Текст книги "Jack Taggart Mysteries 7 - Book Bundle"

Автор книги: Don Easton

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Текущая страница: 122 (всего у книги 141 страниц)

Chapter Three

It was Buddy and Peggy Sue’s hysterical and terrified screams that caused Anna to drop the Christmas presents she was unloading from the car. She had no idea of the horrific atrocity awaiting her as she ran into the living room.

What the three of them saw was a spectacle that would imprint on their brains forever. It was like a horror movie that would play itself over and over again, when they were awake and when they were asleep.

The murder was classified as accidental. It was believed the ladder had fallen, perhaps when Jennings had yanked on a tangle of Christmas lights that were evident near the base of the ladder.

Eight years passed before two unrelated criminal acts in Canada provided the police with a clue as to what had really happened in Los Angeles.

In Surrey, British Columbia, Amanda Evans had dropped out of high school before completing her grade twelve to give birth to her daughter, Megan. Her boyfriend didn’t wait around to see the birth of his daughter, opting instead to leave when Amanda was six months’ pregnant.

Amanda had not seen or heard from him in the three years that had passed since then. Neither did she care to. During that time, Amanda had obtained a cashier’s position at a local grocery store and had also managed to obtain her diploma through adult education.

The second-floor apartment she rented was within walking distance of the grocery store where she worked. It was also close to the apartment of a friend by the name of Wendy, who was another cashier at the store. Wendy was also a single parent and the two women usually worked different shifts so they could babysit for each other.

It was the first Sunday in May when Amanda got off work and it was five o’clock at night when she picked up Megan and headed home. As usual, Megan wanted to climb through some large plastic tubes in a playground on the walk home.

Amanda groaned and rubbed the muscles in her lower back. She ached from standing on her feet all day. “Okay, sweetie,” she said, relenting.

Within a few minutes, Amanda forgot about the ache as she chased Megan, who giggled and shrieked with delight while scrambling through the plastic maze.

They played together for half an hour, totally unaware of a man watching them from a silver BMW 6 Series Cabriolet parked nearby.

“Come on, honey, time to go,” said Amanda.

“No … more, more. I want to play,” demanded Megan.

“Gotta get home and make dinner. You can help me cook. I’ll let you measure out the right amount of macaroni.”

Megan persisted. “But I want to play.”

“No, come on, take my hand.” Amanda pointed to a path leading away from the playground. “You can pretend you’re Dora the Explorer going through a forest.”

In reality the path wasn’t in a forest, but simply a shortcut leading past a few trees to an alley at the rear of a row of apartment complexes.

“Ah, my lovely, where do you think you’re going?” muttered the man, as he got out of the BMW to follow them.

Amanda and Megan soon entered their two-bedroom apartment and locked the door behind them. The air in the apartment was hot and stuffy. An elderly lady lived in the suite below and kept her thermostat set to the maximum. The floors weren’t thick and the heat permeated Amanda’s apartment.

In a way, Amanda thought it was good. She saved money because her own thermostat rarely needed to come on. When it was too hot, she remedied the situation by sliding open her balcony door overlooking the rear alley.

Dinner was uneventful. When the dishes were done, Amanda read to Megan for a while and put her to bed. At ten o’clock she watched some of the news on the CBC National, then went to bed herself.

It was after midnight when the intruder entered her bedroom while she was asleep. He took his clothes off quietly and stood for a moment at the end of her bed. The sight of Amanda’s head on her pillow aroused him. He put on a condom and moved closer.

Amanda awoke to the feel of a latex-gloved hand over her mouth and the sharp edge of a knife at her throat.

“Not a sound, my lovely, or you’re dead,” whispered the man, his hot, moist breath in her ear.

Amanda tasted the latex from the gloves and her eyes widened in fright. She lay rigid, afraid to move or utter a sound as he slowly removed his hand from her mouth, while pinning her to the bed with the knife on her throat. She felt him rip her pajama top open and heard the sound of one of her buttons bounce off the wall.

Amanda prayed she was having a nightmare. The only light in the room came from a streetlight in the back alley. In the shadows of her bedroom, she could not accurately make out the man’s face. It was an eerie white, as if he was wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask.

Chapter Four

It was the following Monday afternoon when Corporal Jack Taggart drove the black SUV along a backcountry road. Beside him sat his partner, Constable Laura Secord. In the back seat was Helen Reed, who was directing Jack on where to drive. They were slightly over an hour’s drive from Vancouver and southeast of the city of Abbotsford.

Jack, in his late thirties, was wearing blue jeans and a woollen plaid jacket, which hung open, revealing a black T-shirt. He had an athletic build and was currently sporting a black goatee and his hair was combed straight back. It gave him a look that could best be described as a sinister arrogance. For those who did not know him, they might presume he was a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang.

Laura, a few years younger, had long curly autumn-coloured hair and was also wearing jeans, along with a V-neck green T-shirt stretched across her stunning figure. She had a look of innocence about her, which led some to believe she was naive. She was anything but, especially since working with Jack. It was her appearance, coupled with a sharp mind, which had landed many criminals in jail.

Both Jack and Laura were trained undercover operatives with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and were assigned to an Intelligence Unit in Vancouver. Their primary objective was to dismantle or disrupt criminal empires. They did it primarily through working undercover, turning informants, and using wiretap information.

Helen Reed was their informant. She was living in a common-law relationship with a man by the name of David Peltier who was actively smuggling crystal meth into the United States. Peltier had a volatile and violent temper, as was evidenced by Helen’s frequent trips to obtain medical care. She had been treated for anything from a broken jaw to a broken arm.

The first time it happened, Peltier cried afterwards and begged forgiveness. He said it would never happen again. But of course it did. Peltier never cried anymore for what he did to her. He simply promised he would kill her if she ever tried to leave him.

It was a promise Helen knew he would keep, so she was always careful to go to different medical clinics for treatment. She knew if she only saw one doctor, it might raise questions as to how she could be so accident-prone.

A week ago she was still recovering from two black eyes and a broken nose when she parked her car at a shopping mall. That was when she met Jack Taggart. He didn’t look like a cop and at first she thought Peltier was pulling a prank. After seeing his identification and allowing him to buy her a coffee, she knew it was no prank.

Jack had been targeting her boyfriend and knew she was being beaten. He told her nobody deserved to be treated like that. He explained how men like Peltier work and how the women they prey on lose all self-confidence and worth until the psychological hold on them seems impossible to break.

Helen listened, but didn’t say a word … until he told her he had a way to get her out, if she would help him. He made a promise he would never disclose her identity to anyone except his partner. He also said he would not take any action against Peltier without consulting with her, to ensure her safety.

Earlier in the day, Jack introduced her to Laura and they were going to a drug drop-off location Helen knew about.

“This is it … yeah, Henderson Road, I had forgotten,” said Helen.

Jack drove along the road and saw that it ran parallel with the United States border, which was directly beside them. The road was well treed on both sides and there was no traffic.

“There! That’s it,” said Helen, pointing to a tree with a broken top. “I let him out here at about two in the morning, then swing back two hours later and pick him up.”

“So actually it will be early Thursday morning when you let him out,” confirmed Laura.

“I guess. It’s Wednesday night when we go to the storage locker. Gotta get it before it closes, but after that … yeah, very early Thursday morning if you want to get technical. At that time of night there’s no traffic around, so if he sees anyone, he’ll know there’s heat.”

“How often do you make the trip?” asked Laura.

“About once a month on average. I’ve done it four times so far.”

“Do you do any dry runs?” asked Jack.

“Like stash it in a ditch someplace and then come here to see if the cops are waiting? So if they grab us here at the border, we ain’t got nothing?”

“Exactly.”

“Naw, we ain’t never done that,” replied Helen. “Talked about doing that the first time, but we never did.”

“What about someone standing six?” persisted Jack.

“He could have a lookout, but I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anyone. He does get a call on his cellphone before we come out, but then he gets a lot of calls, so I don’t really know.”

“Any idea on how much meth he’ll be packing across?” asked Laura.

“Not for sure, but I’m thinking at least twenty keys. I could ask, but I think he would tell me it’s none of my business and probably give me a smack.”

“Don’t do anything to jeopardize yourself,” said Jack.

“All I know is that right now it’s in the storage locker, but he is supposed to hang on to it until Wednesday night to make the delivery.”

“Why the wait?” asked Jack.

“I dunno. Somethin’ to do with the Americans getting their shit together.”

“Will it only be you and him in the car?” asked Laura. “What about the Big V guy you mentioned?”

“I told Jack earlier, I’ve never met the Big V and got no idea who he is. My old man once mentioned he was off to see the Big V. At the time I knew he was going to meet who he worked for, so that’s how I come up with that name.”

“Would sure be nice to find out who he is,” said Laura, glancing at Jack.

“Maybe if you don’t pop him Wednesday night and give it a bit more time, you could find out,” said Helen. “Can’t you like, get a bug on his phone or somethin’?”

“Getting a bug is a lot harder than most people realize,” said Jack. “Besides, in my books, busting some dope dealer isn’t worth the risk of you getting another beating. We’re not waiting. The asshole is going down.”

Helen nodded silently. She believed Jack would protect her from the first time she met him, but she felt even more assured. She sensed he was a man who kept his promise. “My old man’s been busted before,” noted Helen. “Last time he was sentenced to six years and was out after one.”

“That was in B.C.,” said Jack. “This time he’ll be grabbed in the U.S. Even if he didn’t already have a record, he’d be in for a minimum of ten years. I bet he gets more than that now.”

“Gee, and I won’t be able to visit him because I got a record for dealing pot and can’t go to the U.S.” Helen said, smiling.

On Wednesday afternoon, Amanda Evans left Megan with Wendy and went with her brother, Burt, to her apartment. Once they arrived, they quickly walked through the apartment, but Amanda remained in the living room when Burt went into her bedroom.

Amanda found herself staring at the open doorway to her bedroom. Images, sounds, and smells returned. His white face leering down at her. The smell of his sweaty body … the taste of latex and the sharp edge of the knife on her throat when she cried out in pain.

Now, three days after the attack, Amanda began to gasp and hyperventilate. Panic riddled her brain like acid as she fought the urge to run from the apartment.

Her rent was paid until the end of the month, but she could not bring herself to stay. Wendy only had a two-bedroom apartment, but willingly provided Amanda with a cot in her room while the children slept in the other room. The arrangement was only temporary. Amanda had found a new place she could move into tomorrow.

Amanda never told her parents what had happened and made her brother swear he wouldn’t, either. Their dad was in poor health and she was afraid what effect it would have on him. It was a secret that was even more difficult to keep when her mother, after hearing about the attack on the news, had called to warn her to be careful.

“Yeah, this will be a piece of cake,” said Burt, as he walked out of the bedroom and glanced around. “I’ll be here at eight tomorrow morning with the U-Haul. Three of the guys said they would give me a hand. If you and I box up the small stuff today, I bet we will be done by noon tomorrow.”

“This will be costing your friends money.” Amanda frowned.

“Naw, it won’t. The boss man said if we’re back to the construction site by noon, he won’t even dock us any pay. Don’t worry about that crap. Everyone is happy to help out.”

Amanda fought back the tears as she glanced again at the entrance to her bedroom, while subconsciously putting her hand to her throat. She had cried and begged him to let her go. It only seemed to excite him further. He prodded her with the knife and said he would kill her if she yelled. Her pleading had woken Megan who came in and, sensing her mother’s anguish, started crying herself.

Megan’s presence did nothing to deter the rapist. He mocked Megan and made obscene comments about what he was doing to Mommy, telling her Mommy only pretended to cry and that she really liked it.

It seemed so surreal. The man’s face was white and eerie, like a ghost. The knife had a serrated edge on the back of the blade and the rapist liked the added terror it brought when he slowly scrapped the knife across the spindles on her headboard, making a grating sound.

At the time she wondered if the grating sound would be the sound her vertebrae would make if he sawed through her throat. Fear had totally overwhelmed her and she had readily given in to his demands to accommodate his desires. She wanted it to be over and for him to be gone. She now knew it would never be over.

It was eleven o’clock Wednesday night when Jack and Laura walked along Henderson Road. They had parked their SUV a short distance away, inside the entrance to some farmland where it was hidden from sight amongst the scrub brush.

“There’s the broken treetop,” observed Jack. “Time to find a place to hide.”

Minutes later, they hid in the forest on the north side of the road. They did not want to hide on the south side in case Peltier stumbled upon them when he walked into the U.S.

Both Jack and Laura were equipped with flashlights and portable radios, but once hidden, they kept the flashlights turned off and used earpieces so the radios could not be heard.

Unlike undercover operatives on a drug section, who testified in court on a regular basis, members of the Intelligence Unit seldom went to court. Particularly the few members of the Intelligence Unit who were actually trained undercover operatives.

By not appearing in court, it allowed them to mingle with organized-crime figures while keeping their true identity hidden. On occasion, it also provided protection for those informants who had vouched for their credibility.

Generally, once members of the Intelligence Unit had gathered enough information, they would turn it over to the appropriate police units to further the investigation and make arrests.

This investigation was no different. Members from the Vancouver RCMP Drug Section, or narcs, as drug section members were commonly called, were also present. Due to the scarcity of vehicles in the area, the narcs, who also had a member of the Canada Border Services Agency riding with them, stayed about a ten-minute drive away.

Jack had provided them with the minimum amount of information they needed to fulfil their task. He was always extremely protective of his informants and for this investigation, only Laura knew who it really was.

The plan was to have Peltier arrested in the United States. For that purpose, a team of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents had taken up a position on their side of the border. They intended to arrest Peltier when he met with his U.S. contact.

Earlier in the day, other Vancouver Drug Section members had been told to do surveillance on David Peltier. They were told he was expected to have a girlfriend drive him to a storage locker to retrieve multiple kilos of crystal meth for delivery tonight.

So far, the narcs reported that Peltier and a woman who was driving his black Ford Mustang had made the trip to the storage locker. After, they were followed to Abbotsford where they were seen stopping at a restaurant and ordering coffee.

At one o’clock in the morning, Jack and Laura saw a car approaching. The area had been completely void of traffic for the last two hours, so their interest was piqued when a car slowly went past.

“What do you think?” whispered Laura. “The bars are shutting down, so it could be someone coming home … or is it someone checking out the area?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Jack as he stood behind a tree and adjusted his binoculars. “If I can get a plate maybe it will tell us if it’s local.” Jack strained his eyes as he slowly focused the dial on the binoculars. “It’s a silver BMW. Cabriolet model, I believe. Can’t make out the plate.”

The BMW continued on and once more Henderson Road was engulfed in darkness. At one-thirty in the morning, the narcs reported that the couple had left the restaurant and were driving in their direction.

Half an hour later, the Mustang arrived and stopped where it was expected to stop. The passenger door opened, turning on the car’s interior light. Jack saw Peltier go to the trunk and get a large backpack before giving Helen a thumbs-up signal and closing the car door. As Helen drove off, Peltier hurried down off the road toward the United States.

Jack used his cellphone to whisper an alert to the U.S. agents and then used his portable police radio to alert the others.

“Want us to grab the woman in the car?” radioed one of the narcs.

“No, make sure Peltier is grabbed in the U.S. before doing anything. As far as the woman goes, wait until she comes back to pick up Peltier, then arrest her.”

“I doubt dropping someone off and picking them up will be enough to convict.”

“I agree with you there,” replied Jack, “but it should be enough to hold her overnight. Maybe she will confess.”

“Copy that.”

“Confess?” whispered Laura.

“I told her to demand a lawyer immediately,” replied Jack. “No worries.”

Silence descended upon the area until quarter to three when the sound of a gunshot was heard in the distance, coming from the U.S. side of the border.

“What did they do, shoot him?” asked Laura.

Before Jack could respond, a crashing through the bush across the road and slightly down from them caught their attention.

“Oh man, a bear …” said Laura.

“Isn’t a bear,” said Jack, lowering the binoculars. “It’s a man and he’s hotfooting it down the road away from us. Come on, let’s get ’em!”

Jack and Laura scrambled out onto the road and chased after the man, who had about a thirty-second lead on them. The distance was narrowing until the man looked back and realized he was being pursued.

Jack and Laura turned on their flashlights and continued the chase. Jack’s phone vibrated as he ran and he took the call. It was from the DEA who told him Peltier, along with an American, were both in custody. The American had reached for a handgun in his belt, but changed his mind when one of the agents fired a warning shot.

“Great, no time to talk further,” panted Jack. “Got a runner we’re chasing on foot.”

“Coming our way?” asked the DEA agent.

“Not yet. He’s on the road parallel to the border … no, he just veered off northbound into the trees. Gotta go!”

Jack and Laura were only about fifteen seconds behind the man from where he took off into the forest, but fifteen seconds can be a long time when it’s dark and you’re amongst a mixture of heavy bush and trees.

They followed the noise the man was making for a few seconds, but then it got quiet.

“He’s laid down someplace,” whispered Jack.

“What about back-up or canine?” suggested Laura.

“Will take too long. He has to be close. I have an idea.”

The man crouched behind a tree, desperately trying to control his panting. He watched as the two flashlight beams cut through the darkness and could hear a woman’s voice talking to her partner. He waited until they were a good thirty seconds past him before standing up and quietly making his way back toward the road. He had only taken a few steps when a man loomed up in front of him and stuck a Smith & Wesson 9mm semi-automatic pistol in his face.