“How about we go later, after my shift?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for twenty-five goddam years, Jay. We’re going now.”
“Dad, what’s going on?”
“Sperbeck does not get to walk out of prison, start a new life, and leave me behind in hell. Today, I’m going to bury all my shit with that fucker!”
“Jesus, Dad!”
Jason grabbed the armrest and the dash as the pickup growled and Henry Wade’s tires squealed until they raised smoke from the pavement.
Chapter Sixty-Two
A t the takedown off Market, the SWAT team rushed from the aftermath with a suspect.
A white male, early twenties, about five-ten, 175 pounds, faded jeans, AC/DC T-shirt. Clean-cut, doubled over vomiting and coughing from the tear gas. His hands were handcuffed in front of him. Somebody spritzed water in his irritated eyes.
“Where’s the boy?” A SWAT cop shouted under his Darth Vader gas mask.
“What boy? What’s going on!” he coughed, spit, tears streamed down his inflamed face.
Inside, SWAT members searched the living room, the bathroom, the bedrooms, kitchen, halls, closets. They tapped the ceilings, walls, floors for body mass. No immediate sign of another person. After clearing the residence, crime-scene people went in while detectives dealt with the suspect.
“What’s your name, sir?” Grace Garner asked.
“Darrell Stanton. What’s this?”
Grace examined the contents of his wallet.
“I’m a student at the University of Washington. I’m from Canberra, Australia. My passport’s in my desk. Shit! My eyes are burning!”
Perelli dispatched a SWAT member to get the passport.
Stanton was spritzed again, handed a towel to pat his face, then Leon Sperbeck’s photo was held in front of him.
“Do you know this man?” Grace said.
“Albert Crawley.” Stanton coughed then looked. “He used to live here.”
“Where is he?”
“How the hell should I know?” Stanton coughed. “Haven’t seen him for weeks ever since I sold him my car. The bastard owes me money. Shit, my eyes!”
A uniformed officer sprizted Stanton.
“He leave a forwarding address?”
“No, he’s an asshole.”
“Describe the car you sold to him.”
“A 1995 blue Chrysler Concorde. I told him it’s got problems and let him have it cheap. He owes me six hundred bucks. Is he the guy you want?”
Perelli had his cell phone pressed to his ear when he held up Stanton’s passport, nodding to Garner, Harlan, and Boulder.
“Stanton checks out. He’s not in the system,” Perelli said.
As Boulder stepped away to take a call, Detective Gilbert Bailey took Grace aside. “Just talked to the guys at the Boland home with the mother.”
“Any more calls from Sperbeck, any demands?”
“Nothing. She’s going through hell,” Bailey said. “The FBI and KCSO said the two other addresses DOC had for Sperbeck are washouts.”
“Sperbeck’s likely aliased up the wazoo, Gib. Can you help us prepare an alert to blast out ASAP, the vehicle and photos of Sperbeck and Brady.”
After Boulder finished his call, he pulled Grace and Perelli from Stanton for a private moment.
“We’ve got press. The national networks are threatening to go live. And we’ve got word from the Command Post that Ethan Quinn’s arrived. They’re bringing him up now.” Boulder indicated the marked car roaring toward them.
Ethan Quinn got out carrying a briefcase. Grace, Perelli, and Boulder walked him down the street to talk quietly.
“You’re investigating Sperbeck’s original crime?” Grace said.
“Yes, the robbery-homicide. My client is the insurance firm that paid out.”
“Why are you investigating after all these years?”
“The stolen money never surfaced. We had most of the serial numbers. We suspect the cash is still out there, largely intact.”
“Exactly what do you know, or suspect?” Perelli said.
“I don’t want to jeopardize my investigation.”
“This is our investigation, Slick,” Perelli said. “If you think you’re going to collect some sort of finder’s fee on this, think again.” Perelli jabbed a finger into Quinn’s chest. “If you possess material information relating to this child’s kidnapping and two homicides, you’d be wise to cooperate right now. So let me ask you again, what do you know?”
Quinn surveyed their faces.
“There were a lot of cops there the day it went down and the money vanished,” he said. “It’s unusual that Sperbeck, the only person convicted, never named the others involved. Most of the players are dead, including the ex-cops who owned the armored-car company.
“Several units responded to the heist and it’s my belief that, whether it was planned, or a reaction to the child’s death, maybe officers took the $3.3 million, and covered up the shooting of the little boy. You may recall that the autopsy and ballistics reports were inconclusive on the shooting victim.
“I think Sperbeck worked a deal, pleaded guilty, avoided the death penalty, and expected to be rewarded with his cut in exchange for his silence and his time. Maybe they tucked it away in some interest-bearing off-shore account.”
“It’s an insulting theory,” Perelli said. “And it doesn’t fit because there are other pieces at play here.”
“What pieces?”
“Nice try. Fuck you.”
Grace looked hard at Quinn. “What else do you have to support your theory?”
“Henry Wade was one of the many responding officers.”
“With Vern Pearce, his partner,” Boulder said.
“Henry Wade is now the only surviving officer.”
“Henry quit the job and crawled into a bottle after Vern shot himself,” Boulder said. “Not many people talk about it. A few old bulls say it was the case, the boy getting shot, all that crap.”
“Wade’s a private detective now, working for Don Krofton,” Quinn said. “You guys should check to see if Krofton was at the scene that day.”
“I think you’ve watched one too many bad movies, Ethan,” Perelli said.
Quinn shrugged and opened his briefcase.
“Not long after Sperbeck’s release from prison, he staged his own death. Then Henry Wade just happens to follow the ‘dead man’ to a bank where Sperbeck had some sort of transaction. It’s all here. I was surveilling Wade.”
Quinn held up a disk from his video recorder.
“Don’t you move.” Boulder waved a uniform over to keep Quinn company while he took his detectives for a short walk.
“What do you make of Quinn’s shit, Grace?” Boulder said.
“There’s a lot at play here. Look at the facts. Sperbeck’s our guy for Sister Anne, Sharla May Forrest, and Brady. And Sister Anne visited Sperbeck in prison.”
“But some twenty-five years ago,” Perelli said, “after the robbery, she enters the convent, with over a million. It has to be a link. And her real identity is not what she claimed, according to the Mirror. Maybe she was holding the money for Sperbeck.”
“But somehow, Sperbeck thinks Rhonda Boland’s husband owes him,” Boulder said. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“The pieces are there. They just don’t line up yet,” Grace said. “Like why did Sperbeck kill Sharla May?”
“That one seems obvious,” Boulder said.
“Right,” Perelli said. “It was around the time of his release. Remember, Roberto Martell pimps her date with Sperbeck at the Black Jet Bar. Leon likely couldn’t get it up, so he took it out on Sharla May. When I worked vice the ex-cons always had problems with hookers because prison messed them up.”
“That seems the most likely scenario for Sperbeck doing Sharla May,” Boulder said.
“Okay,” Grace said. “That brings us back to Quinn’s crazy theory on Sperbeck and corrupt cops being involved in the heist.”
“I think we have to ask Henry Wade some questions.” Boulder looked at his watch. “First we gotta move fast to get that alert out and hold a news conference. We’ll do it right here.”
Grace nodded and walked away to be alone as she thought of Brady Boland and her two homicides. This was so damn complicated. Nothing made sense.