Cold Quarry (19 page)

I asked for the manager. The order taker behind the counter, a fiftyish woman with leathery skin and hair dyed brunette, took one look at Toronto’s motorcycle jacket and the almost fiendish gleam in his eyes and retreated to the back as if she were about to become the victim of a stickup. A half minute later, she was back with the person in charge, a short, owlish man whose bushy mustache and eyebrows made him look like a fast-food Albert Einstein. The name badge attached to the pocket of his shirt said he was the assistant manager.

He too cast a wary eye toward Toronto’s olive complexion and muscle-bound physique. “May I help you gentlemen?”

“Yes, sir. My name is Frank Pavlicek and this is my associate Jake Toronto.” He shook my hand and I showed him my PI registration and gave him one of my cards. “I’m looking for one of your employees. Caleb Connors? I was told he’d be working here tonight.”

He twisted my card between his fingers, reading. “Private investigators.” He snickered, looking around the wall at the customers seated in the restaurant and lowering his voice. “Figures. What kind of trouble have they gotten into now?”

“They?”

“Yeah. They’re brothers. Matt and Caleb. They both work here.”

“I don’t know if they’ve gotten into any trouble, sir. We were just hoping to have a few words with Caleb.”

“About what? Something to do with the restaurant?”

“No,” I said. “Nothing to do with his work here.”

“That right? Well, maybe I can help you find him then. And maybe you can help me. I’ve just been on the phone. They’re my weekend closers, but neither of ‘em showed up for their shift tonight. Leaves me real short-handed with the cleanup and everything, you know?”

“Sure. You have home addresses for them?”

“Yeah, yeah, in the files in back. They were both still living at home with their mother, but they moved into a place of their own not too long back. Rented a house over on Chandler Road. I can get you the number.”

“I would really appreciate that. Is it like the two of them to miss work?”

He shrugged. “It’s happened once or twice before, but they’ve both been with me here steady for a couple of years now and Christ, you know how hard it is to find kids who’ll stick around through the training and then show up for work even halfway regular these days?”

“Either of the Connorses work anywhere else?”

“Not that I know of. I try to make sure they each get thirty or forty hours a week here. They’re usually pretty good workers. Which is why I’m so screwed without them tonight. Hey, you find ‘em, you tell ‘em Mr. Quinones is not happy.”

I nodded my sympathy, wondering what the two brothers—both in their twenties—could’ve earned at jobs like this and if they might’ve been in the market for some kind of income supplementation, maybe the off-the-books kind. “We’ll be sure and do that,” I said.

The assistant manager disappeared in back, leaving us to stand uncomfortably with the woman for a few moments. There was another younger woman in back working the grill. She was flipping burgers and not looking too happy about it.

Quinones came back with the address written on a blank time card. “Hey, you know, I hope these kids aren’t in some kind of real trouble or something, ‘cause I’d hate to see that happen. Some of these kids, I try to give ‘em a break and everything, you know? These two, from what I know, they don’t got much of a family backing ‘em up or anything.” He handed me the card and I took it and shoved it into my coat pocket.

“You mentioned the mother,” I said.

He turned his back to his other employees and lowered his voice again—the woman at the counter, while she was pretending to wipe down some counters, had obviously been eavesdropping.

“She’s a drinker,” he whispered. “Been in and out of work. In and out of rehab a few times too now, I guess. Last I heard, she was even turning a few tricks now and then on the street.”

“No father?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard much of anything about. The older one, Caleb, I remember him saying something once about how his old man had been in the army, but that’s the only time either of them ever mentioned him.”

I tapped the card in my pocket. “This address you’re sending us to, how’s the neighborhood?”

He made a show of looking Toronto and me up and down again. “This time of night? You two fellas look like you can handle yourselves, but I wouldn’t be going over there by myself, if you know what I mean. That’s one thing about those Connors boys—they always seem to stick together.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Quinones. You’ve been a great help.”

“Don’t mention it. Listen, you find those two, you tell ‘em I said to get straight on back to work here and keep their noses clean. I really need them.”

I shook his hand and thanked him again—he even shook Toronto’s hand this time after a slight hesitation. We left there with me wondering if this little man in his empty fast-food place on a Saturday night could even begin to hold back all the forces arrayed against him.

Charleston’s west end is a residential district of steep hills and small houses running down to and beyond the main drag, which is Washington Street. Along Washington are several commercial establishments, everything from a Laundromat to biker bars, redneck bars, and just about everything in between. There are also a couple of projects; not as bad as Roseberry Circle, but the clash of cultures in the west end, mixed with greed, crack, crystal meth, and booze, makes for a potent mix.

Toronto told me all this as we drove down there to look for Caleb Connors. He said the cops referred to the area as the Wild West.

“Sounds just like your kind of place, Jake.”

We found the house, a dark blue bungalow with a sagging porch on Chandler Road, just as Quinones had described. There was nobody home, but a sallow-eyed next-door neighbor shoveling a pile of sawdust beneath a floodlight beside his garage told us he thought the Connors boys had gone out for the evening, probably to one of the bars down on Washington.

“Usually do,” he said. “About the only time I get any real peace and quiet around here.”

We spent the next hour hitting bars up and down Washington Street, coming up empty. All we left with was a better description of the brothers and the car they drove, a bright orange classic GTO.

“I feel like we need a gear change,” I said as we climbed back into my pickup for the tenth or twelfth time.

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“We can waste all night trying to chase down these two French fries. We might be better off hitting them bright and early tomorrow when they’re sleeping it off back there at that little shack of theirs.”

“Maybe we should go back, find Warnock, and lean on him some more.”

“Or we could go see if we can follow up with that vet, Dr. Winston.”

“The place won’t be open though.”

“Right. But it looked to me like Winston owns an entire property with a house out back where he lives. Must make for a short commute to the office.”

“Ties up a loose end, either way.”

“You said you didn’t get to see him earlier like I did, but you met him once before with Chester. You think he’ll remember you too if we show up at the house?”

Toronto smiled but said nothing.

“All right, I know … people have a way of remembering you,” I said.

The parking lot at the veterinary clinic in Dunbar was empty and the office building dark. Away from the traffic off the road to one side stood a row of exercise runs surrounded by chain-link fence. The vet probably boarded pets overnight or kept some for observation when needed after surgery. Lights blazed from the house out back, and there was a fairly new Range Rover parked in the driveway.

As we climbed out of the truck, the echo of barking from inside the animal hospital hit our ears, mixed with the faint sounds of traffic in the background. There were several dogs and they sounded agitated. Lucky thing for the vet, his neighbors on either side and in back were all commercial establishments—an outdoor tree nursery, a small office building, and an auto body shop—all of which appeared to close up at night so there was no one around to complain about the racket.

The house was built of wood but had a brick foundation and a set of brick stairs leading up to a small open front porch with wrought-iron railings and twin lantern porch lights glowing brightly on either side. I followed Toronto over the short walk and up the stairs and waited as he pushed the lighted button to ring the bell. The cold air smelted faintly of an odd mixture of auto exhaust, earth, and animal waste.

Several seconds passed, but there was no answer. Toronto tried the bell again.

Still no answer.

There was a heavy black door knocker that matched the railings so Toronto grabbed it and knocked three or four times.

Nothing, not even a hint of activity or movement from inside.

“Maybe he’s gone out,” Toronto offered. “Young guy. Saturday night. Probably decided to leave some lights on for security.”

“But the Range Rover’s still in the driveway.”

“Maybe he’s got a second car.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Instinctively perhaps, Toronto had already begun to scan the security on the front door, gently attempting to turn the knob just in case. It was locked tight, with a mortise lock and decent cylinder dead bolt, not to mention an alarm system, judging from the sensor foil taped just inside the window frame; none of which would have been insurmountable obstacles for my companion had we not been standing in a brightly lit area with our backs to a distant line of moving cars.

“Why don’t we take a look out back?” I suggested.

We looped around the sparse foundation planting to check out the rear of the house, which was also well illuminated by a couple of floodlights attached to the top corners of the house just below the roofline. There was a wooden table and chairs alongside a gas grill, both draped in vinyl weather coverings for the winter. A set of sliding glass doors led into what looked like a neatly furnished and undisturbed family room. The doors were also locked, and apparently armed by the alarm. Otherwise, we found no sign of anything out of order.

“Okay, what do you think?” Toronto asked. “Just leave the guy your card for now and I write him a note?”

I nodded. “Don’t see any cause for breaking and entering. What about the office?”

“Let’s check it on the way out.”

Toronto ripped a page from my notepad and wrote a brief message, signing his name. Back in front, we wedged the note along with my card in the tight space between the front door and frame.

The dogs were still barking from the clinic. We piled back into the truck, reversed into the turnaround beside the Range Rover, and drove toward the highway again before turning into the office parking lot.

Though the building was dark, light from bright halogen lamps along the road gave enough illumination to the area for us to have a good look around. I also brought my penlight just in case—didn’t want to shine too much light or arouse suspicion from drivers on the road.

The front entrance, a glass enclosure around a small portico, was closed and locked, as you might expect. We found no access to the building at all in back, but there was a side entrance and here we encountered a problem: the door had been left open an inch or two and, judging from the splinters of wood on the floor just inside, had clearly been jimmied.

“This doesn’t look right,” Toronto said. The dogs inside, sensing our presence, boomed out an even louder chorus.

“Monster dog?” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Your weapon in your bag in the truck?” I asked. Toronto nodded. He’d been carrying a small satchel when I’d picked him up earlier back at the Carew house and had stowed it in front of him on the floor. I kept my own .357 beneath the seat in the truck.

“You know where mine is. You better go get them, plus another flashlight.”

I stayed by the door while he went to the truck. Warm air flowed out from the narrow opening. I could hear the building’s two heat pumps whirling behind the building, a pulsing background beat for the noisy canines. I shone my small beam of light around the frame looking for any obvious trace evidence, signs of tool marks, or prints, not really expecting to find anything. The metal ridge was bent where the door had been forced, but beyond that no other marks or signs were visible.

A few seconds later, Toronto reappeared and handed me my weapon and a larger flashlight.

“Just a precaution,” I said, slipping on my shooter’s gloves.

He nodded.

I pulled open the door.

If the dogs had been loud outside, once inside the cacophony was almost deafening. There must’ve been eight or ten, from large deep-throated voices to smaller tinny ones—their pens lined the back of a large room visible just beyond the short entranceway.

I clicked on the bright beam Toronto had just brought me. Nothing appeared amiss in the hall. There was a push broom and a snow shovel, a mop, and a large yellow pail on wheels. The walls were made of cinder block and were empty, except for a cork bulletin board that had been taken over by the usual state and federal bureaucratic mumbo jumbo you see posted on bulletin boards in any business. This was obviously the employees’ entrance.

The air reeked of animal, a musty aroma made worse by the transition from the fresh air outdoors. The cold from the door left ajar had lowered the temperature inside some, despite the heat pumps, so that the dogs and perhaps other animals inside must’ve felt the chill. I motioned Toronto to my left. We moved farther into the building, each hugging a wall.

At the opening into the larger room, you could see the silhouettes of the dogs, tensing and straining as they barked. A few were howling or growling. I trained my beam on a few of their faces: black and brown fur, gleaming yellow eyes, red gums, and white teeth.

All at once, the room was flooded with a blinding light.

21

“Just what in the world is going on in here?” a woman’s voice said.

It was Kara Grayson, wearing the same elegant long coat I’d seen her in the night before. She stood by the opposite door where she’d switched on a panel of overhead lights. Her eyes went wide with fear when she saw the guns.