The Survivors Club (31 page)

“And if he couldn’t get away?” Moran asked.

“He would kill as many as he could. And then he’d kill himself.”

Deputy Moran nodded. “That’s what I figured.”

Tess liked him. He had been very quick to stop and take stock of the situation, and had not turned around to go after Poole. He’d thought his actions through with the information he had at the time.

One word from her, and he’d pulled over to the side of the road.
He could have been a much different type.

Tess was glad she’d found him.

“He knows you pulled off,” Tess said. “Either he thinks you were just patrolling—routine—or that you’d been called off. Any way you look at it, he’s going to be wary. But at least we haven’t scared him off. I’m thinking I should go ahead. My Tahoe’s unmarked. He won’t necessarily be looking for a car like this.”

“Then I’m going to have to wait for backup, ma’am.”

“You’ll call it in?”

“Yeah. SWAT.”

“SWAT,” Tess said.

He was right. They would need SWAT.

Deputy Moran said, “I’m worried about the hostage.”

“Me, too.” Tess was certain Wade Poole planned to shoot Jaimie if Michael DeKoven didn’t cooperate.

“Think we should get closer?” Moran asked.

Tess decided to share her real fear with Deputy Moran. “We think that Poole is going to extort money from the DeKoven family. He’s using Jaimie as a hostage, but what would scare a guy like DeKoven the most? What ultimate threat?”

“That he’d kill her right in front of him,” Moran said. “As an example.”

Tess nodded. “I agree.”

He said, “The message would be that DeKoven would be next. I think we should get closer. I think we’ve got probable cause.”

“Or at least ‘possible cause,’” Tess said.

Moran laughed at that. “‘Possible cause.’ Sounds good enough to me.”

Tess looked up the road. From where they were they could see Zinderneuf’s lighted windows. The Moorish-slash-Pueblo-style building dominated the landscape. At one time, there was no Thunderhead Ranch, there were no homes anywhere nearby. That was before some of the land was sold off and subdivided. At one time, Zinderneuf had dominated the valley. But now it didn’t look all that different from the McMansions farther down the road. Clinging to the top of a hill, lighted windows. Except that Zinderneuf was all by itself.

“Wouldn’t take much to climb up there.” Moran nodded toward a shallow wash that crossed under the road and meandered between two scrub-covered hills. “We follow the wash around that hill and then go up cross-country.”

There was a moon already, and it was almost full.

Moran called in and said they would be observing, and when SWAT came, they would identify themselves. The estimated time for the SWAT team was inside twenty-five minutes.

They followed the arroyo along the hillside and found a horse trail leading up. They kept low to the ground and tried to stay as quiet as possible, stopping often to listen.

It took them about fifteen minutes to traverse the distance. They reached the blacktopped area where Tess had first seen Michael’s expensive Fisker Karma. It must be garaged now. Jaimie Wolfe’s ranch truck was parked closest to the gate. Poole and his hostage hadn’t been here long.

They worked their way toward the side of the house. The only noise was the sound of crickets. A bat fluttered past them and dipped down into the pool and up. Tess saw low decorative lights at intervals through the sparse mesquite limbs. They followed a dirt path along the ridge, lighted occasionally from recessed lamps set into the low wall of the pool area. The pool reflected the lights from the house. Across the way, screened by a garden and a royal palm, the guest house was dark. Tess wondered if Michael’s estranged wife and children were in residence. It was a little early to be asleep. They might be out somewhere.

They duckwalked along the desert side of the house and under a massive eucalyptus tree. Two windows were lighted on the far end, casting rectangles of light on the bushes and cactus. There was a space of about two and a half feet below the window, so they crawled under, careful of the thorns. They reached the corner and followed that around. No windows on that side. On the far side was an entrance—locked, and a porch overlooked the city lights. They went from dirt to flagstone paving and came upon a kitchen entrance. Tess checked the door: unlocked.

She looked at Moran and he looked at her. She tilted her chin in the direction of the city, and he gave her a curt nod: they would wait for SWAT.

They followed the porch around to the garden entrance, with steps down to the pool.

The house had been large for its time but not by modern standards. The buildings followed the profile of the ridge. Everything was quiet. No movement across the long pool area or at the guest house. The wife’s house was still dark. Tess hoped she was gone.

The only sound was the hum of the pool filter. The adobe walls to the house were probably two feet thick.

They circled the house again. Heard voices from one of the rooms on the east side.

Getting louder. Garbled. Angry?

Tess and Moran looked at each other. Weapons at the ready, drawn and at their sides.

“
Possible cause
.” It had been a joke, but now it wasn’t.

Then they heard a crash, echoing through the thick walls—

A gunshot.

They couldn’t wait. They were going in.

CHAPTER 53

Michael had been in his study looking at his bank accounts online when he heard a door open and close.

He almost called out Martin’s name.

But Martin had wanted to go to a show at the convention center in downtown Tucson, and Michael hadn’t felt like it. He was too tied up in knots. He looked at his watch. The show had only been going for about thirty-five minutes—no way it could be Martin unless he decided not to go at all.

He thumbed his phone and tapped in Martin’s number.

“How’s the show?” he asked when Martin answered.

“It’s okay. The production values need some work—”

“Something’s come up,” Michael said. “Got to go.”

He kept quiet, his ear tuned to the front door. It was the front door. Jaimie knew the combination to the keypad by heart. Maybe Poole had been lying. Maybe Jaimie was fine, and maybe she’d run here so he could protect her.

But he didn’t think so.

He could feel his stomach tighten. Could almost feel his organs shrink, as if they were clenched in gelid fingers—fingers of the dead. Blood seemed to race from his extremities, and adrenaline poured through him. An electric river of fear.

He’d never been afraid before.

Even when his father raped him.

Even when, a couple of times, he thought someone might catch on to what they were doing. There was always that danger of slipping up. Which made it scary, but also fun.

But now he knew that the man called Wade Poole was in the house. He had Jaimie and he was creeping around, looking. Opening doors—he heard one creak—and coming his way. Seeing the light under the door. The light to his office.

Part of him yelled
Run!

But he was no coward. He’d killed people and watched the light die in their eyes. He wasn’t going to run now.

Not many people could summon up the wherewithal to kill. He was one of them. He could look in someone’s eyes and kill them—and enjoy it.

He got up slowly. His Ruger .44 was in the locked drawer of his desk. He got the key out and wriggled it into the lock. Had trouble with it. Felt the first stirrings of panic. His hands weren’t shaking, exactly, just a little tremor—

The door burst open.

Of course he hadn’t locked it.

And there was Jaimie—her face a white fright mask, mascara running down her cheeks. Looking like she’d been unearthed out of a fresh grave. Like a zombie. His sister, the zombie.

All these thoughts ribboned through his mind, and he saw the black hole of a very-large-caliber gun. Pointed right at his face.

And he saw the man behind the gun. The man who held Jaimie as if she were a rag doll. The man was strong, brutish, and stupid.

Stupid.

Like a guy who fell off the proverbial turnip truck.

An ox.

A rancher type, the kind Jaimie fucked. Blue work shirt. White straw cowboy hat. Round face. Sunburn. Blue eyes. Local yokel grin. Graying blond hair.

Except his eyes were like blue marbles. Cold.

Suddenly, it occurred to him that he might have underestimated the man.

He understood that when the man shoved Jaimie facedown on the desk and pushed the gun muzzle into her hair.

Smiling as he did it.

“Here’s how it’s gonna go, friend.”

He was the cowboy he’d seen outside the general store. The Okie.

“I’m gonna kill her right in front of you. It’s gonna make a big mess. This is a large-caliber weapon. She’ll blow chunks and so will you. She’s gonna mess up the nice finish on your desk. All that blood’ll soak into the grain. Now I know you’re not afraid of blood or killing. But you’re gonna see her close up, and then, being human nature and all, you’ll picture what
you’ll
look like. Just remember, friend, dead’s forever. There’s now, and then there’s nothing.”

Michael steeled himself. “Go ahead and kill her.”

“Look, bud, all I want is you to wire that money to my account. You can do it in two minutes tops. Don’t you care about your sister at all?”

“No.”

He shook his head. “Okay, then.”

And he pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 54

Tess checked the kitchen door—unlocked. She said, “I’ll go low right. You go high left, okay?”

“Roger.”

They took their positions on either side of the door, weapons at the ready. Moran’s pointing to the left, Tess’s to the right. Moran turned the knob and pushed the door open with his foot.

Nothing greeted them.

The shot had come from the right. Moran went left, Tess went right, and they cleared the rooms immediately in front of them. Tess, the kitchen, Moran, the parlor. They zeroed in on the room where they’d heard the shot.

Noise—a commotion—someone banging into furniture, the screech of wood against tile, and then the loud shock of something repeatedly hitting the floor.

Michael’s study.

The sound of a gourd breaking. Again and again.

The door was open and Tess could see a woman’s body sprawled facedown over the desk, blood oozing out from under her head, a clot of it burrowed into her slightly upturned cheek.

Long dark hair with blonde highlights.

Jaimie.

But the horror was so much worse. Michael DeKoven was crawling on his hands and knees, his head a bloody mess. A man in Wrangler jeans and a blue denim shirt bent over him, slamming his head repeatedly into the floor.

Poole.

“Police! Hands behind your head! Do it now!”

Tess heard her own voice, but it sounded foreign in her ears.

“Do it now!” yelled Deputy Moran. His voice strong and loud in the room.

Poole kept pounding DeKoven’s head into the floor. “How do you like
that
, motherfucker? How do you like
that
?”

Blood spraying—a red mist. A solid chunk of DeKoven’s head smashing into the floor once more before Moran was able to get hold of one of Poole’s blood-slippery arms in his, wrenching it behind the man’s back.

Michael DeKoven’s body slumped, then caved.

Tess thought he was dead. He
had
to be dead.

Tess had to hopscotch over Michael’s body to give Moran a hand. Poole was staggering, bellowing like a maddened bull, trying to twist around and head butt Moran. “I’ll show you, you prissy little fucker!” he yelled at DeKoven’s corpse. “I’ll show you who’s boss!”

Tess latched on. He roared and shook her off, swung his head back and forth, blood flying like an oscillating lawn sprinkler.

Enraged. His eyes red rimmed. She latched onto him again. It took both of them to restrain him.

Abruptly, he stopped struggling.

All three of them huffing like freight trains.

Blood snared his mouth and dripped to the bottom of his nose and splashed on the tile.

Suddenly he dropped to his knees, almost pulling Tess and Moran with him. Tess stumbled and went to one knee just to stay up.

Poole shook himself like a big dog and blood flew. He raised his face to the ceiling and howled. He howled like a wolf.

Moran looked at Tess. “What the—?”

The howling morphed into laughter. Jagged, manic, loud.

It went on and on and on.

CHAPTER 55

Jurisdictional hell.

Everyone wanted a piece of Wade Poole.

Pima County Sheriff’s got the nod—they had the best case. Fortunately, Tess and Danny would sit in on the interrogation, along with Cheryl Tedesco of TPD.

They’d need a bigger interview room.

While they cooled their heels at the Pima County Sheriff’s Adult Detention Center on Silverlake Road, Danny made a call to his wife.

Tess listened as they talked, overheard him crooning a lullaby to his new little girl. How his voice softened. How his face changed. Tess found herself wishing that she had a family like that, had that dimension to her life.
A child.

She’d never thought about that possibility before.

As Danny disconnected, he looked at her, puzzled. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Danny pocketed his phone and leaned forward, elbows on knees. Clasped his hands and glanced over at her. “What you think is going to happen in there?”

“What do
you
think will happen in there?”

“I think he’ll reserve his right to remain silent. I think we came all this way for nothing.”

Tess agreed. As a homicide cop, Wade Poole had been on the other side too many times. He knew all the tricks. He knew what they would say before they said it.

Plus, he was an asshole.

He’d stonewall them.

He knew he was going down, but he’d still get the last laugh.

It was a victory of sorts.

The room was cramped, stale, and warm. There were enough people there for a poorly attended city council meeting. Tess, Danny, and Cheryl were merely observers.

There were two Pima County sheriff’s detectives. They came to the party armed with an arsenal of evidence. In Michael DeKoven’s house alone, two people were dead by Wade Poole’s hand, and a Pima County Sheriff’s deputy and a Santa Cruz County homicide detective had witnessed Michael DeKoven’s murder.

Poole sat easy in his chair, despite the fact that he couldn’t stretch out. His hands were cuffed and chained to the interview table. He smiled: the jovial hayseed.

Detective Phil Arenas leaned forward. “You know we’ve got you dead to rights, Wade. You’re smart enough to know that. So why don’t you tell me your side?”

Wade shifted in his seat.

He grinned. “Yeah, you got me.” He leaned forward. “So what say I tell you everything?”

The surprise was plain on Arenas’s face.

Wade leaned back. The chain rattled. “’Course I want something in exchange. I want a cushy place, one of those country club prisons.”

Tess was aware she was staring at him. And she wasn’t alone. The secondary investigator on the case, Eric Spindler, opened his mouth wide enough to let flies in.

“Wade,” Spindler said. “You know that that’s not the way it w—”

Poole kept his eye on the lead, Phil Arenas. “That’s the deal. I’ll clear this case for you and a bunch of others, because I know
exactly
what those kids did.” He grinned, all corn pone. “You give me a good place, and I’ll tell all.”

“We’ll do our best, Wade,” Arenas said. “But you know as well as I do. There aren’t any country club prisons in Arizona.”

“You know what I mean. I want the best of the best. Whatever that is.” He leveled his gaze at Arenas. “But you gotta give me hospice care.”

Arenas left the room. They waited, but they didn’t have to wait long.

“Okay, Wade,” Arenas said, settling into the chair close to Poole. “If everything you say checks out, we can do that. So you’re sick? What is it you have?”

“Brain cancer. My doctor’s name is Clarence Pogue.” He rattled off the number. “Got it on the speed dial inside of my head.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad. Headaches, mostly. My balance sucks. The vomiting is the worst. You gonna make that call?”

Spindler pulled his phone from his pocket and left the room.

Wade sat back and grinned. For a man with a death sentence, he looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Spindler came back. “We’ll get you into hospice.”

And so Wade Poole began to talk.

He confessed to killing George Hanley. “What’d he think? He’d serve up proof about those kids killing people and tie it up in a nice little bow? You think they’d take him seriously? Stupid old fool, throwing away a chance to make a fortune with both hands. So I shot him, made it look like a cartel did it.”

“Just curious, Wade,” Arenas said. “While you’re getting things off your chest, what about your wife, Karen Poole?”

He grinned. “That was mine.”

“How about Chad DeKoven? You know anything about that?”

He held up a manacled hand. “Guilty. While I’m in a talkative mood, I can tell you I killed Steve Barkman, too—my most creative work yet. Kind of an experiment, but surprise-surprise, it worked.” He grinned. “Guess this good ol’ boy is a one-man crime wave.”

“Why did you kill Steve Barkman?”

He leaned forward. “That greedy little son of a bitch wasn’t interested in helping out Sheppard. He wanted a piece of the DeKoven pie. Can you believe that? Poor dumb fuck thought he could mess with me and mine.”

He sat back again, grinning from ear to ear.

“Had a dog like him once, sneaky little shit, used to skulk around and steal hoof parings when I was shoeing horses. Ate ’em right up. Always looked ashamed of himself, but he ate ’em. That’s what Steve Barkman reminded me of. A hoof-eating dog.” He leaned back even farther in his seat and stretched his legs out. “But there was another reason. You want to know what it was?”

“I’d appreciate anything you can say that will help us understand what happened here,” Arenas said.

Poole grinned. “I bet you would. I killed him for the same reason I killed Hanley and the surfer dude. Because my best girl asked me to.”

Phil Arenas looked at his partner. Cheryl looked at Tess and Danny and they looked at her.

“You should see your faces,” Poole said. “You didn’t know that, did you? You want to know who she is?”

He leaned into the microphone.

“Brayden.

“DeKoven.

“McConnell.”

The interrogation went for hours. Wade Poole had a lot to say and nothing to lose. Although he was forthcoming, even jovial, there was an undercurrent of rage Tess could feel. It was always there, behind the friendly mask he wore.

“I lured Hanley out to the ghost town. It was an ambush, pure and simple. He backed up onto the porch and I just kept walking and shooting, walking and shooting. Like that old fifties show,
The Rifleman
. Bam bam bam bam! Perfect place for a drug hit. When in doubt, always muddy the waters.”

By that time, he told them, he liked the idea of playing vigilante. He’d planned to pick off the DeKovens one by one. “I decided to mess with their heads first. Scare ’em. For sport, you know? The hunter becomes the hunted.” He grinned.

“How’d you meet Brayden DeKoven?” Phil Arenas asked.

“I was on to them all, but I figured Brayden would be the weakest link, being the youngest and a female. Jesus, was
I
ever wrong. That simpering little bitch has ice water in her veins!” He laughed. “She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. She wanted her two brothers and her sister dead. Gave me this song and dance about how she’d waited for a guy like me all her life, batted her eyes real pretty, did things to me you can’t imagine.” He winked. “Told me if I killed them she’d split the inheritance with me.”

“You believed that?” Arenas asked.

His eyes turned to stone, and once again Tess could see the real man behind the friendly mask. “Hell, no. What she didn’t realize, though, was, she was next.”

“No interest in marrying her?”

“It wouldn’t last long, would it? I’m a dead man! Plus, who could live with a crazy bitch like that? And her kid? Jesus. Nope, I wanted money up front and she paid me good. I’ve still got a lot of life left in me and I’ve got one hell of a bucket list. If you’re gonna die, you might as well go out in style. So I figured I could blackmail Michael DeKoven as easily as she could.”

They were just finishing up when he turned pale. “I’m gonna pass out. You got a bed in here somewhere? I need to lie down
now
.”

But he didn’t make it as far as the door.