The Watcher in the Wall (31 page)

Fresh tire tracks in the dirt.

He keyed his handset again. “I’m going to need motor units, too,” he said, scanning the road, empty in both directions. “He found another way out of here, and he’s on the move.”

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Gruber drove as fast
as he dared, punishing the Lincoln’s suspension on the uneven terrain. Kept the headlights off, navigated by memory, the road overgrown and neglected, but still there.

The road curled around the side of a low rise. Cut down into Elizabeth along the edge of a farmer’s field, mud and loose gravel and irrigation runoff, the tires struggling to keep traction, the whole car bouncing and rattling forward. Gruber kept his foot down as far as he dared, prayed the car wouldn’t get stuck. Knew it was the end if it did.

He was sweating, even in the chill October air. Shivering, his body cold and fire-hot at the same time, the adrenaline dumping off, the
gunshot wounds taking over. He figured he might go into shock soon, knew he had to risk it.

The descent into town took a quarter of an hour. The mud path reached the county road just as it passed the old high school, enough light from the streetlights to make out the gymnasium, the football field. The parking lot where Todd McGee parked his pickup truck, the bleachers where Gruber had watched a game with Sarah and Todd, his mother’s orders, Sarah and Todd barely putting up with him, their hands busy under the blanket they’d brought, both of them giggling and squirming and glancing over at him, making sure he wasn’t paying attention.

He had been. He’d pretended to watch the game, but he’d been hanging on every bit lip and stifled laugh, every stolen kiss, consumed with envy and jealousy and hate. He remembered. And if he’d had more time, Gruber figured he might have paid Todd McGee a visit now, too.

But he didn’t have time. He turned onto the county line, kept the Lincoln moving. Headed north, out of town, stuck to the back roads, more dirt and narrow one-lane pavement, skirted the lake and the dam and kept driving. Kept his headlights off, drove as fast as he dared. Knew the police would pick up the trail soon enough, knew he’d have to move fast if he wanted to see Earl before—

Gruber pushed the thought from his mind. There was nothing else but Earl, nothing that really mattered. He’d waited two decades to see his stepfather again. And nobody—no Cleveland thugs, no police, no FBI, and no teenage girl—was going to keep him from paying that visit.

He drove the Lincoln northbound on those back country roads, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, his side. Hit the Ohio River Scenic
Byway just outside of Lanesville, and turned east toward New Albany, toward Earl, just ten miles away.

The night had been a disaster so far. Madison Mackenzie was alive. The surprise was ruined.

But a few hours with Earl might just salvage the whole misadventure.

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Windermere, at the park gate,
sat in back of an ambulance as a medic tended to her arm. The wound throbbed where Gruber had slashed her, a long cut, but mercifully not so deep. Still, she winced as the medic cleaned the wound, applied gauze. Cursed herself for letting the scumbag get away.

Stevens figured the guy was driving for his life. Trying to buy himself time, put miles and minutes between his car and the trailer park.

“No way he’ll get far,” he’d told her. “A guy in his condition? Dunno if you got a good look at him, but he sure seemed like the type who spent his days sitting at a computer.”

“Yeah,” Windermere said, holding up her bum arm. “Beat me on the draw, though, didn’t he?”

She didn’t share Stevens’s optimism. Knew her partner’s theory made sense, but figured as long as Gruber was out there and not captured, she wouldn’t feel particularly good about their position. Luckily, Madison Mackenzie was all right; Wheeler had her taken care of, medical
attention, armed guard, the works. Gruber wouldn’t get to her. She’d survived.

Still, a state patrolman was dead, some poor kid who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He could still be alive. Would be, if you’d taken Gruber out like you were supposed to, back at that shady-ass trailer. But you didn’t.

“That road spits out in Elizabeth,” Stevens was saying. “State patrol’s looking out for him on all four points of the compass. He won’t get far, Carla.”

Windermere pushed herself to her feet. “So what the hell are we waiting for?” she said. “Let’s track the bastard down.”

“Sure,” Stevens said. “You have a direction in mind?”

“Any direction,” she told him. “Any which way at all. Just get me out of this ambulance and back on Gruber’s trail before he puts another body in the ground, okay?”

Behind her, the medic made to pull her back down. “Ma’am, I really think . . .” he said. “This cut here, you’re going to need stitches if you want it to heal right.”

“You hear what I said?” Windermere replied. “We got a killer on the loose, pal. Bandage me up fast and let me do my job.”

The medic stared at her. At Stevens and Windermere. Sighed, and reached for the gauze.

“Hurry,” Windermere told him. “It’s not even my shooting arm anyway.”

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They had Madison
in an ambulance. The cops had insisted, even though she kept telling them she was fine, no injuries, nothing psychological. They’d piled her in and they were going to take her back to the city, to Louisville, “for observation,” they said.
Bull crap
. Madison was hungry. All she really wanted was to eat. She’d figure out the rest later.

She knew she should be happy to be alive. She wasn’t. She knew a night like tonight should come with some kind of epiphany, some realization about the worthiness of her life. It hadn’t. All Madison could think about was going home to her mom, her sisters, Lena Jane Poole, and
Paul
, everybody knowing she’d fallen for some pervert on the Internet and nearly gotten herself killed. She figured she might choose death over having to walk back into her school again.

And Gruber was still missing. She’d overheard two cops talking outside the ambulance.

“Killed Stu Crowley,” the one cop said. “Pistol-whipped him to death in the back of the park. Disappeared down that back road, got away clean.”

“They put out an APB?” the second cop replied.

“Sure they did, but it’s all four points of the compass. So many back roads and dirt tracks around here, could be days before they find him.”

Madison knew this wasn’t true. She knew the police would find Gruber soon, real soon, whether they wanted to or not. She gathered they hadn’t heard about Earl. She figured she’d better tell them.

“Hey,”
she called out to the cops outside.
“Who’s in charge out there? I need to talk to somebody.”

<<<

Stevens and Windermere
commandeered an FBI Charger from the trailer park gate. Windermere was sliding behind the wheel, trying to figure out a way she could drive with her arm all bandaged up and hurting, when Agent Wheeler tapped on the driver’s-side window.

“You guys have a second?” he said. “Got the girl over there—Madison? She said she wanted to talk to you before they take her to hospital.”

“We don’t have time for a visit,” Windermere said. “Hop on board and patch her in through the radio.” She reached for her seat belt, jarred her arm on the door handle instead. Winced and killed the ignition. “I think you’d better drive, partner,” she told Stevens. “That creep really screwed me over back there.”

<<<

She’d called for the police,
and now here they were, a man’s voice and a woman’s voice on the other end of a radio—the FBI themselves.

“Stevens and Windermere,” the man told her. “We tracked you to the trailer park. That phone call of yours was some smart work, let me tell you.”

Madison looked at the cop next to her manning the radio. Felt stupid, this whole crazy night and everything was her fault. “Thanks, I guess.”

Then the woman came on. “You have something you wanted to tell us?”

Madison nodded. Pushed her reluctance aside, forced the words out. “In the car,” she said, “on the way here, Gruber kept talking about his sister.”

“Sarah, yeah,” the woman cop said. “We think he chose you for the resemblance.”

“That’s what he told me. I guess he was in love with her or something?”

“Obsessed,” the woman said. “I don’t think Gruber is capable of love.”

“Whatever. He wouldn’t shut up about her, anyway. And his stepfather, too, Earl?” She paused. “I don’t know if you guys know about him. The things he did to them, both of them.”

“We know,” Stevens said. “We have the backstory.”

Ah,
Madison thought.
So they know all of this. Waste of time, just like always.

You suck.

“Okay, never mind, sorry,” she said, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. “You know everything about Earl, I guess.”

Radio silence. Road noise. Then: “Try us,” Windermere said. “What do you know?”

Madison looked down, looked away from the cop by the radio. Didn’t want to keep talking. They knew all this, and she was wasting their time.
Useless, useless, useless.

“I just think he might be going to see him,” she said.

Another long pause, too long to be normal, and Madison wondered if they maybe didn’t know everything after all.

“What makes you say that?” Stevens asked her.

“He kept talking about Earl, about . . . what he’d done to Sarah. What he’d done to him,” Madison told them. “He said he tried to go see Earl today, but he couldn’t for some reason. So when he was finished with me, he would go back and try again, have a reunion.”

“A reunion,” Stevens repeated.

“Sounds like revenge to me,” the woman said. Madison heard an engine roar, urgent voices. Figured that was pretty much it for her involvement in the case. Was about to tell the cop to go ahead, turn it off, when the woman cop—Windermere—came on again. “Madison?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve been a really big help tonight,” Windermere told her. “Hang in there, honey, okay?”

Madison felt her face go red. “Whatever,” she said, and didn’t say anything else until she was sure Windermere was gone. Couldn’t unhear her words, though.

You’ve been a really big help.

It was not an entirely unpleasant sensation.

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Windermere’s cell phone rang
as Stevens drove. She checked the number: Mathers. Answered. “Kind of a bad time if you’re hoping to talk, Derek.”

Mathers coughed. “I could call back,” he told her, “but I think you want to hear this.”

Windermere looked out the window, trees flying past, Stevens with both hands on the wheel, at the ten and two, his mouth a thin line as he watched the road. “Shoot,” she told Mathers. “But you start with the lovey-dovey crap and I’m out.”

“Got a phone call from the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office,” Mathers said, and Windermere forgot about the chase outside and zeroed in on his words. “Someone named Lily Yoshida, asking for you.”

“Yeah, Yoshida,” Windermere said. “Okay. What did she want?”

“She said she ID’d the body you and Stevens were asking about.” He paused, and she could hear him flipping pages. “Somebody named, ah, Curtis Donovan, a young guy from Cleveland, nineteen years old. He did a six-month stint in juvie, happened to get a couple cavities, so they had his dental records.”

“That’s convenient,” Windermere said. “She tell you anything else about the guy? Like why he wound up in Randall Gruber’s house?”

“She didn’t, but I called Cleveland PD, and they filled me in. Apparently this guy Donovan was on the come-up with Rico Jordan’s old crew, currently operated by someone named Victor Rodney. I don’t know who either of those guys are, but the Cleveland detective thought you would.”

“I know Rico,” Windermere said. “He and Gruber weren’t friends. Guess they tracked him down after all.”

“Guess so,” Mathers said. “Cleveland thought this crew might have sent Donovan up to Buffalo to settle some debts. But it sounds like Gruber got the drop on him.”

“Sounds like,” Windermere said. “So, okay, there’s the backstory. You know anything that can help me catch our bad guy?”

“Couple things,” Mathers said. “First of all, Curtis Donovan drove a white ’84 Lincoln Continental. So if you didn’t find one back in Buffalo, you should maybe keep an eye out down wherever you are.”

“A white ’84 Continental,” Windermere said. “Roger.”

“That’s not all you need to know, Carla,” Mathers said. “Curtis Donovan wasn’t much of a gangster, not according to what I found out. I guess he ransacked his uncle’s gun cabinet before he left town, took every weapon and all the ammunition he could find.” He paused just long enough to let the drama build. “And his uncle was loaded for bear. Like, literally. We’re talking serious firepower.”

Windermere felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. “Great,” she said, looking at the night speeding by outside her window. “So now this fucker has an arsenal, too.”

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Gruber followed the Scenic Byway
back into New Albany. Ducked under the Sherman Minton Bridge and pulled the Lincoln up outside Earl’s apartment building. Opened his door and reached down to pop the trunk, figuring to pull the shotgun out again, prepare his assault. The pain stopped him.

It felt like all of a sudden, but it had been there all along. Burning hot and angry, the blood from the bullet wounds saturating his clothes. The pain was overwhelming, pounding, relentless. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, five minutes had passed on the little clock on the dash, vanished like nothing, a time warp. He breathed in and out, ragged, wondered if he was dying, if this was where his life would end.

It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Gruber urged himself out of the driver’s seat, his vision spotty, his legs like limp spaghetti. Circled to the back of the Lincoln, found the shotgun where he’d left it after he’d dealt with the men from Ohio, the boxes of ammunition. Took two trips to get it all to the front seat, two long, painful trips, but he made it. Dumped the ammunition beside the shotgun, wriggled into his jacket, collapsed back into the driver’s seat.