Page 93 of Return of the Spider

French nodded. “Let’s go find Eamon.”

CHAPTER

76

Shortly after four thatafternoon, the three of us took the squad car to the gate of the Keegan’s Granite quarry, where Eamon Diggs’s parole officer said Diggs had worked since leaving prison.

We showed our badges and drove to the operation’s headquarters. The office manager, a nice lady named Judy, confirmed that Diggs did indeed work at the pit but had taken the day off to hunt with a bow and arrow before the rifle deer season started on Monday.

“His creepy little friend’s with him, I think,” Judy said and gave a little shiver.

“Who’s that?” French asked.

“Harold Beech,” she said and shivered again. “He took the day off too.”

French seemed to know the name.

I said, “By any chance, do you guys use dynamite in the quarry?”

“All the time. Why?”

“Just interested,” Sampson said. “You keep it on-site? The dynamite?”

The office manager squinted. “Yes, in a moisture-and-temperature-controlled vault that is inspected by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms every year. You’d have to talk to Jack Stark, the operations manager, about the vault. But he’s gone until Tuesday afternoon, up at his brother’s place in the boondocks west of Wilkes-Barre.”

French asked, “He have a pager or beeper or anything?”

She snorted. “No, Jack’s too cheap for that. He checks in when he wants to.”

We were turning to leave when she said, “What’d he do? Diggs.”

“It’s unclear if he’s done anything, actually,” I said. “We just want to talk to him.”

“Well, whatever it is, you can bet your patootie that Beech is involved. Thick as thieves, those two.”

Before we headed back to the squad car, the police detective called his office and asked them to look up a Harold Beech, see if he had a sheet. Not five minutes later, he got a response.

After listening for several moments, French said, “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He hung up and told us, “Beech did eleven years for assault, kidnapping, and forcible penetration with foreign objects. Victims were two sixteen-year-old girls.”

“Birds of a feather,” Sampson said.

“Wait a second,” I said. “Foreign objects?”

“That’s what the man said.”

“Brenda Miles, the real estate agent, was found with a wooden spoon in her vagina.”

“You’re thinking Beech is involved?”

“Spoon fits his MO.Beechcould be the strangler.”

Sampson said, “Think we need SERT with us?”

French said, “Not unless Eamon knows his bomb went off. Otherwise, we’re just dropping by for a chat. But if I see something I don’t like, I’ll get them up here pronto.”

We piled back into the squad car and drove toward Diggs’s residence. A mile or so down the road, we passed a woman walking an Airedale, then we pulled into Diggs’s yard. An older Chevy pickup with plates that matched Diggs’s DMV records was parked to the right of the double-wide. Next to it sat a blue beater Subaru with cardboard duct-taped where the rear window should have been.

We got out and went to the front door. French knocked while Sampson and I kept our hands on the grips of our service weapons.