CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“There he is,” Taft whispered and Mackenzie leaned forward. Without the binoculars she couldn’t make out the person’s face from this far away, but he walked a lot like Seth Keppler. He was heading from the house to the Best Homes cube truck, carrying a toolbox.
“If he takes off, we’ll lose him,” she said.
“If he takes off, we’ll check the house,” said Taft. “I’m a little worried about Larry Perkins.”
Mackenzie nodded. If they were caught entering the house, it was at least some plausible deniability about why they’d entered uninvited, and Larry Perkins’s fate was truly still a question mark.
But Seth Keppler did not get in the cab of the truck. He walked through the now light drizzle around to the back, which was facing Mac and Taft. He rattled up the back door and dropped the hydraulic tailgate, the hum of its lowering reaching her ears. Keppler then disappeared inside the bowels of the vehicle, too deep for them to see him. A few minutes later he hopped out with several large, rectangular plastic bags filled with white powder, which he hunched over to protect from the rain.
“Bingo,” said Taft.
“What is that?”
“Don’t know, exactly. The mother lode. He had it in the van. Couldn’t have been just loose in there. Too risky. That van is tricked out,” he said, staring through the binoculars. “The floor or the walls. It’s why he wanted to transport using a Best Homes truck.”
“He’s taking the stuff to that shed.”
They watched in silence as Seth moved a stack of heavy packets to the gray shed.
“He’s coming back,” Taft said a few minutes later and Mackenzie could see him hurry forward and jump onto the tailgate. They heard the hum of it lifting him up again, and soon he came out hunched over another armful of large packets.
He made a couple more trips, and then he stayed in the truck for quite a while, and Taft surmised he was putting back whatever panel he’d removed to get the stuff out.
“I’ve been surveilling Keppler awhile. The scope of this operation is fairly new,” he said.
“Why did you start watching him in the first place?”
“A client wanted me to keep an eye on him,” he admitted.
“Mangella?”
“No.” He was clear on that. “That was just an unpleasant side discovery, one I haven’t figured out what to do about yet.”
“Who, then?”
Taft didn’t drop the binoculars from his eyes but she saw the grimace of his lips. She thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, “Debra Warner.”
“Patti’s mother?”
“Not all of my clients are borderline mobsters. Some are just regular people. That information is for your ears only, by the way.”
Mackenzie almost smiled. She knew the only reason he’d told her was because he was regarding her as a team member, which was exactly what she wanted. “She was worried about Patti with Seth?”
“She wants to believe he’s a straight arrow but she probably knows better. I gave her information on his family when I started watching him, which didn’t infuse her with confidence. This dance between Keppler and Best . . . I’ve been looking to nail down what that’s about.”
“You think Best knows about Seth’s side dealings?”
“I’m still trying to get a handle on Best, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would be unaware of something like this”—he nodded toward the Best Homes truck—“going on in his company.”
“Agreed,” said Mackenzie.
“Okay, he’s leaving,” Taft said as Seth climbed into the truck’s cab after closing the tailgate and back door. He switched on the engine, and then turned the truck around and started heading back down the long drive.
They waited till the truck had rumbled onto the access road leading toward the farmhouse’s drive, then they waited some more. There had been no movement inside the house, but that didn’t mean the place was entirely empty. The rain took a break and after a time they crept down from the ridge through wet grasses. Taft worked his way to the gray shed, which had a large, shiny silver new padlock on it.
“The wood around this lock would splinter if I pushed hard enough,” he mused.
“Seriously?” she whispered. “What about the DEA? We ready for them?” Mackenzie had never actually worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration, but she knew they didn’t like amateurs messing with their job.
“I’d like a little more proof Keppler’s not moving powdered sugar,” he said.
“Oh, sure. Good idea. He’s just the kind of guy for that.”
“I’m going to check for another way in. Keep a lookout.”
Taft turned toward the corner of the building and moved out of sight. Mackenzie’s nerves were on high alert. She glanced down the drive, but there was no sign of Seth Keppler returning. She thought about how far she’d come from when she’d first agreed to follow Seth to discern if he’d had anything to do with Rayne’s disappearance up to today’s discovery of a whole lot of something far more powerful than powdered sugar.
The creak of an opening door had her whipping around to stare at the house, heart pounding. She automatically reached for the nonexistent gun at her hip. She wanted to yell to Taft, but took a moment to reconsider.
An older man stutter-stepped outside, then swayed for a moment before collapsing with a thud onto the porch floorboards.
Mac glanced back to where Taft had disappeared, then at the house itself, trying to see inside the rooms. The man on the porch began a raspy moan. If there was one person in the house there could be others. She stepped forward and saw Taft at the end of the shed, examining the corner boards. She signaled him to come over.
He reached into his pocket for his phone and texted her: What?
Man on the porch. Moaning. Fell over. Older.
Taft looked toward the porch but obviously couldn’t see anything. He gave her a high sign and came to where she was standing. They carefully crossed the yard together in silence. Taft had his gun in his hand as he drew close. Mac was right behind him.
A wheeze and a cough greeted them and Taft took a quick look, then holstered the gun as he headed up the side porch stairs. Mackenzie looked past him to the man lying on the wooden floorboards.
“Mr. Perkins?” Taft asked him.
“Help,” he said, coughing some more, reaching a hand up. Taft carefully handed his gun to Mackenzie, then aided the man to his feet. Perkins’s sleeves fell back and there were rope burns on his wrists.
“That bastard . . . that bastard . . .” he said, and then dropped his head to his hands.
“What happened?” Taft queried. Perkins waved for Taft to help him back inside the house and Taft did so, asking, “Is there anyone else here?”
“No. No. But he’ll be back.”
“When?” Taft clipped out as he eased the man into a chair.
Perkins wore a red plaid flannel shirt, dungarees, and gray wool socks, no shoes. His gray hair flopped in front of his eyes and he brushed it back with a shaky hand.
“He was always a little shit. Now he thinks he’s a big shit. Works out and meets people at that club. They got him into it, but he wanted to go, y’know?”
“You’re talking about Seth Keppler, your stepson,” said Mackenzie.
Perkins looked up at her beneath bushy white-gray brows. “Ain’t no stepson of mine. His mom and I divorced. That ended it.” He made a face and moaned again. “Strapped me to a chair this morning when I told him to get out. Took me hours to get the penknife outta my pocket. It’s good to have a knife. Got myself free. He’s gone, but he’ll be back.”
“What’s in the shed?”
“Ketamine. You know what that is?”
Mackenzie nodded. It went by a number of different names, Special K being one of them. A powerful hallucinogenic that was one of many so-called date rape drugs.
“We know what it is,” Taft assured him.
“Seth was always a crafty little prick, but now he’s got into this.” Tears filled his eyes. “Mister, I’m no part of it.”
“Do you need medical help?” Mackenzie asked.
“I just need you to get Seth the fuck off my property!”
“There’s a new lock on the gray shed. I can get around it, with your permission,” said Taft.
Perkins flapped a hand at Taft. There was blood welling in the rope burns. He looked at the marks and dolefully shook his head.
“Do you have some salve in the house somewhere?” Mac asked.
“Upstairs bathroom, mebbe. I’m okay, honey.” To Taft, he said, “Tools in the garage. Crowbar. Pull the whole damn thing down, if you want, but do it quick. I don’t know who Seth’s in business with, but there’s a lot of money riding on this.”
Mackenzie remembered a recent drug bust in Thailand where a shipment of ketamine worth over a billion dollars was confiscated by the authorities.
Perkins added, “Don’t know how you got here, but I’m sure glad you’re here. Seth’s a fool if he thinks they’ll let me live.”
Taft took back his gun from Mackenzie and headed in the direction of the garage. Mackenzie told Perkins she would find the salve and worked her way up a narrow stairway to the top floor. She found the bathroom easily enough and there was a large jar of salve and some adhesive tape in the medicine cabinet. She’d worried Perkins might be playing them, but then changed her mind. Those wrist burns were real. Even so, as she headed back downstairs to Larry Perkins, she checked a couple of rooms on the way down. Nothing unusual upstairs but at the bottom of the steps she turned toward the kitchen and an anteroom at the back of the house. One look in the anteroom and she felt herself go still. It was lined with guns. Every kind. Handguns, rifles, automatic weapons . . . There was a gun case filled with rifles next to a pegboard dotted with handguns of every size.
Hank Engstrom had said Seth Keppler was crazy with guns. Hank Engstrom was right, which begged the question: How well did Hank know Seth . . . ?
Mackenzie returned to Perkins, who allowed her to roll up his sleeves and apply the salve. They could hear the screech of boards as Taft ripped the shed apart.
“Our car’s a ways away,” she told him. “Do you have one?”
“Got my truck in the garage.”
Mackenzie was beginning to feel the pressure of passing time. “Can you get to your truck, so you can be gone before Seth returns? Do you need help?”
“Hate leaving my property,” he said.
“Only temporary.”
He barked out a laugh as he got to his feet. He wasn’t all that steady and he leaned on Mac. “You ever dealt with the Feds, missy? Temporary can be a loonnngg time if they feel like having it be.”
They’d taken about two steps when they heard a shout. Taft. Yelling.
Before Mac could do more than turn her head, the front door burst open and Seth Keppler practically ran inside. “What the fuck are you doing?” he screamed, then stopped short upon seeing Mac. “You?” he asked incredulously.
Larry Perkins pushed Mackenzie away from him as he teetered in front of his onetime stepson. “Get outta my house!”
Seth reached forward and grabbed him by his collar, practically lifting him off his feet. “How do you know her? What have you been up to? Who’ve you been talking to? I told you to stay out of it, didn’t I? Didn’t I warn you to stay out of it? You said you wouldn’t be a problem.”
Mackenzie was pressed against the wall, her eyes on Seth. She reached a hand out automatically to help Perkins, wanting him to stand down for his own sake.
Seth flicked a look at Mac. “You’ve been following me . . .” he hissed, hitching a thumb over his shoulder. “I saw your car parked out there on the road. Knew someone had been following me. Decided to come back on foot and here you are. All that bullshit about Rayne Sealy! What the hell is your deal?”
Mackenzie swallowed. “That wasn’t bullshit. You killed Rayne,” she told him. “You threw her off the overlook.”
The look he gave her was incredulous. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“Maybe she saw something, something you couldn’t have her know. You killed her.”
“You’re wrong and you got yourself in a big mess here. What am I going to do with you?”
Perkins suddenly threw himself at Seth, toppling them both over. Mac yelled at him, then turned toward the back of the house. The gun room. She needed a gun. She burst into it and glanced around wildly.
Bang!
She jumped at the shot. Half ran, half dived for the handguns. Grabbed a Glock. Her hand was on it when a bullet zipped past her head and splintered into the bottom of the wood rifle cabinet.
She screeched and ducked, half fell to the ground, gun in hand. Flipped the safety. Knew it could be unloaded, the chamber empty. But Seth was the kind of gun enthusiast who wouldn’t be caught dead unawares. At least she hoped.
The back door suddenly slammed inward and Taft burst in, both hands on the gun he held in front of him. “Put it down!” he yelled at Seth.
Mackenzie had the Glock in hand and was twisting to meet Seth Keppler, who had hesitated in the fraught moment when Keppler couldn’t seem to decide who to shoot while staring down the barrel of Taft’s gun.
He chose Mackenzie, aiming at her. Taft didn’t hesitate. Squeezed off two shots BANG. BANG, the noise ear-shattering in the small room. As he pulled the trigger he dove for Mackenzie, slamming her against the floor. Her head smacked hard, causing her to see stars at the same moment Seth’s gun went off. BANG! She felt Taft’s body jerk at the impact.
“Taft!” she screamed, shocked.
Her gaze flew to Seth, who stood in stunned disbelief, his mouth hanging open. His left hand was pressed to his chest. He pulled back his hand and stared at the blood, then slowly sank down the wall, his gun still in his right.
Mackenzie’s attention slammed back to the body atop her. “Taft,” she said again, softer, scared silly.
“I’m okay,” Taft muttered. He pulled himself off her with an effort. Mackenzie scrambled toward Seth, grabbed his gun. He didn’t resist.
She turned back to Taft. “You’re not okay. You can’t be. You were hit.”
He slowly got to his feet. Mackenzie jumped up, ready to grab him if he toppled over. He steadied himself, feet planted apart, and looked down at Seth Keppler, whose lips were moving. He was trying to say something.
Mac said, “He shot you. I felt it.”
“What’s he saying?”
“Taft . . . Jesse . . .”
“He’s not going to make it,” Taft said, and Mackenzie turned to see that Keppler was staring blankly straight ahead, though he was still breathing.
“Where were you hit?” she asked. She put the Glock she’d grabbed and Seth’s handgun on the floor, then reached for her cell phone in her back pocket. It wasn’t there and she glanced down anxiously, seeing it had skidded a few feet away. She lunged for it. “Where were you hit?” she asked Taft.
“Beneath the shoulder,” he admitted.
She had the phone in one hand. She watched him pull back his jacket. The bloom of red against his shirt made her dizzy.
“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?” the operator answered.
“A shooting,” Mac said crisply, going into cop mode, forcing herself to stop thinking of the spreading blood on Taft’s shirt. “Multiple injuries. Hurry . . .”