Embrace the Wolf

Benjamin M. Schutz

Description

A world-weary Private Investigator cracks open an ice-cold kidnapping case

The police stopped looking for Herb Saunders’s daughters long ago, but Saunders never stopped hoping they were still alive. Five years after Tina and Molly walked off, a call comes from a man with an icy voice who says he has Saunders’s girls. Three days of tortured waiting later, another call comes in and he hears one daughter’s voice. The other, says the man on the phone, doesn’t speak anymore.
 
Saunders traces the call, and then disappears, gone in search of the kidnapper. Finding out what happened to this desperate father and his long-gone children falls to Leo Haggerty, a private investigator who knows Washington, DC, better than anyone—and who is about to discover a dark side of the nation’s capital that’s better left unseen.
 
Embrace the Wolf is the 1st book in the Leo Haggerty Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
 

Sujets

• Washington (District de Columbia)
• Détective
• Society
• Crime
• Hardboiled

Informations

• Publié par: Open Road Media
• Date de parution: 23 février 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781480493285
• Langue: English

Extrait

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Embrace the Wolf
A Leo Haggerty Mystery
Benjamin M. Schutz

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
This one is for JoAnne:
a comfort and a delight
and the best thing
that ever happened to me.
The heart asks pleasure-first
and then-excuse from pain
and then-those little anodynes
that deaden suffering.
And then to go to sleep
and then if it should be
the will of its inquisitor
the privilege to die.
-Emily Dickinson
Chapter 1
Herb Saunders circled the phone like a dying animal does a polluted water hole: it can t leave and it can t drink. It had been almost three days since that first phone call. A frozen voice had said, Mr. Saunders, I have your girls. I think it s time we talked. I ll be in touch. Since then he d been sitting by the phone. He even shit with the door open so he wouldn t miss a ring. His wife, Maggie, hadn t even commented on that. She d seen so many of his phases it would take more than that for her to mention it. He was grateful and knew he should thank her. Anyone else would have had him committed by now, or left. She just went on day after day. Those days when he didn t move at all she d hold him periodically, kiss his forehead, and cradle him in her arms. Back then he truly believed that if he sat perfectly still he would hear the girls voices or see a vapor trail of their path. He just needed to get still enough. He never could.
The girls had been gone now almost five years. First there had been a sick, spinning anxiety. This can t be. Then ever so briefly Goddammit, girls. I told you not to go over to Tammy s. To tell your mother where you re going. When you come back, so help me They never did come back. When it was clear that this was no random accident, no vagrant illness, that someone had done this on purpose, an inexhaustible engine of rage fired up in Herb Saunders. His motor had raced on undiminished since that moment.
There had been nothing for so long. The cranks and nuisance loonies had stopped calling long ago. Life moved on for everyone else. There had been the psychics too. I see your daughter at a taco stand in San Antonio. Please send five hundred dollars for the address.
For the longest time he wondered how Maggie endured, but he never had the guts to ask her. He was always afraid she d start to explain and lose it. It would just fly out of her mouth. He d made it this far by never grieving, never touching that cold lump of sorrow he knew was surely there somewhere. All the therapy with Dr. Prentice hadn t changed a thing. He d told Prentice that insight wasn t all it was cracked up to be. He knew exactly where he was: the intersection of Hell and Vine. And he knew exactly how he d gotten there. Someone had taken his life, put it in the shit machine and turned it into garbage. Acceptance was a word he had never learned, and this lesson too was lost on him.
Saunders was getting double vision staring at the phone. Fed up, he screamed, Call, you son of a bitch, call! Then softer he said, Don t do this to me. Not now. Not after all this time. The trace was still on the phone line. It was a Perpetual. The first call had been a local one. The switching station had been identified. If the same line was used, the exact exchange and location could be pinpointed. And then Herb knew they d talk. Only first he was going to reach down the stranger s throat and rip his tongue out. The coldness of the voice he d heard had convinced him that this was the man. Who else would remember the number? Catchy as it was: KID-LOST.
Every black hole disgorges itself somewhere into the universe. It s cosmic plumbing: out the black holes and in the white holes. The end of the universe is its beginning. An immense M bius strip. Herb refused to believe that thermodynamics was going to be revoked just for him. If they left here, they d have to show up somewhere, someday.
He stood up, stretched his legs, and went to the window. Peeking out he confirmed that suburbia was still there and Maggie was still at work. Well, he thought, somebody had to. He was a hell of a breadwinner. Breadwinner? Not even a crumb-catcher. He couldn t even get it together to get welfare.
The phone rang. He couldn t believe it. He d conjured up the ring in his mind for so long he thought he was imagining it again. No, it was real. He picked up the phone and put it to his ear. The iceman came on.
Mr. Saunders?
Yes.
I have someone here who wants to speak with you.
Tina? Molly?
A plaintive voice came on. Daddy?
Yes, baby. There was silence. Baby?
The phone erupted with a shriek, Daddy! Help me!
A scream filled the phone. It went into him like an ice pick in the ear and rose in a wave without crest. The iceman s voice came back on.
The other one does not speak anymore. Have a good day.
Tina? Molly? Tina! Molly!
Nothing. Gone. The end. He slid down the wall to the floor, the dead receiver in his hand.
Oh my babies, what s happened to you?
Spastic with horror, his feet were twitching to get him away. The phone fell. He saw trolls, demons, racks, fire, evil hoses, electricity. Eyes kept coming up at him, all with a shrieking soundtrack. Girls. Babies. Children. He could not, would not see their faces. They called out to him. Do not call my name, he screamed. They cried help me. He was on all fours, puking a pain he could not disgorge, a nightmare he could not flee. He fell over on his side, panting-an animal dying on the roadway. Still twitching, he wiped his mouth. The phone lay there making its own noisy death rattle. Get hold of yourself , he thought. You stupid shit, don t fold up now. Get moving. React. Act. Do something .
He got up and slid into the chair. First, a deep breath to calm himself. To do what he knew he needed to, he had to sound calm, controlled, uninvolved. As he dialed the number he wondered, Why wouldn t the holes sit still?
Security Office.
Yes, this is Sergeant DeVito, on the Saunders case. You have a trace on that line. We need the number immediately. A child s life is in danger.
Yes, officer. And your badge number?
335. Hurry. Please.
The line was silent. He prayed, Don t let him get away. Not again. Not this close . Thoughts floated up about that Italian kid in the well. The man hanging upside down in that hole, trying to handcuff him. His wrist was too small. He kept slipping through. He just couldn t hold him. The boy died calling for his mother three hundred feet away. So close. All that love, all those people. Nothing. Just a shaft into the earth big enough for a boy to fall into and a wrist too small to hold on to.
Sergeant DeVito, this is Supervisor Ramsey. It s been quite a while since we had any action on the Saunders tap. I m sure everything s in order, but we have no current paperwork on that tap. I hope you understand. We haven t had official verification from your captain of your reassignment to this case, and we can t reveal this information to anyone but the officer assigned.
Ma am, I appreciate your conscientiousness and it ll not go unreported. But this is an emergency. We need that address now. A child s life is at stake. I ll take the responsibility on this myself. If you look at your old papers there, I was on this case from the very beginning. You don t want to cause a delay here that could be tragic. I ll take responsibility, I assure you.
Silence. Herb wished he was clairvoyant: what s the screw to turn to get you to do what I want? I ll do it. I d do anything to get my babies back. Anything.
All right. The number is 555-3329.
Thank you.
He knew he had to move fast. If they called the station to confirm all this, DeVito would know. He d be there in no time. He wasn t about to let them handle this. If you want something done right, do it yourself. No one else cares as much. They re my babies. My kids. I ll get them back. He swore it. He remembered the first time. The description of the car and the girls was everywhere. Porterfield let them go right through. He thought they were sleeping. He hadn t read his reports yet. He was going to at the Little Tavern. Not again Saunders swore. They are my kids. Mine. I ll get them back. Nothing will stop me. I swear it! Tina. Molly. Do you hear me? I m coming. Daddy s coming!
Chapter 2
I was watching my favorite workout show. Not doing it, mind you-just watching. Some lissome lass from L.A. was telling me Three more, two more, one more, now switch to the other hand. I checked my lap. Best exercise program I d ever seen. Gets my heart rate up to one hundred twenty for twenty minutes just sitting still. I d run my two miles and done the stadium steps over at Falls Church High just to warm up for this. The phone rang.
Hello. Leo Haggerty.
Mr. Haggerty, are you the Leo Haggerty that s a private detective? A woman s voice.
I was the last time I checked. What can I do for you?
Well, I have a problem. Before I go into it, I d like to ask you some questions, okay?
Sure. Let me just get a cup of coffee. Be right back. I went over and poured myself a cup. What the hell. I d been interviewed by prospective clients before, so this was nothing new. Her voice was interesting: polite, restrained, controlled, and controlling. I felt like a big dog being calmed.
Okay. What would you like to know?
As a detective, do you have a sp