flat on his back, eyes closed. Instantly the image of Ethan in a similar position sprang to mind, and she dove to his side.
