Perfect Grave

Chapter Sixty-Four

“ W e’ve got a child abduction tied to the nun’s murder!” Grace Garner said.

“Jesus!”

Jason drew stares from the counter from an unshaven barrel-chested man in a lumberjack’s shirt reading a paper behind the register. Beside the man, a girl, who looked about twelve, turned from watching the TV on the shelf, near the mounted head of a Rocky Mountain Elk with a twelve-point rack.

“Jason, the kidnapping suspect may have a link to your father,” Grace said.

“What?” Keeping his voice low, he went deeper into the store, behind shelves with canned beans, soup, chili. “My father? How?”

“From your dad’s time as a cop. He responded to an armored-car heist. A child died in a hostage taking. Three point three million was never recov-”

“Oh my God.”

“We’re looking for Leon Dean Sperbeck, who did twenty-five years”-Jason saw his dad paying the lumberjack guy at the cash-“We believe Sperbeck’s responsible for Sister Anne’s death. I’m going out on a limb telling you, but we’re facing a life-and-death situation. The abduction could all be tied to the money from the old heist, your information, Sister Anne, and your dad.”

“What the hell? I don’t believe this.”

“After Sperbeck was released, he staged his death and now he’s looking for the money. An insurance investigator reviewing the case has implicated your father, alleging a cover-up of the facts of the crime to hide the cash. He says he’s got evidence your father’s recently been in contact with Sperbeck-Jason-?”

As Grace continued, the pieces began aligning.

Except one didn’t fit. Christ, it couldn’t fit.

“-has implicated your father, alleging a cover-up to hide the cash-”

At the counter, his old man was showing Sperbeck’s photo to the lumberjack man and the girl.

Cripes! The man and the girl started nodding.

“-Jason, where’s your father? We need to talk to him.”

“Grace, we might know where Sperbeck is.”

“Where? He’s threatening to kill that little boy. Tell me, where you are!”

“Wolf Tooth Creek at a gas station off 706. I think he’s driving a 95 Chrysler Concorde. Blue.”

“That’s right! Do you see him?”

“No. I’ve got to go.”

“Wait! Jason!”

“That’s him,” the girl pointed to the TV. “The man in your picture was here!”

The show had been interrupted with a burst-tone alert, three shrill beeps, then the message, followed by pictures of Brady Boland, aged twelve, and Leon Dean Sperbeck, wanted for two homicides. More information about Brady’s need of medication and Sperbeck’s car crawled across the bottom of the screen.

“That’s him. I swear!” Lumberjack man said. “They left not two minutes before you. Sat here for the longest time waiting on a fan belt from McKenna. Todd told him it wouldn’t hold. That he’d have to creep along because his Chrysler’s in sorry shape.”

“Did you see a boy with him?”

“No, but he had a lot of junk heaped in the back. Kid could’ve been in there sleeping.”

“Which way did he go?” Jason’s dad asked.

“Same way you was headed. To the cabins. Turn left after the bridge and go ten miles down Cougar Ridge, the old dirt logging road.” Lumberjack man reached for his phone. “I’m calling Pierce County Sheriff’s deputies. There must be a reward.”

Trees blurred by Jason and his dad as the needle on the Ford Ranger pickup reached ninety-five on the speedometer. Stones popcorned under the truck as it chewed up Cougar Ridge, leaving dust clouds in its wake.

“What did you find out on your call, son?”

Jason was driving and shot his old man a glance.

“Grace Garner says the insurance investigator suspects that you were actually involved in the robbery; that there was some kind of cover-up linked to the money.”

His father stared straight ahead. In the distance he saw a fading dust curtain.

“We’re gaining on him. Push it harder. She’ll take it.”

“Damn it, Dad! What really happened that day?”

“Quinn’s a smart-ass punk who doesn’t know shit!”

“Did a cop kill that boy? Did Vern? Was there some sort of cover-up? Does Sperbeck know the truth?”

“Christ, look at my fucking life! Look at what happened to me, Jason!”

They both caught the chrome glint of a rear bumper half-concealed like a phantom in the dust ahead. The vehicle was dark blue.

“Hang on!”

Jason accelerated, the Ford roared along the narrow route, bobbing on its sudden hills and valleys, sunlight flashing through the thick woods, branches slapping the body as stones boiled against its undercarriage. Jason’s ears pounded with each curve as they gained on the car.

“It’s him!” his old man said. “It’s a Chrylser Concorde.”

They saw Sperbeck behind the wheel, then Jason’s skin prickled when a small head surfaced from the backseat. They were suddenly looking into the frightened face of Brady Boland.

Henry Wade sucked in a deep breath before sliding a full magazine into his Glock.

“Jesus!” Jason said.

In the Concorde, Sperbeck shook his head and continued ranting about his twenty-five hard years of regret.

“-Hey pup, your old man was a first-class fool to bring his girlfriend in on the job. She was never right for it. I told him, but he wouldn’t listen. She fucked us good. It was not supposed to happen the way it did. Then the bitch wants me to ‘see the light’ after she tries to buy her way to heaven with my fucking money! Bitch. I sent her to hell where she belongs.”

Sperbeck snorted and spit out the window.

“You better hope your mom’s smarter than that dead bitch cause I got a special place picked out for you. Your mom ain’t ever going to see you again if she doesn’t find where your daddy hid my money!”

Sperbeck turned his head to glance at Brady and met a ghost.

Henry Wade glared at him from two car lengths back-pointing at him to pull over.

“What the-! Goddamnit!” Sperbeck slammed his fists against the steering wheel. “God-fucking-damnit!”

Sperbeck smashed his foot on the gas pedal and the Chrylser rocketed ahead. The pickup was in better shape and stayed close, ahead of the dust the car was kicking up. The Concorde grabbed air over the next rise, coming down hard and heavy, scraping the oil pan, sliding and grinding on loose gravel.

“Shit!”

A bang sounded under the hood as the fan belt snapped. The steering wheel shuffled through Sperbeck’s hands and he struggled in vain for control before the Concorde slid down an embankment, rolling over small trees in a storm of stones, dust, and crumpling metal.

It came to rest on its side against a stand of cedar and pine.

Brady had a small cut on his head but was okay, cushioned by the sleeping bags and clutter in the back. Crawling out of the wreck, he saw a pair of shoes, then Sperbeck seized his arm, hoisted him to his feet, pulling him as they ran, crashing against branches and trees.

“Come on!”

Brady glanced behind them at the two figures gaining on them, then back at Sperbeck, who yanked on his arm. Brady saw the gun in his hand and struggled. They splashed across a creek, the cold water reaching up to Brady’s thighs.

They scrambled up the meadow, up a hill toward a clearing.

Brady’s legs ached. His ears roared from the blood rush.

The men were getting closer.

Cresting a hill, they’d come to a cliff and a dead drop of some two hundred feet. Sperbeck turned. The men were thirty yards away.

Sperbeck had nowhere to go.

He pulled Brady closer to him, edging back to within ten feet of the cliff.

The men were twenty yards away and separating. One going left. One going right.

Sperbeck used Brady as a shield and placed his gun to the boy’s head.

“You’re going to give me your keys and let me walk out of here.”

Henry Wade leveled his Glock at Sperbeck.

“It’s over, Leon. Put your gun down and release the boy.”

“I’m taking this pup to hell with me to meet his old man and his girlfriend!”

They could hear the distant thud of a helicopter.

“It’s over.”

“It’s not over! The bitch nun stole from me! She knew this pup’s father was holding the rest of my money. I FUCKING WANT IT! I paid for it with twenty-five years of my life!”

“We all paid!” Henry inched closer, lifted his safety, his gun never wavering from Sperbeck’s head. “We all paid for what happened that day!”

Henry met Brady’s eyes, wild with fear, his heart thumping in time with the distant chopper. Brady struggled against Sperbeck, only to feel his hold tighten into a crushing death grip, forcing Brady to freeze in order to breathe.

“Leon, let him go! Don’t make the same mistake again!”

“I’m not going back to prison! I’m not going back into my coffin!”

Jason rolled two rocks at Sperbeck’s gun side, distracting him as Brady suddenly squirmed free, scrambled two, three, five, seven steps. Henry Wade, in the stance, waved him to the ground, Brady dove, hitting the ground hard.

Two shots split the air.

Sperbeck spun, stumbled back, collapsed at the cliff, slid over completely. He screamed as he stopped himself at the final moment with one hand gripping a sharp edge of rock as his gun tumbled two hundred feet to the bottom.

The rock was cutting into him, blood webbed down his arm.

“Help me!”

A shadow blocked the sun above him.

“Who shot the boy that day, Leon?”

“Please.”

“Who shot the boy?”

“You-”

“I want the truth.”

“You, you missed. It was me.”

“I want the truth!”

“It’s true! They were going to execute me!”

“Jay, help me get him up!”

Henry Wade got on his knees, gripped Sperbeck’s arm, and reached for his shoulder. Suddenly, Sperbeck looked into the sun.

“No, I can’t go back! I can’t! Let me go!”

With his free hand Sperbeck pulled out his knife and slashed at their hands. They fended him off, while struggling to pull him up, but he drove his feet against the rock. Their grip grew slippery as blood gushed from their wounds.

“Let me go!”

Sperbeck continued stabbing at them until he broke free.

As he fell he extended his arms, plummeting fifty, seventy, one hundred feet before his body dropped into the yawning mouth of a jagged open crack. As he plunged deeper into its narrowing darkness, sharp rock walls peeled off his clothes and skin, transforming him into a lifeless, bleeding mass entombed in granite.

A perfect grave.

Henry looked into the black hole that had swallowed his demon.

Then he turned to Brady, who was standing in the light. The boy had started to cry. Henry held him as the helicopter approached. Bloodied and exhausted, Henry felt Jason’s arm around his shoulder.

“I heard what he said, Dad. It’s over. It’s all over.”

Henry nodded and pulled them both tighter.