Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

the man’s face, sweaty and beaten. His eyes, glazed in anger and defeat, had flashed downward. And Behr’s own rage, his indignation at being set up, had caused him to careen ahead without probing further. That was the moment, and he’d missed it. Whoever it was that had supplied the money-Shugie Saunders or Lowell Gantcher or the two of them together-and whichever one of them had initiated the plot, who involved was most likely to know how to hire a professional contractor? It was Teague all the way.

Goddammit, Behr hissed, already dialing. But he got no answer from Pat Teague. Behr let it ring and ring, and then he put his car in gear. He was going to have to drive out to Thorntown again.

61

The man has money, but he lives like absolute swine, Dwyer thought. He was standing in Shugie Saunders’s walk-in closet in front of a row of expensive but garish suits. There was another row of dress shirts, many with sweat rings around the collar and armpits that laundering had only faded but didn’t remove. The enclosed space smelled like feet, thanks to the pile of cheap shoes on the floor, many with their soles and heels worn to the uppers. Dwyer had been over the place with painstaking detail, from the dirty dishes in the sink to towels piled on the bathroom floor. First he’d called, then waited in front of the building for a couple of fruitless hours until he was convinced that the man wasn’t home and was probably off in Washington, before making entry. The building had an external fire stairway and Dwyer was able to jump from it to a neighboring balcony, cross two more, and reach Saunders’s. A six-inch lockout tool easily popped the glass slider and he was in.

What he hadn’t found was a safe, but neither had he come upon any documents implicating him and Shugie. Dwyer had found a checkbook with a balance of $62,000, and this was in his pocket. Three months earlier there had been more than $100,000 in the account, so the man was on a bit of a spending spree.

Dwyer took in the apartment, which he’d thoroughly tossed, a final time. He wasn’t sure why, but he now had the feeling Saunders hadn’t left town permanently for D.C., but that he must be staying elsewhere. No discernible amount of clothing and toiletries were missing-there were several large pieces of luggage in the top of a hall closet-so it was likely a short trip if Dwyer was right in the first place. As tempting as it was to wait out Saunders’s possible return for another hour or day, Dwyer and Rickie had agreed to rally back at the shite hole after their respective actions. One never knew if one’s partner in the field might need support, so he had to keep discipline and make the meet. Dwyer did a quick wipe down of the doorknobs and let himself out the front door.

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.

63

Dwyer was sitting in the shite hole drinking a Newcastle and looking out the window when Rickie arrived, and he couldn’t help laughing at the sight of oversized Ruthless in his silly little Japanese motor. He could practically stick his arms out the windows and his feet out the floor and carry it around his waist as if going to a costume party dressed as a car. When he got out, he looked a little weary but otherwise unfettered.

He carried a plastic rubbish bag in his left hand and walked into the room.

“I’ll have one of those, please,” Rickie said of Dwyer’s Newcastle. Dwyer pointed to the remainder of the sixer in a plastic ice bucket.

“Did you get him?” he asked.

“Nah,” Rickie said, popping open the ale. “I waited as long as I thought it was wise.”

“So, nothing then?” Dwyer asked.

“Well …” Rickie said, and went into the bathroom. Dwyer heard him empty the contents of the bin bag into the sink and turn on the faucet. He got to the door in time to see the water run pink over the tools in the basin.

“What happened?” Dwyer demanded.

Rickie met his eyes in the mirror. “I had to do the big guy’s wife.”