He would do so, and afterwards, he’d flee to Florida and get the information he needed.
The walk to the Pierce home wasn’t a long one, but Owens was weak, and while the diarrhea had abated, the pain in his middle had grown stronger. He’d stopped along the way and had been standing in the woods, while leaning back against a tree, when Pierce drove by out on the road.
Amy’s car came into view seconds later, but then she had parked and cut off her engine.
When Owens saw that she was spying on Rick Pierce, he knew something was up, but couldn’t imagine what it could be. Whatever it was, Owens wanted to know more about it. He rushed back to his vehicle as fast as he could, and had just started the engine when he saw Amy’s headlights turn on in the distance.
Owens followed her back to her townhouse. He waited until she had time to go inside and settle in, and then he crept to the rear of her home and peeped in through a gap in a window blind.
Amy was pacing about her kitchen and looked as if she were debating something with herself. When she spoke, Owens thought she had detected his presence, but no, she was just talking to herself. Whatever her connection was to Ricardo Pierce, it was intense.
When Amy disappeared into another room, Owens walked around to the front and looked at the name on the mailbox, Amy Lowe.
Having gathered a name to go along with the face, Owens returned to his stolen car. He had been planning on spying on Pierce until he saw an opportunity to sneak up on the man and shoot him, but not now.
The woman spying on Pierce, this Amy Lowe, was more interesting. Owens wondered if perhaps she were a spurned lover that Pierce had an affair with. Owens’ stomach sealed his decision to keep an eye on Amy, as the pain in his abdomen increased.
He drove his car off the street and parked in a spot reserved for visitors. After swallowing four more pain pills, Owens slouched down in his seat and tried to sleep. He had a big day planned for tomorrow. He was going to kill a cop.
***
Amy was pacing around her home and talking to herself because she was beginning to have second thoughts about her plan. Valeria Pierce did not appear threatening at a glance, but while researching her intended kidnap victim, Amy had learned an interesting fact.
Valeria Pierce had been a boxer when she was younger. One of the photos in the magazine had shown the home gym in the Pierce’s basement. Amy had assumed that the heavy bag hanging down from a ceiling beam had been something Pierce used. She should have known better. Ricardo Pierce, even when young, detested exercise or sports.
He enjoyed watching sports, but wouldn’t participate in them, and Rick never would have taken up such a grueling activity as boxing.
If Amy slipped up while abducting Val Pierce on Friday, she realized that her victim could easily gain the upper hand on her. She had been planning on using a gun to scare Val into doing as she said, but Amy didn’t know if it would work. She’d also discovered that Valeria Pierce had once escaped from the serial killers Owens and Murphy. Perhaps the woman had no fear of guns, after all, she had married a man who carried one as a matter of course.
Along with the gun, Amy was planning to drug Val into unconsciousness with anesthesia applied to a rag. To do that, she would have to get close, and that’s when Val could hurt her.
She would never use the gun. Amy would actually rather be caught than seriously hurt or God forbid, kill someone. The restraints she placed in the cabin with the chains were fur-lined handcuffs that she had bought at a sex shop for cash while wearing a disguise. She went to the trouble of getting them so that Val’s wrists wouldn’t bleed if she strained against her bonds.
“I’m not a bad person,” Amy said out loud, while talking to herself. She only needed money and the kidnapping seemed the easiest way to get it.
When she thought about what could go wrong it scared her. She had planned everything down to the smallest detail but now doubt about her abilities had crept in.
Matt had told her that Rick and Val Pierce would be out the next night. Matt was going to unlock the door so Amy could get inside and familiarize herself with the home. Although she had been in the house countless times before, that all occurred twenty years earlier.
Amy’s planned abduction of Val on Friday would, by necessity, take place in the daytime. That was also a concern, for although the Pierce property was large and fairly secluded, there could be people moving about on the nearby road.
As zero hour approached, the flaws in the plan seem to multiply, such as the matter of the front gate.
Thanks to Matt, Amy knew the code, but by using it, she would mark the crime as an inside job. Val Pierce might let her in if she came up with a convincing story, but then Amy couldn’t surprise her as she planned to do.
If she entered on her own by using the code, Val might hear her coming anyway, and might even arm herself against the sudden appearance of a stranger.
Amy was wiping away tears as she began to doubt her chances of success, but when the answer to her problems came to her, it both horrified her and buoyed her spirits.
She could take the children instead.
The girls were small enough for her to carry out to the gate, and she had already been planning to climb over the horse fence that surrounded the property on three sides. Pierce’s children would be no physical threat to her, and there would be two frantic parents eager to pay anything to get them back.
Amy laughed.
It could really work.
There were slight changes she’d have to make that would necessitate another trip to the cabin. She would also need to cut the dosage on the anesthesia she was planning to use on Val, but yes, it could work. It could really work.
And while she felt bad about using the children, Amy told herself that the girls would never be at risk. With a little luck, once drugged, they might stay asleep until the ordeal was over.
With her nerves calmed again, thoughts of the money returned. Amy drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of being wealthy.
CHAPTER 22
The next morning, Pierce and Collins traveled to Oscar Carlson’s hobby shop to talk with Carlson’s sister, Leah Meyers.
When they told Leah they had a viable suspect, she looked pleased that they were working swiftly to find her brother’s murderer. She also placed a finger to her lips and pointed over at a corner where a girl sat reading a book.
It was the same girl that had assured them Oscar Carlson wasn’t a molester. Pierce recalled her name and sent her a smile.
“Hi Maggie. How are you, honey?”
“I’m good, but what was that you said? You found out who killed Oscar?”
Pierce nodded.
“We think so.”
Jake decided to ask Maggie a question. Although a child, she seemed to have been one of Oscar Carlson’s friends. She might know something that would help them.
“Maggie, did you ever see Oscar have an argument with anyone?”
The girl giggled.
“He argued with his neighbor Miss Miller all the time, but I think she really liked Oscar and just didn’t want anyone to know.”
“I see you’re a perceptive young lady, but what about anyone else, like a big man, you know, the type of big with lots of muscles?”
Oh, him? No, he and Oscar never had a fight or anything,” Maggie said, but it was what she said next that took the case in a whole new direction.
***
Dave Owens woke before the sun came up because he was in too much pain to keep sleeping peacefully. Not only had the ache grown worse, but he felt lethargic. He took a chance of suspending his watch on Amy’s place and drove out of town. He needed coffee and perhaps some food, and there was less chance of being recognized by an old acquaintance if he drove out of the area.
He returned to Amy’s home and followed her as she left it two hours later. She made a quick stop at a grocery store, then took off again. Owens wondered if Amy were going back to the Pierce farm, but soon realized that she was headed
south instead.
The two of them crawled along in the rush hour traffic of a Thursday morning until it thinned out and they exited the Garden State Parkway. Owens had to place more distance between them when Amy headed into the Pine Barrens.
Amy stopped for gas, and when she emerged from the store she was lugging bags of ice. After getting back on the move again, she made the turn onto a narrow road that joined up with a dirt road.
Owens kept going straight instead of following her down the dirt road. The region was as dry as he’d ever seen it and Amy’s car was leaving a dust cloud in its wake. Had Owens followed her, even at a great distance, she would have known that someone was on her tail.
Owens U-turned on the quiet country road and followed Amy’s progress by watching the plume of dirt she left in her wake, he followed her route only after losing sight of her wake, and found that she had traveled onto another dirt road.
The second road was bordered by trees on both sides and it felt to Owens as if he were peering into a green tunnel as he searched for a sign of Amy. He was about to curse in frustration when he emerged from the shade of the overhanging trees and saw no sign of her car, but then, he spotted it.
It was another dirt road, but this one was bordered by weedy fields. Again, he dared not follow her, or the dirt cloud his car would create could alert her. When Owens recalled that he had passed a narrow break in the trees, he placed his car in reverse.
When he found the gap, he drove his car slowly off the road and over parched vegetation. There were overgrown bushes behind the trees, and they would conceal his car well. Owens rolled the car onto a bare patch and parked.
He had bought a cheap pair of binoculars at a convenience store that morning. The plastic thing was more a toy than it was a reliable and accurate optics device, but he held it up to his eyes and was surprised that he could see a fair distance with it.
He spotted the car as it made a turn and then dropped the binoculars as a sharp pain made him wince. The pain was so bad that his eyes watered and he balled his hands into fists.
By the time he recovered, Owens assumed that he had lost Amy’s trail, but to his surprise, a plume of dust was heading towards his location. It was Amy, and she was coming back from wherever she had gone to.
Owens waited until he was certain she was gone and drove to the last change in direction he’d seen her make. It turned out to be an old gravel road that was more dirt than rock. When he came around a curve, he saw the cabin.
He hesitated for a moment, while wondering if anyone was inside the rustic structure. After tooting his horn and waiting for over a minute, Owens shut off his engine and headed for the cabin’s front door.
The door had been forced open by Amy on her first trip to set up the cabin, and so Owens walked in with his gun in his hand. It wasn’t long before he was upstairs and looking at the bed in the loft. The bed with the chains attached to its headboard and footboard. Along with the chains, there were teddy bears. Two pink ones.
The lady was definitely up to something, but Owens was damned if he could figure out what it was. Teddy bears and chains?
There was a white foam cooler beside the bed.
When Owens opened it he saw the small drink boxes and the kid-sized snack packs. It was the type of thing that a mother might pack in her kid’s lunch box.
Owens grinned.
The kids, Pierce’s two girls. The woman was planning on kidnapping them.
The grin was wiped from Owen’s face as another sharp pain cut through him. He sat on the edge of the bed, and then laid back upon it.
The agony passed quickly, only to be replaced by an awful sense of weakness. It was as if someone was draining the vitality right out of him.
Owens fell asleep while holding one of the pink teddy bears.
***
After hearing what the girl, Maggie, had to say, Jake requested a rush job on the analysis of the film from the nanny cam.
He had to get authorization from their lieutenant, Coke Dyer, and Jake was pleasantly surprised to find Stacey speaking with the lieutenant. When Jake saw the smile on his wife’s face, he knew that she had just received good news.
“You’ve been promoted, honey?”
“Not yet, but Coke said that it looks good, thanks to him and Rick.”
Coke waved that off.
“Listen, we both know that Lieutenant Holloway does nothing but sleep in this office all night while Stacey handles his duties. If that bum wasn’t retiring this year, he’d likely be forced out, and anyway, Stacey’s the best choice.”
“Rick would be the best choice,” Stacey said. “But you’ve got other plans, don’t you, Rick?”
Pierce held up his hands.
“I haven’t decided yet, but yeah, there’s a chance I’ll be retiring soon too.”
Coke looked reflective as he spoke.
“It always seems like big changes come in clumps, doesn’t it?”
Pierce nodded in agreement, and after telling Stacey goodbye, Jake asked for the approval on the rush job on the film enhancement. They were still standing before the desk instead of taking seats.
Pierce and Jake had learned on the way into the station that they had to evaluate the scene where a death had occurred. There was no thought of foul play. The deceased was 90 and had lived alone. Still, they had to check it out. The back door of the home had been sitting ajar when the body was discovered in bed. As far as suspicious circumstances went, that was minor, since there were no signs of violence.
Coke winked at Jake.
“The film lab is already on it. This is your first case as lead detective and I want to ease your way, but tell me, what are you hoping to find?”
“We have another suspect,” Jake said, and then he went on to fill Coke in on their theory.
Coke smiled at Jake, and then looked over at Pierce.
“If you do retire, Rick, I know who will fill your shoes.”
CHAPTER 23
The suspicious circumstance of the old man’s back door being left open was explained to Pierce and Jake by several of the elderly gentleman’s neighbors.
Their ninety-year-old friend, a Mr. Elmer Doolittle, had recently gotten into the habit of neglecting to close his doors completely. That had resulted in some interesting situations, such as a raccoon invasion, and the arrival of a pregnant alley cat, who had her kittens in the old man’s closet.
One neighbor, an accountant, who worked from her home, said that the old man had told her that he’d come into his kitchen one morning and found a bear going through the garbage can.
“It wasn’t a bear. It was the Newfoundland dog from down the street, but that is a really big dog. Elmer was so proud when he told me that story. He believed that he had run a bear off with just his cane. I didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise.” The woman sighed. “I’m really gonna miss that old man.”
***
After leaving that scene, the detectives stopped for a late lunch. The meal was being eaten in the car when Jake received a text from the film lab. They had found something of interest.
By four o’clock, Jake and Pierce were sitting across from Conner King again, while the man’s lawyer and brother, Jason King, sat beside him.
Jake and Pierce had revealed their new evidence to the lawyer along with the story that was relayed to them by Maggie. Conner King’s brother looked shaken and confused, but he told Jake that he would do what he could to help get to the truth.
Pierce sat beside Jake inside an interview room as his partner began Conner King’s second interview.
“You lied to us, Mr. King. You did know Oscar Carlson and you were also there when he died.”
Conner King shifted his gaze away and stared at the table top.
“One of the times you talked to Oscar Carlson, he wasn’t alone. He was with a girl, a child. That girl told us what had transpired that day and also how Oscar tried to help you.”
Conner King clasped his hands together and began
wringing them. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and yet, Pierce could make out the man’s huge muscles writhing beneath the fabric. He marveled at the amount of work and dedication King must have put into his workouts to become so massive.
Jake continued, while removing a set of photos from a brown envelope.
“The video recovered from the nanny cam shows little more than vague shapes in the rain, but the lab technicians worked wonders with it.”
Jake turned one of the photos over and slid it in front of Conner King.
“That still shot from the video was taken right before the tree limb struck Oscar Carlson. As you can see, he was looking back at someone while running. He was fleeing from your yard, Conner.”
Conner’s hands kneaded each other faster as he stared down at the photo, but he remained silent.
Jake reached over and pointed at the picture, and in particular, at Oscar Carlson’s face.
“We believe that the dark streak on the side of Oscar’s face is blood. He had been struck already, and he was running to get away, but then, that damn branch hit him and trapped him. The coroner believes that he was unconscious, and we know he was helpless. You also know he was helpless, because you were there, Conner. You were there.”
A second photo was slid in front of Conner. This one showed him standing over Oscar Carlson’s body.
Upon seeing it, the big man’s hands gripped each other tightly, and although he couldn’t be certain, Pierce thought he heard the man whimper.
A third photo was slid atop the others and was different. It was a photo of Conner King dressed in posing shorts and he was flexing his arms at a bodybuilding competition. Conner was smiling in the photo, but the smile was marred by a puffy lip, while one eye showed discoloration, as if it had been blackened days before.
“We know,” Jake said. “We know who hits you, who abuses you, and we know who murdered Oscar Carlson.”
A fourth and final photo was placed before Conner. It showed him from the back as the other photo had done. He was staring down at Oscar Carlson’s body, and he was not alone. Just feet in front of him was his wife. Video enhancement had revealed what the naked eye couldn’t see and Lana King was revealed in a flash of lightning. She too was staring down at Oscar Carlson, and in her right hand was a thick branch that resembled a club.
Angels (A Detective Pierce Novel Book 3) Page 10
