crouching position I couldn’t see any more than I had from the steps. I slowly started to stand and before I was upright I saw three female faces looking my direction. I froze and it took me a moment to see that they weren’t looking at me, but at a TV. I slowly crouched down again and fought an urge to run.
The thing that kept me there was that if I could get to the other side of the window I could see what they were watching. Maybe it was just The L Word, or Desperate Housewives, or something, but I was curious. I ducked down and slipped over to the other side of the window.
When I saw naked flesh on the screen my first thought was that they were watching porn, but nothing sexual seemed to be happening. The image was being reversed, but it was clearly a nude man in some kind of crouching position. When it started playing again, I could see that it was Freddie Divos. He was handcuffed to a grate in a cement floor, and his ankles were duct-taped to his wrists, holding him in an awkward position. He was hit with a spray of water from off camera, and he yelled, red-faced, before he went into a prolonged coughing fit. I couldn’t hear what he had said, because of an air conditioner close by that was humming loudly. I’m not sure I could’ve heard anyway.
Freddie Divos seemed to be talking at a rapid pace while I got my phone out. I looked away from the TV as I flipped it open and navigated to the Pix and Flix screen. I selected Make Video, and held the phone up in front of me. I got as close as I could and hit the button to record. A ‘Video Memory Full’ sign came on the screen. They were reversing the tape again as I switched to the picture function. I thought he must’ve been saying something important at that point in the tape. I held the phone up and got the TV in the frame and hit the button. There was a loud, fake shutter sound as it took the picture. I plastered myself against the wall and waited.
After awhile I decided that they hadn’t heard. The air conditioner was pretty loud. I was turning down the volume on my phone so I could take more pictures when it started vibrating in my hand. It startled me, and sent me crouch-running back to the alley. I was almost back to the street before I looked at the phone and saw that it was John calling. I flipped it open, breathing hard from the running and the excitement. “You were right John, you were so right. Everything you said was right. It’s her, she did it. “
“What did you find in there?” He asked.
I told him about the ski masks and the alley and the video as I walked back to my car. “I think I have a good picture of it on my phone.” I said. “That’s hard evidence right? David could use that in court couldn’t he?”
“Is Gretchen on the screen with Freddie?” He asked.
“No.” I said, getting into my car.
“Did you hear any of what they were saying?”
“No not at all.” I said. “I was right near an air conditioner, and the window was closed.”
“Then I’m not sure how useful your phone picture’s going to be.” He said. “At least in proving Gretchen did it. Now if we could somehow get our hands on that tape and look at the whole thing. Then we might really have something. The important thing is that now we know a video exists. This is good news. You done good kid, you coulda been a gumshoe.”
My phone was buzzing again, and I looked and saw that it was Jessie. “I’m getting a call from Jess.” I said.
“Okay, but call me back.” He said. “When I come to take the night shift I’ll need directions.”
I hung up with John and flipped the phone open again. “You feel like driving to Pittsburgh tonight?” Jessie asked.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Sara met this guy online who sells weed by the ounce. He lives in Pittsburgh. We can drive down there tonight and pick it up. It’s not that far.”
“It’s like four hours!” I said. “There and back it’s over eight, plus however long it takes while we’re there. Even if we left right now, we wouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t exaggerate, we could be back before the sun comes up. This guy’s supposed to have really good weed.”
“It’s probably a fucking cop.” I said. “Sara met him online. Shit, you can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“You’d be lucky if it was a cop, it’s probably some psycho. No, no way, not with all this shit going on.”
“It’s not like you have to go to work tomorrow.” She said.
“No, but you do.” I said. “Why doesn’t Sara get her boyfriend to drive her? We could just buy some when she gets back -that is if she doesn’t get thrown in jail or chopped up by the next Jeffrey Dhalmer.”
“Her boyfriend’s still on house arrest, I told you.” She said. “You never listen to a word I say.”
“Look, Jess, Gretchen’s gonna make her move any second. She definitely killed Freddie. I have proof now. Well, not legal proof, but proof enough for us.” I said. “What if she goes to kill Junior and we’re in Pittsburgh trying to score weed? We have to be here.”
“Okay, I’ll go without you.” She said. “Don’t take forever getting the car back here, Sara and I want to leave as soon as possible.”
TWENTY-TWO
Jessie left and I spent the night at home watching late night talk shows, waiting for my Tylenol PMs to kick in so I could get some sleep. I didn’t remember falling asleep. The phone rang at a little after nine AM. It was John. “What the hell’s going on? Jessie was supposed to take over an hour ago.” He said.
“Sorry.” I sat up on the couch and rubbed my eyes. “Any news?”
“No, she left her friend’s house and drove herself home, swerving a little and going slow. That’s it.” He said.
“You been up this whole time?”
“I’ve been dosing on and off, but now I need a bed. What are you doing? Where’s Jess?”
“Well, Jessie’s not here right now, she shoulda been back. I’ll call her.”
“Where is she?” He asked.
“She drove to Pittsburgh last night.”
“What the hell for?”
“You don’t want to know.” I said. “I’ll call you back okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” He said. I hung up and got up off the couch. I got the coffee brewing and called Jessie’s phone. Sara answered.
“Can you put Jess on?” I said.
“No, she’s driving, she doesn’t want to talk and drive at the same time.”
“Where are you guys?” I asked.
“We just left Pittsburgh. We should be back in a few hours.”
“A few hours? What took so long?”
“We hit a couple of snags in the ‘Burgh.”
“Just out of curiosity, was the trip a success?” I asked.
“Kind of.” She said. “Half and half. I can’t explain over the phone.”
“Alright.” I said. “Don’t let her fall asleep at the wheel alright? Keep her up.”
“Yeah okay.” Sara said.
Jessie got home at quarter to two, and I found out what Sara meant calling the trip half-successful. Apparently they had gotten to Little Billy’s apartment -that was the guy’s name- but he wasn’t there and they had to wait in the car for over an hour for him to get home. When he finally arrived, he was drunk -he’d been at some after-hours club. He told them he’d sold the last of what he’d had and he wasn’t getting any more in until the following week.
“He didn’t even apologize.” Jessie said. “He just told us to come back next week. So standing right there in front of his apartment Sara just started going off. She was yelling at him, calling him a liar, ‘cause he told her in a text that he could hook her up that night and now we’d come all the way down there for nothing. He kept telling her to be quiet or the neighbors would hear, but Sara was pissed. So the guy made some phone calls, but keep in mind it was like quarter to four in the morning and everyone was sleeping except this one guy -but this guy didn’t even have any weed, just ‘shrooms. I was like ‘fuck it, let’s go home’ but Sara said that at least this way we coul
d get something out of the trip. So we took this Little Billy freak way the hell up some hill, to this real bad neighborhood, and we bought a half ounce of shrooms off this scary tweaker named Pat.”
“Sounds like a wonderful trip. I’m sorry I missed it.” I said.
“Don’t be a dick.” She said. “You were right, isn’t that enough?”
“I guess so. You missed your shift watching Gretchen.”
“Yeah.” She said. “And I have to be at work in ten minutes. How’m I supposed to work all day on no sleep?”
“You know your pap has been out there all night and all day. He’s probably exhausted.”
“Him and me both.” She said, showing no sign of guilt. I drove her to the PFPFP and after I’d dropped her off I called John to tell him I was on my way.
“Good, it’s getting interesting.” He said. “She went back to that house off twenty and picked someone up. I’m not sure where they’re going now, I think they’re heading toward Cleveland. Get on the road and I’ll let you know where we wind up.”
I was on route 6 almost to Cleveland when John called. “Yes, this is very interesting indeed.” He said. “We’re in front of National Custom Gunsmith.”
“Really? Did they go in there?” I asked.
“No, that’s what’s strange.” He said. “It looks like they’re doing surveillance on the place. They’re not very good at it either. They’re just sitting there with binoculars watching the front door. Pretty obvious. And I’m up the block watching them.”
“I wonder if anyone’s watching you.” I said.
“Actually, that’s a good question. When you’re talking about Dennis Reston it’s really not that far fetched.”
“Why?” I asked. “You never told me what you found out about him.”
“He didn’t bite when you went in there talking about Freddie, so I didn’t think he had anything to do with all this.” He said. “I guess I was wrong. Dennis Reston is a local guy who was a spook in the eighties. CIA supposedly. Anyway, he retired a few years back and opened the gun shop.”
“Why would Gretchen be watching his shop?” I asked.
“I haven’t got a clue.” He said.
“You still tired?”
“I’m getting a second wind. I want to know what these ladies think they’re up to here. I mean Gretchen’s got at least three of her friends involved. I wonder why she needs all that manpower?”
“You mean woman power.” I said. I pulled off the freeway and stopped at a traffic light. “The thing that seemed weird to me was, you know, the casual nature of the whole thing. I mean there they were, these woman sitting around a living room, watching this guy getting tortured on the TV, and they were drinking wine. Like it was American Idol or something.”
“That’s cold-blooded alright. I wonder where that video is now.”
“You gotta figure it’s either at the house off route twenty or at Gretchen’s place.” I said.
“Those are two places we know are empty right at this very moment.” John said. “As soon as you get here, I think I’ll go on a little easter-egg hunt.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” I was pulling up behind him. “That’s me, I’ll take over from here. Be sure and let me know if you find that video.”
He told me he would and that he was going to search Gretchen’s place first. “If you even think they might be headed toward that general area, call me. I’m counting on you.” He said. I told him not to worry.
Looking out my passenger window, I could see Gretchen’s Honda between two trees and the side of a Goodwill store. They were watching the gun shop alright. It wasn’t long before I saw the Honda’s taillights flash and they were moving. I put my car in gear and went after them.
After they’d made a couple of turns I realized that they were following a dark silver Cadillac Escalade with a red W sticker on the back window. Eventually the Caddy pulled into a strip mall and Gretchen parked on the street in front. I made a quick left down a side street and, when I was sure I was out of sight, turned around and came back down, parking in a place where I could see Gretchen’s Honda and had a clear view of the strip mall. Dennis Reston had gotten out of the Escalade. He was wearing tan slacks and an Orioles baseball cap. He went into a coffee shop called The Sipping Point.
He could be seen through the window ordering his drink and then waiting for it. He flipped through the leftover newspapers that were in a basket by the front door, then pulled out a section and began looking it over. When his drink was ready he tucked the paper under his arm and left the shop.
He pulled out of the lot and turned right, going in the opposite direction than he had come, headed back toward Main. Gretchen’s taillights flashed and she turned and went after the Escalade.
Dennis Reston led Gretchen and me on a trip down into the flats, past the trendy nightclub area and into a run down neighborhood that I’d never been to before. He made so many turns that I considered the possibility that he was trying to lose her, but then he finally pulled into a place called Warren Auto-Body. It had an illuminated yellow plastic sign on a pillar in the corner of a small lot. There were a couple of tow trucks parked half on the sidewalk, and the lot had a few cars in it. The garage doors were open and there was a car visible on one of the lifts inside.
When the Cadillac pulled in, Gretchen slowed down and crept past the place and then made her first left up a narrow street of row-houses on a hill. I stepped on the gas and accelerated past the street where she had turned. At the first opportunity I turned right and then right again, headed toward the back of the auto-body shop. I made another right and pulled to the curb on the street next to the shop. I kept rolling until I could see the front of Dennis Reston’s SUV, and then I parked and put down my window. It was hot and I was starting to sweat.
I sat there for over three hours, going crazy with the heat and wondering what the hell the guy could be doing. I tried to distract myself from the boredom with right-wing talk radio. I was about to call Jess when my phone rang. It was John. “So far no luck.” He said. “She did have some items of interest in a box under her bed, but I couldn’t find the video or anything pertaining to anything.”
“How’d you get in?”
“One of the windows in her basement needed some encouragement, but it let me in eventually. I didn’t have to break anything. How about you? What’s your twenty?”
“We’re down in the flats in front of an auto-body shop. We followed Dennis Reston down here and we’ve been sitting here for a really long time. He’s driving a silver Escalade.”
“Warren Auto-Body?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“He owns it.” John said. “He also owns a textile wholesalers up near the train station. How long have you been there?”
“Three hours or so.”
“Are you sure he’s still in there? Can you see him?”
“No,” I said, “I can see his car.”
“He coulda switched cars. Can you see Gretchen and her friend?”
“No, but I can see the street they’re on. If the guy left the shop in either direction they’d have to come down the street and I’d see them.” I explained. “They haven’t moved.”
“Just remember you’re following them, not him.” John said. “I’m going to search the place off route twenty, so make sure they’re still there would ya? I don’t want any surprises.”
“I’ll go look.” I said.
“If they left, call me.” He said. “Otherwise, I’ll call you when I’m through with the search.”
“Hey, you haven’t slept all night.” I said. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Are you kidding? I haven’t had this much fun in years.” He answered.
I started my car and turned it around on the narrow street. I went back the way I came and turned up the hill a block before the street where Gretchen and her friend were. I went to the top of the hill and made a left and then stopped at the next intersection and looked for
the Honda. Not seeing it, I decided to turn down the street to see if she was in front of a van that was blocking my view. I realized all at once that Gretchen’s Honda was not on the street. My mouth went dry and I looked around frantically and stepped on the gas.
As the auto-body parking lot came into view, I saw that the Escalade was gone too, and knew they must have just left. I hit the cross street in time to see Gretchen’s Honda turning right a few blocks away. I stomped on the gas pedal and got honked at by someone who had to brake to avoid hitting me. I turned where they had turned but saw only an empty street. I was cursing myself as I raced up the hill, slowing enough at the first two intersections to look either way. I didn’t see them. On my right was a freeway onramp, and I decided to take the gamble. I got on the freeway and was relived to see the back of the Honda about a hundred yards ahead, going around a curve. I quickly got myself within a safe distance. We were headed south. It was getting dark and soon the only thing I could identify on the Honda were its taillights, which were distinctively shaped like two lopsided pac-men.
We were going very fast and once we got out of Cleveland the speed of our caravan increased. Gretchen was staying far behind Dennis, but I was fairly close to her, figuring that someone tailing another person would be much less likely to suspect being tailed themselves. The logical extension of that thought made me check my own rearview. We got onto 80 east, and then right away onto 271 south. We were in Cuyahoga Valley, a national park and the location of Harold Pierson Junior’s second home. It was the place where Junior was recuperating -I called John Marchin.
“Well, we can’t jump to any conclusions just yet.” He said after he heard where I was. “There’s more than one house out there, we don’t know they’re going to the Pierson place. And anyway, there’s too many people involved. If she was after Junior, why follow this Dennis around? We need to know she’s making her move on Junior before we call the cops. I went to a barbecue at the Pierson place once. If they turn off on a dirt road called Fallowfield -off of Oak Hill I think- I want you to call Reyes and tell her Junior’s in trouble. Don’t follow them up that road. The Pierson property starts about a quarter mile in, it’s like a long driveway. I have in my possession a certain Mini DV video that might explain what the hell is going on here. I’m going over to your place right now to watch the thing with Jessie.”
“Good.” I said. “Keep me updated.”
“Will do.” He said. “Stay outta trouble.”
We exited 271 and got onto a small two-lane road called Major. It was a heavily wooded area and was very dark. There was no one around except the Escalade, the Honda and me, and I was starting to get the feeling that it would be pretty obvious that I was following them soon. They went over a hill and while they were out of sight, I slowed and turned off my headlights. I let a significant space open up between us, and then sped after them, feeling dangerous driving without my lights on. I caught up to them as they were turning right