Purgatory (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 11) Read online

  “No, no one. Detective, I appreciate you doing your job, but this is a big mistake. I saw him off to the airport. He’s fine.”

  “You saw him to the airport? Where did you see him last, exactly?”

  “I dropped him off at the curb, and he walked inside the terminal. Unless someone kidnapped him in front of thirty TSA agents, he’s in Belize right now.”

  Stanton considered this for a moment. If that was really the last time she’d seen him, then either he really was kidnapped from the terminal, or lured out, or voluntarily left. Honolulu International had video covering the entire airport: he had to get down there.

  “What time did you drop him off?”

  “Around eight in the morning. I’m telling you, you’ve made a mistake. He’s fine.”

  Stanton nodded. “Like I said, I don’t know anything for certain yet. Please keep calling and texting him, and let me know if he responds.” He handed her his card. “Call me anytime, day or night, if you get ahold of him.”

  “I will.”

  As Stanton was walking away, he thought of something else. “Joan?”

  “Yeah?” she said, holding the door open.

  “What does your husband do for a living?”

  “He owns some industrial buildings, factories and storage facilities, things like that.”

  Stanton’s heart dropped. “Does he own the Ripley Manufacturing plant, down on Alii Road?”

  “Yes, that’s one of them.”

  Thomas Wells had been taken into his own building and killed there. Stanton’s mind spun with possibilities, but fatigue meant he couldn’t concentrate on a single one. He would have to digest this later.

  “Well, thanks for your time,” he said.

  Stanton went back to the jeep and sat down. He didn’t want to tell Joan Wells about the video, much less show it to her. Not yet, anyway. He wanted to see if Thomas responded. By nightfall, if she hadn’t heard from her husband, she would probably contact Stanton anyway, and he could show her the video then.

  He started the jeep and headed to the airport.

  21

  Rachel entered the house, and Dane told her to sit down on an old sofa. The interior matched its exterior: something out of a cowboy film. There were paintings of bears and cowboys on bucking horses and deer antlers on the walls. The furniture was old and worn, the rugs threadbare.

  Bobby went out back and sat in a chair on the patio overlooking the cliff. Mackie lay down on the couch across from Rachel and smoked a joint while Dane went upstairs.

  Rachel glanced at the door. If Mackie fell asleep, she might be able to sneak out and make a run for it down the road. The problem was that there were no trees for her to hide behind for at least half a mile. If they chased her down in the jeep, the only place she could hide was flat on the ground and hope they drove past.

  She rubbed her arms, which had gotten goosebumps. Bobby sat motionless on the back porch, the wind flapping his hair against his head. Mackie looked over at her, and she saw his eyes run down her legs. She pulled down her shorts to try to cover her thighs, and it made him smile before going back to his joint.

  “What do you guys want with me?”

  He blew out a puff of smoke. “What do you think we want?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Really? Don’t you?”

  She swallowed. “I have a lot of money,” she whispered. “Get me out of here and you can have it all. I mean a lot, millions. You’ll be rich.”

  He chuckled. “Shit, I don’t care about money. Not even a little. Gives me power. That thing… where a person can’t be bought. They’re powerful. I’m powerful. And you’re powerless because your entire world is money.”

  She began to sob. “Please. I don’t want to die.”

  “That ain’t decided yet, and it ain’t for us to decide.”

  Dane was back and tossed her some clothes. “More comfortable. Don’t have to wear ’em if you don’t want to. Are you hungry? We got steaks and kabobs ready to grill.”

  “I could…” Her voice broke off. “I could use some water.”

  He went to the kitchen and came back out with a glass of ice water. She drank half and held the glass in her hand as she stared at Dane. He stood in front of her, that damn smirk on his face, and she wished she could take something and break it over his head.

  “You want something,” she said. “Just tell me what it is. You already have me. There’s no one around for miles, and if I ran, I couldn’t hide anywhere. Why can’t you just tell me?”

  He shook his head. “Because your reactions have to be real. They’ll need to see it to make an informed decision.”

  “Who? What decision?”

  “Another five or six hours and you’ll find out.”

  He went back to the kitchen. “You should probably sleep if you can. Save your strength. I’ll wake you when the food’s ready.”

  22

  Stanton first stopped at the airport. He spoke to a TSA supervisor who said he would have to talk to the video techs and get the disc for the cameras on the date he was asking for. He thought it would take at least twenty-four hours.

  “No way to speed it up?” Stanton asked.

  The man chuckled. “You ever dealt with the federal government before? What you think the answer to that is?”

  Stanton left and decided he was too weak to do anything. He hadn’t eaten and, even though the thought of food right now disgusted him, he decided he would need to force something down.

  He stopped at a taco shack on his way back and got two vegetarian tacos and a strawberry soda. He took a seat at one of the picnic tables that overlooked the beach a hundred feet below. Seagulls were having a hard time fighting the wind. They dipped, almost fell into the water, and fought their way back up again. He watched them for a long time, fighting a force they couldn’t see that was overpowering them. It made him uncomfortable.

  He only managed to eat half of a taco, but he drank his entire soda before he tossed the food and bottle in the trash. The thought of going to the station filled him with dread. He was reaching a point where he could easily see himself fainting in front of the other detectives. That couldn’t happen; he would be sent for a psychological evaluation and might be taken off duty. He knew he had to finish this case before that could happen.

  He was aching with fatigue by the time he got home. He went inside and saw Julie sitting on the couch with a man. He had silver hair and was wearing a red sweater with a Rolex watch. They had reams of paper spread out in front of them on the coffee table and a MacBook open with charts and spreadsheets.

  “Hey, hon,” she said. “This is Gary Newbolt, the investor I told you about.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “We’ve actually met before, Detective.”

  “Right, sorry. I do remember.”

  He grinned. “Julie can’t stop talking about you. We’ll have to grab dinner sometime with my girlfriend so we can hear some of those stories you have.”

  Stanton nodded and moved past them. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” he said, without looking at either one of them.

  He slipped off his shoes and lay on the bed. He said a quick prayer, asking God to grant him sleep, even a little, and give him the strength to keep going. His eyes opened after the prayer, and he lay there a long time, staring at the ceiling that had become too familiar.

  Sleep wouldn’t be coming, but he didn’t have the strength to get up and do anything. He decided he would lie there until nightfall, then head to the plant.

  Julie came up to check on him after a couple of hours. She lay next to him and put her head on his chest, rubbing his stomach with her hand.

  “How’d your meeting go?” he asked.

  “Good. He’s not pulling his funding yet. I’m hoping we can keep him happy another few years. I should be able to buy him out by then, and the business will be completely ours.”

  “Where’s Hanny?”

  “Kim from across the s
treet took him to the dog park. She has a Labrador Hanny just loves. You should see them together. They look like teenagers in love.”

  Stanton could feel his heart beating against her. It felt slow, and the rhythm wasn’t smooth or steady. More like it was fading and then would suddenly burst with energy. As long as it beat, he would be alive, and right now he wasn’t sure how long it would keep beating.

  “I need to go somewhere when it gets dark.”

  “Where?”

  “A manufacturing plant. I think something may have happened there and someone hid evidence.”

  “Why in the dark? Go now and then let’s make dinner.”

  “I can’t. Things are different at night. I have to see it then… the way they saw it.”

  “The way who saw it?”

  Stanton didn’t feel like going into any further detail. He’d had a girlfriend briefly, after his divorce, who asked him what was the most horrible thing he’d ever seen. He told her.

  He remembered his girlfriend’s face, wide-eyed and wet with tears, and he knew it was over. Even though he was the guy stopping things like that, the darkness touched him, too. And it was just too close for her to feel comfortable around him.

  “What kind of case?” she said.

  “Nothing interesting. Let’s take a walk. I’m sick of lying here.”

  23

  Stanton walked with his fiancée for two hours. They went up the North Shore and had snow cones on the beach. As the sun set, they watched the last of the surfers coming out of the water, their bodies glistening in the dying sun.

  Once they got home, Stanton played with Hanny, fed him, and kissed Julie before leaving. She seemed sad somehow, but Stanton didn’t have the energy to ask why and have an in-depth discussion. It was probably about how much he worked, a discussion he’d had with every girlfriend and fiancée and wife he’d ever had. He didn’t know how many more times he could have that conversation before deciding he would never have it again.

  He drove in the dark and found his mind wandering, listening to David Bowie on his phone. He watched the lines on the road speed under his car and disappear as another one came toward him. After rolling down the window to have the air hit him in the face and keep him alert, he stopped at a convenience store.

  The lighting inside hurt his eyes, and the cashier didn’t pay any attention to him. He took a bottle of Diet Coke and guzzled part of it in the store before deciding to get a can of Red Bull as well. He sat in the parking lot after paying for them and drank as much as he could before starting the jeep and heading to the plant.

  It was empty when he got there, except for the foreman who he had texted a couple of hours ago and asked to wait. He opened the gate for him and said, “Same drill. Lock up and tell me when you’re done.”

  “I will. Thanks again.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Stanton waited for him to pull away. He needed to be alone. Once the foreman was gone, he took a deep breath and went inside.

  The lights had been left on this time. He didn’t need to use the flashlight on his phone. Standing in the hallway, he looked both ways before heading in the direction he hadn’t explored last time.

  There were several offices along the corridor but nothing interesting. At the far end stood a soda machine. There was a large crack in the plastic front that had been sealed up again with packing tape. He couldn’t remember if he’d noticed that the last time he was here. Right now, it felt like his skull was filled with rocks, and memories were not something that came to him easily.

  He ran his finger down the crack and turned back down the corridor.

  He scanned the factory floor from one side to the other. It was massive. If they had hidden a body here, it would take a long time to find, even if he had help. But someone would have noticed the odor of decaying flesh by now, which meant it wasn’t here, or they had covered up the scent.

  Stanton went out to the center of the floor, what he guessed was about equidistant from each wall. The body wouldn’t be anywhere obvious—if it had been, they would have found it by now. They could have taken it with them when they first left, but they chose not to. Maybe they wanted it found but not right away. Why? They didn’t clean up the blood, so they knew the police would be called out, but they hid the actual body.

  Stanton looked from one end of the plant to the other before making his way across the floor to the end of what would be the warehouse section, where the boxes and containers were most densely packed. The shelves were high, about thirty feet, and there were special ladders stored on the walls. Stanton lifted one of the ladders off the hooks. It was heavy, and he nearly dropped it before wrapping his arms around it to hold it upright. Slowly, he dragged it over to the shelves.

  Leaning it against the metal containers, he tested his weight on it before climbing a step, then another and another. He glanced back once, and the ladder looked wobbly. Clearly the workers had another way to secure it that he didn’t know about.

  Moving quickly, he got to the top and pulled himself up onto the container.

  The plant was huge, far larger than it looked from the floor, filled with manufacturing equipment on one end and massive containers on the other. The containers were square and looked like large metal coffins.

  He wondered what was inside all of the industrial containers. He pictured assault rifles smuggled to cartels in Mexico and cocaine trafficked into the United States from Columbia and Peru. In reality, it was probably restaurant equipment and engines.

  He looked out over the containers and detected the pattern: fourteen rows and five columns per row. The most efficient use of space while still allowing people to move between the shelves.

  Each container had a blue stamp on the sides, a series of numbers followed by two letters: identification codes. He looked around at the other containers, and one of the smaller ones near the top of the shelves had a code on the top, not the side. Stanton looked at every other container he could see, and they were all on the side, not the top.

  As carefully as he could, he climbed down the ladder. At one point, it shook so badly that he thought it was going to slide out from under him. He jumped down the last eight feet and felt the sting in his ankles and heels.

  After standing still and letting the pain pass, he worked his way over to the shelf containing the container with the misplaced code. Another ladder was secured to the wall, and he sighed as he unhooked it from the wall and dragged it over. This one was sturdier, and he got to the top without problems.

  Most of the containers were sealed with a sophisticated lock requiring a keycode, but the lock on this container was already open. Stanton felt the old familiar stirring inside him, the thrill of the chase. He had thought the insomnia had dulled his senses so much that a boost of adrenaline was impossible, but there it was.

  Setting his fingers on the latch, he pulled it open, and lifted the lid.

  Thomas Wells floated in what looked like a tub. The powerful smell of calcium hydroxide overwhelmed Stanton: lime. It smelled like fried corn mixed with burning plastic, surprisingly, and the scent didn’t travel much through air. It was perfect for covering up the scent of dead flesh.

  Wells was fairly well decayed, large sheets of skin falling off his body and creating a goopy soup in the tub. Stanton could see the bones of his arms and legs. Only half his face had skin, but Stanton could still recognize him from the photo he’d seen at his house. Belatedly, he recognized something else floating in the mess: chunks of ice. Most of it had melted, but from the large pieces that remained, he must’ve been encased in it.

  He closed the lid and put his elbows on it, feeling both a rush of adrenaline and a coming migraine.

  24

  Rachel sat across from Mackie, an unfinished plate of food on the coffee table in front of her. She was starving but didn’t know what was in the food, so she’d only taken a couple of bites to see how she would react.

  Dane and Bobby had left, and Mackie lay on the couch, sipping
beer and watching the television on the stand near the front of the room. Every once in a while, he would glance over at her and grin. It sent shivers up her spine, and she decided she would have to talk to him to get his mind off of what she knew he was thinking now that they were alone.

  “Could I have some pot?” she asked.

  He chuckled and pulled out a pipe and small sack of weed. He loaded the pipe, stood up, and approached her. He was large, maybe six feet, and wider than she had noticed before. She shuddered when he lightly touched her hand while handing her the pipe and a lighter.

  She lit the pot and inhaled several puffs before putting it down on the coffee table.

  “Didn’t take you as a toker,” he said, going back across the room and lying down on the couch. “You seem like you got a stick up your ass.”

  “I used to smoke a lot in college. Not anymore. My company drug-tests me.”

  “Well, we all got our bullshit, I guess, right?”

  She nodded, though she wasn’t sure what he meant.

  The pot took effect quickly, and she took a few more drags before settling back on the couch, her fear slowly sliding down a notch.

  “How long have you known Dane?”

  He took a long pull off his beer. “Since we was kids. Long time.”

  “What’s his deal?”

  “What d’ya mean?”

  “He seems different from you two.”

  Mackie nodded. “He’s got a fire in his belly.” He took another drink of his beer. “You know he watched his mama die,” he said outta the blue.

  “How?”

  “His daddy was a dealer. Used to cut the coke or the meth with baby laxatives. Ripped off some people he shouldn’t have ripped off. They broke into their house one night and made Dane watch while they kicked the shit outta his dad and raped his mom.” He went silent a moment. “Then they shot both of ’em in the head. He was ten. Fucked him up good.” He sighed. “But shit, we stayed friends, and now, he’s somethin’ different. A totally different being.”