Shakedown

Chapter Sixty-nine

Ammara Iverson called me as I was leaving the hospital. It was dusk, the air dry and charged.

“We hit the jackpot with Wendy’s computer,” she said. “The important files are encrypted but we’ve been able to break into some of them. We’re still working on the others. So far we’ve got some offshore accounts and names.”

“Was it Tanja’s show?”

“Locally, but she was working for her in-laws. Colby joined up late last year.”

“That was when he and Wendy had gotten married. How do you know?”

“He included a confession of sorts, called it his insurance policy, and said he hid it on Wendy’s computer. It said that he would probably be dead by the time anyone read it. He says he knows that he fucked up and he’s sorry. He also says that Wendy had nothing to do with it.”

True or not, Colby had tried to protect her, though he wasn’t much of a character reference at this point. I thought of her, wondering where she was and if I’d ever see her again.

“Doesn’t help much.”

“I know you, Jack,” Ammara said. “I know what you want to do and I’m begging you not to do it, especially not in your condition. We’re going after them and we’ll find Wendy.”

My phone beeped with another call. It was Marty Grisnik. “I’ve got to go.”

“I just got a tip from one of my CIs,” he said. “It might be something. It might be nothing. We should check it out before we go see Tanja.”

I wasn’t ready to tell him about Tanja, uncertain how he would take it, wondering whether he would give her a head start, knowing that I’d be tempted to if I had the history with Tanja that Marty did.

“A tip about what?”

“I told you that I’d put the word out about your daughter. One of my guys calls me. Says he saw a man and a woman in Matney Park last night around midnight. Saw them go into a shed back in the woods. Says the man left and didn’t come back.”

“What about the woman?”

“Never saw her again. Says it was like she disappeared. That’s why I’m telling you it might be something and it might be nothing.”

“How reliable is this guy?”

“Like most of them. If they bat their weight they’re doing good.”

“What’s he doing hanging out in the park?”

“Getting high. You don’t want to check it out, we can let it ride and go have a drink with Tanja. You can ask her if she’s the drug kingpin of Strawberry Hill. If she says she is, you can arrest her. If she isn’t, you and I go get drunk. Your call.”

A tremor hit me in the gut and I bent over, one hand on my knee. It took me a moment to catch my breath.

“Hey, Jack! You there?”

“I’m here and I’m in. Tell me where and I’ll meet you.”

“You know how to get to Matney Park?”

“No clue.”

“Better I come to you. Where are you?”

“I’m just leaving the KU Hospital.”

“Wait for me in the circle drive. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The entrance to the hospital is on the east side of the complex. It faces a five-story parking garage. My car was parked on the third level. I retrieved my gun, stowing it beneath my jacket against the small of my back.

Traffic to the hospital?ows from Thirty-ninth Street onto Cambridge, which runs past the entrance, where there is a circle drive to drop off and pick people up. A steady stream of patients, visitors, doctors, nurses, and staff?owed in and out as I paced along the curb. A moment later, Grisnik pulled up, his passenger window lowered. He leaned toward me as I opened the door.

“Hurry it up,” he said as I got in. “I don’t got all night.”

“Where the hell is Matney Park?”

“West and north, maybe thirty minutes from here.”

He took Thirty-ninth to Rainbow Boulevard, turning north and staying with it as it turned into Seventh Street. He took the ramp westbound onto I-70, chasing the last bit of daylight ahead of us. I leaned back against my seat as a wave of mild tremors swept across my body.

“Still got the shakes,” Grisnik said.

“Lets me know I’m alive.”

“Amen, brother. Another day on the green side is always a good day.”

Grisnik looked like hundreds of other cops and agents I’d known over the years. His eyes were lit up and there was a determined set to his jaw. It was how we all looked when we were on the hunt.

“You ever been wrong about people you think you know?” I asked him.

“Never,” he said, “unless you count my ex-wife, and half the people I work with, and I’m not too sure about everyone else.”

“If you’re wrong about Tanja, what then?”

“Look, Jack. I’m a cop. Just like you. Doesn’t mean we don’t have family and friends that fuck up. You and me, we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do.” He was as sincere as a parish priest. “But from what you’ve told me, all you’ve got on Tanja is smoke and guesses. What’s Troy Clark say?”

It was like I was playing Russian roulette, holding a gun to my head, pulling the trigger until I shot myself with a lie.

“He’s like you. He thinks it’s bullshit and that I should have collared Colby when I had the chance.”

Grisnik laughed. “That’s the kind of guy I want covering my back. He’d second-guess what you had for breakfast.”

We let it drop and fifteen minutes later we pulled into Matney Park. It was a small stretch of faded grass and hard-packed dirt with a ball field, picnic shelter, and swing set. Home plate had been stolen and the pitcher’s mound had eroded to a thin, scarred slab of rubber. The shelter was deserted; the last crumbs had long since been picked clean by squirrels. The bowed swing seats hung empty and still, no memory of a child’s soft hands tightly grasping the chains while slender legs pumped hard, reaching for the sky.

We drove past the diamond and followed a gravel road that wound through a stand of trees before dead-ending in a small clearing. A redbrick building twelve feet square with a?at roof, no windows, and a single door facing us stood against the back edge of the clearing, another stretch of woods behind it. Grisnik killed the engine.

“Let’s check this out and then I’ll take you to apologize to my godparents for saying bad things about their little girl.”

I followed him to the door to the brick building. “What is this place?”

“County built it years ago, probably used it for storage.”

The door was unlocked. A yellowed lightbulb split the empty room in to light and shadows. A manhole cover six feet in diameter was set in the center of the concrete?oor, a tarp bundled in one corner.

“Marty, what the hell is this?”

“An empty room.”

“Except for that,” I said, pointing at the tarp.

It was blue, made of heavy-gauge plastic. I grabbed a handful and pulled it off the?oor. A desktop CPU lay underneath. The side panel had been removed, exposing the motherboard and other components except for the hard drive, which was missing. I stared at it for a long minute, remembering that Wendy’s computer was missing when Troy had searched her apartment.

I lifted the CPU, exposing the metal plate where the manufacturer had embossed the serial number. Wendy’s name was etched below it in neat block letters, just as I had engraved it. The only surprise was that I didn’t start shaking.

“It’s Wendy’s computer. It was in her apartment when I was there on Thursday. Troy said it wasn’t there when he searched the apartment yesterday. The hard drive is gone.”

“Looks like my CI has earned his Christmas bonus,” Grisnik said. “If the woman he saw was your daughter, that’s why she never came out,” he said, pointing to the manhole cover. “Give me a hand.”

We knelt on the?oor, inserting our fingers into slots around the edge and lifted the cover, dropping it on the?oor. We stared down a pitch-black shaft that smelled dank and stale. Round, ridged climbing bars had been bolted into the wall of the shaft like a ladder without handrails.

“You know where this goes?” I asked him.

“Down.”

We went back to the car. He opened the driver’s door, grabbed two?ashlights, tossed one to me, tested the beam on his, and waved it like a lightsaber. I held mine at my side, rooted to the ground by unspeakable fear, memories of Kevin shackling my legs.

“Jack,” Grisnik said softly, “we don’t have a choice. We’ve got to see what’s down there.”