That was true. It was also true that I wasn’t in my jurisdiction. Admittedly, that did put a few wrinkles in things.
I could work through a few wrinkles.
When we were about half a mile from the farmhouse, the dispatcher radioed back, relaying the message from Thorne: yes, the landfill was the one in Fort Atkinson; the names of the two city workers were Roger Kennedy and Dane Strickland. I hadn’t heard of either of the two men before, but I knew we were going to have a talk with them before everything involving this case was said and done.
Just as we were finishing up the transmission, we arrived at the farmhouse.
It was a small, ranch-style home, half burned down. The roof on the east side was caved in, the walls were blackened, the windows broken.
Griffin’s car was parked out front.
Officer Webb, Radar, and I exited the car and unholstered our weapons. Radar immediately took position behind a nearby tree that gave him a clear line on the front door. Webb crouched behind the car, using the hood to steady his shooting arm.
I kept my door open, eased behind it, and eyed the farmhouse for movement. Saw none.
The sky was pregnant with snow. Clouds hung down like heavy, dark scabs.
The wind was dead. The day, still.
I really wanted to go into that house right now, but it wasn’t smart for any number of reasons-not the least of which: we had a possible hostage situation and storming the place without finding out where Mallory was could put her life in danger.
The air reeked of damp rot and dank smoke from the landfill that lay only a hundred meters beyond the house, surrounded by an eight-foot-tall wooden fence.
With the air smelling like this and the house in the shape it was, I couldn’t imagine anyone coming out here to party, as Webb had mentioned, but then I remembered we were talking about two people who lived in a home filled with memorabilia of serial killers and pedophiles. Who on earth knew why they did what they did.
Carver pulled up, parked, got out and we consulted for a moment. I was anxious to use the mic on his cruiser’s PA system to try to call Griffin out of the house, Carver was bent on waiting for the Jefferson County SWAT team.
“With all due respect, Detective,” he said at last, “this is our jurisdiction; this is our case. Since it was a federal search warrant at the house and you’re working with the Feds, I had no problem with your involvement there, but out here, this is our turf. He’s our guy to bring in.”
He had a point and if I were in his place I might’ve been saying the same things. “Sergeant, I couldn’t care less about who gets the credit for bringing this guy in. And I want that girl, Mallory, safe, just like you do, but…” I thought of what to say next, changed my tune a bit, and gestured toward Radar. “How about Sergeant Walker and I take the back of the house. Cover it until the tactical unit gets here.”
“Good. Thanks.” He nodded, and Radar and I circled around in case Griffin tried to leave the house and flee through the landfill.
I wasn’t sure exactly how everything was going to play out, but I did know that if I found out Mallory was in danger, from back here it’d be a lot easier to move on the house without any of Carver’s guys getting in the way.
62
Over the next few minutes more officers arrived and took position around the farmhouse.
SWAT was still five minutes out.
Carver called through his car’s mic numerous times, trying to get anyone who might be in the house to acknowledge that they were there, but no one answered.
From the radio transmissions among the team members, I knew that no one had seen any movement and I was getting more and more antsy to find out if Griffin was actually in the house, or if we were wasting our time out here.
Yes, but if Griffin really was guilty, he’d been shrewd enough to avoid suspicion in at least two homicides stretching back almost a decade, even while he marketed in the kind of merchandise he did. The car could easily be a ploy to distract us while he fled in another vehicle.
“Radar, I can’t just sit around here doing nothing. I want to have a look around that landfill. You with me?”
“You bet.”
I radioed Carver; he agreed it would be good to cover the landfill and sent two other officers to take our place behind the house. They were more than happy to man our positions rather than accept the job of trekking across a reeking dump.
“Okay,” I said to Radar. “Get ready for the smell.”
“It’s been too late for that since we got here.”
We started for the fence. Wooden. Eight feet tall. No razor wire on top.
No problem.
Moments later we were inside.
I paused. Studied the mounds of garbage around me.
We were in an area filled with discarded appliances-dishwashers, refrigerators, dryers, washing machines, ovens. Based on the number of units here compared to the population of Fort Atkinson, it was clear that this place had been the town’s landfill for a long time.
The rusted appliances jutted up at odd angles from the piles of trash all around us, some half buried in garbage, some jumbled awkwardly on top of each other in precarious stacks. The area looked like an alien, garbage-strewn, metal-encrusted planet.
Simply put, if Griffin was here, he could be almost anywhere.
“What are you thinking, Pat?”
“I’m thinking I hear a bulldozer.” I pointed across a mound of garbage to our right.
A man was driving a dated bulldozer into the landfill, aiming it toward a giant mountain of garbage bags. I couldn’t make out the face of the driver, but from here his build looked too big for him to be Griffin.
“You think that’s him?”
I shook my head. “No. But go see if he’s noticed anyone. Then, get him out of here. I don’t want any civilians in the area. I’m going to have a look around here.”
“Be careful.”
“You too.”
Gun out, Radar took off, picking his way over the garbage and carefully surveying the rotting landscape as he went.
Occasional telephone poles rose at random intervals along the fence that Radar and I had just scaled. The poles had vapor lights, now off, and I imagined that they served to illuminate the perimeter of the dump at night to keep out scavengers that would undoubtedly be drawn here from the nearby forest looking for food-rats, skunks, raccoons, wild dogs that might dig under the fence, maybe even bears, rooting through the garbage.
Around me, deep tread marks furrowed the ground from the bulldozers and earth movers that had pushed the remnants of people’s daily lives into the hills of refuse. Throughout the landfill were sporadic fires, and plumes of nascent gases were escaping through gaps in the mountains of trash.
“Griffin!” I called. The word sounded thick, almost liquid. It was a strange effect and I wasn’t sure what caused it, but it was eerie and unsettling. “We’ve got this area surrounded.”
It was partly true.
That farmhouse was definitely surrounded.
I proceeded through the cemetery of hulking appliances. Saw no movement. “We found that box under your
