“Maybe this Quinn has new information?”
A crackling radio interjected.
“ We have movement in the subject’s residence. ”
Tension tightened the air.
The SWAT team scouts had been followed by the utility man, the breacher, the gas team, and sharpshooters, who moved tight up to the building. At the edge of the inner perimeter, SWAT snipers had taken cover to line up on the house.
A window at the rear of Sperbeck’s building came into focus within the crosshairs of the rifle scope of the sharpshooter behind the Dumpster of a welder’s shop nearby.
“Movement in the house. White male,” the sharpshooter repeated.
Uniformed police at the outer perimeter called in on another channel.
“We got press at the east point. WKKR.”
Harlan cursed under his breath.
“Cut his utilities and phone. We can’t risk him monitoring news reports.”
Harlan was in charge. He had seconds to make a decision that could save a life, or cost him one. This is what he knew: The suspect resided here. The suspect had abducted a child, was violent, and wanted in two first-degree homicides. The suspect was an ex-convict who’d served time for killing a child hostage during an armed robbery.
Negotiation was not an option.
Swift attack.
“Mike, you good to go?”
“We’re in position.”
“Then go throw chemicals, flash-bangs, go full bore, take him down and extract the hostage.”
Brigger signaled his team and some thirty seconds later the quiet street echoed with the ker-plink of shattering glass as tear gas canisters catapulted into every window. A thirty-pound steel battering ram took down the door accompanied by the crack-crack and blinding flashes of stun grenades. The heavily armed squad in gas masks stormed the apartment.
Flashlight beams and red-line laser sights probed thick smoke for Brady Boland and Leon Dean Sperbeck.
Chapter Sixty-One
A t that moment, miles across the city near Seattle’s southern limit, Jason Wade and his old man rolled through an urban nightmare.
It was at the fringe of Rat City in a zone still infested with rundown scuz bars and porn shops, a stumble and stagger away to the heartbreak of worn Second World War houses that stood like the ghosts of broken promises.
“Dad, who is this guy that you need to see?”
“Leon Dean Sperbeck.”
“Sperbeck took the hostage, the boy who died in your arms?”
“He got out of prison a few months ago and about six weeks back he left a suicide note on a tree near the Nisqually River in Mount Rainier National Park.”
“Suicide? So, what are we doing here?”
“Unfinished business.” His old man pulled Sperbeck’s bank security photo from the file on the front seat of his pickup. “Used an alias to cash a welfare check a couple of days ago. He look dead to you? Sperbeck’s up to something, and I’ve been waiting for twenty-five years to put this all to rest.”
Jason stared at Sperbeck, growing increasingly uneasy with the situation and his old man’s icy resolve.
Henry Wade stopped his truck near a wheel-less eviscerated Pinto mounted on cinder blocks in front of a duplex with a warped frame, blistered paint, fractured windows, and a roof that was missing shingles.
“Let’s go. Sperbeck has the dump on the right.”
They knocked on the door, unable to ignore the baseball bat-sized splintered gouge rising from the bottom, as if someone in a fit of rage had taken an ax to it.
“He ain’t home,” came a voice.
They turned to see the speaker climb from under the Pinto. White guy, midthirties. Beer gut straining his filthy jeans and torn Sonics T-shirt. His grease-coated hands held a bouquet of tools and a small part.
“He rents from me and my mom and he owes us.”
“When did you see him last?” Henry Wade walked toward him.
“Couple days ago. I think I heard him come in late last night. Mighta had a girl. But he took off this morning. Looked like he was taking a trip.”
Henry showed Sperbeck’s picture to the mechanic who took a moment to study it.
“That’s him.”
“Any idea where he was going?”
“I couldn’t say. Likely camping, from what I could see, he put sleeping bags and a couple Seven-Eleven sacks of food into that hunk of junk Chrysler Concorde he’s been driving.”
“You know the plate?”
“No.”
“The year or color?
“Dark blue. Ninety-five. Are you guys cops? Got any ID?”
“No, we’re not cops. We have business with Mr. Sperbeck.”
“Sperbeck? He told us his name was Kirk Stewart. Does he owe you money, too?”
“Something like that.”
“Hey, want to buy this starter? Ten bucks,” the mechanic’s smile exposed brown teeth.
Henry shook his head, reached into his wallet, and held up a fifty-dollar bill.
“This, for some time alone in his place to look around.”
Jason shot his father a look of disbelief.
The mechanic eyed the bill, giving it his full consideration. His mom was at the clinic. He knew where she kept the key. They could have take-out chicken and cold imported beer tonight. Hell, he could almost taste it.
“Fifteen minutes and you don’t take, break, or tell.”
“Of course.”
The mechanic went for the key and they waited at Sperbeck’s door.
“Dad, I don’t have a good feeling about this. Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?”
“Do not doubt it for a second, son.”
The mechanic came back with the key, slid it into the lock, opened the door a crack, and stopped. “I go in with you, or it’s no deal.”
“Fine.”
His open palm waited until Henry covered it with the fifty.
Inside they were met with air reeking of alcohol, cigarettes, body odor, and dog.
“Is there a dog in here?” Jason asked.
“Naw. Mom’s got a no-pet policy on account of the last mental case that lived here let his pit bull piss on the floor. We’re going to repaint, redo the place like on those home improvement shows.”
The duplex was cramped, with a small living room, kitchen, a bathroom, and two small bedrooms. The chipped coffee table was covered with porn magazines, newspapers, maps, empty beer cans, and take-out containers.
Henry Wade went to the kitchen counter and shuffled through letters and bills, copying down information, then checked the bedroom. More porn, beer cans, and crap on the nightstand. Nothing that drew his interest, except for one thing.
“You got another seven minutes.” The mechanic scratched himself.
At the coffee table, Jason noticed how parts of his stories on Sister Anne’s murder had been circled with a red ballpoint pen. What’s up with that? he wondered.
His father came out of the bedroom with a neatly folded page from the travel section of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He showed it to Jason.
A feature on Wolf Tooth Creek.
“Looks like he’d been giving this a lot of thought,” his dad said, then went to the trash can in the kitchen and examined its contents. Atop the beer cans, junk food wrappers, cigarette packs, he focused on a yellow paper ball. It was a page ripped from a phone book and balled up.
Henry flattened it on the counter. It concerned businesses. Cottage and cabin rentals. One was underlined in ink. Wolf Tooth Creek Cabins’s display ad put its location near the Mount Rainier National Park Area.
“You said you saw Sperbeck leave this morning with sleeping bags and groceries, like he was going camping?” Henry asked.
“Yup.” The mechanic was holding the door open. “Time’s up.”
“Thanks.”
When they got back into the truck, Henry turned the ignition.
“I think he went to Wolf Tooth Creek. That’s where we’re going.”
“Dad, I have to get to work soon. I can’t be away from the city.”
“It’s only an hour to get there and its early. Call in. Say you’ll be late.”