The piecemeal old house had seen a lot of things over the years, but nothing like the flurry of activity that filled the predawn hours. Lee and Matt worked hard to return the kitchen to some semblance of order. Nails and tarp temporarily patched the breaches in the front and back. An abundance of bleach and hot water removed most of the evidence of death. Working in the charnel house it had been turned into wouldn’t have been easy for any of them. Jose went on a short drive and found the black panel truck that had brought the killers to Mama’s.
Now as the first hint of red and gold touched the horizon, Robin and Jose were both concentrated wholly on their computer screens. Jose’s hoard of data miners had found some interesting things. “You guys check this out.” Everyone gathered behind him. There on his screen was his picture of Sanders. Beside it were other pictures of what seemed to be the same person. “These are dated from five years ago and thirty years ago respectively. They were found by a buddy of mine using some cutting edge facial recognition software he’s developing. He says that there’s a eighty-five percent match.”
“Enough for any good attorney to poke holes in,” Lee said.
“True. But we know that’s him.” Matt said.
“Okay so that first one was pulled from a crowd shot at a ground breaking of one of Owen’s high rises. The second was taken is showing us an investigative task force that was looking into a multiple homicide with a Waco vibe. There he’s identified as an investigator with the State Bureau of Investigation named Beck.”
Robin pointed out what they all saw. “If that’s him he doesn’t look a day older.”
“There’s even more weirdness.” Jose continued. “I took the liberty of sending pictures of our friends out there to a buddy of mine and he got some hits.” A few clicks and keystrokes brought up mug shots of all three. “They all received long stays in various state hospitals for being very, very sick people and all three were broken out over the last four years.” A few more clicks. “This picture was taken of Ian’s ‘Doctor’ on his last visit right before he escaped.” It was grainy and lacked color, but it certainly favored their man Sanders.
“So,” Lee said “what we have here is a guy who doesn’t age and who likes to pretend to be authority figures. He also likes to keep company with homicidal maniacs. Count Dracula, basically.” That elicited some nervous laughter. “How does that help us?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to any conclusions that he would believe.
“Nothing terribly helpful in one sense, but it tells me that he’s not really the brains behind the whole thing, whatever the thing is.” Matt said.
Lee nodded. “I can see that. He’s sort of a middle manger. He’s getting something done for someone. And those things are less than good. I did some digging on Owen and he was involved in what seemed like child abductions and possibly sacrifices.”
Robin drew her breath on through her teeth.
“Yes, pretty ugly stuff. And any time someone bumped up against him in a way that would be detrimental they went away. This guy’s after you Matt because you killed Owen and that apparently upset someone’s applecart.”
Jose looked up at Lee. “Applecart? Man you are old.”
Robin smacked Jose on the shoulder. “On a more useful note, I did some digging too. The information that Lee got from the last psycho gave me a secure website that they send and receive messages on. It’s a variation on what some terrorists used, a sort of virtual drop box. I’ve got the password cracked and the messages are typically short and a little cryptic. I think if we’re careful we can get a message to Sanders.”
Matt rubbed her shoulder. “Good work.”
Lee spoke. “I’ll go into town and drop the black truck in a place where it’ll be stripped down in about three seconds. I also need to check in with the Chief. I’ll tell him that I haven’t found anything of interest yet. Maybe he knows something.”
“I’ll bet he does.” Jose pointed at his screen and the picture of the task force. “Check out the third name under that picture.”
They all looked and saw Detective Paul DeWitt. “Christ.” Lee said and immediately felt a little guilty. “Sorry. Well Jose maybe you can waggle your magic fingers and see if there are any links between the Chief and Owen or Sanders. If so I want to nail his ass to the wall. I’m still going to see him though.”
“Be careful.” Matt said. “We’ll get the house ready and have Robin send a message. Well let you know if we get any hits. You keep in touch and let us know what you find out.”
Lee got into the black vehicle and cranked it up. It looked like the delivery van from hell and smelled equally bad. He pulled out and hit the highway with all the windows rolled sown or cracked. The ride into town gave him plenty of time to think. They all wanted to take Sanders down, but he needed to make sure that he got the information about Sara’s antidote and that meant having the man alive for a little while. As bewildering as the evidence they had was, it was still pretty telling and it all pointed to him being incredibly dangerous and intelligent.
It was possible that he could convince them to take him in alive, but if Sanders was as connected as it appeared then that wouldn’t be any good. There was no east answer. In the meantime, no news form the hospital was good news or so he hoped. His anger burned again at the thought of her lying there. He was certain that it wasn’t a tenth of what those kids felt though. He pushed that aside again for now and tried to think of angles that would lead to all the good guys coming out of this unscathed. Too bad this wasn’t a movie. Of course these days in the movies the good guys were hard to tell apart from the bad. God, he was getting old.
Lee arrived at the drop off point and exited the vehicle. The keys sat on the dash and the door was cracked. Finding a taxi at this early hour was a bear and he didn’t want to risk flagging down a patrol car. So he walked and as he did he decided to give him a call.
The phone rang several time before Paul answered. “Lee?” He couldn’t believe his luck.
“Hey Paulie. We need to talk. I’ve got some insight into the York situation and I want to share it with you.”
Paul thought for a moment about how he wanted to play this. “You tell me where you want to meet.”
“Why don’t you come and pick me up? I’m on foot right now. Let’s say Sammy’s Deli on Twenty-Fourth?” That would give Lee a couple of options for vantage points. “And Paulie? Come alone. No uniforms or anyone else. You’re the only one I trust with this.”
“You got it. I know there are some problems in the force and I appreciate your trust.”
Lee hung up and kept walking while he a second number. “Jose? Lee. Any leads on the Chief?”
Jose smiled. “Well lets say that the chief was getting regular… donations from someone that I’m sure can be traced back to Owen given enough time. No specifics though and nothing to link him to Sanders.”
“I don’t expect that you’ll find that link written down anywhere, but keep looking. I’m meeting with the Chief in a little bit.”
“Good luck, Lee”
Lee killed the connection and headed quickly to the meeting point. Paulie must have put the siren on because his official vehicle got there a little more quickly than Lee had anticipated. A quick look around didn’t reveal any cars. Given what Lee suspected he didn’t think that the Chief had any problems with the “No uniforms” requirement of their meeting. He walked to the passenger side, opened the door, and sat down.
Paul DeWitt put the car in drive and started down the street. “So, talk to me Lee. What’ve you got?”
“A whole lot of suspicion. For some reason it seems that someone wants some awful nice folks to take the fall for something they haven’t done. I’ve met with York and I’m sure that he did Owen and equally certain that he had nothing to do with the cops or the preacher.” Lee felt his revolver digging into his left side. It would be easy enough to get to if necessary, but he really didn’t want to shoot Paul.
Paul looked over. “So you were with the man and didn’t arrest him for what you know he’s done?” He looked back at traffic. They were driving aimlessly for now, or so it seemed.
“We got interrupted. I won’t go into that now, but the opportunity passed. He was able to give me excellent reasons to believe him and I think we should cut him a deal.” Lee stared straight ahead.
“Well of course that would be up to the DA. All we can do is arrest him for what he’s charged with and then it’s out of our hands.”
“I know better than that. You have enough pull that you can make some promises.” He turned his head and let his eyes bore into Paul. “But somehow I don’t think you will. I think you have a reason to see these folks go away. You’re involved aren’t you?” He worked hard to keep his tone even. It was hard. Dirty cops were the worst thing on the planet in Lee’s eyes.
“Involved?” Paul slammed on breaks. There was no one behind them, or anywhere in site for that matter. He had navigated them through the maze of streets and they were outside a junkyard. “What the hell are you insinuating?” Sanders was right. It looked like he does know too much.
Lee hit the release on his seat belt and pivoted his body. “I think you know. You’re in this up to your neck at least. We’ve known each other for what, fifteen years? I’ve always known that something wasn’t right with you, but now I have proof.”
Paul wanted to grab his gun and empty it into Lee right now. “That’s a damn serious allegation you’re making. I could make similar ones about your relationship to this case and I could say a thing or two about how much your performance has decreased since Lucinda left you. I’ve done you favors Lee, because I like you. You had a lot of potential. You still do if you’ll just smarten up.”
Lee leaned back against the door. “That sound suspiciously like an offer.”
“You’re the one who’s in deep shit right now, not me. There are people that want you ruined, or dead, or both. I could stand between you and those people. What do you say?”
“I say fuck that. I’ve met the people you’re associated with and frankly I’d rather rot in the ground.” His hand found the door latch and bailed out, rolling onto the sidewalk.
Paul yanked his sidearm free and considered shooting but by the time he’d gotten his gun clear the door had swung closed and Lee was running into the junkyard. He pulled the mike from his dashboard. Then he put it back. He needed to be more subtle than that.
Lee cleared the fence with some difficulty and ran deep into the twisted metal maze. Once he was relatively sure he wasn’t being followed he stopped and pulled out the cell phone. Jose answered on the second ring. “Go ahead Lee.”
“Well I can say for sure that the Chief is in at least as deep as we think. I can be fairly certain that we’re all about to be on the most wanted list. You guys need to do your thing and move on. We’ll meet up later today.” Lee worked hard not to pant into the phone.
“Okay. We’ve dropped the message off and are closing up shop even as we speak. We’ll be out in the next hour or so. Talk to you then.”
Lee flipped his phone closed. He needed a ride and a change of clothes. His description would be all over the airwaves soon if it wasn’t already. Thankfully he already had an idea of someone who wouldn’t care about his status with the current regime. He waited a bit and then found a slightly easier way out of the old junkyard.
