The Interloper Read online

  Luce packed the duffel bag into the trunk, then got in the car and headed to the address in Waltham that Wally had given him.

  Chapter 14

  Once Burke called them, it took Hendrick and Gannier seven minutes to drive from a coffee shop in the center of Revere to the address that they were given for Jeremy Dunson. If Burke had the right information, Dunson lived in an ugly five-story brick apartment building that was stuck between similar eyesores on a depressingly rundown city block. Rusted out and badly dented cars lined both sides of the street, and the sidewalks were littered with broken glass and garbage. Hendrick parked his Malibu in a lot for one of the neighboring buildings. He and Gannier left the car and walked casually to the building where Dunson lived, and continued on to the back of it. Gannier carried a large gym bag that clanked as he walked.

  They had little trouble as they made their way through the building’s back entrance, and then up the back staircase to the fifth floor. They knocked on the door of Dunson’s neighbor. A shriveled, white-haired woman of around eighty answered, and Hendrick moved fast as he covered her mouth with his hand to keep her from screaming. He moved her further into her apartment and Gannier slipped in behind him and closed the door. Hendrick asked the old lady whether she’d be more comfortable tied her up on an easy chair that she had in her living room or on her bed. She indicated that she’d prefer the easy chair, so Hendrick helped her over to it. Once she was seated, he wrapped her ankles and wrists together with duct tape, and placed a piece of it across her mouth. Her face was small enough that the tape also covered her wrinkled chin.

  “I’m sorry about doing this,” Hendrick told her. “But I can’t allow you to leave here now or make any noise. Don’t worry. We won’t be robbing or hurting you. And what the hell. I’ll leave you forty bucks for your trouble.”

  When the old lady had first opened the door, she wore thick glasses which Hendrick took from her. There was little chance she’d be able to later pick them out from photos or provide the police a useful description. He took two twenty dollar bills from his wallet and held them close to her face so she could see that he was giving her forty dollars, and once she appeared to recognize what the bills were he folded them into her hand. She shrugged, indicating that it was okay as far as she was concerned. Gannier smiled thinly as he watched, amused.

  He whispered to Hendrick, “I always suspected that you had a soft spot in there somewhere.”

  Hendrick whispered back, “That old lady could be my grandma for fucksake.”

  They found two water glasses in the kitchen and brought them out to the living room and held them up against the wall that separated Dunson’s apartment from the old lady’s. They stood quietly then listening as each of them pressed an ear against the bottom of a glass. After twenty minutes Gannier shook his head and whispered to Hendrick that the apartment was empty.

  “It has to be,” he said, whispering.

  “Yeah,” Hendrick agreed.

  They moved away from the wall. Gannier rummaged through the old lady’s pocketbook looking for her apartment key. Once he had it, he compared it with a set of lock picks that he had brought and found one that was a decent match. Satisfied, he put her key back in her pocketbook, and headed toward the door, picking up the gym bag that he had left on the floor. Hendrick stopped to tell the old lady that they would be calling the police in no more than thirty minutes and someone would be helping her soon.

  “You’ve gone soft, you know that?” Gannier said in a whisper.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Hendrick whispered back.

  Gannier led the way to Dunson’s apartment door while Hendrick kept watch. Using the lock pick that he had chosen earlier, he had the door opened within thirty seconds. They then moved fast to get inside of Dunson’s apartment.

  The apartment seemed more like a hotel room than a place someone lived. There were no books or photos or any sort of personal touches. The living room was bare bones with a chair, end table, and TV. The bedroom had a king-sized bed, a dresser for clothing, and a laptop computer on a small computer stand with a matching chair. The closets were neatly arranged with what seemed like a minimal amount of clothing for a man living there. They searched the closets and dresser drawers first, then Gannier unzipped the large gym bag and pulled out two crowbars. He handed one to Hendrick and kept the other for himself.

  First, they flipped over the mattress on the bed, and using a knife, Hendrick cut it open but found nothing unusual inside of it. They separated then with Hendrick taking the bedroom while Gannier searched the living room, both of them looking for hidden compartments. Gannier found one first, whispering loudly enough for Hendrick to hear him say that it held files and other papers, but no money. A few minutes later, Hendrick found a false wall behind the bed, and using the crowbar, he opened it up and found a stash of guns, ammunition, and an assortment of explosives. He was examining what looked like a stun grenade when a glint of reflected light from something small and silver caught his eye. It was partly buried in the wall. If he wasn’t standing where he was, he never would’ve seen it. He dug it out with a knife. The object was the size of a quarter, about three times as thick. Frowning, Hendrick gave it a closer look and realized what it was. He brought it out of the bedroom so he could hold it up and show it to Gannier, who was busy tapping along the wall looking for other hidden compartments.

  Gannier’s eyes and nose scrunched up to show his annoyance for a few seconds until he realized what the object was. Then his expression deadened. “We should get out of here,” he said.

  Hendrick nodded. He needed five minutes so he could pack up the guns and explosives he found, and he told Gannier to head out first. “Find a place where you can watch for him, and call me if he shows up.”

  Gannier gave Hendrick a quick nod and moved fast to the apartment door. When he opened it, there was a muffled puff noise. A good amount of brain matter, blood, and gore exploded from the back of Gannier’s skull. Hendrick stood frozen for a brief second, but before his friend’s body crumpled to the floor, he was moving fast toward the bedroom. He heard another muffled puff noise, and felt something whiz by his cheek.

  Chapter 15

  Bud McCoy didn’t know how long he had been waiting for that psychopath to return, but it must’ve been at least an hour. When he first escaped from the closet, the idea of surprising Luce when he returned seemed like his best bet given that he had no idea where he was and that he was left wearing only his boxer shorts. More than that, he badly wanted to kill Luce with his bare hands, but he was no longer sure that that psycho would be returning. It had been at least three hours since he was brought here, and if Luce was coming back he should’ve done so by now. Maybe Burke killed him, although the more McCoy thought about it, it didn’t seem likely. Not that Burke wouldn’t have it in him to do it—he was bigger and every bit as tough and mean, maybe more so. But if Burke had gotten his hands on Luce, he would’ve forced out of him what he had done to McCoy, and either Burke or Charlie would’ve come by already to rescue him. No, if Luce was dead, it wouldn’t be because of Burke. Maybe Simon killed him. Or if not him, Gerrity. And if it was one of those two cops, McCoy would like to think that whichever one of them it was also ended up dead in the process.

  McCoy hadn’t had anything to do with either of those cops for over eight years, but he still kept tabs on them, and at times he’d find himself slipping into daydreams about what he’d do to them if given the opportunity, although until he gave their names to Luce it was likely that he never would’ve done anything. But he hated those two pricks with a passion and was glad to be able to send Luce after them. He blamed both of them for the wrong turn his life took. Simon more than Gerrity, but Gerrity was to blame also.

  Back when he was in high school, he might’ve been a little wild, and it might not have been the best idea to hang around with Charlie, Cam, and Jared as much as he did, but he had a very different future mapped out than his friends. They were juvenile delinquent pothead
s while he was a jock—both a star wrestler and starting second baseman on the varsity baseball team. So while he stayed good friends with the three of them, and might’ve joined them on a few of their vandalism excursions, he kept away when they did their home break-ins and burglaries. He had an athletic scholarship for college, and he wasn’t about to fuck that up. The problem was that fascist cop, Simon. The sonofabitch had it in his thick cement skull that McCoy was involved in that burglary shit, and whenever he hassled Charlie and the others, he’d always end up focusing the most on McCoy.

  It was two weeks before graduation when Simon and his asshole partner, Gerrity, fucked him royally. The night it happened, McCoy was driving home at one o’clock at night after hanging with Charlie and the others in Charlie’s parent’s basement. All they did that night was smoke a little weed and watch DVDs of John Carpenter’s The Thing and They Live. Harmless shit for them, and McCoy didn’t think much when Simon pulled up to the left of him in his police cruiser. He might’ve noticed Simon giving him the stink eye, but fuck him. He hadn’t done anything that night other than a little weed, or really any night, so he didn’t think anything about it until Simon steered into his lane and sideswiped his car.

  The collision scared the shit out of him. He wasn’t expecting it, and although he had been keeping his speed at thirty, he lost control of his car and drove into a lamppost. What happened next was pretty much a blur. He remembered getting out of his car and seeing that his ’82 Mustang looked totaled, the front of the car crumpled and driver’s side bashed in. Maybe he mouthed off to Simon in his shock and rage—he couldn’t say for sure, but that fucking cop was soon smacking him with his nightstick. Within seconds he was on his back on the asphalt road trying to cover up and protect himself. Before he blacked out, he knew that Gerrity had joined in and both cops were beating the hell out of him with their nightsticks.

  When he woke up next, he was in the hospital with a fractured skull, broken jaw, four broken ribs, and a broken left wrist. He was pretty much out of it as they kept him doped up on painkillers, but when his court-appointed lawyer visited him he learned he was under arrest. Simon and Gerrity claimed in their police report and later affidavits that McCoy was the one who drove into them, and that after the crash he physically attacked them and that they responded only with the required force to subdue him. There were no witnesses, so it was McCoy’s word against the two cops. With his lawyer’s urging, he took a plea against the long list of charges that were filed against him, the most serious of which was assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon, with the deadly weapon being his Mustang. So instead of going to college, he did nine months at MCI Concord. When he got out, he was twenty pounds heavier, his scholarship had been taken away, and his admission to college had been revoked. With not much else to do, he joined Charlie and his crew, who had moved on from home burglaries to armed robberies.

  McCoy found himself choking with rage once more, which happened every time he let himself think about what happened that night all those years ago. He forced himself to take deep breaths until he began to calm down. He couldn’t afford to waste time filled with rage. He had a decision to make. Whether to stay put and wait for Luce or to get out of the house. It was more that he wasn’t sure any longer whether Luce would come back. When he had first escaped from the closet, he felt confident that he could take Luce by himself, but he wasn’t so sure about that anymore. His thumb with the missing nail hurt like hell, his wrist was still bleeding, the cold had left his muscles stiff and aching, and overall, he felt a lot weaker than he did an hour ago.

  He rubbed a thick hand across his eyes, trying to wipe the exhaustion from them. It was possible the police hadn’t found out about Heather yet. If he could get a hold of Charlie, then Charlie and Jared could either pick him up, or join him in laying in wait for Luce. Charlie could also arrange to get Heather’s body out of his house. He might still escape the mess Luce had stuck him in.

  In an attempt to conserve his strength, McCoy had been sitting on the carpeted floor while waiting for Luce’s return. He pushed himself to his feet and peered out the front window while keeping himself as hidden from view as he could. The neighboring houses were all newer colonials, all with small but well-kept yards. It would be simple if he could just knock on a door and ask someone to call the police, but that was impossible with the way Luce had left Heather. The police wouldn’t believe his story, not with the murder knife that Luce had left in the living room covered with McCoy’s fingerprints. While the police would have no reasonable way to explain how he ended up where he did with the injuries he had, they’d still make sure he went down for Heather’s murder.

  From where McCoy was standing, he could see three of the houses that were across the street. If one of them was empty and he could break in without a neighbor calling the police, then he’d be able to phone Charlie. It was a better bet than waiting where he was any longer. Luce had to be dead. If he wasn’t, he’d be back already. Every minute McCoy wasted trying to decide what to do was another minute where the cops could stumble on Heather’s body. He had no idea how Luce had left things. Maybe the bastard had left his curtains wide open so the mailman or someone could look in and see the bloody knife laying right there by his easy chair. A resolve hardened McCoy’s features. He walked up the stairs to the second floor and then moved from window to window so he could look out at more houses in the neighborhood and figure out which would be his best bet.

  After ten minutes, McCoy made his decision.

  Chapter 16

  Willis had finally broken free of traffic. It took almost an hour for him to travel to the next exit so he could get off of the Mass Pike and drive the back roads through Boston. During that time, he followed Luce on the GPS tracking device, and saw that after The Factory hit man left his apartment, he went directly to Patterson’s home in Waltham.

  Willis’s lips twisted into a thin, grim smile on seeing that. Luce would’ve gotten McCoy to tell him about Willis, so when Luce’s bosses called him to investigate Patterson, he figured out that Willis was grabbing Factory supervisors so he could find the assassin assigned to kill Cam Howlitz. Which was why Luce made the trip to his apartment. He knew Willis would be breaking in there looking for the money.

  Willis continued tracking Luce after he left Patterson’s home. The Factory hit man was traveling south toward Cape Cod, and Willis had hoped to intercept him in Quincy, but Luce turned out to have about a fifteen minute head start on him. That was okay. Luce might know that Willis had learned his name and home address, but most likely it hadn’t occurred to him that Willis would be tracking him by his Factory badge. Luce was probably heading someplace where he thought it would be safe to hide the money until he had the rest of the robbery crew eliminated. Willis liked the idea of tracking him to wherever that place was, especially if it was someplace quiet and private.

  His disposable cell phone rang. Hendrick was calling. His voice sounded odd as he told Willis that Dunson wasn’t the one they were after. Willis was distracted as he was busy following Luce’s GPS coordinates. He mumbled something to Hendrick about how he had tried calling him earlier to tell him that it looked like Luce was their guy and not Dunson, but that Hendrick didn’t answer his phone.

  There was a pause from Hendrick, then, “When did you try calling?”

  Again distracted, Willis looked away from the tracking device to glance at the dashboard clock. “Thirty-four minutes ago,” he said.

  “I had the phone turned off. I was busy and didn’t want to be disturbed. Thirty-four minutes ago? It wouldn’t have helped me any then to get your call. But I bet you thought I was dead.”

  Willis frowned. He didn’t want to waste time with any sort of conversation. He also didn’t like the way Hendrick’s voice sounded or what he was saying. The steel that he’d seen in Hendrick while they were pulling off the warehouse robbery was gone. He wondered whether the guy was having a mental breakdown. He also wondered if it would be a liability inv
olving him any further.

  “I thought it was possible,” Willis said. “I also thought that maybe you were out of cell phone range. Or you that you had a good reason for not answering.”

  “Fair enough.” Another pause. “What makes you think Luce is the guy we want?”

  Still frowning, Willis explained it to him, and after Hendrick appeared to digest what Willis told him, he conceded that it made sense. “I can guarantee you it wasn’t Dunson.” He paused again. His voice had dropped to a whisper when he added, “Jared and I searched his apartment. We found hidden compartments and opened them, and there wasn’t any money. There was other stuff. Like weapons, and records he was keeping, but no money. And he didn’t hide it any place else. I know that because I spent enough time doing things to him to make him talk, and once I got him talking, he told me everything. He had nothing to do with Cam or our money.”

  Willis didn’t much care what happened to Dunson, but he wanted a clearer picture of what had happened since he was still trying to make up his mind whether it was worth having Hendrick join him in going after Luce. “I told you to make sure his apartment was empty before you went in,” he said.