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The Clearing - Chapter 24

Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 24As the door closed behind Henry Smith, the case ran out of paths to follow. Dean could continue to poke at Josh’s and Corey’s statements, but the threat of a lie detector, the whole staging of the three at the station at the same time had not produced—had never had time—the necessary cracks to wedge open the wider story. The detectives would not be able to shock them again, and now they had practice.Dean wrote up his reports on the interviews, answering Barry Archer’s return call during that task and telling him not to bother. Guthrie and Dean looked through the small amount of information Laura was able to obtain. McCord had a few speeding tickets over the years but no other arrests. The State Police had never investigated McCord or McCord’s Body Shop. After a quick lunch from Burger Palace, Guthrie and Dean extended their working Sunday and drove over to McCord’s estate. They pulled into the the long driveway and walked to the covered porch. As Dean raised his hand to knock, the door opened. McCord held it with one hand and smiled at the two detectives. He wore gray slacks, black dress shoes, and a white button up shirt, loosened at the collar and exposing the white undershirt.McCord coughed into his hand and then said, “Good afternoon. What are you doing here?”Dean extended his hand and held it for a second before pulling it back. McCord had not even thought about shaking it. Dean said, “Sorry to bother you, but we wanted to ask a few more questions about William.”“Okay.”“May we come in?” asked Guthrie.McCord’s eyes brightened and his smile changed to a smirk. “I’m afraid not. We’ll have to do it here.” He gestured back into the house. “The wife’s cooking Sunday dinner, and some family are over.”Dean glanced back at the driveway. His Nova was the only car in it. “It’s damned cold out here. We can be quiet.”“Sorry fellas.” McCord stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “I’ll stand out here with you though.”“Sure. Sure. We’ll try to make this quick.” Dean had to go along with it. It turned up his suspicions of McCord, but he got the sense that did not matter to the body shop owner. “I’ll just come out and say it, then. Were you aware of any illegal drug activities that William was engaged in?”“Billy and drugs?” McCord tilted his head back and looked down at Dean. “Seriously. Billy was about as clean as they come. Nice kid. Tried to do the right thing. If that kid was involved in illegal drug stuff, then my mom’s the godfather of Zion.”“What about Alex, Alex Smith?”“What about him?”“Do you know him?”“Course I do. Small town. He’s a brat.”“Did he ever stop by the shop?”“Yeah. He and Billy were friends. Why I don’t know. I guess when you’re making friends at that age, you don’t think of what assholes they’ll become later.”Guthrie started bouncing up and down on his toes. “Seems like you know Alex a lot better than just in passing?”McCord looked over at Guthrie. He sniffed. His nose was turning red. “You remember jerks like that.”“Was he in the drug trade?” asked Dean.“Why all these questions about drugs?”The authenticity of McCord’s question fell flat. Dean was convinced right then and there that Zorn was not the only trafficker in town. He may not have had anything to do with Billy’s murder, but he had bought this mansion with drug money. Dean ignored McCord’s question. “When we saw you a few days ago, we forgot to ask about where you were at the night William disappeared. So where were you?”McCord raised his hand and pointed to the door behind him. “I come home every night. The wife and I were probably watching TV. We usually do.”“Did Billy have any trouble with any of the other employees?”“No. We all liked him.”Dean knew the momentum in the interview had shifted to McCord, and he was not going to get it back. “Did you have a fight with Alex on Friday?”“I’m done. I’m cold, and I need to get inside.” McCord turned his back on them and took two steps to the door. He looked back and said, “Be safe out there.”Dean knew he had scored a hit of some kind, but what it meant was still a mystery. The door closed, the weather stripping sliding across the stone entryway. The two detectives hustled back to the car and drove away.As he warmed up, Dean was even more frustrated. He had learned new information, but how it meshed—if at all—to the murder of Billy was unclear. They had the car. The gun, which the lab confirmed launched the bullet lodged in the tree behind Billy’s bloody skull. The money. The Communist Manifesto. Pawned jewelry. Two drug traffickers. It all added up to a bunch of questions.* * *And the days passed. Winter’s clutch loosened, and Jenny went back to her mom’s and her “real” life in the city. The town quietly forgot about Billy, except his parents, who called every Wednesday at nine a.m. to see if any new developments had happened since the last call. Dean told them every time, “No.” He said it wearingly, worried that he would always have to say, “No,” to answers in this case. He drank extra on Wednesday mornings.As the town thawed, so too did the crime. Guthrie investigated several more break-ins as they entered March. Dean pitched in, but his heart was not in it. He kept going back to Billy, his body left just after the new year began out in that clearing at the Pratt farm.He drove by the farm at least once a week, slowing down and contemplating the lonely death, knowing all deaths were in the end lonely, but not being any sadder by that fact. He walked and searched the spot and the clearing where Billy died, hoping for a new clue, a new thread that might lead him to the killer.He had driven by the Pratt farm in high school, when he was courting Cindy. One night, she had even snuck out of the house and met him, and they drove to a teenage hideout in the woods. They may have even been in Canada, which they joked about for years until their marriage fell apart. They made love—the first time for both of them. They were young, amateurs, awkward, but it was the best night of his life. Everything after was compared to that. He learned only years later that the site was not secret from the police, and Cindy had confessed to her parents within days. Wayne turned cold to him, but never told him he knew or why.Then the war wrecked it. His life, his marriage, his country. Like the huts of nameless people in Vietnam, his life caught fire, and he was left with only ash.He buried his grief in drink and Sadie. She smiled at him and told him he was perfect, and he ignored that he paid her, tried to believe what she said was real. The drink helped with that.Tony visited one night. They sat on the front porch in the first evening warm enough to be comfortable, or force themselves to be comfortable wearing jackets and hats.“I’m surprised to see you,” said Dean. “I mean, it’s what, weeks since you’ve been here.”Tony shrugged. He seemed much younger to Dean than he actually was. He still had his athletic build. His face unmarked by gravity, where Dean’s had begun to show, if only just. Tony smiled and drank from the Pabst Blue Ribbon can. “I avoid Zion if I can.” The age difference was not about the churn of time, the incessant pull of gravity, or blind luck. Instead, it was in their experiences that told on them somehow, that served as a map of their paths through life.Dean nodded. “I wish I could.” He rocked in the aluminum, blue and white plastic lawn chair. “You avoid Dad, though, that’s what you’re doing.”“Isn’t he Zion? But you know we have détente there.” A thaw had been underway for some weeks.They talked about work. Tony was cryptic, as most FBI guys are about their cases. He was a lot like the other G-men Dean had worked with in the past, particularly New York, but he lacked the superiority complex. “Do you know what I do?”Dean cracked open another beer he pulled from the cooler beside him and handed it to Tony and then opened another for himself. “You’re a lawyer for the FBI.”“Well, yeah, dip shit. But do you know what I do for them?”“I assumed you helped ready the cases they brought to trial.”“Yeah, that’s the gist of it. But I guess I’m not making myself clear. I work with the counter-intelligence team. I help prepare cases against Americans or foreign agents working on American soil. Make sure they get to the prosecutors ready to go.”“Huh. Does it keep you busy?”“More than you’d like. But I wish I were in the field.”Dean sat with this, wondering about how many foreign agents—spies—were in the U.S. “Like spy stuff?”Tony nodded. “We’ve got more than enough people in this country willing to betray it to the Soviets.”“No surprise there.”“Maybe.” Tony got up and walked inside.Dean sat there until he returned, contemplating his brother. The middle child scorned by his parents, though the scorn was really only their father’s. Now working for the government, living not far from their hometown, but far enough. After Tony came back out and sat down, Dean asked, “Seriously, though, why today? Why are you on my porch right now?”Tony took a drink. “Last week, a mentor of mine at the Bureau had a heart attack in the office.”“Jesus. I’m sorry.”“Thanks. It was awful. Died right there on the spot. Died surrounded by work and broken relationships. I thought to myself that’s not how I want to go. I don’t want broken things in my life.” Tony tugged at his pants. “I don’t want that.”Dean waited for his brother to continue, but the pause was long and he began to think about it in terms of a police interview. He decided to ride it out, to let Tony tell him whatever it was that was still lingering there at his own pace.Tony downed the rest of the can. “Another?”“Only if you spend the night here.”Tony nodded and Dean opened the cooler and grabbed another, which he handed to him. His brother cracked it open. “Thanks.”Dean acknowledged the thought by raising his can.“So I’ve got broken relationships. Some bad. Some worse than that. I started trying to fix them with Mom and Dad, but I want to get there faster. So you’re next.”“Me? Why me?”His brother laughed.“Ours is the least broken.” Dean leaned back in the chair.Tony tipped his can in salute. “Glad you feel that way. I always worried you thought like Dad.”“Shit. You had a better understanding than I did of what was going on over there. Anyone with a lick of sense would’ve stayed out of that jungle.”They continued to talk, moving inside as the cool became cold. Dean shared with Tony some of his experiences, which he only loosened up about with the addition of whiskey. He told him of his unit’s long hump across the Long Ho Valley and up the Quang Ho ridge. Told him about Lee and Rider and Stitch and Paxton. How they had marched and macheted their way from map point to map point, directed by commanders who seemed to have no sense of the reality of the terrain, of how hard and long it took to march a mile.He told him of the battle of Quang Ho, on a hill designated 425. It was a battle like so many battles, but it was his battle. And all along, as he was telling Tony, he could not think of why, after all these years, his brother would be the first family member to hear this story. He had shared it a number of times with other Vietnam vets, ones who had been in the thick of things, knew what combat in those jungles and on those hills meant. Not Cindy. Not his dad. No, his brother Tony, the one who had deferred service.Dean had never been more alive than during that battle. An army company had been ambushed as they were in the valley between hills 425 and 427. The company had established a perimeter to hold off the attacks. More importantly, low cloud cover prevented any air support. Only the marines were close enough to come to their aid until the Hueys and Phantoms could fly in.And so Dean and his pals, Kilo Company, marched and then charged hill 425, which turned out to have an entrenched ring of NVA bunkers. Machine gun by machine gun they grenaded and shot and stabbed their way to the top. Losing Stitch and Paxton and others. Dean’s platoon, the first, and was told to hold the mountain top while second and third platoons worked their way to the army guys still down in the valley. Before they got there, the cloud cover lifted—at least long enough for the helicopters to evacuate the army and drop off artillery on hill 425 while the napalm burned the enemy on 427. Dean’s platoon had blown the top off the mountain to flatten it for that artillery.Kilo Company held the hill for two days against counterattacks, were bombed mercilessly with mortar fire, watched jets—two times the cloud cover lifted to allow them—napalm again the NVA lines, and heard the screaming of burning men alive above the roar of jets and fire. Dean held the hands of his comrades dying before the helicopters could swoop in and save them.Drunk, the two brothers eventually wearied themselves into silence. When Dean woke the next morning, heart throbbing and mouth dry, Tony was gone. A small note on the kitchen counter read, “Thanks.”
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The Clearing - Chapter 23

Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 23January 14, 1979The station had only one usable interview room. The wooden table legs were bolted to the floor and the top of it was a rich tableau of nicks, cuts, and scars from years of subjects, often left alone, or cops themselves. Three wooden chairs, one with a short leg courtesy of Sergeant Benjamin Sidesdale, now retired. In it sat Josh, his forehead beaded with sweat and him thumping his foot lightly, occasionally forgetting the lopsided chair and catching himself.Dean was pleased with the orchestrated arrival of Corey, Alex, and Josh. Etheridge had picked up Alex, while Zach picked up Corey. Both were brought to the station and seated across the room from each other. Guthrie and Dean walked in a few minutes later with Josh, who they marched into the main area before turning into the short hall with the file room and the interview room beside it.Dean knew, with what they had, it was their best shot for rattling anything loose.“What do you want?” asked Josh. He put his hands on the table. “Why did you have to drag me out of work?”Guthrie slapped the table, not hard, but enough. “We’re trying to solve your friend’s murder.”“You’ve already talked to me. I told you everything I know.”“Did you?” asked Dean, his arms across his chest. “Did you?”Josh blinked at him.“See, we’ve got this issue. We talked to you, but you were, well, a bit cagey. I mean, why are you making sure you remember your story the same as Corey?”“What’s that about?” Guthrie lit a cigarette, shaking out the match and tossing it into a styrofoam cup with water.“I’ve been thinking about that. I think you guys misunderstood me.”Guthrie looked at Dean and shrugged. They both looked at Josh, who blinked his eyes rapidly.“You misunderstood me,” he said. “I mean, how often does something like that happen in this town. That’s big city stuff. And he was our friend, so we compared notes. ‘When did you last see him? Same as you.’ That kind of stuff.” He rubbed his temple. He looked pale, like he would pass out at any moment.“You seem awfully nervous,” said Guthrie, who stood up. He walked toward the back wall, forcing Josh to look back and forth between him and Dean.“My partner has a point. You’re acting like you did something wrong. You look terrible.”Josh shook his head. “I didn’t I’m telling you.”“Hmmm.” Dean tapped his chin. “Would you be willing to take a lie detector?”Josh looked at Dean.Dean scratched the back of his neck. “I mean, let’s clear this up real quick. If you’ve got nothing to hide that is. If you’re telling the truth.”Josh looked back at Guthrie. Looked back at Dean. The kid somehow went even more pale. “Yeah. Yeah. Yes.”Dean held his surprise back and instead nodded. “That should clear things up. It’ll have to come from a town over. Let me make the call.” He left Josh and Guthrie in the interview room and walked out to his desk. Usually when police bring up a lie detector, the suspect goes on the defensive, and those defenses can take time to break down, if lawyers have not been brought in. He had not expected Josh to embrace the idea so quickly, though it fed into the plan he had. Did that mean Josh was innocent, that Dean had gone down the wrong path? He shook his head. No, Josh was weak, he told himself.Alex and Corey were still sitting across the room from each other. Etheridge was sitting in his chair, typing a report and giving both of the men accusatory glances every once in a while. Dean picked up the phone and dialed the number of Barry Archer, the area’s primary lie detector provider. He worked many of the towns in northeast New York.“Barry Archer Security Services,” said the woman who answered the phone.“This is Detective Dean Wallace with the Zion police. Is Barry in?”“He’s not. May I take a message?”“Yes,” said Dean, who then elevated the volume of his voice, hoping that Corey would hear it at the far end of the room, “Tell him I’d like him to give me a call. He has my number. I’m in need of his lie detector. Today if possible.” He had to hold back from looking at Alex’s and Corey’s reactions.“I’ll let him know. What’s the number?”“He has it. Thanks.” Dean hung up and walked back to the interview room, smiling at Corey and Alex as he went. He found Guthrie still standing against the wall behind Josh, who was leaning over with his hands around his stomach. Dean looked at Guthrie, who shrugged. He told Josh he had called the lie detector services and it would be a while, so he needed to wait out in the station while they talked to his friends. Josh stood up and walked through the door Dean held open. Guthrie followed them out and called Corey to the interview room. Josh and Corey passed but did not acknowledge each other. Dean patted Josh on the shoulder after he was seated. “Officer Stone here will get you a coffee or water or soda if you want it.”Dean walked back into the interview room, where Guthrie had set Corey up much in the same way they had Josh.Corey glared at them and ground his front teeth together. “What’s this all about?”“What do you think, numbskull?” asked Guthrie.“Billy?”Guthrie punched Dean in the shoulder and pointed his finger at Corey. “What a bright young man we have here. He figured out we wanted to talk to him about his murdered friend.”“He’s the smart one,” said Dean.“What else can I tell you? What did Josh say?”“Did Josh have something to tell?” asked Dean. Interrogations were like the shell game, he thought. When in New York City, he would play with the young boys on the streets, knowing it was a hustle but feeling bad for them and letting them take a dollar here or there. Detectives want the people on the other side of the table to feel they are honest brokers but not see the trick. In this case, Dean knew he was playing the game with a hand tied behind his back.“I don’t know, man. This is bullshit.”“You’re free to go,” said Dean.Corey froze in surprise. “What?”“You’re not under arrest, so you can go anytime.”“But you picked me up.”“Yeah, that was a courtesy. We can get you back to the store.” Dean rubbed the top of the table with his thumb. “But I got to tell you, if you do leave, you’ll seem uncooperative. I mean, Billy was your friend, right?”Corey nodded. “He was my friend, but last I saw him was about eleven-thirty the night he disappeared.”“Hmmm. Seems that’s the last anybody saw him. Where was he going?”“He didn’t say. I presumed home. He usually went home. We all did.”Dean looked up at the ceiling, rubbed his neck. “So you’re out drinking. You guys decide to call it a night. And that’s it.”“Yep.”“What’s this about having to compare your stories and get them to match up?” asked Guthrie.Corey twisted his lips and looked at the detective. “Josh tell you that?” Guthrie shrugged. When Corey looked back at Dean, he received no acknowledgement. Corey sighed and looked down at the table. “It sounds worse than it is. We were just comparing notes. Seeing if Billy said something or did something that was odd. Nothing came up.”Dean nodded once, clasped his hands together, and set his elbows on the table. Both Josh and Corey had given the same explanation, and it made sense. “So tell us about Alex and Sarah and the fighting between them and Billy.”“Fighting’s too strong a word. Sarah was after his money. I let it be known I didn’t like that. Alex? Well, I’ll let him tell you what his issue was.”“Did Billy own a gun?” asked Guthrie.Corey shook his head. “I loaned him one.”Dean leaned backward. “Thirty-eight?”“Yep. I’ve had it for years. My grandpa gave it to me to kill raccoons.”“Why’d you loan it to him?”“We took the thing out in the woods occasionally and shot bottles and shit. He asked to borrow it. So I gave it to him.”“When was this?”“After Christmas. Why?”“We found it in his coat pocket when we found him in the woods.”Guthrie and Dean talked to Corey for another hour but obtained nothing more than he had already told them. He scratched his chin, repeated himself, and said he hoped they would catch Billy’s killer. Still, Dean thought he was hiding something. Maybe not related to Billy’s murder, but something, and he could not put his finger on it, but his instincts had helped him get out of Vietnam alive and survive the New York streets on patrol, and he trusted them here. He considered bringing up the cash found in Billy’s closet, but stopped himself. He decided to wait to spring that on Alex. Guthrie walked Corey out and escorted Alex in.After he was seated across from Dean in the interview room, Alex maintained a casual, relaxed air, often twisting his thumbnail into the table. His face looked worse than the previous day, the bruises beginning to turn ugly colors.“So tell us your issue with Billy and Sarah. Were you sweet on his girl?” asked Guthrie.“Please. She’s not that hot.” He tapped a finger in the air at Guthrie. “But she’s got some fine features.”Dean leaned forward. “We talked to Sarah first, you know?”Alex’s eyes darted away from Dean’s. He brought them back but could not hold them there.Dean continued, “We know. And if we don’t know something we will. Hiding information, not cooperating—”Alex brought his fist down on the table. “Goddamnit!” He breathed in and out once. “Fine. Fine. We slept together. Happened a few times.”Dean was pleased his instincts were still on. “When?”“Ah man. You got to believe me. The first time, they weren’t together. They had broken up. It was a couple of years ago. They were always breaking up.”“And getting back together,” said Guthrie.“Yeah, I’m an asshole. I get it. I already knew it.”If Guthrie took the moral high ground, Dean decided to sympathize with Alex. “But she is that hot. I’ve seen her. She’s a fine piece of tail. And that Puerto Rican vibe. I can see why you fell to her seductions.”“She did start it.” Alex paused and gazed into nowhere, living in his memory palace, seeing her body. Dean did the same with Sadie. Imagined her in various states of undress.“When was the most recent?” asked Dean.“October last year. A few nights.”“Did Billy find out?”Alex shrugged.“What does that mean?”“Means, ‘I don’t know.’ Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t.”“That the reason you weren’t hanging out with your friends the night William disappeared, right?” Dean crossed his arms. He watched Alex frown and knew he had gone back to the reason they were in the interview room too quickly.“And because I wasn’t there, you think I had something to do with his death? Over a girl?”“I’ve seen murders for a lot less. Decided you wanted to be the lone man in Sarah’s life? Or William found out. Confronted you. You had to defend yourself?”“No man. No.”“Was there something else you were arguing about? Money perhaps?”“Money. Hell, man, Billy didn’t have any money.”Dean smiled. “Oh, but he did. Found nearly twenty thousand in his closet. Cash.”Alex’s eyes darted a look at Dean and then Guthrie. He pushed and rubbed his thumb on the table. “News to me. I should’ve had him pick up the tab more often.”The knocking on the door broke the conversation. Guthrie got up, opened the door, leaned out, and then leaned back in. To Dean, he said, “We’re needed.”Dean nodded. He looked at Alex. “Something’s still not right about your story. I’ll find it out.” He got up and walked out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. He found himself face-to-face with tall and heavy-set District Attorney Henry D. Smith, Alex’s father.A full head of dark brown hair, vibrant green-brown eyes, and a mustache that cascaded down the side of his lips, Henry wore a gray suit, white shirt, and red tie with tiny gray anchors. He gestured to the door. “Let my son out. He’s not to talk to you without a lawyer. Me. Did you read him his rights?”Dean looked at his father, who stood beside Henry. Eric shrugged. Guthrie had taken up a spot outside the triangle. Dean scratched his head. “Your son’s not under arrest. He’s cooperating in the William Nimitz murder investigation.”“So that’s a no.”Dean nodded. “Are you here as the DA or as his father?”Eric said, “He’s here as a concerned father.”“Okay, then, but Alex is an adult, and he can talk to us if he wants.”Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Then I’m here as the DA. Let him go. He’s not your guy.”“Have you reviewed the case file?”Henry ignored the question and walked past Dean and opened the interview room door. “Come on. You’re done here.”Alex walked out and down the hallway, followed by his father. Dean grabbed Alex’s arm as he passed. “What happened to your face?”He pulled his arm from Dean’s grip.“So why’d you show up at the Shambles the night of Billy’s death at near midnight?”Alex’s eyes snapped up and met Dean’s. Henry grabbed his son’s arm and jerked him away.Dean felt the cold January air rush through as father and son exited the station. Josh and Corey were absent. Etheridge shrugged and pointed in the direction Henry and Alex had just followed.To Dean, it felt as if his case—as meager and absent as it was—walked out behind them.
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The Clearing - Chapter 22

Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 22The Chief called Guthrie and Dean over the radio and asked to get an update on the investigation. They drove the short distance back to the station and dropped off their coats at their desks before entering Eric’s office. He sat in his chair tamping the tobacco in his pipe. He only brought the pipe with him on weekends. “So I just talked to the mayor boys. He wants a status on this Nimitz investigation.”Dean nodded to Guthrie, who sat up straighter in his chair. “We’ve re-interviewed the witnesses from when this was a missing persons case. His friends. His family. His employer. We’ve interviewed additional people, including his girlfriend’s parents and Paul Zorn.”Eric grunted at the name and chewed more vigorously on the pipe stem.Guthrie continued, “Even interviewed the Pratts. Regarding physical evidence: We have the pistols found at the scene. The thirty-eight, fully loaded, deep in the victim’s coat pocket and unfired. The Remington, a forty-five, and likely the weapon that killed Billy—I mean our victim. That gun and bullet are at the crime lab downstate waiting to be examined. We just found the victim’s car, which is in the impound lot. Interior was clean as a whistle except for some cassettes. It’s been exposed to the elements. We’ll lift some fingerprints if we find them, but I wouldn’t hold out hope. Even if we found them, could’ve been anyone that touched the car. My gut tells me Billy parked it there and that’s the end of the story for the car. We don’t yet know what the stash of cash in the closet or the copy of the commie book mean to the investigation, if anything. Though that much cash seems connected.”“I fought to stop those commies.”Dean did not bother to correct his father, who had fought with those commies against the fascists. Nor did he remind himself of his own war’s convenient lies.Guthrie nodded. “Yes.” He paused to see if the Chief had anything to add and looked at Dean when it seemed he did not.Dean leaned forward in the chair. “There’s almost no physical evidence right now that leads us anywhere. The serial number on the gun led us to the license. It was purchased in 1952 by Dennis Kowlowski. He died in sixty-three—same day as Kennedy. The trail stops there. We think there were steps in the snow leading north. There were steps from the car back in the general direction where the body was found.”“One set?”“Yeah. Lost them in the woods. Got a call from the Quebec police—”Eric looked at Dean. “That Renard fellow?”Dean nodded. “They landed on a murder there of a former terrorist. Had a bunch of cash, copies of The Communist Manifesto, and passports. Some with William’s photo under different names. Other passports too with different people. That’s pretty much it in the way of evidence.”“That’s it,” said Guthrie, wiping his hands on his pants.“That’s it? That’s squat. That’s less than squat.” Eric held the pipe in his right hand and rubbed his neck with his left. “What the hell boys?”Dean lowered his head before looking directly at his father. “It is what it is. Almost no physical evidence to speak of. A body left exposed for days. The day he disappeared seems to be the day he was killed. No one knows where he went after eleven-thirty that night. No one knows why he was out in those woods. Or why he had that kind of cash. We’ve got a ton of dead ends. He did buy back some of the pawned jewelry his girlfriend took from her parents. Until today, they assumed the vic stole it. The only other thing we know is that Alex showed up sometime before midnight but after Billy and his friends left the Shambles.”“The girlfriend’s father, Carlos, right?”Guthrie gave Eric a thumbs up.Dean said, “Motive…but a long time between knowing of the supposed theft and the killing. His wife alibis him anyways.”“Shit, that’s about as good as no alibi. A sliver above when a parent provides an alibi.”“Yeah, but there you have it. Carlos seems good but doesn’t account for the cash. Doesn’t account for the book.”“It’s drug money. We know it is.” Guthrie held his hands in front of him and gestured something akin to “this is obvious.”“Probably,” conceded Dean.“So that’s Zorn.” The Chief stood up and started pacing behind his desk, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.“Maybe,” said Dean. “I know you’ve been after Zorn for a while. I know and you know that he’s running H down from Canada. But we don’t have evidence. As far as we know, he didn’t even know Billy. And he’s not the only peddler of drugs in town. Smaller time guys, but others. Alex fingered Charlie McCord. Zorn pointed to Alex.”Eric grunted. “Charlie wouldn’t know the sharp end of a butter knife if you asked him. So where does that leave us?”“Have you seen his house?”Eric shook his head.Guthrie whistled. “It’s a beaut. A palace out in Highland Estates.”“If that’s the kind of money he’s making,” said Dean, “we may have gone into the wrong business.”“Charlie’s a respected businessman in this town.” Eric leaned back and crossed his legs. “That’s a pretty big accusation.”“No more than calling Zorn a drug dealer. But it doesn’t matter. Given what we know, Alex is the center. We know he showed up late at the Shambles. Josh and Corey tell us he’s not getting along with William. I think there was something between Alex and Sarah. I think that’s the rift. You’ve got Paul fingering Alex. Alex fingered McCord. The common name in all of this is Alex. We’ve got to take a closer look at Alex.”“The DA’s boy?”Guthrie and Dean nodded.“Hell.”“I think…and it’s just a hunch…but I think Alex is running drugs, as well,” said Dean. “Small time stuff. But enough to piss off Zorn or McCord. Maybe both. Josh, Corey, Alex, and Billy were a group. If Zorn knows Alex was doing something, he might have gone at him by going after William. And Alex was all beat up today at the funeral. And McCord’s hand was red and tender.”“The cash?”“William was holding it for Alex?”“Or Billy was a part of the operation,” said Guthrie. “They seemed tight. At least until the falling out over Sarah.”“So back to love and not drugs?”Dean shrugged. “Maybe it’s both. Maybe Alex is in love with Sarah and had started using William in his drug thing. And Sarah did mention she thought William was stealing the money from Charlie.”“Damnit boys, this or that. Drugs or love or revenge. All you’ve given me is a bunch of maybes. This is squat. I can’t go back to the mayor with this.”“It is—”“Yeah, I know the goddamned phrase.” The Chief dropped into his chair. “We’ve got a murder. A murderer on the loose, and nothing.” He pulled at his right ear. “What’s next? Tell me how you’re going to solve this.”“I think we need to probe deeper into Alex. And Josh and Corey. But Alex primarily. We’ll dig deeper into McCord as well.” Dean caught the glare from his father. “But nothing invasive. Light touch. I’d like to get surveillance on Alex as well.”“What? This isn’t New York City. Surveillance?”“If we can follow him, we can see what he’s up to.”Eric waved it away. “We don’t have the money for that kind of operation and no way the DA approves surveillance on his son.”“I think it’s our best bet.”“Ain’t happening boys.”“Then I say we bring all three of them in. Make it formal.”“Do it.”* * *Dean drove to his parents’ house, going over in his head the plan the three of them agreed to. Get Billy’s three friends into the station and push a bit harder and see if something pops. They did not have much leverage; that was clear. Dean agreed with his father, at least in the bureaucratic reasons for not conducting surveillance on Alex: Money and the DA would not allow any surveillance, especially since it was an intuition unsupported by facts.Jenny slid into the front seat with a large sheet of thick paper covered with a light blue mat. Without prompting, his daughter explained grandma had shown her how to paint with watercolors. Dean recognized the location. The long boarded walk to a pier and deck extending onto Lake Tonga. His parents’ summer house. Jenny’s version of it was very pastel and diaphanous and awkward in proportion and perspective. Still, she had done a good job for her first time at it. His mother was more accomplished, though far from professional—a hobby as she liked to point out.Dean drove them to Burger Palace for dinner. The chain of six restaurants had opened its second store in Zion in the early seventies. It seemed like a treat for Jenny to go into the brightly lit building and sit across from her dad with her kid’s meal and vanilla milkshake. He asked her if she was having fun with grandma, and she said she was. And they talked about how she liked history at school. The past semester they had been studying the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. They were due to learn about the Civil War this coming semester. And science class was okay, but she preferred history. Her stepdad, Spencer Jackson, was making her take piano lessons, and she hated practicing. She asked Dean if he could get her out of it.“The lessons?” he asked.“Yes. Urrrrr. I hate them.” She sucked on the straw.“It’s good for you.” He smiled at her look of surprise. “I mean it. Face it, you’re not going to get any culture from me.” While she was in the bathroom, he let his mask fall and sighed. Sometimes he hated what his life had become, despised that he had so little influence over his daughter, that he was a bit of decoration at the margins of her life. And here she was, staying with him during the worst time he could think of: the first murder investigation since Sixty-Eight. He consoled himself that he had his evenings with her, and she was able to visit with her grandmother.He drove them to the Pratt farm, where Cindy was waiting with her mother. Cindy told Jenny to use the bathroom before they began the long drive home. While in there, Dean updated Cindy on what Jenny had done all week. “We even saw Superman.”“You did? She’s already seen that. With Spencer right after it came out.”He could not hide the crestfallen look on his face. Cindy might as well have punched him.“Oh,” she said. “She probably just didn’t want to tell you. Wanted to see it with you. Did you only get to spend evenings with her?”He felt tears welling up, but the tone of her last question bothered him enough that he forced them away. “You know what happened earlier this week. I had a job to do.”Cindy shook her head. They both heard Jenny come at a fast clip down the stairs.Cindy said to Dean, “Being a father is your job.” She turned and said to Jenny, “Slow down. Say bye to your father.”Dean knelt down and he and his daughter embraced. And tears, this time, did come. Not many, but enough. He told his daughter he loved her and they would go to an Expos game this summer. He walked out of the warm Pratt home into the January cold. He felt like a husk ready to be blown into the waiting fields.On the way home he noticed the car tailing him. At least, he thought it was tailing him. Too distant to determine the make. A pair of lights that followed him—not a difficult task in the town. When he turned into his subdivision, they did not follow him, but he still triple-checked the locks on the doors and windows and sat in the living room, his revolver on the end table until early in the morning.
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The Clearing - Chapter 21

Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 21January 13, 1979Dean and Guthrie arrived at Zion First Baptist Church thirty minutes before Billy’s funeral was scheduled to begin. The orange brick building’s parking lot was sparsely filled, which was reflected inside the sanctuary. The closed, black glossy casket rested just below the pulpit and choir. A large, ornately framed photo of Billy sat on an easel beside the casket.From the front pew, Archie stared at the casket, raising his hand to his cheek throughout to wipe away tears. Emily held a crumpled tissue in her hand, holding it up to her nose like a nosegay.Behind them sat their family. Archie’s younger brother, and Emily’s two sisters. Pastor Rob Manson sat in a chair behind the pulpit, reading his copy of the Bible, bookmarked and dog-eared. He took off his large, gold-framed glasses to rub the bridge of his nose frequently. Charlie McCord and one of his employees sat on the opposite side of the aisle, toward the front. Charlie’s wife, Eleanor, sat beside him.Behind the family and Charlie sat Corey, Josh, and Alex filling half a pew. Alex wore sunglasses in a failed attempt to hide a black eye. Sarah and her mother and father, Alice and Carlos, sat several pews behind Charlie. A few others sat in the pews, which Dean guessed were former classmates of Billy’s given their apparent age.Pastor Rob looked at his watch, stepped up to the pulpit, and said, “Thank you for being here today.”Dean slid out of the pew and through the main doors into the sanctuary, closing them gently, and then exited to the sidewalk. He would let Jeremy observe the grieving families and friends for any clues.From the car, Dean grabbed the Beacon and lit a cigarette. He looked at the blackened snow. Unrecognizable from what had fallen out of the sky. The whiteness had been drained, leaving only clear frozen crystals coated with the grime of human activity. He shook his head, wondering how humanity always managed to mess up everything it touches. He shook off the thought, debated how much longer he could stand the cold, and crushed out his cigarette on his sole. He looked for a trash can, but, finding none, he stuffed the butt into his coat pocket as he walked back into the entryway. He sat on a chair and flipped through pamphlets, The Christian Science Monitor, and stacks of The Daily Verse. He wondered if Pastor Rob realized the Monitor was a Christian Science founded newspaper or had little to do with religion. Perhaps the “Christian” in the title was sufficient.When Dean had read enough of those, he pulled out the Beacon. He had seen the top half earlier. “Murder in Zion.” Paige’s name was prominent just above the story, which led with Billy’s senior class photo in black and white and the line, “His body was found by dogs in the woods near along Route 23.” Dog, not dogs, he corrected her mentally. He read the story over the muffled voice of Pastor Rob. The article read very much like the articles about car crashes that took young lives too soon. Slipping into details about the victim’s life. Boring details, but they mattered. They revealed the differences between people. Billy was into baseball but this person was into football. Did they go to college or not? Had they escaped Zion or stayed or, worse, returned? He tossed the paper in the trash.After three more cigarettes, the organ music came on and the double-doors leading to the foyer where Dean stood opened. Pastor Rob nodded at him and then turned to face the exiting attendees. Guthrie walked up quickly, casually saluted the minister, and said to Dean, “So what’re we doing?”Dean leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Let’s talk to the Espositos. If you can, talk to Sarah separately, I’ll talk to her parents.”Guthrie smiled and gave a thumbs up.Several people Dean did not recognize walked past him. Alex was the first of those he had interviewed. Dean said, “Hey Alex,” as he walked past. Alex looked at him and then back to the doors and the street. He had severe bruises. Several on the face, including some scratches. Dean looked down at the young man’s hands and noticed they were cut up, swollen.Josh and Corey were not far behind. Charlie walked up to the pastor and patted him on the back. “Good service. Good service.”Rob nodded and frowned. “Sad day when we have to bury one so young.”Charlie nodded in agreement. He walked farther into the foyer and noticed Dean and Guthrie. “Gentlemen.”Dean extended his hand. “Charlie.”Charlie reached out and shook Dean’s. When Dean gripped it, the body shop owner cringed, realized he had, and smiled. Dean let go of his hand and noticed it was red and swollen around the knuckles.“What happened?” asked Dean.“Oh, that.” He held up his hand and looked at it as if it were some tool. “Dropped a wrench on my hand yesterday. Hurt like hell.” He looked back at the pastor. “Sorry.” He used that to escape out into the street.Dean rubbed his chin. Josh’s caginess and Zorn’s statements suggested Alex was up to something beyond his usual rowdiness. Charlie had been labeled as a good boss and a bad boss, and Alex had implied Charlie’s house was too nice for his salary, which—after seeing it—Dean was inclined to agree.Sarah walked past Dean and brought him back to the moment. He extended his hand out to the dark-skinned man with a full head of dark hair and large sideburns. “Carlos Esposito?”Carlos extended his hand. “Yes.”Dean lowered his voice. “Detective Dean Wallace. I’d like to talk to you a bit. Not here of course, but now.”Carlos nodded. Alice, a tall woman who stood several inches taller than Dean, and had long, brown hair wrapped into a ponytail, stepped from beside her husband to in front of him. “What’s this about?”Guthrie touched her shoulder. “Not here. Let’s go to the tea room? After the cemetery service?”Alice looked at him and nodded once. The Espositos walked out, and Dean and Guthrie followed. Too cold to walk the four blocks from the church to the Hardy Tea Room and Bookstore, the detectives got into their car and watched the Espositos get in theirs. A few minutes later, the parade of cars followed the hearse to the cemetery. When the last car had left, Dean turned on his car and drove to the tea room.The Hardy Tea Room was founded a few years prior by Missy Hardy, a widow whose husband had made a fortune making fertilizer in the AgGroPro factory in Jasper, a town forty-five minutes southeast. When he collapsed at the grocery store one day, victim of a massive heart attack, he had left her that fortune, which she had used to open the tea room because she wanted to bring what she and him had loved about their travels to Europe to Zion. The place was deserted most of the time. She kept its doors open despite the financial losses. She refused to let go of the dream and memory of her husband. Dean wondered why she did not just move to Europe.Guthrie liked the place because it was not a bar and because it was empty most of the time, making it a good place to have a conversation. He interviewed witnesses and suspects if he could there. His wife was some distant relation to Missy. They sat and waited beneath the high-ceilinged parlor with small tables covered by rose-motif tablecloths, and each decorated with a small crystal vase with a single flower, Missy looked up and smiled.When the Espositos entered, Guthrie diverted Sarah to a table with him, while Dean led Carlos and Alice to a table along the windowless wall butting up next to the Ace Hardware Store where a long bench served for seating. Carlos and Alice sat in the bench and Dean in the chair across from them.Missy walked over with a tea box and explained the specials of the day. She took their orders—coffee for all—and left to prepare them. Dean said, “Thanks for meeting with me. I just had a few questions for you that will help in our investigation into who killed Billy.”“I’m not sure how we can help,” said Alice. “We barely knew the boy.”“But you knew him?”“Yes, yes.”“Sometimes, those who knew the victim the least are the best windows on his life.” Dean scratched the back of his head as Missy set down three delicate looking tea cups. After she had stepped away, Dean continued. “Did you like Billy?”“Like my wife said, we hardly knew him.” Carlos grabbed the carafe of coffee and poured some into Alice’s cup, then Dean’s, and then his own.“But you certainly had an opinion. He was dating Sarah.”Carlos grimaced. He pulled his cup of coffee toward him. “I didn’t approve. Not because he was a bad guy really. Well, not a bad, bad guy. Just a guy who wasn’t right for Sarah. Not at all. She could’ve done better.” He grabbed two sugars from the holder on the table.“What do you mean by not a ‘bad, bad guy’?”Alice leaned forward and her voice dropped to a whisper. “He stole from us. I don’t think he would ever be violent. But he stole.”“Are you referring to your mother-in-law’s bracelet and necklace?”Now it was Carlos’s turn to whisper. “How did you know that?”Dean interlocked his fingers and bounced them against his lips. “Whenever we talked to Billy’s friends, they kept referring to something about jewelry and Sarah. So we asked her about it.”“Those were heirlooms. My grandmother brought them from Spain, where they were made by one of my great-great uncles. They were priceless to me. And now they’re gone.”Dean’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you so sure Billy took them?”“He’s the only one who had access to them that would’ve known and could’ve taken them. They were taken out of the jewelry chest in my room.” Alice took a sip of her coffee. “Only those were taken. And we don’t have maids or anything.”“When did this happen?”“I noticed they were missing this summer. July.”“I was furious,” said Carlos. “Furious. I told Sarah I never wanted him to step foot in our house again. Ever.”“And did he?”“Not that I know of.”Dean looked at Alice, who shook her head. “So Billy took priceless heirlooms, but you didn’t report them stolen.”“Sarah begged us not to, saying we’d never get them back anyways. Only the money, and it wasn’t the money we were upset about.”“Okay. I understand you were ill last year,” said Dean, looking at Alice.“I’m not sure what that—” said Carlos.“Yes. Cancer. Breast cancer,” she said, the corner of her mouth quivering.Carlos set his cup down. “What does that have to do with Billy?”Dean ignored Carlos’s question. “Are you—are you better?”“Look here—”Alice patted Carlos’s shoulder. “I’m cancer free. Radiation, then surgery, then chemo. It knocked me out of commission for a while. The chemo did a real number on me.”“Was money tight?”“Have you had cancer or anyone in your family had it?”Dean shook his head. “My grandfather, but I was young.”“It’s expensive. And insurance doesn’t like paying for it. And I didn’t want to go to a VA hospital.”“I understand that.” Dean raised a cup. “Knew a lot of brave Navy pilots back in Nam. Saved me a couple of times, I’m pretty sure.”Carlos tapped the table top. “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with Billy.”Dean looked at Alice and pursed his lips. Watched as she thought through the conversation and teased out the implications of his questions. Carlos looked at her with an intensity he hoped he had had with Cindy years ago and knew that Carlos probably did not kill Billy. Not that he was not capable, just that the man was more concerned with his wife and not why a detective was questioning them.Alice’s eyelids flickered and her mouth opened when she understood. “Oh my God.” Her head dropped.“What?” asked Carlos.“It wasn’t Billy, was it?”Dean shook his head.Alice looked at Carlos. “Do you remember the money Sarah gave us last year? The money that helped us stay afloat.”“Yeah.”“Know that she did it for a good reason.”Dean thanked them and stood up and walked over to Guthrie’s and Sarah’s table. He put his hands on the back of the chair beside Guthrie and asked, “Why haven’t you returned the heirlooms?”Sarah looked down and then up. A tear welled up in each eye. He knew, knew how embarrassed she was and how as the time had passed it was easier and easier to avoid the topic. She had them, but she could not bring herself to tell her parents. He nodded and patted Guthrie on the shoulder.Dean and Guthrie left the Espositos and drove back to the station. They agreed that Carlos was not a good suspect given the spacing between the disappearance of the jewelry and Billy’s death, but how long had the anger of that simmered before it boiled over—if it did. Regardless, he seemed the only suspect with a clear motive. However, Carlos’s alibi for the night of Billy’s disappearance was his wife. They were at home. More importantly to Dean’s thinking was Carlos’s reaction to the questioning of Alice and then to finding out his daughter had taken the jewelry. He had been angry about the jewelry. If he had killed Billy, he would have expected regret, anguish, some other emotion as it dawned on him he had killed an innocent. Anger was a legitimate reaction, but an unlikely one.Too many other questions hung around Billy’s disappearance, and Carlos did not come near enough to answering all of those.
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The Clearing - Chapter 20

Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 20Dean and Guthrie stopped at Tracks to grab a beer. The sun was already creeping low in the sky, its bright smudge its only notable trait. Dean was ready for spring, to see some green beyond the firs and spruces and white pines. Anything besides unrelenting gray.Guthrie poured his Budweiser into a glass and rubbed his chin before taking a large drink. “What the hell is Zorn doing? Why’s he throwing Alex at us like that?” He took a drink. “Hell, why’d Alex throw McCord at us?”Dean leaned back in the chair, rubbed the back of his neck, and looked at the ceiling. “The question is, what does this have to do with William’s murder?” He leaned forward and put his arms on the table. “If we assume it is drug related, then William—from what we know so far—was killed because of his proximity to Alex. Either he knew what Alex was doing or he helped Alex. So that presumes Alex is doing something illegal. But I don’t think Alex just gets into the drug trade alone. No. So he’s working for one of those two, Zorn or McCord.”“Zorn, right, if he threw McCord at us?”“Maybe. But Zorn threw Alex under the bus.” Dean waved his hand. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. We don’t know if Alex was involved in anything illegal or not.”They finished their beers and ordered a second round. Guthrie asked who Dean liked in the upcoming Super Bowl. Given the drubbing the Cowboys inflicted on the Rams, Guthrie was convinced Dallas were going to win. Dean cautioned that in a fight between the Steelers and Cowboys, he would pick the Steelers. They paid their bill, returned to the station, and typed up their reports. Dean read Guthrie’s quickly, counter-signed the document, and they slipped everything into the growing folder. After Guthrie left the station, Dean called the Beacon and left a message for Paige that Billy’s car had been found but revealed nothing interesting. He pressed the hook switch and cradled the handset. He dropped the handset to his other hand and put it on the hook.When he picked up Jenny, his mom sent him home with a container of turkey tetrazzini, piling in extra bits of the burnt cheese crust that he favored. While he heated up the casserole in the oven, he found a bag of frozen peas and dumped them in boiling water. While sucking in spaghetti noodles, Jenny regaled Dean with the day she spent with her grandmother. Another puzzle, but she had also begun to learn to sew dresses for her dolls. Dean let his mind wonder how soon his daughter would grow out of playing with dolls.They played scopa—a game Dean had learned from Eugene Deluca during a rainy day on base in sixty-eight. As he considered which card to discard, Jenny asked if he was mad at Uncle Tony.“Why do you ask about Uncle Tony?” asked Dean.“He was over at Grandma’s again today. Grandma said you and him haven’t seen each other for years.” She emphasized the last word, stretching her hands wide.“You can’t take that four-of-coins and two-of-cups ’cause a six-of-clubs is there.”Jenny replaced the two cards and picked up the six-of-clubs.Dean looked at his cards. He shook his head at what his mother had said. It was not accurate even if it had the sense of accuracy, but it was not as if they spoke of Tony often. “I’m not mad at Tony, but it might’ve appeared that way.” He discarded his knight-of-coins. “But we don’t see him often, that’s for sure.”“Why don’t we?” Jenny showed her knight-of-clubs and swept up the knight-of-coins.“It’s a grown-up story.” He led with that, not knowing what else to say, praying she would accept that and move on. But it was his daughter.“So we’re not allowed to see him?”“Mmmm…that’s not it. I mean, you’ve seen him a couple of times now. Nothing wrong with that.” He paused, unsure of how to talk about the history, the context. “You know you had another uncle, right? Uncle Nolan? Mom’s told you that?”Jenny shook her head, and Dean almost cursed Cindy aloud. But then he had never brought up Nolan either.He set his cards down. “Hold on.” He walked to the kitchen and poured a tumbler of whiskey. “Milk?” He looked over the counter at Jenny, who nodded. He poured a tall glass of milk and pulled out the chocolate syrup, which he squeezed in and stirred around with a knife. He handed her the glass. “So you know I was in a place called Vietnam, right?”Jenny nodded.“Well, you had an Uncle Nolan who was there, too. But he didn’t come home.”“He died there?”Dean took a drink. “Yeah, he did. It was after I left there. Well, Uncle Tony didn’t go to Vietnam. And that upset some people. So it makes it hard to be around him sometimes.”“Are you mad at him?”“Mad at him? No. I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s hard to see him and not think of Uncle Nolan. So it’s easier to just not see Uncle Tony. Does that make sense?”She put her finger to her lips—a gesture so reminiscent of Cindy that he thought he was looking at her twin. “I guess so, but can I see Uncle Tony, right?”Dean took a drink. “Of course.” He smiled at her. “But I want you to know. My not seeing Uncle Tony wasn’t the right thing. Just because it’s easier that’s, well, that’s not a good enough reason.”In the end, Jenny beat Dean at scopa. They watched some TV. After he tucked her in, he sat on the couch with the volume turned low and drank whiskey, thinking of Tony and Nolan and the war. And how he hated to think of the war but he could never not think of it. He had brought it home and, like a delayed-fuse bomb, it had gone off years later, severing limbs but leaving him alive—if barely.Once he was in homicide at the NYPD, his drinking really took control. Cindy put up with it far longer than he had any right to expect, but even that bastion of strength had fled—or he had exhausted it, forced it away. She had found him too often on the couch in the middle of the night with an empty bottle in his hand, raging at the shadows of the war. He could never tell her. Or he could never find a way to tell her. Tell her how excited battle made him, the frenzy of killing, the explosions, the guns, the adrenalin. In those moments, fear washed over him with ecstasy and he imagined this was what the saints in the desert found as they approached God. How could he explain that to his wife? To anyone who had not been in battle? And then follow that up with how awful he felt about the NVA boy-soldier he shot from six meters. The three blood-spattered bullet holes rising up from the right-lower gut to the left shoulder. Killed as they stormed a hill. Kill or be killed. He did the right thing, but that boy haunted him. Those three growing spots of red and the swaying of the tree leaves behind him as the bullets rose up from the repeated recoil. He could never explain it, so he drank, but the drink stopped numbing it. And Cindy left him. And she needed to. He did not deserve her. He trudged on, but then he had messed up the Kerensky investigation, and the brass could not ignore the issue anymore. Sacked him. And he came crawling back home to his dad, who pitied him and gave him a job. And Dean could not forgive himself for his fall. So he drank, knowing it could not bring light to the darkness.
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The Clearing - Chapter 19

Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 19As Dean drove down Van Buren Street toward the Grim Devils clubhouse at the edge of town, Guthrie updated him on his conversation with the Pratts. All of them had been home the night of Billy’s last sighting: Wayne, Cole, Eileen, Joshua, and Kevin. Joshua and Kevin were home from university. The other Pratt children, including Cindy, were not in town for the New Year’s holidays. According to those that were there, all stayed in and did not hear anything. He finished as Dean turned left off Van Buren into the gravel parking lot of the clubhouse. Two pickup trucks, one shiny and new and one rusted along the bottom of the door and from the Sixties, sat near the entrance.The building itself looked like one big, dark gray corrugated metal building punctuated by two doors at the front and several square windows. Two large garage doors with a single door between them were farther down from the entrance. The gravel gave way to a concrete patio at the front door.Dean parked the car just beside the patio. He looked at Guthrie and said, “I’m not planning on getting much out of this. But I figure it can’t hurt to toss a grenade in the bunker and see what happens.”Guthrie pushed the car door open. “Let’s hope that grenade doesn’t come flying back out at us.”At the front door to the clubhouse, Dean knocked and then twisted the door knob, which was locked. He pounded on the door. Zorn pushed aside the blinds covering the front window, shook his head, and let the blinds swing back as he unlocked and opened the door. The thin, lanky man held it open, gesturing for the two detectives to enter.Guthrie followed Dean in. Zorn wore blue jeans, a Led Zeppelin t-shirt from the 1977 tour, and a black leather jacket with the edges showing wear. Despite his thinning hair on top of his head, his long blond hair fell to just below his neck, and the goatee ended in a point a couple of inches below the chin. AC/DC’s “T.N.T.” roared from out-of-sight speakers. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Dean Wallace come to pay me a visit. Your dad tired of harassing me so he sends his kid?”Zorn had been a notorious bully to a number of freshmen who had crossed him. Dean’s dad had defended a number of fellow students from the swirlies, circle games, and nipple cripples Zorn had his gang—even then he had a gang—inflict on a dozen other kids. His bad reputation and antics had grown up with him. After serving in the Pacific, Zorn had been arrested for a number of petty crimes, but nothing serious. Eric Wallace was convinced Zorn and the Grim Devils were major drug distributors, smuggling heroin coming from Montreal, which had originated in Sicily, down to New York or over to Boston. The Grim Devils ran most of the prostitutes in Zion and the surrounding area along with running illegal gambling sessions. He had blackmail material on dozens of city, county, and state officials, and he washed the money through the town’s small, four-lane bowling alley. Even darker rumors circulated. In the early Seventies, two state troopers were found decapitated on the Plattsburgh to Buffalo railroad, rope, duct tape, and their own handcuffs bound what was left of them. They had been investigating biker gangs ties to a series of bank robberies in small towns across the northern part of the state, robberies with strong circumstantial evidence pointing to the Grim Devils. The robberies and the murders remained unsolved.“Hey Paul,” said Dean.“And Jeremy.” Zorn shook Guthrie’s hand. “Where do you want to search now?”Dean cocked his head to the side. “Not here to conduct any searches. Here to talk to you about William Nimitz.”Zorn closed the door. “I see. He’s the one you guys found out in the woods?”“Yeah, him.”Zorn walked past the two detectives into the clubhouse. Two pool tables sat to the north, a makeshift bar just to the right of it, and a set of couches. Nothing matched, and the floor was left as bare concrete. A closed door in the middle of a wall led to the garage, a couple of small offices, and storage space. The Grim Devils president walked over to the Pioneer HiFi and turned the volume down before sitting on one of the couches. “How can I help you?”“Did you know him?”“This Billy kid?”Dean and Guthrie nodded. Guthrie took a seat in the couch opposite Zorn.“Knew him in passing. I mean, I could identify him on the street, but I wouldn’t say I knew him, no.” Zorn pulled at his goatee. “I’ll admit, I’m a bit confused why you think I can help.”“We found thousands in cash in his closet.”Zorn’s eyes narrowed, focused on Dean, and his hand stopped, gripping his goatee. “Did you now? And…hmmm…let me guess. Your dad says that the only reason someone has a lot of money is because they deal in drugs? That I couldn’t have earned it by working hard, saving, doing the good old American raising myself up, eh?”Dean let a thin smile cross his face. “My dad didn’t say it. And when the money is found in a shoebox in the corner of a closet, one does indeed wonder where it came from.”Zorn threw his arms out. “So you think of me first? I should feel honored? Tell me why you’re here, why you think you need to come talk to me?”Dean paused before responding. He knew this visit was a long shot. In fact, he expected nothing to happen other than to rattle Zorn’s cage and see if anything fell out in the coming days. So how best to rattle him? “Simple really. Billy was working for you, stole your money or cut you short or something—there’s always something you bosses don’t like. So you killed him. You or one of your brothers on bikes.” He raised a finger to cut off Zorn from interrupting. “And you didn’t know where he had hidden the cash. Or you did and were waiting a bit.”Zorn smiled and shook his head. “Detective, I’ll tell you what I tell your old man. I run a legitimate business and this club—despite our name—is just that. A club of motorcycle enthusiasts who like to spend some time riding in each other’s company. This Nimitz kid wasn’t a member of the Devils, he didn’t work at the lanes, and he didn’t bowl, so I didn’t pay him much attention.”Guthrie scratched his head. “Look, Paul, we’re not all that interested in your business. We’re just trying to find out what happened with this kid. So he has a lot of money stuffed in a bag in his closet. Makes you wonder, you know?”“Not really.”“Well it does us.”“Good for you.”Dean crossed his arms. “Let’s try it this way. Can you think of any reason why Billy Nimitz, employee of McCord’s, would have that kind of money. Have you heard anything in your rides?“Maybe he saved it. Maybe he worked hard for it. I don’t know.”Guthrie stood up. “Nice to see you care about the town you live in.”Dean said, “He loves this town.”Zorn leaned over and put his hands together. “And I love my club. But you’ve got me all wrong. Talk to Quentin Trask. He and I were here the night Billy was killed.” He stood up. “If you’re so worried about this town, maybe you should check out the DA’s kid.”“Alex Smith.”“Yeah, that punk.”Guthrie sat back down. “Why him?”Zorn smiled and leaned back in the chair.To Dean, this was beyond even the practiced confidence of a man often at odds with the law. This was a man confident because he was telling the truth. “Is this about McCord?”“Charlie. I got nothing against him. Shit mechanic, but, well.” He shrugged.“So answer Jeremy’s question, ‘Why Alex?’”“Look fellas, I’m not too interested in bad-mouthing folks in this town. Let’s just say, I’ve heard things about Alex. Things that, well, seem like a reason for investigation.”“Anything specific about Billy.”“No.” Zorn shook his head vigorously. “No.” He stood up. “I think that’s all I can do, boys.”* * *Dean drove them back into town, and without asking his partner, straight to McCord’s Body Shop. Guthrie followed him into the shop, where they rang the bell. Dressed in the same gray coverall of the other day and perhaps the same cigar and red rag, Charlie ducked as he walked into the reception area.“Hey there. What’s it today?”Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “We’ve been conducting our investigation, and your name keeps popping up.”Charlie squinted, and Dean saw the man’s fight or flight instincts rise to the surface. But Charlie fought them back, though he had stopped wiping his hands on the rag—they gripped the rag in front of them, stopped in mid motion. “How so?” He tucked the rag into his front pocket. “I can’t imagine why that would be.”“Seems some people think you’re distributing drugs, part of the illegal border crossing of cocaine and heroin.”Charlie shook his head and chuckled. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve seen Capone. Do I look like a gangster, here with my hands dirty.” He held them up. Dirt darkened the lines of this fingers and palms.“The movies aren’t real life.”“Yeah, whatever. I’ve got work to do.”Guthrie asked, “So those rumors?”Charlie paused at the door leading to the garage. “I’m not bothering to answer stupid rumors.” He went through the door.Guthrie looked at Dean, walked to the door leading to their car, pushed it open, and said, “Well, that got us far.”Dean followed him out. Once in the car, he said, “We hit something though. When we said his name keeps popping up, something was there. You seen his house?”“What? What Alex said we’re paying attention to?”“I’ll take that as a no.” Dean radioed in to Laura and asked for McCord’s home address.“I know it’s north of here.” Guthrie cracked the window and lit a cigarette.Dean pulled out of McCord’s and headed north. Within a couple of blocks, Laura responded with the address, in the Highland Estates housing division. The same division as the mayor and the Adamson’s family. After a few minutes, they arrived at the entrance, designed with two large brick walls with Highland Estates plaques in limestone either side of the road. Long driveways, spacious yards, and very large houses, with everything longer, more spacious, and larger the farther into the division they drove. Dean made a couple of wrong turns down cul-de-sacs. Guthrie mumbled, “Jesus,” a few times even though he had seen a number of these houses on the inside as victims of burglary and theft.The McCord house, when they found it, floored them. Designed along federal style neoclassical lines, the rust brick, two-story house had the appearance of a squat rectangle on which sat a large cube. On the first floor, white-framed windows with black shutters. On the second, large Palladian windows. The double-door entry was covered by a flat-roof portico supported by four Doric columns.Guthrie whistled. “I’ve only been back here once, I think, in this part of the division. I don’t remember that.”“Hmm. It’s a palatial estate. Think what you want about Zorn, but he’s doesn’t show off his wealth. At least like that. That’s begging for attention.”Zorn sank his money into the clubhouse and motorcycles. The Zorn house was a modest half-brick, half-wood siding house just south of the downtown circle.“This sure as hell means McCord is up to something dirty or something we don’t know about. Legal that is.”“If it were legal, we wouldn’t have people asking us to check him out. They would’ve just complained about it.”
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The Clearing - Chapter 18

Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 18January 12, 1979Dean dropped off Jenny with his mom the next morning and drove to the station. The chief was meeting the mayor for breakfast, so only Laura and Etheridge were in the station. The winter so far had been brutally cold, but at least not like last year’s blizzard. Still, it kept even the limited crime of Zion down to a minimum. Accidents, however, were more frequent. Slide offs mostly. Last night, a businessman traveling through Zion on Route 23 had hit a patch of ice or fallen asleep, slid off the road, slammed into a tree, and was thrown thirty feet into the field. Etheridge described how he could follow the blood trail across the snow to the crumpled up body.Dean nodded his understanding of that grim scene. He had seen plenty of such accidents during his days on patrol.After settling in at his desk, he asked Laura to call the State Police and get any info they had on Charlie McCord. He then picked the phone up from the cradle and held it. He dialed the number for the Beacon and asked the person who answered to be connected to Paige.After a couple of minutes being on hold, Paige picked up the phone and said, ”McFadden.”“Detective Wallace.”“Ah, so the chief talked to you?”He was glad he was on the phone so she could not see him flush with anger.“He’s savvy about the press and my boss made a call,” she continued. “I’m doing my job’s all.”“Right. So—.”“Sorry. Didn’t mean to bust your balls.”“Yeah, you did.” He smiled.“You’re right. I did.” She chuckled. “So this Nimitz thing. It’s a homicide?” And he gave her most of the details. He left out The Communist Manifesto but told her about the cash. On the question of did he have any suspects, he said they did, but not enough evidence at this time to do much about it. She agreed to not phrase it so harshly but still get the point across.He promised he would keep her in the loop.“You know, we can be friends,” she said. “You never know, what I write might prompt someone’s memory.”“Might,” he said.They exchanged good-byes and hung up.When Guthrie came in a few minutes later, they met to discuss the plan for the day. Dean wanted to talk to Zorn in the afternoon. They decided to split for the morning. Guthrie would interview the Pratts as well as get a look at the crime scene. Dean had spoken with Wayne Pratt the day they found Billy, but a more thorough interview was necessary. Given Dean’s connection with the Pratt family, Guthrie needed to do it. Dean, however, would talk to Billy’s parents again, asking specifically about the money and book and using the recent interviews with Billy’s friends and girlfriend to elicit more information about their son. They agreed to meet back at the station at lunchtime.Dean knocked on Billy’s parents front door. Archie answered and led him to the kitchen table. He motioned for the detective to sit before doing so himself in front of a cup of coffee going cold. Emily was cleaning a stack of dishes from the food friends and neighbors had brought over. Many casseroles and what looked like the remnants of a ham.Archie took a sip of his coffee. “Have you found out anything, Dean?”“We’re re-interviewing some people based on the, the fact that this is a murder investigation now. And we have information, but we’re trying to make sense of it. I’m hoping you can help there.”Archie nodded. The tink of dishes from Emily placing plates in the drainer.“We interviewed Sarah Esposito. From her statements, she and Billy were more than friends in recent months.”“He didn’t talk about her much, really. It seemed to be an up and down thing, and it seemed down at the time.”“Why do you say that?”Emily placed the hand towel over the top of the drying dishes. “Because he acted the way he always did when they were broken up. He started worrying about money. He was very keen to give her nice things, but he wasn’t a lawyer or a doctor. She expected too much.”“Any nice things in particular?”Emily grabbed Archie’s cold mug. “No. Not anything he told me specifically.” She threw the cold coffee down the drain and refilled his cup, adding two Sweet’n Lows.“Anything else that indicated they were back to the just-friends stage?”She set the mug in front of Archie, who said, “No. That was it. And he was moping around. Not sad like. I know some think he—”“Neither the police department nor the coroner think it was anything but a homicide.” He said it with more force than intended, and he frowned at the bluntness of the remark.Archie patted his left hand. “Thank you.”Emily set a mug in front of Dean and poured hot coffee into it.Dean wrapped his hands around the warm mug. “So when I looked in William’s room when I was here last, I found something. And I’m hoping you can shed some light on it. On the floor and in the corner of this closet, I found thousands in cash.”Emily raised her hand to her chest. Archie’s eyes opened wide.“From your looks, I take that as a surprise?”“Yes,” said Archie. “How did he get that kind of money?”“I was hoping you could help explain that.”“How could we do that?” asked Emily. She pulled a chair out and sat down.“I thought perhaps you had found it in the past or he had talked about it.”“He never mentioned it. I knew he was making decent money from McCord’s, but I thought it was all the overtime he was working.”“According to Charlie, Billy didn’t work that much overtime.”A tear moistened the edge of Emily’s eyes. “News to us. Why didn’t you tell us when you found it?”Dean scratched his chin. “If it had turned out to be a suicide, I wanted to be able to give it back to you quickly. Now it’s evidence. I’m not sure when—”Emily teared up and waved her hand at him. “That’s okay. I don’t need to know any more. I don’t care about the money.”Archie put his hand over hers. They shared affection in ways that Dean had never seen his parents do. He did not doubt Eric and Jessica loved each other, but it was not what he had seen between the Nimitz’s. He imagined they still held hands while walking, something he had never seen his father and mother do.Dean said, “I found another item with the money. A copy of The Communist Manifesto.” When both parents looked at him blankly, Dean said, “Did William read any political philosophy?”Archie snorted. “You saw his room, sir. He was interested in baseball and cars. What he read matched those interests. I think the only philosophy he read was what was required at school.”Dean let go of the mug. “Thanks. It’s probably nothing, but I wanted to ask.”Emily asked, “How’s the money and the book got anything to do with Billy’s—with his—our son’s—?”Dean stood up. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. It’s something we need to explore.” He left them, with more questions than answers and a reminder their son had been murdered. The frigid air outside seemed warmer than the Nimitz’s kitchen.* * *Dean closed the door of the car and turned it on, cranking the heat to full. A blast of cold stunned him before switching to warm then hot air. If he turned it up high enough, he knew the heat could be too much, but it felt so good, he let it go for awhile.The radio crackled, and Laura’s voice filled the car. “Unit 141?”Dean lifted the handset and turned up the volume. “This is 141.”“Victim’s car has been discovered.”“Nimitz’s?”“Confirmed.”“Where at?”“Old Range Road. Two miles north of 23.”“Acknowledged. 141 is heading up there now.”“Tow is already on its way.”“Tell them to not touch anything until I’m there.”“Acknowledged.”“And can you tell 142 to meet me there?”“Yes.”“141 out.” Dean put the car in reverse and backed out of the Nimitz’s driveway and drove toward Route 23 and the Pratt farm. A mile west of the Pratt farm turnoff, Dean turned his car north on Old Range Road. The road led to a number of homesteads that ran along the Canadian border. Cattle and crops.The road curved east near the border. As he approached the two-mile distance, he saw a familiar car pulled alongside the road, a set of tires on the road and the other on the grass to the side. Tony’s blue and white Oldsmobile Cutlass S.Dean stopped the car behind Tony’s and stepped out. Tony got out of the driver’s seat. “Hey.”“Morning. What are you doing out here?”“I found a car off the side of the road.” Tony gestured over the top of his car. “I think it’s the one you and dad were talking about.”Dean stood on his tiptoe and looked. In the woods, he could make out Billy’s yellow Dodge Challenger. “How’d you find it.”Tony rubbed his gloved hands together. “I do my running out here sometimes. There’s a spot another mile down to park. I was heading there today to do that.”“How often do you run out here?”“All the time. All the time. Anyways, I saw it and drove to the house down the road a bit and called the station. I came back to make sure nothing happened in the meantime.”Dean walked past Tony and the front of his car and down a slight embankment into the lightly wooded stretch before a snow-covered field. In the summer with the full bloom of the trees, the car would have been well hidden from the casual passer-by. The trees denuded of leaves and the snow offered no cover. Only the lack of traffic and curiosity by those who did see it prevented it from being reported earlier.Billy had backed the car off the road. Dean noted the deep tire tracks in the snow. The tires had made contact with the surface of the field. Bits of grass, small rocks, and dirt lined the tracks and the small mounds of snow either side of them.No tracks from the road to the car, but from the driver’s side a set of faded tracks entered the field.A car squeaked to a stop and Dean walked up the embankment and watched Guthrie get out of his car. He looked at Tony. “Hey.”Dean waved him over. “Tony spotted the car on his run.”Guthrie nodded at Tony and walked over to Dean. Both walked down toward the car.Dean pointed at the tracks in the snow. “Those lead to where we found him.” A light layer of grime coated the hood and wheel wells. “You didn’t touch anything, right?” asked Dean.After a pause, Tony realized the question was directed at him. “Of course not. I know better.”Tony was not a field agent, but he did know better.A car pulled up followed by a tow truck, which passed by Billy’s car, stopped, and then put the truck into reverse.“Tell him,” Dean waved at the truck, “to wait.”Tony nodded and disappeared along the driver’s side of the truck.Reggie walked up, his right hand draped over his holstered pistol. He took off his large mirrored sunglasses. “That Billy’s car?”“Yeah. Well, I think so. Still looking it over.”“Right. Sweet ride.”Guthrie walked behind the car and wrote down the license plate, gave the paper to Reggie, and asked him to run it.Dean tested the driver-side door. It opened, so he bent down and looked in the car. Black leather seats. Chrome and leather steering wheel. Box of cassette tapes. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Lynyrd Skynyrd. Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon was open on the seat. Dean pushed the eject button on the dash’s cassette player. He sawThe Dark Side of the Moon’s label.The front and back seats were clean and free of clutter. The dash’s bright shine and lack of dust suggested to Dean a recent Armor All wipe down. He reached under the dash and pulled the trunk release. Other than the spare tire and jack, the trunk was clean.Dean told Reggie and Guthrie to get the car towed to the station’s locked lot on the west side of town. “I’ll meet you back at the station before we head over to Zorn’s.” Guthrie casually saluted.Dean thanked his brother for calling it in and started to walk out into the field, following the tracks, which had melted at the edges. Tony stomped down behind him. “Care if I join?”Dean smiled. “Why not?”Tony followed Dean, who walked alongside the tracks. Billy had crossed the field heading south and when he reached a line of trees about a half-mile from his car, he had turned east and kept to the boundary of woods and field until he walked into the wooded area at the eastern edge, where the tracks became elusive. The snow was not as deep. Dean gave up a dozen yards in. Walking over the underbrush had effectively hidden whatever tracks Billy had left behind.Dean stood in the woods, hearing his brother breathing behind him. “He came out here to meet someone. One set of tracks. So he wasn’t forced.” He faced—as best he could tell—the direction of the clearing where they found Billy’s body. “At least, not at gunpoint.”“What do you mean?”“I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess, that someone had something he wanted or threatened his family to force him out here.” Dean shook his head. “Just thinking is all.”“Whatever it was, it didn’t go well.”“It did not. But did the person he met end him or was there someone else?”“Most likely, the person he met.”“It’s the simplest answer, that’s for sure.” Dean sighed. “It’s cold as hell. Let’s get back.”
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The Clearing - Chapter 17

Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 17January 11, 1979Dean and Guthrie met at McDonald’s for breakfast. They discussed the previous afternoon’s activities. Guthrie had found the pawn shop in Plattsburgh Billy had visited: Earl’s. The owner recognized Billy from the photo but not Sarah. However, his records indicated Sarah had pawned two pieces of jewelry, a bracelet and necklace, in July of 1978. Albert, one of his employees, had made the deal. Sarah did not pick them up in the agreed upon ninety days, so Earl’s took possession of them. Billy bought them in November. Guthrie handed two Polaroids to Dean, one of each piece of jewelry. The bracelet, a tennis bracelet is what Cindy would have called it, was studded with clear, small stones around the entire gold band. The necklace was a less gaudy affair. A thin gold chain with a triumvirate of clear stones wrapped in whorls of bent gold. The center stone was the largest, and the two either side of it were the same size. Billy had bought them back for double the amount of the pawn, five hundred and a thousand. Everything about the items looked legitimate and corroborated Sarah’s story. So the real question was where did Billy get the money?Dean gave Guthrie a run down of the trip to Montreal. The two detectives shook their head at the meaning of the passports and copies of The Communist Manifestos. As they were talking, Dean wondered for the first time in a meaningful way, Renard’s question was a realistic one to ask. Was Billy a spy? But why would a spy be in Zion instead of New York or Washington? Or near major military bases? He filed it away for now so he could focus on the investigation by ticking off the more likely possibilities, starting with friends and family and connections with the drug trade.The two detectives finished breakfast and walked across the street to Bridewell’s Grocery, where they found Josh sacking groceries for a young mother, whose child sat in the front of the cart, blue-booted feet kicking. Josh had worked at Bridewell’s since high school and now helped manage for Gary Bridewell, who was in his seventies and had no children but had taken Josh under his wing.They waited as he lifted items with his right hand and placed them in his left, which was hidden in the standing sack. He put cans of peas and corn at the bottom and built his way up, placing bread and bags of chips on top. All very practiced and efficient.Josh offered to assist the woman out, and she accepted. Guthrie looked at the magazine rack near one of the four check out lines. The check out clerk, one of the town’s Pentecostal women identifiable by her long hair wrapped into a bun, no make up, and modest, ankle-length denim skirt, asked if Dean needed help. He said he was waiting for Josh.A few minutes later, Josh came in, pushing three carts, which he stacked with the others. He looked over at the clerk, who gestured toward Dean. “How can I help you?” asked Josh.Up close, Dean could see all the freckles on Josh’s face. His red hair and pale-complexion meant the boy burned in the summer. Tall and thin as most twenty-somethings are, he could still have been in high school for all Dean could tell. He held out his badge. “Detective Wallace. That’s Detective Guthrie.”Josh raised a single hand to wave at Guthrie. “Ah, yeah, now I remember you.”Dean said, “Can we talk someplace? It’s about Billy.”The clerk raised her hand to her mouth.Josh nodded and walked past the counters to a brown door hidden behind racks of candy, greeting cards, and magazines.The door led to a few offices, one of which had Josh’s name in a fake-gold plaque with black lettering on the door. Josh’s office consisted of an industrial desk, two hard plastic chairs—one red, one blue—and a book shelf lined with large, three-ring binders with tags reading “Produce,” “Canned Goods,” and “Frozen Foods.” Three citations for employee of the month were framed and hanging on the wall next to the shelf. No windows. Josh gestured to the two plastic chairs and sat down in the cushioned one behind his desk.“Terrible news,” said Josh.“It is,” said Dean as he sat down.“What can I do?”“Tell us about the night he disappeared.”“If Billy hadn’t gone missing, I probably wouldn’t remember it. Just a night really. Corey and Billy were at the Shambles. I had to work late—dealt with some mistaken orders. So when I got there they were already two or three beers in. But we ate some food, and I had a few myself.”“How often did you guys meet up?”“We tried to get together once a week at least. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. Depended on what was going on with work and stuff.”“Always at the Shambles?”“No, not always. Most of the time, but sometimes at Tracks. Sometimes at my place. Wherever.”Dean scratched the side of his jaw. “So you’re having some food and drinks with Corey and Billy. Then what?”Josh shifted in his chair, grabbed the edge of the desk, and dug at it with his thumb. “Then we left. Nothing really. It was a complete shock when we heard about Billy not showing up to work. Being missing and all.”“What did you guys talk about?”“Stuff. The playoffs. Work. Movies. I mean, we talked for a couple of hours. So lots of stuff.”“What time did you leave?”“Eleven-thirty-two.” Josh’s answer was too quick, too specific, and he knew it. “Something like that.”Guthrie looked at Dean, but he kept his focus on Josh. “That’s pretty specific. Why do you remember it so clearly?”“I don’t really. Well, I mean, I thought about it after I heard he was missing. So I talked to Corey to make sure we both remembered it the same way.” Josh dug at the desk’s corner with his thumb. “I don’t mean it that way. I mean, we talked after. Recalled. We thought the police would want to know.”Dean nodded and frowned. “What are you not telling us, Josh?”Josh stood up. “Look, I really need to get back to work.”Dean remained sitting in his chair. Guthrie did not move.“Come on, I need to get back to work.” He walked over to the door and opened it.Dean stood up, took two steps toward Josh, and stood close to him. “All right.” He pulled out one of his business cards. “If you remember something, call me.” He placed the card into Josh’s shirt pocket, patted his chest, and walked out, followed by Guthrie.As Josh started to the close the door, Dean put his right forearm to it. He looked at Josh, whose eyes were open wide. Dean bobbed his head from side to side. “So answer me this. Did Sarah and Alex have a thing on the side?”The question surprised Josh, and he could not hide it, but he shook his head. “No. No. Absolutely not.”Dean smiled, winked, and eased his arm off the door. He turned around as the door closed behind them. Back out into the store proper, the clerk walked up to Dean. She smiled and stood before him.Dean smiled back. “Yes?”“That Josh is a good boy.”“Okay,” said Guthrie.“You should know that. He’s a good boy.”“Any reason why I would think differently?” Dean crossed his arms and tilted his head toward her.“People talk in this town. But you shouldn’t believe everything you here is all.” She looked back to the register, where a man walked up cradling bread, peanut butter, and milk. “He’s a good boy.” She walked back to the check out lane.The detectives sat in the car as it warmed up and lit cigarettes. “What the hell was that?” asked Guthrie.“Which part?”“Amy telling us he’s a good boy.” Guthrie saw the look on Dean’s face. “It was on her name badge.”Dean nodded once. “Means something’s going around town about Josh. Or.” He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out through the crack in the window. “Or about him and his buddies.”“What do you mean?”“I’ve no idea, but we should find out. When you were doing your investigation after he disappeared, any rumors pop up?”“No. Nothing. They seemed like close friends is all.”“I think they probably are. Maybe Sarah’s father will tell us something.”“Him next?” Guthrie stabbed the cigarette out in the ashtray.“No. Let’s talk to Alex like we planned. We’ll talk to Sarah’s dad soon enough.”* * *Alex Smith worked at Adamson’s in the packaging and shipping department. That department broke the furniture down into its pieces and then boxed, wrapped in plastic-wrap, labeled for shipping, and loaded it all into trucks. The foreman told the detectives Alex’s shift was almost over and hoped they could wait. They did, sitting in the running car smoking. About thirty minutes after talking to the foreman, Alex walked out of the factory.He bore a striking resemblance to his father. Short with a smallish nose that bent along the dorsal edge. He was wrapped in a heavy parka and knit hat. Dean rolled down the window. “Alex.”Alex looked at him, surprised at his name being called.Dean showed him his badge. “Get in. We need to talk.”Alex shook his head and mumbled something lost to the cold. The door opened with a screech. He flopped himself heavily into the back seat and slammed the door closed. “What?”Guthrie turned sideways in his seat and draped his arm along the top. “You don’t want us finding who killed your friend Billy?”Dean looked back.Alex pulled off his knit cap, revealing a full head of blond hair. Definitely did not get that from his father. “Course I do. But I already told you everything I know. What else do you want?”“Missing is different than murder. So we have other questions,” said Dean.“Shit man, I don’t know nothing.”“Anything.”“Hell, I don’t need or want a grammar lesson from you.” Alex pulled the door handle, letting the cold rush in through the crack.“Where were you the night Billy disappeared? That’s a lot more important now. In your earlier statement, you said home. No alibi.”“I need an alibi?” Alex jerked the door closed.“It’d be helpful.”“I don’t got one. I was home.”“Why weren’t you at the Shambles with your buddies?”Alex stared at the floor.Guthrie tapped the top of the car seat. “We hear you and Billy had some sort of falling out. What’s up with that?”“Can I smoke?”Dean nodded.Alex pulled out a pack of Marlboros, shook one loose, and lit it. Cracking the window. “He and I argued about Sarah.” He kept looking out the window, talking to it instead of Dean. “He was really falling for her, but she was just taking his money. Only interested in jewelry and expensive clothes.”“That’s it? Corey said the same thing, but he and Billy were still drinking at the Shambles.”“It got heated between us, okay? You know me, I’ve got a hot head sometimes.”Dean almost praised him for his self-awareness. “So you two argue over Sarah. You were home the night of Billy’s disappearance. That right?”“That’s right.”“Who’d want to hurt Billy? Did he have any enemies?”Alex stared out the door window. “Billy was a good guy. But he was gullible. Believed what people told him. Couldn’t see the darker side of folks.”Dean waited for Alex to continue, but he did not. Guthrie raised his eyebrows. Dean said, “What does that mean? You think he was friendly with someone who hurt him? Someone besides Sarah?”Alex sat in silence.Guthrie snapped his fingers. “My colleague asked you a question.”“Do you know what goes on in this town?”“What are you talking about?”“Shit.” Alex shook his head and flipped his cigarette out the window.Dean sighed. “Look, a lot goes on in this town. But if you want to say something, say it. Stop beating around the bush.” He lit a cigarette.“That body shop he works for, they’re big-time drug guys. They’re moving H coming in from Canada to New York.”Guthrie looked at Dean. “Most of the drugs come from Miami up to the northeast.”“Yeah, most, but not all. There’s money to be made.”“How do you know this?” asked Guthrie.“Rumors. People talking. McCord’s got a nice house. Really nice.”“So, what? You think Billy found out about this and was killed?”“Maybe. You wanted to know if he had any enemies.”Dean breathed in and out deeply. “You hear this from your dad?” He knew that most of the drug investigations work fell to the State Police, despite his father’s efforts to keep that state agency out of Zion. But the District Attorney would know of any activities.“Shit, I’m trying to be helpful. To know about McCord, you just have to have ears.”“So back to you and Sarah.”Alex looked back out the window.Guthrie rubbed his thumb on the steering wheel. Dean watched Alex as Guthrie asked, “You and her have a thing?”Alex turned to look at the back of Guthrie’s head, and Dean saw his jaw clench. Alex opened the door and slammed it behind him.Dean leaned over the front seat and said out Guthrie’s now open window. “You want to tell us?”Alex took two steps and stopped. With his back to the detectives, he turned his head. “Fuck you.” He walked away, lifting his hood over his head as he did so.Dean flicked his still burning cigarette out the open window before Guthrie rolled it up.Guthrie twisted himself back around in his seat and grabbed the steering wheel. “So?”“Let’s get back to the station.” He turned on the radio. The solo from Talking Heads’s version of “Take Me to the River” crackled through the speakers.“You think there’s anything to what he said?” He put the car into gear and pulled forward into the cars of the employees leaving work.“It’s more than we had before. Frankly, makes more sense if Billy was shot because of drugs than because Corey or Alex thought Sarah was screwing him over. Or if Alex and Sarah were a thing and something happened because of that.”“Or if Alex thought he could have her to himself by taking out his competition.”“Definitely a possibility. But why would Billy go out to the Pratts to meet with Alex?”“If it were drugs, there’d be a reason to meet.”“Right, and for my money, it makes more sense if it’s McCord than if it’s Zorn dealing in drugs.”“You think Billy was a part of it? Dealing drugs I mean?”“Like I said, we know more than we did before. Let’s see where it leads.”Guthrie drove them back to the station in silence except for the radio.* * *Dean typed up his reports for the rest of the afternoon, taking nips from his flask the entire time. In New York, fellow officers had often complained about report fatigue, that they spent most of their days writing reports. Dean, however, had found the activity helpful, therapeutic even. It had started in Vietnam. One of the great misconceptions of soldiering was that they spent all their time fighting or waiting to fight. Broadly true, but the military was a report hungry machine. And one of the more important reports in Vietnam were after-action reports. Whenever they got into a fire fight—no matter how small—they radioed back the initial confirmed kills and probables and casualties. Those made their way up the chain, getting inflated to ensure the ratio of casualties and confirmed kills and probables was palatable to the commanders and politicians back in Saigon or D.C.But the after-action reports, the ones written by the soldiers in the fight, were the history of the battle, the basis for medal citations, the path of promotion. Those reports entered the official record. They became history. For Dean, they helped him contextualize and, eventually, accept what had happened. Friends saved him. Luck was on his side. But those reports, the act of writing down what happened kept him sane.By the time he was a detective in New York, he used reports to help him think, to sort through the mental clutter of the interviews, to reflect on truthfulness and logic. Sort the good from the bad.So when he rolled the paper into the typewriter, a sense of calm descended over him. Every press of the key and its hard slam against the paper and the appearance of the letter as it slid into view made, somehow, permanent the conversations. Brought them into history. Like all history, it was more perception of facts than objective context. Another thing he had learned in Vietnam, reading over dozens of his officers’ reports: History is one person’s context in time and place.And what he was getting from the interviews with Corey, Josh, Alex, and Sarah was exactly what he would have expected. Different emphases. Different interpretations. Different truths. One person’s truth did not falsify another’s. It might, but it might not.Five interviews essentially covering the same span of time the night Billy disappeared. Billy goes to work and then to the Shambles. Around eleven-thirty or so, Corey, Josh, and Billy leave, and Billy is not seen alive again. Except by the killer.What was particularly interesting were the different interpretations of what Billy was like. Some general remarks as to his kindness or being a great guy—not uncommon from those trying to not sully the memory of the dead. Then Billy’s attitude toward work. Did he or did he not like it? Was he or was he not being used by Sarah?Dean was inclined to believe Sarah regarding the jewelry. His friends had a wrong impression, but Corey’s wrong impression seemed genuine and Alex’s forced. He could not explain why, other than he felt that Alex was purposively leaving details out, and his hunch was Sarah and Alex had slept together at least. Perhaps during one of the breaks between Billy and Sarah. Perhaps not. It could even be more meaningful than a roll in the sack. But Alex had shown up shortly after Billy left the Shambles.And then Billy’s pile of cash, which was not from working hard at McCord’s every day. The Communist Manifesto still stumped him. Pile of cash and communism? How did those fit in. Something was going on, and Josh—just by how the interview went—seemed like the weak link.He twisted his chair around, opened a blank page in his notepad, and wrote down his next steps. Visit Paul Zorn. Follow up about McCord. Visit Sarah’s father. He tapped his pen against the paper. Bring in Josh to the station to talk. He put a question mark at the end of that last one.After stacking all the papers together and bouncing them on the desk to align the edges, he put them in a folder labeled interviews and stuck them in a larger, gray-green folder holding the autopsy report and crime scene photos. He slid the report into the bottom drawer of his desk, refilled his flask, and locked the desk drawer. He looked at his watch and saw it was after five, so he put on his coat and drove over to his parents. His mom met him at the door and said she and Jenny had had fun that day and had not eaten yet. Dean smiled and escorted his daughter to the car, where he suggested they get tacos at La Jolla restaurant, a place that had opened in the last year, and go seeSuperman, which he knew she wanted to see. She smiled and agreed. The tacos were disappointing, but the movie thrilled Dean. He told Jenny about The Adventures of Superman when he was young, how he would watch it every week. As he reflected on this conversation later, he sensed that Jenny was indulging her father by listening to his memories much as he indulged his own father’s.As they walked into Dean’s house, Jenny said she saw Uncle Tony earlier that day. Even she noticed the surprise look on his face. “He came over. He said he knew I was visiting and wanted to see me at least once.”Dean smiled and said that was great. Perhaps the thaw between Tony and Eric was indeed occurring.
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The Clearing - Chapter 16

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CHAPTER 16Dean’s plan had been to pick up Jenny and head home, making her a dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread and maybe a salad. He had a limited repertoire of cooking, but he could accomplish that.Instead, he stopped at the Shambles, which was empty except for an elderly couple drinking coffee in a booth and Joe Banks at his barstool. The evening crowd, such as it was on a weekday, was not due for another hour or so.Joe nodded and told the bartender something before Dean put his elbows on the bar and crossed his hands in front of his chest.“How’s it going Dean?” asked Joe.Dean nodded. “It’s all right.”The bartender, Gordon Vito, slapped a coaster down in front of Dean and then a bottle of Pabst. Dean looked up and Gordy pointed at Joe.To Joe, Dean said, “Thanks.”“Any time.”“How’s the case going?”“Actually, that’s why I’m here. Gordon, were you working the night of January second?”Gordon had been tending bar at the Shambles since after Korea where he had flown a Chickasaw helicopter, flying front-line medical missions, helping to pioneer the use of helicopters that would save so many lives in Vietnam. He kept his hair cut in the high-and-tight style, graying along the sides. “Yeah, I was here.”“Did you remember Billy and his friends? Guthrie’s report says you do.”Joe looked at Gordon.Gordon nodded. “If that’s what it says, then that’s what I said. Billy, Corey, and Josh. They were drinking.”Dean lifted his beer and held it as he asked, “Anything seem odd?” He took a drink.Joe put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and leaned over. “What’s with the questions of Gordy?”Dean pushed Joe’s hand off. “Just part of the job. Gordon, anything odd?”Gordon looked at Joe, shrugged, and looked at Dean. “Nope. Normal so far as I could tell. They talked and drank. The only odd thing was Alex showed up after they’d gone.”“He did, did he?”Gordon nodded once.“What time did he show up?”Gordon twisted his lips and looked up at the ceiling.Joe shook his finger. “It was after I left. ‘Cause I didn’t see Alex after. I didn’t. And I left right after the game. The Knicks lost.”Gordon gave a thumbs up to Joe. “He’s right. Alex showed up after Joe left and right after Billy, Corey, and Josh left, but not long. Before midnight that’s for sure.”Dean took a drink and gazed up at the mirror above the bottles behind Gordon.After a significant pause, Joe put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and quickly withdrew it. “That answer your questions?”Dean shook his head to clear his mind. “Yeah, I think so.” He looked at Gordon and cocked his head to the side. “One last thing. I know Sarah and William were an item, but you see anything between Sarah and Alex?”Gordon shrugged. He picked up a wet cocktail glass and wrapped a white towel around it, rubbing it dry. “I don’t know. Maybe? She was friendly with all of them. More so Billy, but yeah, I’d see Alex’s arm around her when Billy wasn’t around that I wouldn’t like if I were him.” He slid the glass into the slot hanging above the bar and grabbed another.Joe asked, “So what does that mean?”Dean took another drink. He smiled at Joe. “Not sure yet. Thanks for the beer.” He placed a dollar on the bar and walked out. As he drove to his parent’s to pick up Jenny, he replayed the discussion with Gordon in his head, trying to understand why Joe was so odd during it. He had not come to a satisfactory answer when he pulled into his parents’ driveway. When he opened the front door and walked a couple of steps in, the smells of cooking charged forth: Cherry pie, potatoes, and hot oil.Jenny ran up and hugged him and told him grandma was making dinner for all of them and a pie for dessert.Dean hugged his daughter back. “Did you have fun today, pumpkin?”She smiled and nodded vigorously. They had played board games and worked on a puzzle together—half completed on a living room card table.“What is that?” he asked.“Castle New-shwa something.”“Castle Neuschwanstein. The Walt Disney castle is based on it,” said Jessica, her voice coming from the kitchen. “Your father’s in the family room. Jenny, dear, why don’t you help me mash these potatoes?”Jenny said, “Coming,” and darted out of the room.Dean walked into the family room, where his father sat in his dark brown recliner. On the end table between the recliner and matching sofa sat a pipe cradle—cigars were reserved for work—with three pipes, all bent stems, along with a pack of pipe cleaners in a Ziploc bag, and a pipe lighter. The kitchen’s smells were defeated by the cherry tobacco. A cream and light red striped wallpaper put up many years before covered the walls. Dean had assisted in the process. The lamps were his mother’s touch. Light red, almost pink glass bases with cream light shades. Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated fanned out on the pine coffee table. The Zenith console TV was encased in a dark, reddish wood. Family photos sat in a mixture of gold and wood frames. One photo was of a younger Eric and Jessica in San Diego just after his father’s return home from Korea, where he had been stationed after Japan surrendered.“How’d it go?” asked Eric, looking up at Dean. He held a copy of The Shining, corners of the pages bent showing his progress through the book.“It was a day. We’ve got some context for what happened up to about eleven-thirty the night of his disappearance.” Dean updated his dad on what Renard had told him, including the passports, cash, and copies of communist paraphernalia.Eric re-fired his pipe tobacco and took a couple of heavy puffs. “Hmm. What’s next?”“We still need to talk to Josh and Alex. And I think we need to make a visit to Zorn.”Eric set the book down beside the pipe stand. Zorn and the chief had long known each other, indeed, had been rivals since high school. Zorn joined the Navy and saw action supporting MacArthur’s drive through the south Pacific to the Philippines. After the war, he founded the Grim Devils motorcycle club, which he had run since. To most people, Zorn ran a trucking company most notable for hauling Adamson’s furniture south to New York and served as president of a club of war veterans. The Wallaces, however, knew better. The Grim Devils were an integral part of illegal drug distribution in Zion. For years, Eric had attempted to get enough evidence to prove it but had failed. “What the hell does he have to do with this?”“William’s cash. I can’t think of a legitimate reason to have that much. Nothing we’ve found yet at least. The obvious answer is its drugs, and we know where Zorn is with that. Just want to cover all the bases.”The chief grunted. “What about that commie—”Jenny jogged into the family room. “Dinner’s ready.” She smiled.“What’d I tell you about running in the house?” said Eric as he wrapped his hands around the recliner’s armrests, lifting himself up.“Sorry grandpa.”“Don’t be sorry. Do what I asked.”Jenny nodded and looked at her father, he shrugged, though Eric could not see that.The chief paused by Dean as he was standing. “You got to talk to the reporter.”“Paige?”“Yeah, but I don’t care what her name is. If the paper sends over a reporter, you talk to her. I can’t have you getting the department on their bad side.”“I think—”Eric stared hard at Dean, running his tongue across the inside of his cheek and across his bottom lip. “This isn’t a debate.”After a plateful of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn casserole, Jenny excused herself from the table to work on the puzzle. Dean complimented the chef on the meal. She smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”Dean tapped the top of the table next to his plate and then pushed the fork around before setting it down. “I saw Tony today.”Eric’s eyes opened wide and he screwed his mouth sideways.Jessica smiled. “How’d he look?”“Good. He looked good. Didn’t have time to talk, though.”“Probably too busy dodging,” said his dad.“Eric.” Jessica was the one person who could scold the chief. Not even the mayor dared to. “He’s trying to make up for it.” She too had been disappointed by her son’s skills in avoiding the draft, but her sense of duty to country was less rigid than Eric’s. She accepted Tony’s job working for the FBI as his belated attempt to serve his country.“Let’s not talk about him. Not while there’s pie to eat.”“Pie sounds good,” said Dean.After, the two men sat at the table, coffee cups in front of them, crumbs of pie on the plate. Eric said, “Keep working this case hard. Like you been doing. The drug angle could be right. Just don’t press Zorn too hard. He’s tough.”“I will. I did follow up with Gordon.”“Gordie at the Shambles?”“Yes. He said Alex came in after the others left. About midnight.”“Hmmph. Be careful with that one.”Dean pulled out his flask, twisted it open, and started to pour a shot into the coffee.Eric put his hand over Dean’s coffee cup. “Don’t do that son. You’re driving that angel home.” He pointed to the room from which the combined laughter of Jessica and Jenny emerged.Dean looked at his dad, tried not to glare, but put the cap back on. “I plan on finding out who did this to Billy. I’ll follow the evidence.”
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The Clearing - Chapter 15

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CHAPTER 15Over burgers and fries at Burger Palace at the edge of town heading west, Dean and Guthrie reviewed their interview with Sarah.“What do you think?” asked Dean before dragging two crinkle-cut fries through a dollop of ketchup in a small plastic cup.Guthrie shrugged. “Now Billy’s buying back pawned jewelry. Seven hundred worth. I don’t know where he’s getting his money.” He scratched his cheek with the backside of his thumb. “But she seemed to care for him. Young love and all.”Dean let half a smile cross his face before dropping it. “Something’s bothering me. She protested about Alex too much. Too quick to call him an asshole. The photo on the bookshelf—well—it was off. I don’t know. But you’re right. Where’s this money coming from?”“The way I see it, we’ve got more motives now.” Guthrie raised his index finger. “He’s doing something illegal to get the money.Taking it from Charlie maybe. He’s crossed somebody. Bam.” He raised his middle finger alongside his index finger. “There’s also something going on in that circle of friends. Seems you’re implying an affair. Perhaps Alex and Billy had it out and Billy came up short.” He lifted a third finger. “You keep bringing up his politics. Maybe someone didn’t like them.”Dean nodded. They finished their lunches, paid the waitress, and went back to the station. He had just taken off his coat, sat down, and slid a standard interview form into his typewriter when the phone rang. He picked it up to hear, “Bonjour, this is Lieutenant Renard Desplains of Sûreté du Québec.”“Renard, yes, this is Dean.”“Oui. So I’m calling about this case you, uh, called about yesterday. Something about a murder case, oui?”“Yes. A young man, Billy Nimitz was murdered, and we think the killer might have come or went to or both from Canada. The scene was a half mile from the border.”“Oui. Usually your FBI handles these so I recommended them and that was that. I was not expecting to, ah, hear anything but it seems we do have something. Eh?”“What’ve you got?”“We got a call a yesterday ago. A man was shot and killed in a flat in Montreal. He had, ah, a collection of passports and cash. Seems he was going back and forth across the border.”“Okay, and where’s the connection.”“Ah, oui, the connection is he had several passports for this William Nimitz. Among many others, but him. I thought I recognized the name.”“What do you mean several?”“Un moment.” Renard set the phone down and grabbed a folder, which he opened, flipped a few pages, and found what he wanted. He picked up the phone and held it against his ear with his shoulder. “We found four total. One Canadian, one French, one Spanish, and one Swiss.”“Why did he have them?”“I do not have that information yet.”“Can I see these?”“Oui. You can come up and look at the case file, if you would like.”“Very much.”Dean hung up the phone and walked to Guthrie’s desk. He told him Josh would have to wait until tomorrow. Instead, he told Guthrie to drive to Plattsburgh and verify Sarah’s story about the necklace and bracelet. “Take a picture of both of them and show it to the clerks. Leave copies if you have to. I want to know that the real Sarah and William were there.”* * *With the traffic, it took almost two hours to get to the Sûreté du Québec’s station in Montreal. Despite the relatively short distance between Zion and Montreal, Dean had rarely ventured there. The big metropolis felt like a foreign country with so much in French.The headquarters was a fourteen-story T-shaped building, just across the St. Lawrence Seaway on rue Parthenais. Dean parked in the visitor’s parking lot and walked through the glass door main entrance and into the wide, sunlit lobby. At the main desk, he asked a uniformed officer where to find Renard Desplains. She looked up his name and directed Dean to the third floor.The elevator dinged open, and he and a couple of other officers stepped onto the third floor, its light brown carpet and beige walls drove home the institutional feel. A string of like desks—silver legs and dark brown tops—stood in two rows down a lengthy part of the building. Dean paused and looked around, confused. A man spun in his chair next to him. “Puis-je vous aider?” But he said it so fast, Dean was not able to even begin to understand what he said. The man asked again: “Puis-je vous aider?”Dean nodded and said, “Renard Desplains?”The man squinted at him. “Pourquois?”Dean reached into his sport coat inside pocket and pulled out his Zion Police badge. The man looked it over and pointed in the direction Dean had been walking. He rattled off a couple of sentences that Dean could not comprehend. When the man had finished, Dean had the good sense to say, “Merci,” and walk in what he believed to be the direction the officer had given him.The place hummed with activity. People talking, phones ringing, walking to and from. It all reminded him of his days in the NYPD and that itch for that buzz crept into him. He had loved being an NYPD officer and then detective.He reached the end of the desks and at a set of offices divided by a narrow hall. He walked down it, looking at the name plates, and passed a turn. When none of the rest had Renard’s name, he went back to the turn and walked down it. On the fifth one down, he found Lieutenant Renard Desplains. The door was slightly ajar, so he knocked.“Entrez.”Dean pushed on the door until it was fully open. The space was small and had no exterior windows and thus bathed in the bluish fluorescent light. A small desk that matched the ones in the open area, two chairs with a leather seat in front of that, and a short bookshelf with binders. A small green cactus sat on top of the shelf alongside a photograph of Renard and a young woman. On the wall, a certificate of some sort in French, an official portrait of Renard in dress uniform, and a photograph of Renard, the same young woman, and an woman nearer Renard’s age, which seemed to be in the mid-fifties.Renard stood up, setting his black-framed reading glasses on the papers in front of him on the desk. He had a full head of grey hair with wisps of the former dark brown color, a matching thick mustache that ended at the corners of the mouth, and a deeply lined face, the results of years of tireless work and gravity and time. He wore a pair of light red and yellow plaid slacks, a blue jacket, a light blue shirt with a long, thin collar, and a thick red tie loosened at the neck. “Bonjour, Detective.”Dean shook his hand. “Bonjour.”Renard gestured to Dean to sit and closed the door behind them. He then walked back to the desk, leaned down, and picked up a box, which he put on the desk close to Dean. “The case file and evidence. We processed everything, so ah, you can look at it.”Dean opened the box and found a manila folder, thick with papers.“May I offer you café?”“Yes, please.”Renard stepped out and closed the door behind him. Dean pulled out the folder and flipped it open. He looked at the blocks of French. No English translations. The evidence bag contained a variety of IDs, including passports, New York State driver’s licenses, and Quebec driver’s licenses. As Renard indicated, several of the passports were made out for William Nimitz. Several included his photograph and real name. Others had his photograph but listed him as William Conroy or William Sutton. The details of Billy’s birth were accurate as well. All indicated different places of birth that conformed with the country of the passport. All also had the exact same issue date: 1 December 1978. Just a few weeks before his death. Passports and IDs for Julie Clarendon and Stephen Valosz were also in the box. He did not recognize the people in those photos.Renard opened the door, set a cup of coffee in a paper cup in front of Dean, closed the door, and sat behind his desk, holding a steaming cup himself.“This Julie and Stephen,” said Dean.“Oui?”“Are they real people like my victim?”Renard shrugged. “The Mounties are not telling us anything. We had to fight to keep that evidence, though they could swipe it up.”“Why are the Mounties interested? I thought this was a murder case.”“Oui, it is. They have not told us why they are interested. But with passports and IDs, we think—I think—they are doing counterintelligence work.”“Spies?”“Perhaps. Or the Quebecois. But, ah, the FLQ is long gone.” Noticing the puzzled look on Dean’s face, Renard continued, “The Front de libération du Québec. The October Crisis?” Still not seeing recognition pass across Dean’s face, he clarified more. “The kidnapping of James Cross and the murder of Pierre Laporte. These happened in 1970.”“Sorry, Renard. I don’t remember. I was still in New York at the time trying to be a good cop.”“Trying?”“Um, working at doing a good job.”“Ah. Oui. New York City?”“Yes. I was an officer and detective there.”“And now in Zion?”“Yes.” Dean saw that Renard wanted more of an explanation, but he ignored it. “My apologies, I don’t read French.”Renard said, “Bien sûr.” He gestured for the report.Dean handed it to him.Renard flipped it open and pulled out the photographs, which he handed to Dean.The first showed a man, dressed in light blue pajamas sitting in a chair, his head slumped forward, but his body held in place by duct tape wrapped around his chest, wrists, and ankles. Blood down the front of his pajamas and pooled at the base of the chair. Another photo of blood splatter on the wall behind the chair.Renard licked his thumb and flipped a page. “The victim is Marcel Lorrain. Aged fifty. Former FLQ member. Ah, see? Eh? Neighbor reported the gun shot. Found Monsieur Lorrain twenty minutes later. The passports and IDs were found in his closet. Witnesses recall a light tan or white or yellow sedan or sports car leaving the scene around the time the gun shot was reported. Eh?” He shrugged. “The Mounties showed up the day after. Since then, it is their case.”“You said cash was in the closet as well.”“Oui.” Renard flipped more pages. Licked his thumb. Flipped more. “Here. Passports. IDs. Cash in American dollars and Canadian dollars. American was fifty thousand. Canadian was thirty thousand. And copies of The Communist Manifesto.”“What?”“American dollars was fifty thousand.”Dean waved his hand. “No not that. The Communist Manifesto?”“Oui. Found eighteen copies of it. There was other literature also. Pamphlets, ah, brochures. Some in French. Most in English.”Dean shook his head.“Is something wrong?” asked Renard, setting the folder down on his desk, open.“My vic had a load of cash and a copy of that book in his closet.”“Perhaps, he was a spy, oui?”
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