A Perfect Grave (24 page)

Chapter Fifty-Seven

A
cross Seattle in Fremont, Jason Wade sat with his old man in a booth at Ivan’s, searching for the right words.

“Dad, I’m sorry. I let you down. You’ve been wanting to talk and it’s just been crazy with the nun story.”

“It’s all right.”

“I’ve only got a couple of hours to spare today. My editor’s been on me hard to break stories. I’ve been on this one for a solid week and I just got back from Canada chasing this stuff.”

Jason spun around that morning’s
Mirror.

“I read them,” Henry Wade said. “They’re good stories. I know this is a busy time and I wish I could do more to help you. No need to apologize.”

“But you sounded like it was bad, like you were at risk again.”

“I’m not going to lie to you, it’s bad.”

“And this is all about your old demon, your partner’s death. The old call.”

His father’s Adam’s apple rose and fell as he looked to the street.

“That’s right.”

“Did you drink, Dad?”

His father’s face creased and Jason saw more lines pressing into him from the weight of his struggle.

“Almost.”

“You said you needed me to help you put an end to everything. What is it?”

Henry Wade rubbed his chin, thinking about that bottle in his pickup as he gazed to the street and back in time. “The call,” Henry said, “it’s about the old call Vern and I got on the armed robbery.”

“I see.”

“I told you how it went bad. How there was a hostage.”

“The hostage was shot and the suspect pleaded guilty and was sent away.”

“More coffee?” the waitress interrupted.

Henry waved her off.

“The whole world changed that day, Jay.”

“I know, Dad, and it took a toll.”

“It took a toll on Vern and it took a toll on me. Look what it cost me. Your mother, my job as a cop. I’m still paying for it.”

Jason patted his father’s hand.

“The other day, this kid, Quinn, he comes from out of nowhere and he starts exhuming the dead.”

“Who’s Quinn?”

“Hotshot insurance investigator, or loss-recovery agent. Something. He calls me up, he’s pushing my buttons about the old case, acting like I know something. Then he’s telling me that the monster’s out of his cage and he’s scheming. I know he’s planning something.”

“Who’s out? Hold on, Dad, I don’t understand. What’s happening?”

“I can’t live like this, Jay. It’s eating me alive. I’ve got to put things to rest.”

“Dad?”

“I’ve been carrying this rot inside me long enough. I’m going to see this guy and I need you to come with me. I have to see him now.”

“What guy? And why do you need me? Dad, you’re not making sense.”

Henry Wade reached inside the chest pocket of his sportcoat and Jason saw the grip of his holstered gun before he unfolded a slip of paper.

“I need you to go with me to this address because I don’t know what I’m going to do, how I’m going to react, because he’s not dead. I’m going to get in his face with one question—just one question.”

“Dad, what’s this all about? Tell me what’s going on.”

“Jay, the hostage was a child.”

“Jesus.”

“A little boy.”

“God.”

“He died in my arms.”

Chapter Fifty-Eight

R
yan Taylor and Justin Marshall were scared.

Within minutes of Detective Dominic Perelli’s call, the boys were standing in Rhonda Boland’s kitchen.

“Where’s Brady?” Justin said.

“It’s all right fellas. We’re working on that.” Perelli said. “We need your help.”

Ryan and Justin had been hurried to the house by their anxious mothers, Gayleen Taylor and Fanny Marshall, who had always pitied “poor Rhonda” behind her back. Such a tragic case. Widowed by a deadbeat who had the nerve to die in debt.

Gayleen and Fanny surveyed the activity, their fears mounting when they glimpsed Rhonda down the hall in the bedroom talking to two men in suits taking notes. Something worse, much worse, than a burglary had happened.

“What’s going on?” Fanny asked.

“A police investigation. We need your sons to help us,” Grace said.

“Help with what?” Gayleen asked.

“We need to speak to them privately about what they may have seen in the park the other day. We need to do it as quickly as possible.”

“Why, what happened in the park? What does this concern?” Fanny said. “Why won’t you tell us? You are going to frighten our boys. Where’s Brady?”

Grace nodded to Officers Lloyd and Vossek.

“Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Marshall,” Lloyd said. “If you’d please come with us, we’ll explain.”

Grace and Perelli took the boys to the backyard, where they sat at a picnic table.

“Guys, you’re not in trouble, okay? We need your help,” Grace said. “This is extremely important. Do you remember going to the park with Brady the other day?”

“We go every day,” Ryan said.

“Do you recall a time recently where Brady talked to anyone, like a stranger, or a man at the park?”

“A couple days ago, there was a guy, some stranger,” Ryan said.

“Do you know him?”

Head shakes.

“What did he look like? Black guy, white guy? Tall? Fat? Tattoos?”

“White guy.”

“Old? Young?”

“Maybe like him”—Justin pointed at Perelli—“only skinnier.”

“And we saw him hanging around and stuff before,” Ryan said.

“When before?”

“A couple of days ago, I guess.”

“Something bad happened, didn’t it?” Justin asked.

Grace glanced at Kay Cataldo working at the window.

“Guys, what was the stranger doing in the park?”

“Sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper,” Justin said.

“And drinking coffee,” Ryan said.

“Drinking coffee? Like in a take-out cup?”

“I think so.”

“Want to go for a short ride in a detective car?” Grace said.

A few minutes later, they stood before the park bench where the stranger had sat.

The trash basket beside it was half-filled. Grace squatted, concentrating on the dates she saw on the discarded newspapers. The trash had not been emptied for several days.

“Guys, you said he was drinking coffee from a take-out cup.”

“He was drinking from that one,” Ryan said.

“Come closer, show me without touching.”

Ryan pulled his face to the trash, pointing to the red, white, and blue take-out cup under the plastic take-out bag.

Perelli and Grace exchanged glances.

It was the only red, white, and blue take-out cup in the trash.

“Are you sure, Ryan?”

“Yes, I saw him crumple it before he left.”

Grace was making notes.

“Did you see if he got into a car, or where he went?”

Justin and Ryan shook their heads.

“Can you remember, Ryan, was the man wearing gloves?”

“No gloves.”

Dial tones sounded. Perelli had turned away to call Kay Cataldo to get to their location fast.

“Uhm,” Justin said, “what happened to Brady?”

Grace looked at the boys.

“We’re working on that.”

Grace turned back to the cup, pulling it out carefully and holding it as if it were the Holy Grail.

“And this cup may give us the answer.”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

T
his is it, baby.

At her table in the Seattle Police Crime Scene Investigation Unit near the airport, Kay Cataldo examined the take-out coffee cup plucked from the trash in the park near Brady Boland’s home.

She worked on it with near reverence because she knew, knew deep in her heart, that they had something. The cup was abundant with wonderfully clear latents.

Grace was bang-on. This was their Holy Grail.

It was the cup used by the Boland boy’s kidnapper, who wore the shoes worn by Sister Anne’s and Sharla May Forrest’s killer. He’d left a nice size-11 impression under the Bolands’ back window.

Thank you.

We are so on to you, you mother—

Cataldo had dusted and photographed the prints with an old reliable CU-5, before collecting them with lifting tape. She had a complete and crisp set of impressions from the right hand.

She studied the loops, whorls, and arches.

Very good.

Time was her enemy.

She worked quickly but with expert efficiency, beginning with the thumb, which in a standard ten-card is “number one.” Carefully, she coded its characteristics before moving on to the other fingers. Then she scanned the prints and entered the information into her computer.

Now she could submit them to the automated fingerprint-identification systems, AFIS, for a quick search through massive local, state, and nationwide data banks for a match.

After typing commands on her keyboard, Cataldo finished the last of her bagel and orange juice while her computer processed her data for possible matches. In less than two minutes, it came back with two hits from the Seattle PD’s local data bank.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

It was a start, she thought, waiting for results from the Washington State Patrol Identification and Criminal History Section (WASIS) and a range of other criminal history database systems.

Her submission was searched through the regional information-sharing systems, like the western states network and the FBI’s mother of all data banks, the IAFIS, which stored some seven hundred million impressions from law enforcement agencies across the country.

We’re coming for you.

When it was done, her search had yielded a total of five possibles that closely matched her submission from the cup.

Immediately, she began making a visual point-by-point comparison between each of the three candidates and her unidentified set from the cup. She zeroed in on the critical minutiae points, like the trail of ridges near the tip of the number-three finger. Too many dissimilarities there.

So long, candidate number one.

For the next set, Cataldo blew up her sample to visually count the number of ridges on the number-two finger and soon saw distinct differences. That took care of number two.

Let’s go to number three.

Cataldo’s concentration intensified as she compared her submission with the computer’s remaining suggested match. The branching of the ridges matched. All the minutiae points matched. Her pulse quickened as she began counting the points of comparison where the two samples matched.

Looking good.

Some courts required about a dozen clear point matches. She had fourteen and was still counting, knowing that one divergent point instantly eliminated a print. By the time she’d compared the left slanting patterns from the last finger, she had seventeen clear points of comparison.

Then she matched the scales of the prints and used her computer program to superimpose one over the other, the way one would trace a picture.

We have a winner.

Cataldo confirmed the identification number of her new subject, and submitted a query to several law enforcement data banks, including the FBI’s National Crime Information Center and the Washington State Department of Corrections. By accessing the various criminal history systems she could verify parolee history, offender identification, arrest records, convictions, holds, and commitments for other law enforcement agencies.

In minutes, Cataldo’s computer introduced her to the owner of the fingerprints on the take-out cup.

Gotcha.

The cold, hard eyes of a white man glared from her monitor, as if he were angry that she’d found him. She clicked to his central file summary and read quickly through his offences.

Second-degree murder.

Armed robbery.

A lifetime achiever. These were only the bigticket items.

According to his ERD, his Earned Release Date, he was released months ago.

Cataldo clicked and the guy’s story unfolded before her. Her head snapped back at what she’d read.

“Lord, that can’t be!”

Cataldo seized her phone, punched a number.

“Homicide, Garner.”

“Grace, it’s Kay.”

“You got him?”

“Leon Dean Sperbeck. Did twenty-five for second-degree during an armed robbery. Was released to community custody a few months ago.”

“Got an address?”

“Grace, you won’t believe this. His DOC file is closed. It’s marked deceased.”

Chapter Sixty

T
en minutes after Cataldo locked on to Sperbeck, Grace was on the phone with his community corrections officer.

“Dead men don’t leave fingerprints,” Grace said. “I need an address.”

“Sonofa—Hold on. Are you sure those are Sperbeck’s prints on that cup?” Herb Kent, ten months from retirement, pulled a page from the file on his desk. “Because I’m looking at the report from the Rangers at Mount Rainier last month. Leon drowned himself in the Nisqually River.”

“I know. But did they find his body?”

“I’m not sure. Sorry, I just came back from sick leave, had surgery to remove two toes.” Kent paged through the file. “Nothing here says they found him yet. But I talked to Leon, maybe a week before he went there. He was despondent, like he said in his note.”

“Do you have his note?”

“I have a copy in here. I’ll fax it to you.”

“Did Sperbeck ever talk about the Boland family or Sister Anne Braxton? Did they visit him inside?”

“Let me grab his visitor sheet.” Kent sifted through the file. “What I know is that Leon was quiet, kept to himself and out of trouble. When he was assigned to me, his case didn’t need a lot of monitoring.”

Kent flipped through reports, applications, test results for Sperbeck.

“He served his full time and was no risk to reoffend. He had no family, or much of a support network. I helped him with his release plan, you know, contacting social service agencies, lining up job interviews. He had no violations and he got work as a janitor, but it didn’t last and he took it hard. Some guys can’t cope after being inside a long time. The world changes, they’re stigmatized.”

Damn it.
Grace had had enough.

Sperbeck had fallen through the cracks. Violent felons were supposed to be tracked, even after release. Sperbeck had obviously staged his death. Those were his prints on the cup.

“Herb. Stop. Just give me Sperbeck’s last known address now.”

“Well, he had a couple. I’m still checking. He told me one place got flooded. The other was noisy.”

“Herb.”

“Here we go. This one in the northwest was his last. It’s off Market.”

Grace took it down.

“And, look here, the answer is, yes. Seems Sister Anne Braxton visited him several times at Washington State, then at Clallam Bay and Coyote Ridge.”

“You can confirm that he had contact with her?”

“The file here says she was instrumental in helping Sperbeck with his Moral Reconation Therapy and as his spiritual counselor—hello?”

Grace hung up and alerted SWAT to roll on Sperbeck’s residence.

The SWAT equipment truck and other emergency vehicles moved quickly to set up a command post in the parking lot of Wyslowleski’s Funeral Home, about four blocks from Sperbeck’s address.

The field commander, Lieutenant Jim Harlan, examined detailed maps and blueprints of the small house where Sperbeck rented a room at the rear. Harlan then briefed SWAT and the Hostage Negotiations Team on the objective: Seal the area, choke off all traffic, evacuate all citizens in the line of fire by stealth. Get a visual on the suspect and the hostage, then determine if a blitz entry was viable.

Police set up an outer perimeter well outside the hot zone and began diverting traffic, while cops dressed in work clothes eased a city utility van to a door down from Sperbeck’s building to confirm any movement in his apartment.

Other plainclothes officers quickly and quietly evacuated every resident from the line of fire near the building while SWAT members set up an inner perimeter by keeping out of sight near the house. No one was home in the front section. Then Sergeant Mike Brigger led his SWAT team scouts closer to the building. They would determine safety points for other team members to follow and launch a rescue.

As they waited at the command post, Grace and Perelli studied Sperbeck’s old crime, trying to piece everything together. A child hostage was killed in a $3.3 million heist. None of the money had ever surfaced. How did it all fit with the Bolands, Sister Anne, and Sharla May Forrest?

And Henry Wade was one of the responding officers. Jason Wade’s old man.

While Perelli worked the phone, Grace went over it again and again.

Nothing made sense.

“Hey, Grace.” Perelli finished a call and pulled her out of earshot. “Records says that around the time Sperbeck was released, an investigator for the insurance company that paid out on the claim made some enquiries on the old case. Guy by the name of Ethan Quinn wanted to locate the officers on call that day.”

“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.