American PI

by Jude Hardin

  “There’s no way that’s a coincidence,” I said. “They both came from the same donor number, and they both died on their twentieth birthday. Everett’s next. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  “Yet the police wouldn’t help you. That’s amazing.”

  “Seems that way to me too. They said there was no evidence that a crime had been committed. They’re idiots.”

  “I’ve been saying that for years,” Fatso said.

  We made it back to the address in Green Cove Springs. My Caprice was parked on the street in front of the house. Everything looked the same, except there was a newspaper on the front steps now. It was dark and quiet. Everyone was still asleep. Fatso steered the pickup into the open slot where it had been parked previously, and Mr. Ribkicker and the other three hoodlums rolled in a few seconds later. I climbed out of the truck. A dog barked in the distance.

  Fatso got out and walked around to where I was standing. Mr. Ribkicker joined us, while the others stayed by the bikes and passed around another joint.

  “What’s the plan?” Fatso said.

  “He’s up in two-B,” I said. “I think the three of us should just bust on in there like a SWAT team. Your stoners over there can wait outside in case Appleton gets away from us.”

  “How’s he going to get away from us?” Mr. Ribkicker said. “There’s no back door in these units, and I don’t think he’s going to jump out the window. It’s about a twenty-foot drop.”

  “He probably won’t get away, but I like to plan for contingencies. He might have a rope ladder. If I was a kidnapper and a murderer living on the second floor, I would have one. He might have a bazooka in there for all I know. Or a machinegun. That’s why I want to take him by surprise. I’m hoping he won’t have time to react.”

  “There’s safety in numbers,” Mr. Ribkicker said. “I say we all go up there. All six of us.”

  “We’ll do it Colt’s way,” Fatso said. “Grab the shotgun.”

  Mr. Ribkicker shrugged. “All right, boss. Whatever you say.”

  He opened the passenger’s side door of the pickup truck, reached behind the seat and pulled out a pump-action shotgun. It was an angry-looking weapon, with a pistol grip and a vented barrel and a ribbed fore stock. For some reason, I doubted that it had ever been used for skeet shooting or hunting.

  Mr. Ribkicker racked a shell into the chamber.

  “Let’s do this thing,” he said.

  Fatso instructed the other guys to spread out around the perimeter of the property. They seemed happy to comply. Actually, they just seemed happy. Period.

  Fatso, Mr. Ribkicker and I walked around to the front of the house and mounted the porch. Mr. Ribkicker lived there, so of course he had a key to the door. He slid it in and opened the deadbolt. The three of us walked inside. There was an ADT keypad on the wall by the door, its flashing red LED letting us know that we had sixty seconds before the alarm sounded.

  The sticker on the window wasn’t a bluff after all. It was a good thing I hadn’t tried to pick the lock. Mr. Ribkicker punched in the code, and then he and his twelve-gauge led the way up the stairs.

  I pulled my .38 from its holster, held it ready at my side.

  As far as I could tell, Fatso was unarmed.

  “Step aside,” he said.

  Mr. Ribkicker stepped out of the way, and Fatso rammed the door with his shoulder. He put all his weight into it. The jamb splintered and before I knew it we were inside the apartment and Mr. Ribkicker was shouting for the man standing there in boxer shorts to get on the floor. He didn’t have to say it twice.

  Appleton lay facedown with his hands laced behind his head. It seemed that he knew the drill. A quick look around told me that he was alone in the apartment.

  “I’m clean,” he said. “I swear, man, I haven’t touched the stuff for six months. No smack, no oxy, nothing.”

  He thought we were narcotics officers. I decided to let him go on thinking it.

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Tell us where your stash is, or we’re going to tear this place apart.”

  “Go ahead and tear it apart. You won’t find anything here.”

  I gave my newfound friends a nod, and they went to work. I didn’t care if Appleton had any drugs or not. I just wanted to put some fear into him, and of course I wanted to find Everett. Maybe he was tied and gagged in a closet, or under the bed or something.

  I stood there with my foot on Appleton’s back and my gun aimed at his head while Fatso and Mr. Ribkicker searched the apartment. It was a small pad, one bedroom and a kitchen and a living room and a bathroom. Fatso and Mr. Ribkicker made a nice show of turning the place upside down. They threw books from shelves and cushions from chairs and pots and pans from the kitchen cabinets. Mr. Ribkicker used a switchblade to slice open the ottoman. He pulled the stuffing out and threw it on the floor. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  When they were finished with everything, they met back in the living room. My foot was still resting on Appleton’s lumbar vertebrae, and my gun was still pointed at his head.

  Fatso held up a zippered plastic bag with a syringe and a spoon and three squares of aluminum foil in it.

  “This is all I found,” he said.

  I took the bag from him and stuffed it into my back pocket.

  “You checked the closets?” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “What about the attic?”

  “There’s no access to the attic from this apartment,” Appleton said.

  I dropped to one knee and pressed the barrel of my .38 against the back of his skull.

  “Where’s Everett Harbaugh?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Your offspring. The third child generated from your dealings with Klein Fertility a couple of decades ago. I know about Stephanie Vowels and Philip Davenport. Tell me where Everett is, or I’m going to splatter your brains all over this floor.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I pressed down harder with the gun barrel, digging the front sight into his scalp. Blood trickled down the side of his neck and dripped on the cheap area rug beneath him.

  “I’m talking about murder, asshole. You killed Stephanie and Philip on their twentieth birthday, and you’re planning to do the same to Everett. The more you try to deny it, the worse this is going to go for you.”

  “You talking about that website?” he said. “The Sibling Boards?”

  “Yeah. That’s where I put two and two together. From there, it only took a minimal amount of research and deductive reasoning. It’s over, Trent. You can die today, or you can start rotting in a jail cell today. It’s up to you. I know it’s not much of a choice, but one way or another, you’re going to—”

  “I registered on that site out of curiosity,” he said. “Just to see how many kids my sperm produced. I’m on there anonymously. I haven’t had any contact with any of those people.”

  “Right,” I said. “So it’s just a coincidence that Stephanie and Philip share your DNA, and it’s just a coincidence that they were killed the day they turned twenty, and it’s just a coincidence that Everett, who also shares your DNA, went missing four days before he turned twenty. That’s a lot of coincidences, Trent. Wouldn’t you say so?”

  “Go ahead and arrest me. I’m not saying anything else without my attorney being present. I have rights, and you’re not going to treat me like a piece of dirt. Even if I am on probation.”

  “Here’s a newsflash for you, Trent. We’re not cops. I’m a private investigator, and my friends here are members of a motorcycle gang. So we can’t arrest you, and we’re not overly concerned about your rights at this point.”

  “I’m going to sue every last one of you,” he said.

  “You’re not going to sue anyone. You’ll be lucky to make it through the day alive. Just tell me where Everett is, and I’ll hand you over to the police. They’ll go a lot easier on you than we will. I can promise you that.”

  “I don’t know any
one named Everett. I didn’t kidnap anyone, and I didn’t kill anyone. And that’s the truth.”

  “Let’s take him to the clubhouse,” Mr. Ribkicker said. “If he knows anything, we’ll get it out of him.”

  “Is that what you want?” I said to Appleton. “You want these guys to have a go at you? Personally, I’m opposed to torture as a means of interrogation, but it’s almost like we don’t have a choice with you. Just tell me what I want to know now, and you can avoid a world of hurt.”

  “If I knew anything, I would tell you,” he said.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance,” I said. “And then I’m going to turn you over to Fatso and his friend here. Where is he, Trent? Where is Everett Harbaugh?”

  He didn’t say anything. He started sobbing like a little kid. Mr. Ribkicker kicked him in the thigh with the toe of his boot, and he started sobbing even louder.

  “How do you want to handle this?” Fatso said.

  “Let’s get him outside and into the truck while it’s still dark,” I said. “Did you guys find any rope or duct tape or anything while you were tossing the place?”

  Fatso thought about it. “Be right back,” he said.

  Mr. Ribkicker lit a cigarette. He offered me one, and I took it. Another Kool Super Long. The smoke was thick and cold and it made me cough. He pulled out a small bag of weed and loaded some into the bowl of a glass pipe, what they call a carburetor. He lit the bowl and took a long drag and passed it to me. I don’t usually partake, but I needed something to steady my nerves. I took one hit and then passed it back to Mr. Ribkicker. He finished it off, tapped the ashes out and put the pipe back into his vest pocket.

  Fatso returned with a spool of dental floss and a box of trash bags and a roll of Scotch tape. He used the floss to tie Appleton’s hands behind his back. He looped it around about a dozen times and tied it tight, and then he did the same with his ankles.

  “What are the trash bags for?” I said.

  “I thought we’d wrap him up. Just in case someone rides by or looks out a window while we’re loading him into the truck.”

  “I have a better idea. Let’s just roll him up into the rug and carry him out that way. I saw it on a movie one time.”

  “That’ll work,” Fatso said.

  He pulled a red bandana out of his back pocket and forced it into Appleton’s mouth. He secured it by wrapping Scotch tape around his head several times. He and Mr. Ribkicker positioned Appleton to one side of the rug and rolled him up inside it, like the cream filling inside a Ho Ho.

  Not a great comparison, but I was hungry, and a Ho Ho sounded good. Or a Twinkie. A Twinkie and a cup of coffee would have been splendid.

  Mr. Ribkicker knotted some trash bags together and used them to tie the rug in three places.

  “I think we’re ready,” he said.

  “I need to take a leak before we go,” Fatso said.

  While Fatso was in the bathroom, I took one of the trash bags to the pantry and foraged for something to eat. There wasn’t much. I grabbed a box of saltines and a bag of beef jerky, and I found a six-pack of Mountain Dew in the refrigerator. I stuffed a few of the crackers into my mouth and chugged one of the soft drinks before leaving the kitchen.

  By the time I got back to the living room, Fatso and Mr. Ribkicker were carrying Trent Appleton out the door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Ironically, The Five Points Posse’s clubhouse was not in Five Points. It was on the Westside, not far from Laurie’s apartment. I followed Fatso and the guys in my rented Caprice. I ate some more crackers and some beef jerky and I drank another Mountain Dew. The marijuana Mr. Ribkicker had turned me on to was some of the most potent I’d ever run across. I hadn’t smoked any weed in a long time, so I didn’t have much tolerance for it. One hit, and I was stoned to the bone. It had given me a severe case of the munchies, and it had made me sleepy. The caffeine in the soda helped me stay alert, but I knew it would only go so far. I was going to need some sleep soon, or something stronger to keep me awake.

  Mr. Ribkicker backed the pickup truck into the driveway and opened the garage door remotely. I pulled in behind him. Fatso parked his Harley on the yard. The other three guys didn’t show up. I guess Fatso gave them the rest of the day off.

  I climbed out of the car and walked up to the garage. Mr. Ribkicker had already opened the tailgate and the hatch to the topper. He and Fatso were standing there waiting. Trent Appleton was still rolled up inside the rug. The three of us carried him inside, and then Mr. Ribkicker hit the switch to close the door.

  “You think he’s still alive?” Fatso said.

  “He better be,” I said. “If he dies, Everett dies.”

  I didn’t know that for sure, but I figured it was a safe bet. When you’re dealing with a cunning sociopath, you have to think like a cunning sociopath. Everett was probably hidden in a place where nobody would ever find him. An abandoned warehouse or a storage unit or a boarded-up gas station. He was probably bound and gagged, starved and dehydrated, knowing death was coming and hoping it would hurry up. The only way to save him was to make Appleton talk.

  Mr. Ribkicker cut the trash bags with his switchblade and unrolled the rug with his foot. Appleton was naked except for the boxer shorts. He had a panicked look on his face, and his lips were blue.

  “Get the rag out of his mouth,” Fatso said.

  Mr. Ribkicker cut the tape and pulled out the red bandana. Appleton started wheezing, gasping for breath. His body was beaded with sweat, and he was shivering all over.

  “You ready to tell me where Everett Harbaugh is?” I said.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “If you don’t tell me, my friends are going to do very bad things to you. You will break, eventually, so you might as well save yourself the agony.”

  He started sobbing again. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” he said.

  I decided to try a different approach. Appleton was a junkie. The three squares of aluminum foil in his plastic bag were wrapped around three balls of black tar heroin. As a musician, I’d seen it plenty of times. It was the cheapest stuff you could get on the street, and addicts longed for it like babies long for milk from their mother.

  “When was the last time you had a shot?” I said.

  “Last night. Right before I went to bed.”

  “I have your stuff out in my car.”

  “I need it,” he said. “I’ll die if I don’t have it.”

  “You won’t die, but you’ll be very uncomfortable. You’ll sweat and shake and vomit and hallucinate. So maybe that’s the answer to getting you to talk. We’ll just leave you here in the garage for a while. I’ve seen guys go cold turkey before. It’s not a pretty sight.”

  “I need my shot,” he said.

  “I know you do, Trent. But you’re not going to get it until you tell me where Everett Harbaugh is.”

  “I can’t feel my fingers,” he said. “Please untie my hands.”

  “I’ll untie you and get you some clothes, and I’ll bring your smack in so you can shoot up. But first you have to tell me what I need to know.”

  Mr. Ribkicker walked to the workbench on the other side of the garage. He grabbed a propane torch and a metal striker to light it with.

  “This is bullshit,” he said.

  He opened the valve on the torch and squeezed the striker, and a blue flame appeared at the end of the nozzle.

  “What are you going to do?” I said.

  “I’m going to start with the pinky toe on his left foot. I’m going to roast it like a marshmallow, make it all bubbly and black. If he still won’t talk, I’ll move on to the next toe. And the next. Then, when I run out of toes, I’ll do the whole left foot. Then I’ll start on the right side.”

  Mr. Ribkicker knelt down at Trent Appleton’s feet. Appleton started bucking and thrashing and turning side to side and screaming.

  “Please,” he said. “Please don’t hurt me.”

&nb
sp; “Stuff that rag back in his mouth,” Mr. Ribkicker said. “And hold him down for me.”

  As much as I wanted to find Everett Harbaugh, I didn’t think burning Trent Appleton’s feet off was the answer. People being tortured will say all kinds of things, just to make the pain stop. Appleton might give up Everett’s location, or he might send me on a wild goose chase. If he gave me some bogus information about Everett’s whereabouts, it would only waste more time. Time that Everett didn’t have. I wanted to try withholding Appleton’s dope for a while. If that didn’t work, I doubted anything else would either.

  “Let’s just slow down for a minute,” I said. “We’ll leave him out here and let him sweat for a while. Once he starts jonesing bad enough, he’ll talk. I guarantee it.”

  Fatso ignored me. He sat on the floor and stuffed the bandana back into Appleton’s mouth. My heart skipped a beat, and then it started pounding against my chest wall like a mallet. I didn’t want this to happen.

  “Hold him down,” Mr. Ribkicker said.

  “Not a problem.”

  Fatso straddled Appleton and held his legs down with his hands. Fatso’s enormous rear end was resting on Appleton’s stomach, and Appleton looked like he might pass out before the torture session ever got started.

  But he didn’t.

  Mr. Ribkicker held the flame on the pinky toe of Appleton’s left foot. The bandana in Appleton’s mouth muffled his screams, but the sound coming from his gut seeped through horrifically, like some kind of large animal caught in the bone-crunching teeth of a steel trap. In a matter of seconds, the toe went from pink to red to blister-white.

  At that point, Mr. Ribkicker shut the flame off.

  “Don’t want to burn it too much,” he said. “It’ll kill all the nerve endings. If he won’t talk now, I’ll go ahead and blacken that toe and move on to the next one.”

  Fatso climbed off, turned around and pulled out the bandana. A series of high-pitched gurgling sounds escaped through Appleton’s clenched teeth. His neck muscles were strained and corded.

  “Where’s the Harbaugh kid?” Fatso said.

  Appleton shook his head frantically. His nose was running and his eyes were full of tears.