Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

62

A piece of storm cloud snaked its way into Behr’s belly when he reached the head of Teague’s street. There were police cars and an ambulance and neighbors lining the block, and like a funnel of bad news it all led to Teague’s door. Behr parked as close as he could and advanced through the onlookers toward the house and was just in time to see a stretcher bearing a loaded body bag being carried out.

“What happened?” Behr asked those in his general vicinity.

A woman with a tearstained face didn’t turn toward him, but just kept her eyes on the stretcher as she spoke. “Someone killed the Teagues.”

“All of them?” Behr asked, sick with the knowledge that Pat had four children.

“Both of them,” a man in a checked shirt said, rubbing the back of his brush cut head. “Pat and his wife. The kids weren’t home …”

“Thank god,” the woman said with a half sob, “those poor babies …”

There was assorted talk about who could’ve done the crime in this quiet community, and the quick consensus was gangbangers down from the city looking for easy drug money via robbery.

“Son of a bitches,” the man in the checked shirt said through gritted teeth. “I’ve got a Remington twelve gauge’s gonna be waiting by my bed if them junkies want to try this town again.”

Behr wondered if any of the neighbors had seen him coming or going earlier, or if Teague had told any friends of their runin and he was the one headed for a police interview room. He drifted away from the group and moved closer to the house and found a spot near some officers by the door where he listened to fragments of their radio chatter.

“… yeah, the resident was male, Caucasian, early fifties. GSWs to chest and head, over.”

“… deceased was law enforcement, or ex-law enforcement, retired FBI …”

“… victim two, spouse, also early fifties …”

“GSWs, over?”

“Negative. Stabbing … or, well, slashing, chopping really, with a bladed weapon, over …”

“… Homicide and robbery units on scene, copy …”

Behr dropped back from the house and passed through the crowd toward his car.

“What they ought to do is check his old cases, see if some serial killer or felon he put away was recently released,” a bystander voiced to some murmured agreement.

Behr knew he wasn’t getting inside. He had no pull with the cops out here, and no standing as one of Teague’s coworkers anymore. It didn’t matter. There’d be nothing in there for him by way of evidence. The doer was a professional, and while the neighbors may have wanted to speculate over vengeful master criminals with vendettas, the killing of Pat Teague represented another loose end snipped off by the cold player he was chasing. He imagined the wife was an accident, collateral. Perhaps she’d walked in at the wrong time or the guy couldn’t wait until she’d left. Or he’d used her to get Teague to talk. Regardless, this guy was stone coldblooded in everything he did.

It wouldn’t be long before Potempa and the rest of Caro received word and traveled out in a caravan to gather up around the surviving family. Behr, as he returned home, imagined he was driving east past them as they went west to Teague’s.