Patrick Kanouse's Blog, page 4
December 20, 2016
The Clearing - Chapter 14
Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 14January 10, 1979Dean and Guthrie met at the station. After confirming with the Adamson’s receptionist that Sarah had taken a personal day, the two of them drove back through town to the Ashbury Court Apartments. Three buildings with a red brick first story and Tudor Revival second story stood in a horseshoe pattern around a central parking lot. Four main entrances equidistantly spaced led to an open stairwell.They climbed to the second floor in the building anchoring the horseshoe. Clumps of snow had drifted into the entryways and found corners of shadow to hide. Guthrie knocked on the door. After what seemed like a long enough wait, Dean pounded three times on the door. They heard shuffling inside. The slip of the chain. The click of the deadbolt.In the half-open doorway, Sarah stood dressed in a long white robe. Her shoulder-length, black hair was parted in the center but strands stuck out at odd angles. Her nose was red and she held a tissue in her hand, crumpled and moist.“What?” she asked. Then she recognized Guthrie. “Oh. You’re the detective.”Guthrie nodded once.Sarah stepped back from the door, pulling it open to let the two of them in. The entryway led directly into the living room. A TV stood on a small stand. A coffee table sat between the TV and a tan couch with large dark brown throw pillows. A box of tissue and a mug with dark stains on the inside sat on the table. A checkered blanket of browns and tans was piled up on the couch. Beyond the living room, a small kitchen and a hallway leading to two closed doors. Bedroom and bathroom, Dean supposed. The room smelled of incense. Two sticks pointing at the ceiling in a small bowl sat on the coffee table. The pungent smell of marijuana lingered in the background.Sarah flopped down on the couch and pulled the blanket over her. “Here about Billy, right?”Dean stood across the coffee table from her. “That’s right. Can we make you some coffee?”She waved her hand in an I-don’t-care fashion.Dean nodded to Guthrie who walked to the kitchen. Dean looked at the TV stand, its antenna, and the wall behind it. A large picture of the moon and waves made with thread hung askew. A small framed photo stood on the only space on the TV stand—the TV had been shifted to the far right to offer the space. A palm tree and three teens stood near a beach. Dean picked it up.“That’s me and my two brothers.” Sarah blew her nose. She sounded as if she had been doing that most of the morning.Guthrie opened and closed the cabinet doors until he found the tin of coffee.“Where’s it taken at?” asked Dean.“San Juan.” She looked at him. “Puerto Rico. That’s where my brothers are now.”“How long have you known Billy?”“Since high school. Since we moved here.”“You been dating him the entire time?”“No. Off and on. Mostly off.”“Recently.”“On. We’d been dating for a year now. Our longest stretch ever.”“What caused the break ups?”She sighed and tucked her legs beneath her. “Many things. Nothing sometimes.”Dean pulled out his notepad and jotted a few notes. He tapped the pen on the metal spiral binder. “Did you see Billy the day he disappeared?”“No. I was working. He went out with Corey and Josh after. We talked. He called me from the bar. I saw him the day before. New Year’s Day.”Guthrie walked back in. “What’d you talk about?”“I don’t remember. Usual stuff probably.”“The last conversation you had with your boyfriend and you don’t remember?” Guthrie sat himself in the chair beside the couch.She glared at Guthrie. “I didn’t know it was going to be my last conversation with him.”The clicks and knocks of the water heating in the coffee maker came from the kitchen. Dean studied her. She was distraught. Over the years, he had come to understand that every person reacts differently to death and that reaction was not indicative of anything, but something about Sarah’s response troubled him. She seemed too distraught. He fought against his initial reaction, but he could not bury it.“What happened to Billy?” asked Sarah.“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Dean walked toward the sliding door that led to the back porch. “Can you tell us about him? What was he like?”“He was a great guy. He may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was a good guy and he had a lot of common sense. He loved baseball. He was pretty good himself.”“What position did he play?”“Second base mostly.”“Hmmm.”Sarah curled up her legs beneath her butt.Guthrie asked, “Anyone you know want to hurt Billy?”“No. No way. He was a nice guy. Nicest I ever met. I can’t think why anyone would hurt him.”Dean walked back around and stood in front of her, interlocking his fingers and dropping his hands. “We heard Billy and Alex hadn’t been getting along.”“Well, Alex is—. Alex is an asshole. Plain and simple. Spoiled rich kid thinks everything he does is gold. It’ll catch up with him some day.”“So they weren’t getting along?”“Billy didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t ask. But yeah, I get the sense he was upset about something. So it could’ve been with Alex.”The sounds of the coffee pot sputtering the last of its hot water into the grounds called Guthrie back to the kitchen. He opened cabinet doors looking for a mug.“Upset how?” Dean pulled his hand to behind his back. He walked over to the sliding patio door. The wood security rod was leaning upright against the frame. A small white bookshelf stood next to the door. A large plant with broad white and green leaves sat in the middle shelf. On the bottom shelf, Salem’s Lot, A Stranger in the Mirror,Chesapeake, and Eye of the Needle. The covers looked worn. On the top shelf, a photo of Sarah, Billy, Alex, Corey, and Josh. Where were the photos of her and her girlfriends? He stared at the photo.Sarah said, “I just knew. He seemed edgy somehow. Anxious.”“How long was this before he disappeared?”“Not sure. Maybe around Thanksgiving or so. He was worried about his parents or something. But I don’t know.”“Worried about them how?” asked Dean.“It’s all in my head probably. I mean, they didn’t like me.”“Why not?”Guthrie set a blue and white mug of coffee on the table, using John Travolta’s face on People Weekly magazine as a coaster.“Thanks.” She looked at the steam rising from the mug and left it on the table.Dean said, “Don’t thank him yet. It’s probably policeman’s coffee.”She let a smile flash across her face and then bit her lower lip.“Why didn’t they like you?”“Look at me. I’m a Puerto Rican girl in a town without a lot of us.”“What does that have to do with anything?”“They wanted Billy dating some nice Anglo-Saxon girl. Not me.”“They said something to you?”“No. No, not directly. It was how they acted around me. Always on pins and needles. And his mom, I would catch her sometimes glaring at me. I stopped visiting him at his home. I don’t need that.”“How’d Billy feel about this?” Guthrie picked lint off his pants.“Said I was overreacting.” She shrugged. “But what does he know?”“How was yours and Billy’s relationship recently?”“Good. Really good. We were on a good path.”“Like getting married?”“Yeah, I think that was in the future.”“And your parents?”“My dad was more—.” She bit her lower lip.Dean kneeled down. “What about your dad?”She let out a short breath. “Look, my dad is the Puerto Rican. My mom worked for the Navy for a while down at a base down there. At Roosevelt Roads Naval Station. Her parents got sick, so we moved up here. He thinks I should be dating a Puerto Rican. I know. Bullshit, right? And he definitely thinks I should be marrying someone whose parents at least are okay with my heritage. So he wasn’t particularly happy to have me dating and thinking about marrying Billy. But where am I going to find another Puerto Rican around here? And who the hell is he to talk?” She held out her hand to emphasize the point.Guthrie gave her a sympathetic shrug.Dean said, “I don’t see any photos around here of you with any girlfriends.”“So?”He frowned and looked around. “Just unusual is all.”She shifted her feet beneath her. “I wasn’t too popular in school. So I don’t have any, really.” She sighed. “I got into fights a lot. That’s how Billy and I met. He jumped in one day to break up a fight between me and Tracy. Bitch.” She shook her head. “And Billy and his friends became like my posse. They’d protect me.”“What about Corey and Josh?”“What about them?”“What was your relationship like with them?”“Those four are thick as thieves, and I was allowed into their space. They’d protect me. But I was always Billy’s girl.”“Corey says you were after Billy’s money.” Dean lifted the photo of Sarah and her posse. They were out at the Lance Field, where the Panthers played football, the large, unlit scoreboard serving as the backdrop. The balance was off. Off beyond the testosterone-heavy image. The boys were in front, kneeling or crouching down. Sarah was directly behind Billy. Her right hand was on his shoulder. Her left hand was on Alex’s back, just at the neck.“Billy and money? He didn’t have any money.”“Did Billy buy you stuff?”“Occasionally, yeah.”“A necklace and a bracelet, recently?”Sarah shook her head. “Corey proves again he doesn’t know anything. Anything at all. Yes, Billy gave me those. But.” She looked to the side and shook her head. She grabbed a kleenex and touched the corners of her eyes. “I’m not sure how to say this.”“Usually it’s easiest just to say it,” said Dean.“My mom got sick last year. Money was tight. So I pawned a bracelet and necklace last summer. They belonged to my grandmother—on my dad’s side. I didn’t tell dad about it. He’d kill me. Just gave him the money and told him it was from my savings. But it tore me up. Those had been in the family for three or four generations. Billy bought them back.”“With what money?”“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I was so happy to have them back.”“You didn’t ask?” asked Guthrie. “Come on. You ain’t stupid. You had to wonder.”“I did wonder, but I didn’t ask. And he never told me.” She swung her feet to the floor.“Where did you think the money came from?”“I don’t know.” She bit her lower lip and looked at Dean, who raised his eyebrows. “Fine. I thought he was stealing from Charlie.”“Stealing from the register?”“Yeah, something like that.”Dean nodded.Guthrie twisted his lips. “Okay. Thanks. So how much did you pawn them for? And where?”“The bracelet I pawned for two hundred. The necklace for five. A place in Plattsburgh.”Dean asked for the name and address. He handed her his pen. She grabbed a copy of People magazine and wrote it down, tore off the corner where she wrote, and gave him the paper and pen. “Thanks. Where were you the night he disappeared?”“You think—” She cut herself off. “I was here. I did my usual and slept.”“Didn’t see Billy?”“No.”“What time did he call?”“I don’t know. It was late. Probably midnight maybe.”Dean stood up. “Thanks. We’ll check that against the phone records. How long did you two talk?”She shrugged. “A few minutes. Not much.”“Anyone who would want to hurt him?”“God no. No. He was a nice guy.”Dean pulled out the slip of envelope with “I love you” written on it, all still encased in plastic. “Yours?”She leaned over and looked at it. She raised her hand to her mouth and tears welled up. She nodded.Dean walked toward the front door. Guthrie stood up. “Thank you for your time and sorry for your loss.”She nodded.Dean opened the door. “What were Billy’s politics?”She looked at him confusedly. “He said he voted Ford in the last election. Pretty conservative really. But we didn’t talk about it much.”“Any reason why he’d have a copy of The Communist Manifesto in his possessions?”“What?” She looked down at the floor, back up at them, and back down. “No, not really. He wasn’t usually interested in that kind of stuff. Politics and whatnot. But—”Dean squinted at her. “But what?”
“When he called that night, after I told him I had to go to bed, he said something odd. I just thought he was drunk.” She paused and looked up at Dean, tears welling up along the outside edges of her eyes. “I only caught the first part. The rest of it sounded slurred. I thought he was drunk.” A tear from each eye hurtled down her cheeks. “‘Workers of the world.’ That’s what he said.”
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“When he called that night, after I told him I had to go to bed, he said something odd. I just thought he was drunk.” She paused and looked up at Dean, tears welling up along the outside edges of her eyes. “I only caught the first part. The rest of it sounded slurred. I thought he was drunk.” A tear from each eye hurtled down her cheeks. “‘Workers of the world.’ That’s what he said.”
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December 13, 2016
The Clearing - Chapter 13
Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 13Corey Bender worked at the Farmer’s General Store store at the east edge of town on Harrow Road. The building’s facade was corrugated sheet metal in alternating dark blue and forest green. The place had started out in the nineteenth century as a seed and general store. Since the 1950s, it had expanded—and built the current building—to sell fertilizer, work clothes, toys, lawn furniture, and many other items no longer used by the farmer for his crops or herd.A clerk filling candy bar boxes at checkout line three pointed the two detectives to the inventory room at the back of the store when asked about Corey. They followed the main open aisle toward sporting goods before turning left and finding the two large swinging doors that led to the inventory room from the lawn mower section. Jeremy eyed a Lawn-Boy push mower. “I need a new one.”“For mowing snow?”Jeremy laughed. “No. But they’re always better deals in the winter than in the spring, when you need them.”They walked through the double doors into a small warehouse. The back loading dock door was open, letting in the bitter January air. The driver of the truck was standing just inside the building, his hands shoved into his pockets.A man, a full head of silver hair, a large silver mustache, and large gold-rimmed glasses walked up. He wore the bright green polo shirt with Farmer’s General Store embroidered on the upper left chest. Below it the phrase, “More than seeds!” His name tag read “Joe,” and he smiled and lowered the clipboard to his side. “How can I help you?”“Detectives Dean Wallace and Jeremy Guthrie. We’d like to talk to Corey Bender.”Joe grunted. “He’s that away.” He pointed and fluttered his hand up and down toward the back of the inventory room. “He’s loading the new shipment on the shelves.” He walked away from the detectives and toward the truck’s open door, waving at the driver.They walked back in the direction Joe had indicated and found Corey jamming a pallet lift beneath a stack of boxes wrapped in plastic. Corey pumped the lift to raise the pallet up and then pulled back and pushed forward to maneuver the awkward stack from its narrow space. When he noticed the detectives, he stopped his effort and put his hand on the lift’s handle.Corey, the same age as Billy, was lanky but short. His dark brown hair fell over his ears and was parted slightly off center. It had a slight wave. He wore a thick, red turtleneck beneath a Farmer’s General Store blue and green vest. His blue jeans covered the tops of his steel-toed work boots. He had stuffed a green knit cap into his front pants pocket. He reached into his vest and pulled out a pack of Salems and lit one.“You okay to smoke when you’re not on break?” asked Jeremy.Corey waved his hand dismissively in the direction of Joe. “What can I help you fellows with?”Jeremy said, “You remember me?” He pulled out his badge and held it up for the kid to see.“Yeah, detective or something, right?”“Yeah. Guthrie. And this is Detective Wallace.” He stuffed the badge back into his inside coat pocket.Corey inhaled and let out a large bellow of smoke.“You heard?” asked Dean.“Yeah, I heard.” He let his cheeks bloom and slowly exhaled, a small stuttering sound.Dean knew he had lit the cigarette in an effort to control his emotions. He could see Corey’s eyes getting moist. “So you were with Billy the night his disappeared, right?”“Yeah. The Shambles.”Dean waited for Corey to add more color, but when he did not, he asked, “Just drinking and stuff?”“Usual night. We had a few beers. Called it. Left.”“Who?”“Me, Billy, and Josh.”“What time did you guys leave?”“We left around eleven-thirty. All three of us. Josh walked home. Billy and I got in our cars and drove away.”“That’s the last time you saw Billy?” asked Guthrie.“It is. I went home. Went to bed. Got up and came here.”“Anyone vouch for that?” asked Dean.Corey’s hand paused before he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. “No.” His eyes focused and looked and held Dean’s gaze. “No.”“Anything going on with Billy’s life we should know about?”Corey ran his hand through his bangs. “The usual, I guess.”“What does that mean?”“What do you think it means? People have shit going on in their lives.”With Corey’s tone turning hostile, Dean wondered if he had gone too quickly to the alibi question. So he smiled, hoping to re-inject some friendliness into the interview. “Pretend we’re stupid. What was going on with Billy?”“The dude was unhappy. He was living at home, hated his job, and had a whacked girlfriend. But he was stuck in this town.”“He didn’t want to live at home?”“Hell no. Who wants to live at home? But his mom insisted on it. Said she needed help. So he did it. And he didn’t like his job. No matter how much Charlie says he did. That guy pays as cheap as he can and screws them out of overtime. He needs to be arrested for something. It’s criminal what he pays his employees.”“And the girlfriend?”“Ah, man. She was just using him. Using him for his money but mocking him for living at home. Dude couldn’t win. He’d buy her something, and she’d want something nicer. Like for Christmas, he bought her a diamond necklace. I don’t know how much he paid, but those were some stones. But the month before, he’d bought her a bracelet with a bunch of stones. Sarah was like happy for a day and then started demanding more.”“Did you hear her demand more?”“Nah. We didn’t hang out with her. Billy knew we weren’t keen on her, and, well, she would’ve been the only girl with us drinking. Not what we wanted.”“How do you know she was demanding stuff all the time if you didn’t hang out with her?”Corey scratched the back of his neck and then took a long drag. “You could just tell. And he’d like talk about her, so we knew he was buying her stuff. And Alex knew. He’d tell me and Josh all the time about how bad Sarah was.”“If McCord’s pays cheap, how’d Billy afford these diamond necklaces and bracelets?”“I wondered that myself. I don’t know.”“He sell drugs or something?” asked Guthrie.Corey snorted. “No. If you knew Billy, you’d know that’s ridiculous. The guy was like a saint. No he didn’t sell drugs. Maybe he saved well or something.”“What do you mean by ‘like a saint’?”Corey dropped the cigarette and crushed it with his shoe. “I don’t know. I mean, the guy was an upstanding guy. He’d go over the speed limit a little. He’d help old ladies cross the street. Boy Scout stuff. He just wouldn’t be part of something illegal like that.” He bent down and picked up the crushed filter.Dean had personally witnessed a paid killer for the mob help an elderly woman across the street in Manhattan. Boy Scout stuff there too. “Where was Alex the night Billy and you guys went to the Shambles?” asked Dean.Corey shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Man, Billy and Alex got into it after Thanksgiving. Something about Sarah. I don’t know the details. I felt like we were being made to choose sides.”“Between Billy and Alex?” asked Dean.“Yeah. Alex can be a jerk, so I’m fine hanging out with Billy. But they were arguing—Alex and Billy—about Sarah. I didn’t want to get mixed up in it. No way.”Dean turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. Joe was walking toward them.Corey looked back and forth between the two detectives. “My boss is getting antsy. Can I get back to work?”The truck pulled away from the loading dock, roaring in low gear as the driver gave it gas.“Sure,” said Dean. “If you think of anything else, anything at all, call us.”Joe stopped about ten feet behind them. “About done? I need to get these boxes put away.” He sniffed the air and looked at the detectives. “You’re not supposed to be smoking in here,” he said to them.Guthrie frowned a sorry and then he and Dean parted like the Red Sea and let Corey walk between them, dragging the palette lift toward a row of shelves with more pallets of boxes wrapped in plastic.“What do you think?” asked Guthrie, scratching the back of his neck.Dean made a sucking sounds between his lips. He looked at his watch, it was close to three. “Let’s get back to the station and write up our reports. Tomorrow morning we talk to Sarah Esposito.”* * *Dean picked Jenny up from his parents. A day of puzzles and crochet, which Jessica was intent on teaching her. Before they went home, they stopped at an ice rink the city set up just a block from downtown. Dean pulled out his hockey skates for the first time that season, got his skating legs beneath him, and joined the dozen people on the ice. Jenny liked to twirl, and they raced a few times. She seemed happy and oblivious to the murder and drugs her father had been investigating just a few hours earlier.At home, he made them TV dinners. He despised the things, except for the overcooked mashed potato edges, but he could not argue their efficiency. A bit of television, and she was off to bed to read until she fell asleep.He poured himself a tumbler of whiskey and sat down to watch the evening local news when the phone rang. He jumped up and got it just as the second ring was ending. “Hello?”“Dean?”“Yes.” A heartbeat before he recognized the voice. “Tony?”“Hey brother. Am I bothering you? I know it’s late.”“No. No. Jenny just went to bed, and I was going to catch up on the news.” His brother had not called him in months. They hardly spoke at all, though it was not because of any animosity. Just living their lives.“Good. Good. Look, uh, I—” Tony paused on the line.Dean let him gather his words.Tony continued, “I just didn’t want you to think I was rude this afternoon. At lunch.”“Huh?”“When we saw each other and I was in and out. Didn’t sit with you.”“Oh. That.” Dean had forgotten about the encounter. “Think nothing of it. I wasn’t offended.”“Good.”A pause. Neither knew how to proceed. They could talk about what had been going on in their lives, but they knew each would gloss over the details and offer generic statements. But to not ask seemed un-brotherly. So, instead, a pause. A pause Dean broke. “Hey, actually, I’m glad you called. I had a question for you.” He gave his brother a quick summary of Billy’s murder without using names and told him of his call with Renard, and particularly the Canadian detective’s query about talking to the FBI.Tony said, “Well, he’s probably being thorough. The FBI would be involved if the crime crossed into Canada, though, frankly, we usually leave that to local law enforcement to coordinate with the Canadians. Maybe The Communist Manifesto prompted it. We do conduct counterintelligence. I can’t think of any other reason why he’d say that. You’re victim doesn’t seem the spy type.”Dean scratched his chin. “He doesn’t. Just a young kid working in an auto shop.”“There you have it.”They exchanged a few more pleasantries and hung up.
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CHAPTER 13Corey Bender worked at the Farmer’s General Store store at the east edge of town on Harrow Road. The building’s facade was corrugated sheet metal in alternating dark blue and forest green. The place had started out in the nineteenth century as a seed and general store. Since the 1950s, it had expanded—and built the current building—to sell fertilizer, work clothes, toys, lawn furniture, and many other items no longer used by the farmer for his crops or herd.A clerk filling candy bar boxes at checkout line three pointed the two detectives to the inventory room at the back of the store when asked about Corey. They followed the main open aisle toward sporting goods before turning left and finding the two large swinging doors that led to the inventory room from the lawn mower section. Jeremy eyed a Lawn-Boy push mower. “I need a new one.”“For mowing snow?”Jeremy laughed. “No. But they’re always better deals in the winter than in the spring, when you need them.”They walked through the double doors into a small warehouse. The back loading dock door was open, letting in the bitter January air. The driver of the truck was standing just inside the building, his hands shoved into his pockets.A man, a full head of silver hair, a large silver mustache, and large gold-rimmed glasses walked up. He wore the bright green polo shirt with Farmer’s General Store embroidered on the upper left chest. Below it the phrase, “More than seeds!” His name tag read “Joe,” and he smiled and lowered the clipboard to his side. “How can I help you?”“Detectives Dean Wallace and Jeremy Guthrie. We’d like to talk to Corey Bender.”Joe grunted. “He’s that away.” He pointed and fluttered his hand up and down toward the back of the inventory room. “He’s loading the new shipment on the shelves.” He walked away from the detectives and toward the truck’s open door, waving at the driver.They walked back in the direction Joe had indicated and found Corey jamming a pallet lift beneath a stack of boxes wrapped in plastic. Corey pumped the lift to raise the pallet up and then pulled back and pushed forward to maneuver the awkward stack from its narrow space. When he noticed the detectives, he stopped his effort and put his hand on the lift’s handle.Corey, the same age as Billy, was lanky but short. His dark brown hair fell over his ears and was parted slightly off center. It had a slight wave. He wore a thick, red turtleneck beneath a Farmer’s General Store blue and green vest. His blue jeans covered the tops of his steel-toed work boots. He had stuffed a green knit cap into his front pants pocket. He reached into his vest and pulled out a pack of Salems and lit one.“You okay to smoke when you’re not on break?” asked Jeremy.Corey waved his hand dismissively in the direction of Joe. “What can I help you fellows with?”Jeremy said, “You remember me?” He pulled out his badge and held it up for the kid to see.“Yeah, detective or something, right?”“Yeah. Guthrie. And this is Detective Wallace.” He stuffed the badge back into his inside coat pocket.Corey inhaled and let out a large bellow of smoke.“You heard?” asked Dean.“Yeah, I heard.” He let his cheeks bloom and slowly exhaled, a small stuttering sound.Dean knew he had lit the cigarette in an effort to control his emotions. He could see Corey’s eyes getting moist. “So you were with Billy the night his disappeared, right?”“Yeah. The Shambles.”Dean waited for Corey to add more color, but when he did not, he asked, “Just drinking and stuff?”“Usual night. We had a few beers. Called it. Left.”“Who?”“Me, Billy, and Josh.”“What time did you guys leave?”“We left around eleven-thirty. All three of us. Josh walked home. Billy and I got in our cars and drove away.”“That’s the last time you saw Billy?” asked Guthrie.“It is. I went home. Went to bed. Got up and came here.”“Anyone vouch for that?” asked Dean.Corey’s hand paused before he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. “No.” His eyes focused and looked and held Dean’s gaze. “No.”“Anything going on with Billy’s life we should know about?”Corey ran his hand through his bangs. “The usual, I guess.”“What does that mean?”“What do you think it means? People have shit going on in their lives.”With Corey’s tone turning hostile, Dean wondered if he had gone too quickly to the alibi question. So he smiled, hoping to re-inject some friendliness into the interview. “Pretend we’re stupid. What was going on with Billy?”“The dude was unhappy. He was living at home, hated his job, and had a whacked girlfriend. But he was stuck in this town.”“He didn’t want to live at home?”“Hell no. Who wants to live at home? But his mom insisted on it. Said she needed help. So he did it. And he didn’t like his job. No matter how much Charlie says he did. That guy pays as cheap as he can and screws them out of overtime. He needs to be arrested for something. It’s criminal what he pays his employees.”“And the girlfriend?”“Ah, man. She was just using him. Using him for his money but mocking him for living at home. Dude couldn’t win. He’d buy her something, and she’d want something nicer. Like for Christmas, he bought her a diamond necklace. I don’t know how much he paid, but those were some stones. But the month before, he’d bought her a bracelet with a bunch of stones. Sarah was like happy for a day and then started demanding more.”“Did you hear her demand more?”“Nah. We didn’t hang out with her. Billy knew we weren’t keen on her, and, well, she would’ve been the only girl with us drinking. Not what we wanted.”“How do you know she was demanding stuff all the time if you didn’t hang out with her?”Corey scratched the back of his neck and then took a long drag. “You could just tell. And he’d like talk about her, so we knew he was buying her stuff. And Alex knew. He’d tell me and Josh all the time about how bad Sarah was.”“If McCord’s pays cheap, how’d Billy afford these diamond necklaces and bracelets?”“I wondered that myself. I don’t know.”“He sell drugs or something?” asked Guthrie.Corey snorted. “No. If you knew Billy, you’d know that’s ridiculous. The guy was like a saint. No he didn’t sell drugs. Maybe he saved well or something.”“What do you mean by ‘like a saint’?”Corey dropped the cigarette and crushed it with his shoe. “I don’t know. I mean, the guy was an upstanding guy. He’d go over the speed limit a little. He’d help old ladies cross the street. Boy Scout stuff. He just wouldn’t be part of something illegal like that.” He bent down and picked up the crushed filter.Dean had personally witnessed a paid killer for the mob help an elderly woman across the street in Manhattan. Boy Scout stuff there too. “Where was Alex the night Billy and you guys went to the Shambles?” asked Dean.Corey shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Man, Billy and Alex got into it after Thanksgiving. Something about Sarah. I don’t know the details. I felt like we were being made to choose sides.”“Between Billy and Alex?” asked Dean.“Yeah. Alex can be a jerk, so I’m fine hanging out with Billy. But they were arguing—Alex and Billy—about Sarah. I didn’t want to get mixed up in it. No way.”Dean turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. Joe was walking toward them.Corey looked back and forth between the two detectives. “My boss is getting antsy. Can I get back to work?”The truck pulled away from the loading dock, roaring in low gear as the driver gave it gas.“Sure,” said Dean. “If you think of anything else, anything at all, call us.”Joe stopped about ten feet behind them. “About done? I need to get these boxes put away.” He sniffed the air and looked at the detectives. “You’re not supposed to be smoking in here,” he said to them.Guthrie frowned a sorry and then he and Dean parted like the Red Sea and let Corey walk between them, dragging the palette lift toward a row of shelves with more pallets of boxes wrapped in plastic.“What do you think?” asked Guthrie, scratching the back of his neck.Dean made a sucking sounds between his lips. He looked at his watch, it was close to three. “Let’s get back to the station and write up our reports. Tomorrow morning we talk to Sarah Esposito.”* * *Dean picked Jenny up from his parents. A day of puzzles and crochet, which Jessica was intent on teaching her. Before they went home, they stopped at an ice rink the city set up just a block from downtown. Dean pulled out his hockey skates for the first time that season, got his skating legs beneath him, and joined the dozen people on the ice. Jenny liked to twirl, and they raced a few times. She seemed happy and oblivious to the murder and drugs her father had been investigating just a few hours earlier.At home, he made them TV dinners. He despised the things, except for the overcooked mashed potato edges, but he could not argue their efficiency. A bit of television, and she was off to bed to read until she fell asleep.He poured himself a tumbler of whiskey and sat down to watch the evening local news when the phone rang. He jumped up and got it just as the second ring was ending. “Hello?”“Dean?”“Yes.” A heartbeat before he recognized the voice. “Tony?”“Hey brother. Am I bothering you? I know it’s late.”“No. No. Jenny just went to bed, and I was going to catch up on the news.” His brother had not called him in months. They hardly spoke at all, though it was not because of any animosity. Just living their lives.“Good. Good. Look, uh, I—” Tony paused on the line.Dean let him gather his words.Tony continued, “I just didn’t want you to think I was rude this afternoon. At lunch.”“Huh?”“When we saw each other and I was in and out. Didn’t sit with you.”“Oh. That.” Dean had forgotten about the encounter. “Think nothing of it. I wasn’t offended.”“Good.”A pause. Neither knew how to proceed. They could talk about what had been going on in their lives, but they knew each would gloss over the details and offer generic statements. But to not ask seemed un-brotherly. So, instead, a pause. A pause Dean broke. “Hey, actually, I’m glad you called. I had a question for you.” He gave his brother a quick summary of Billy’s murder without using names and told him of his call with Renard, and particularly the Canadian detective’s query about talking to the FBI.Tony said, “Well, he’s probably being thorough. The FBI would be involved if the crime crossed into Canada, though, frankly, we usually leave that to local law enforcement to coordinate with the Canadians. Maybe The Communist Manifesto prompted it. We do conduct counterintelligence. I can’t think of any other reason why he’d say that. You’re victim doesn’t seem the spy type.”Dean scratched his chin. “He doesn’t. Just a young kid working in an auto shop.”“There you have it.”They exchanged a few more pleasantries and hung up.
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December 6, 2016
The Clearing - Chapter 12
Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 12Dean had Guthrie drive them to the Tracks Diner for lunch. The restaurant was beside the old freight-line railroad tracks. Guthrie asked him what the FBI line was about.“I haven’t a clue, other than we’re talking a border here, so maybe he thinks the FBI knows something. Or he heard ‘communist’ and assumes the FBI knows something. That’s a scratcher.”They stepped out of the car. Guthrie asked across the roof, “And what about the drugs question? You hadn’t mentioned that before.”Dean stuffed the keys into his pocket and shrugged. “Seems only natural, right? How many of the B and Es around here are ultimately drug related?” Breaking and entering. People smashing open a window or door and grabbing the valuables. Sometimes they turned violent if a person were at home, but most often just a violation of property.Guthrie shrugged. “I don’t know. A quarter? A third?”They walked across the poorly cleared parking lot to the restaurant, a small building on the edge of town. The restaurant was more a mobile home than a proper building. The poutine was the reason—at least in Dean’s opinion—that the Tracks had survived the arrival of McDonald’s.“I’d bet you it’s half.” Dean held the door open for Guthrie. “I mean, most crime when it comes down to it,” he continued as he followed to their table, “is about money or love. And drugs are a big part of the money factor. I want a hit, I don’t have money, so I hold up a gas station for it. I sell drugs. You do, too. I want more money. I kill you I sell drugs to your clients. I make more money. Stupid, simple shit.”The waitress put two plastic cups of water on the table. Dean asked for coffee and ordered the poutine. Guthrie chose the meatloaf sandwich and a Coke.They talked game plan over their coffee and Coke while waiting for the food. The diner was crowded, the noise of people talking, glasses and plates clanking and jingling, and the door opening and closing with a swoosh of wind were enough to make discussion challenging. They agreed they would talk to Billy’s friend Corey next. Guthrie asked why not interview Sarah, the girlfriend, first. Dean wanted to get to at least one of the friends, see what his opinion of the girlfriend was.The waitress set their plates in front of them and asked if they needed anything else. Guthrie tapped his Coke glass, which was two-thirds empty, and Dean shook his head. She turned and headed back to the counter.Dean stuck a fork into his poutine as Guthrie eyed him before dousing his meatloaf sandwich in ketchup. He set the ketchup bottle down. “I don’t know how you eat that stuff.”Dean smiled. “Like everyone else who eats it.”Guthrie frowned and shook his head.“I love it. As good as you can get in Quebec.” Dean watched Guthrie’s lips thin and almost say something before winking at him. Dean stuck a forkful of curds and fries into his mouth. After he finished chewing, he said, “I keep trying to figure out why Billy was out there, at the Pratt farm.”“Who knows.” Ketchup squirted out the backside of Guthrie’s sandwich. He looked down at his pants to ensure none fell there. “I mean, we’ve got to figure that out. But if you ask me, the stack of money. That’s the key.”“How so?” Dean thought it was key as well, but he wanted to hear what his partner came up with.“Frankly, seems like he got involved with some people he shouldn’t have. That’s where drugs make sense.”Dean leaned back and wiped his mouth with a white paper napkin. The door to the restaurant opened and in walked Tony, his younger brother.He looked around the restaurant, caught sight of Dean, smiled, and waved. He walked over and the two brothers embraced. The middle of the Wallace brothers still maintained his thin frame by running five miles daily—rain or shine. He wore a wool, gray peacoat and light blue jeans. A large gray scarf encased his neck and piled on his chest. He pulled off his Montreal Expos knit hat, revealing his full head of light brown hair.“Join us?” asked Dean. “This is Jeremy Guthrie, my partner.”Tony shook his head. “Nice to meet you.” They shook hands. Dean’s brother looked back at him. “Was in town for some supplies, but I need to get back. You should come by. We’ll share a beer.” Tony patted Dean on the back and walked up to the counter, where Steven handed over a styrofoam container. Tony left cash on the counter and walked out.Guthrie turned from the closing door back to Dean. “Can I ask you something?”“Is it about my brother?”“Yeah.” Guthrie grinned. “It is.”“I won’t stop you.”“What’s the deal with him? Your dad doesn’t have a photo of him in his office at all. Got yours and Nolan’s everywhere.”Dean picked up the last gravy-covered fry with his fork and jammed it into the last cheese curd. “There is one photo with Tony.” He paused before continuing, “Short or long answer?”“I always prefer the long.”“Hmmph.” He popped in the last bite and ordered two coffees, which he spiked with some whiskey from his flask. “You’ll have to ask him.”The truth was, Tony had used college and other deferments—actions not unique or special during those years—to avoid the draft and active duty in Vietnam while Dean, the rambunctious thorn in the family’s side, and Nolan, the youngest and favorite of Jessica, volunteered. Dean joined the Marines in an effort to impress his father and without much sense of purpose. Nolan joined out of a sense of duty. Dean still had the letter the youngest brother had sent him from Zion a few days before he officially joined. He read it on some blasted, forgotten, terrible hill. Read it between shouts of “Tubing” and huddling in captured NVA bunkers.Dean, I know you think I’m crazy for doing it. I know you’re counting the days until you can leave. I know this. But I can’t sit around here and do what Tony did or many of my friends are doing. I can’t ignore that my brother is over there fighting a war his country has asked him to fight while I sit here, drinking cold sodas, enjoying walking out in the world, while you walk in terror. I can’t not join. Duty calls.And Nolan did.“Seriously, man,” said Guthrie.Dean chuckled. “The old man has his reasons. Let’s say Tony didn’t land on the right side of the war.”Guthrie dug with his tongue into his teeth. “Fine. Does he live around here?”“He lives out down Route 22 toward Plattsburgh. He works for the FBI. One of their lawyers.” Dean slapped his forehead. “We had our FBI guy there. We could’ve asked him about what Renard said. I’ll call him up later.”Guthrie folded up his napkin and put it on his plate. “He can probably help, yeah. So why did you move back?”Dean squinted at him. The question was such a radical pivot from their conversation it held him up a bit. He did not like that Guthrie had asked it. “You know why I moved back.”“Only what they say on the streets. Is it true?”“Is what true?” Dean ground his teeth.“Did the guy get off? The one that killed those hookers?”He stood up and put a dollar on the table. He leaned in close, putting his hand on the back of Guthrie’s chair. “Then what you heard is probably true. Yeah, the shithead got away with it because I was too drunk to do anything right.”Guthrie looked at Dean’s arm on the chair and changed the subject. “So besides talking to people, do we need to do anything else with Billy?”“Yeah, we need to see who owned those pistols. The forty-five and the thirty-eight. Look up all the people we’re talking to and see if they have a gun license.”“Hold on.” Guthrie pulled out a notepad. “Let me write this down. Check gun licenses.”Dean tapped the table with is fingers. “While you’re writing it down, note we need to talk to Corey, Alex, Josh, Sarah, and probably Paul Zorn.”Guthrie sighed. “You think he’s the source of the drug money?”“Who better to talk to than Zorn?”Guthrie wrote it down and closed the notebook. “Let’s get going.”They picked up their checks from the table and walked to the register.“Detective Wallace.”Dean looked behind him to find her standing nearby, arms crossed. “Paige.”Guthrie turned back and looked at Paige as he handed his check to the waitress along with three dollars.She smiled at the both of them and focused back on Dean. “So you got anything for me?”He shrugged. “I’m a public servant. I can only afford my lunch.”“You know what I mean.”“I do.”The waitress handed Guthrie his change. Dean handed her his check and three dollars.“Come on. You’ve got to say something.”Dean smiled at the waitress. “Thank you.” He looked back at Paige. “Actually, I don’t.”The two detectives walked back into the cold January air. Cold despite the shining sun.
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CHAPTER 12Dean had Guthrie drive them to the Tracks Diner for lunch. The restaurant was beside the old freight-line railroad tracks. Guthrie asked him what the FBI line was about.“I haven’t a clue, other than we’re talking a border here, so maybe he thinks the FBI knows something. Or he heard ‘communist’ and assumes the FBI knows something. That’s a scratcher.”They stepped out of the car. Guthrie asked across the roof, “And what about the drugs question? You hadn’t mentioned that before.”Dean stuffed the keys into his pocket and shrugged. “Seems only natural, right? How many of the B and Es around here are ultimately drug related?” Breaking and entering. People smashing open a window or door and grabbing the valuables. Sometimes they turned violent if a person were at home, but most often just a violation of property.Guthrie shrugged. “I don’t know. A quarter? A third?”They walked across the poorly cleared parking lot to the restaurant, a small building on the edge of town. The restaurant was more a mobile home than a proper building. The poutine was the reason—at least in Dean’s opinion—that the Tracks had survived the arrival of McDonald’s.“I’d bet you it’s half.” Dean held the door open for Guthrie. “I mean, most crime when it comes down to it,” he continued as he followed to their table, “is about money or love. And drugs are a big part of the money factor. I want a hit, I don’t have money, so I hold up a gas station for it. I sell drugs. You do, too. I want more money. I kill you I sell drugs to your clients. I make more money. Stupid, simple shit.”The waitress put two plastic cups of water on the table. Dean asked for coffee and ordered the poutine. Guthrie chose the meatloaf sandwich and a Coke.They talked game plan over their coffee and Coke while waiting for the food. The diner was crowded, the noise of people talking, glasses and plates clanking and jingling, and the door opening and closing with a swoosh of wind were enough to make discussion challenging. They agreed they would talk to Billy’s friend Corey next. Guthrie asked why not interview Sarah, the girlfriend, first. Dean wanted to get to at least one of the friends, see what his opinion of the girlfriend was.The waitress set their plates in front of them and asked if they needed anything else. Guthrie tapped his Coke glass, which was two-thirds empty, and Dean shook his head. She turned and headed back to the counter.Dean stuck a fork into his poutine as Guthrie eyed him before dousing his meatloaf sandwich in ketchup. He set the ketchup bottle down. “I don’t know how you eat that stuff.”Dean smiled. “Like everyone else who eats it.”Guthrie frowned and shook his head.“I love it. As good as you can get in Quebec.” Dean watched Guthrie’s lips thin and almost say something before winking at him. Dean stuck a forkful of curds and fries into his mouth. After he finished chewing, he said, “I keep trying to figure out why Billy was out there, at the Pratt farm.”“Who knows.” Ketchup squirted out the backside of Guthrie’s sandwich. He looked down at his pants to ensure none fell there. “I mean, we’ve got to figure that out. But if you ask me, the stack of money. That’s the key.”“How so?” Dean thought it was key as well, but he wanted to hear what his partner came up with.“Frankly, seems like he got involved with some people he shouldn’t have. That’s where drugs make sense.”Dean leaned back and wiped his mouth with a white paper napkin. The door to the restaurant opened and in walked Tony, his younger brother.He looked around the restaurant, caught sight of Dean, smiled, and waved. He walked over and the two brothers embraced. The middle of the Wallace brothers still maintained his thin frame by running five miles daily—rain or shine. He wore a wool, gray peacoat and light blue jeans. A large gray scarf encased his neck and piled on his chest. He pulled off his Montreal Expos knit hat, revealing his full head of light brown hair.“Join us?” asked Dean. “This is Jeremy Guthrie, my partner.”Tony shook his head. “Nice to meet you.” They shook hands. Dean’s brother looked back at him. “Was in town for some supplies, but I need to get back. You should come by. We’ll share a beer.” Tony patted Dean on the back and walked up to the counter, where Steven handed over a styrofoam container. Tony left cash on the counter and walked out.Guthrie turned from the closing door back to Dean. “Can I ask you something?”“Is it about my brother?”“Yeah.” Guthrie grinned. “It is.”“I won’t stop you.”“What’s the deal with him? Your dad doesn’t have a photo of him in his office at all. Got yours and Nolan’s everywhere.”Dean picked up the last gravy-covered fry with his fork and jammed it into the last cheese curd. “There is one photo with Tony.” He paused before continuing, “Short or long answer?”“I always prefer the long.”“Hmmph.” He popped in the last bite and ordered two coffees, which he spiked with some whiskey from his flask. “You’ll have to ask him.”The truth was, Tony had used college and other deferments—actions not unique or special during those years—to avoid the draft and active duty in Vietnam while Dean, the rambunctious thorn in the family’s side, and Nolan, the youngest and favorite of Jessica, volunteered. Dean joined the Marines in an effort to impress his father and without much sense of purpose. Nolan joined out of a sense of duty. Dean still had the letter the youngest brother had sent him from Zion a few days before he officially joined. He read it on some blasted, forgotten, terrible hill. Read it between shouts of “Tubing” and huddling in captured NVA bunkers.Dean, I know you think I’m crazy for doing it. I know you’re counting the days until you can leave. I know this. But I can’t sit around here and do what Tony did or many of my friends are doing. I can’t ignore that my brother is over there fighting a war his country has asked him to fight while I sit here, drinking cold sodas, enjoying walking out in the world, while you walk in terror. I can’t not join. Duty calls.And Nolan did.“Seriously, man,” said Guthrie.Dean chuckled. “The old man has his reasons. Let’s say Tony didn’t land on the right side of the war.”Guthrie dug with his tongue into his teeth. “Fine. Does he live around here?”“He lives out down Route 22 toward Plattsburgh. He works for the FBI. One of their lawyers.” Dean slapped his forehead. “We had our FBI guy there. We could’ve asked him about what Renard said. I’ll call him up later.”Guthrie folded up his napkin and put it on his plate. “He can probably help, yeah. So why did you move back?”Dean squinted at him. The question was such a radical pivot from their conversation it held him up a bit. He did not like that Guthrie had asked it. “You know why I moved back.”“Only what they say on the streets. Is it true?”“Is what true?” Dean ground his teeth.“Did the guy get off? The one that killed those hookers?”He stood up and put a dollar on the table. He leaned in close, putting his hand on the back of Guthrie’s chair. “Then what you heard is probably true. Yeah, the shithead got away with it because I was too drunk to do anything right.”Guthrie looked at Dean’s arm on the chair and changed the subject. “So besides talking to people, do we need to do anything else with Billy?”“Yeah, we need to see who owned those pistols. The forty-five and the thirty-eight. Look up all the people we’re talking to and see if they have a gun license.”“Hold on.” Guthrie pulled out a notepad. “Let me write this down. Check gun licenses.”Dean tapped the table with is fingers. “While you’re writing it down, note we need to talk to Corey, Alex, Josh, Sarah, and probably Paul Zorn.”Guthrie sighed. “You think he’s the source of the drug money?”“Who better to talk to than Zorn?”Guthrie wrote it down and closed the notebook. “Let’s get going.”They picked up their checks from the table and walked to the register.“Detective Wallace.”Dean looked behind him to find her standing nearby, arms crossed. “Paige.”Guthrie turned back and looked at Paige as he handed his check to the waitress along with three dollars.She smiled at the both of them and focused back on Dean. “So you got anything for me?”He shrugged. “I’m a public servant. I can only afford my lunch.”“You know what I mean.”“I do.”The waitress handed Guthrie his change. Dean handed her his check and three dollars.“Come on. You’ve got to say something.”Dean smiled at the waitress. “Thank you.” He looked back at Paige. “Actually, I don’t.”The two detectives walked back into the cold January air. Cold despite the shining sun.
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November 29, 2016
The Clearing - Chapter 11
Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 11Beside his desk, Dean found Jeremy waiting for him. Dean nodded, grabbed his coat off the back of the chair, and pointed to the exit. Halfway toward the door, he patted his coat and realized his flask was still in his desk. He jogged back, slid open the bottom drawer and, with his back turned to the rest of the station, stuffed the half-full flask into his inside coat pocket.When he turned around, Etheridge was wrapping his coat around the back of his chair, a small styrofoam cup of coffee on the desk. Jeremy was standing beside Laura’s desk. As Dean walked back, Jeremy opened the door and stepped outside.Once in Dean’s car, Jeremy broke the silence. “So a homicide, eh?”“Yeah. Here’s the file.” Dean handed it to him. He started the car. “We’re still waiting on the Doc’s report. Should have it today.” A stream of cold air rushed out of the vents. Dean turned down the heater. “It’ll warm up fast.”Jeremy opened the folder. “Where we going first?”“Let’s start at McCord’s.”Dean pulled out of his parking space, crunching over the snow and gravel. He turned onto the square and kept on High Street for four blocks before turning onto Fox Street. Two blocks down, McCord’s Body Shop sat back from the street. A half-dozen cars sat in front of the body shop. The mayor had long tried to adjust the ordinances to prevent the unsightly view, but Charlie McCord found a rare ally in Joe Banks, whose own business was a similar eyesore.Dean parked the car in the lot. He left it running and looked over at Jeremy. “So you’ll need to look at the photos and evidence we collected at the site. You will probably want to go out there to see it for yourself today or tomorrow.”“Makes sense. What do we have that you can tell me?”“Right. Billy Nimitz walked into that clearing. We’re not sure from where. We haven’t found his car yet, and we’re not sure when he got there. Obviously, some time after he was last seen by his friends on the second. Somewhere along the way in the woods, he jacks his knee and ankle. Doc Cotton says there’s no way he was going to run. Painful to walk. So he leans against a tree. His knee’s probably throbbing.“Someone else comes into the clearing. Sees Billy. Puts a bullet in his head. Probably dropped the gun, but we need to wait on ballistics. Billy has a thirty-eight in his pocket. Was buried deep in it. Both the Doc and I missed it with all the coats and gloves. There’s a copy of The Communist Manifesto in his front coat pocket. When I check Billy’s closet at his parent’s house, I find a crap load of cash and a copy of The Communist Manifesto.”“He was a pinko?”“Probably best to leave it as, ‘We found a copy of the book.’”“How much cash?”“Nearly twenty thousand.”“Jesus.” Jeremey rubbed his chin.“So was he meeting someone out there?”“Or did he come across someone?” Dean turned off the ignition. “No way of knowing right now. That said, I don’t know why you’d go out there—no trails, nothing—unless you’re meeting someone, right?”“So he could’ve jacked his knee if he were running away.”Dean nodded. “Yeah, he could’ve. So let’s go with the probabilities: he was meeting someone. But is that the killer or just the reason he’s out in the woods?”“Meaning, maybe the killer was not there to kill Billy but whoever he was meeting?”Dean gave a thumbs up and opened the car door to a rush of cold air.They got out of the car and walked up to the front of McCord’s. Dean rubbing his gloved hands together while Jeremy stuffed his deep in his coat pockets and brought his shoulders in tight.The garage doors were closed, but through the grimy windows, Dean could make out two cars and shapes of people. The brick facade had been painted white years ago and not touched since. They walked into the front entrance—the bell hanging on the inside dinging—and the smell of auto grease and oil hit Dean immediately. The concrete floor was covered in a film of black grime accumulated over the years. A small counter with a cash register sat on the right. On the left stood a set of shelves with Pennzoil, Havolene, Castrol, and Marathon oil cans. A door behind the counter led to the garage.Jeremy pulled his hands out of his pockets and stood beside the counter. Dean stood close to the entrance door.Charlie McCord—former tight end for the Zion Panthers—ducked as he walked through the door. He wore a gray coverall with the dark blue McCord Body Shop logo embroidered on the left chest. Stray black hairs from his balding head fell down toward the back. Thick sideburns were peppered with more gray than black. He held a thick, short cigar at the side of his mouth, the leaf wet with his chewing on it. “Ah, this ‘bout Billy?” He wiped his hands on a grimy, red rag.Jeremy looked at Dean and when he realized Dean was not going to say anything said, “It is Charlie. Did you hear?”“I heard he was found out at the Pratt farm. That’s it. Sad to hear. What happened?” He set the cigar on the edge of the counter.“He was killed,” said Dean.Charlie’s eyebrows lifted and he took in a short breath. “God, that’s awful.” He pulled a stool, silver with a red vinyl seat, over and plopped heavily onto it.“It is. It is. And we’re doing some follow up now that we know it’s not a missing person’s case.”“Sure. Sure. How can I help?”“Tell me about Billy.”“Of course. Anything I can do. Billy was a good kid. He started working for me, um, let’s see, it’s probably been five years. Didn’t know a thing when he started. But we were training him. Getting him up to speed. He started as a helper, basically. Cleaning up. Grabbing parts and tools. Checking people in and out. Calling them. That kind of stuff. Over time, we got him changing oil, which we do for a few of the ladies in town, you know. He started to learn how to fix dents and rust. He painted his first car not too long before.” Charlie hung his head and shook it. “Damn. I liked that boy.” He looked back up at Dean, still shaking his head.Dean said, “How was he? I mean what was he like?”“Nice. Nice kid. If I had a daughter, I’d let her date him.”“Anything odd the day he disappeared? Or the weeks prior.”Charlie looked down at the counter, frowned, and shook his head. “No. Everything seemed normal. I didn’t talk to him much beyond work, mind you.”Dean grimaced and cocked his head to the side. “So when I talked to William’s parents last night, they said he’d never shown up to work.” He noticed the quick and focused glances between him and Guthrie.Charlie picked up the cigar. “I think they, um, well, have it wrong. He did show up. Late. But he showed. He showed.” He rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Yeah, I mean he was late.”“Okay. What time did he show up?”“Hold on.” Charlie held up a finger, stood up, and walked to the door that led to the garage. He opened it, leaned out and reached for something, his head and arm disappearing behind the wall.Dean raised his hand casually into his coat pocket, hand on his pistol, unsnapping the button strap in a singular, practiced motion.Charlie leaned back in, looking at a timecard in his hand. Dean dropped his hand.The former football player looked over the card, tapped it with his middle finger. “He came in around nine. Clocked out at five-thirty.”“Why was he late?”“I don’t know. I’m flexible, you see. My boys put in their hours, they get the work done.” He looked up. “I’m sorry if his folks got the wrong impression about him not being here. They were pretty upset though.”“Sure. I think they were.”Jeremy, who had been taking notes, asked, “What about his friends? You know them?”“Nah. I didn’t.”“Billy had a girlfriend, right?”“Yeah, he talked about her. I can’t remember her name. Susan. Sarah. Something like that.”“Sarah Esposito?”Charlie snapped his fingers and pointed at Jeremy. “That’s it.”“You know her?” asked Dean.“Nah. I seen her around town I guess. But I didn’t know her.”“Tell me about the day he went missing.”“Just a normal day. Except for that, of course. I got to the shop my normal time.”“Which is?”“Six. Always been an early riser.”“Sure.”“So I get here and start to open up shop. The guys start coming in normal time. Eight. I want them here at eight. Well, Billy’s as prompt as the rest of them, so when eight-thirty rolls around, I’m thinking he must be sick or something. So I called his home. He lived with his parents, you know?”Dean and Jeremy nodded.“Anyways, they tell me they hadn’t seen him since the day before.” Charlie stuffed the rag into his back pocket. “That’s the last I know. Well, like I said, he did show up. Left on time. That’s it. Then Jeremy here shows up with his questions.”“Were you guys working on anything before the holiday?” asked Dean. “Or did anything odd happen over the past few weeks?”“Nothing odd. No. Not that—no. Hold on.” Charlie reached down behind the counter and pulled out a battered metal box. He lifted the latch and started thumbing through a list of index cards. “I keep everything sorted here. Insurance, you know?”“Yeah, sure.”Charlie kept flipping. “Ah, here.” He pulled out an index card and gave it to Jeremy. “So this would have been that Friday before the weekend. The twenty-ninth. And the second, when we all got back. Mrs. Hendrickson’s car.” He reached over and tapped her name on the card Jeremy was holding. “She’d slid into a tree. Real light. She wasn’t going fast or anything. But she banged up her passenger door. We were fixing that.” He kept flipping. “And Mr. Davis. Chris. Yeah, he wanted to repaint his Corvette.”Everyone knew Chris Davis and his Corvette, a silver 1974 Stingray Coupe. Davis and his brother, Jack, ran the biggest law firm in Zion—anything from wills to injury lawsuits.“Nothing odd about those, though,” said Charlie. “I know you guys are wanting to find something odd, something that’ll give you an answer or a direction or whatever, but I ain’t got it here. Everything was normal. Absolutely normal.”“How much overtime did William work?” asked Dean.Charlie tilted his head and squinted. “None. None at all.”“None?”Charlie shook his head.Jeremy looked at Dean, who nodded toward the door. Jeremy said, “Thanks, Charlie.”“Sure. Sure thing.”Just as Jeremy was getting ready to step outside, Dean looked back at Charlie and asked, “Did Billy have any money issues you know of?”Charlie slid the stool back to its corner. “No, not that I know of.”“What about his political views? You guys ever discuss that?”Charlie looked at Dean, one eye squinting in confusion.“You know. Republican? Democrat?” Dean shrugged. “Socialist?”“I don’t know. We never talked about it.”“Thanks.” Dean walked out into the cold air, followed by Guthrie. They got into the car and started it. It was still warm enough to start cranking out warm air.“So what do you think?” asked Guthrie.Dean leaned back in the seat, the vinyl creaking. “We’ll see. Seemed pretty straightforward other than that he didn’t show up, he showed up late discrepancy. But I can see upset parents making that mistake.”His partner, Dean did not know what else to call Guthrie now, shook his head and tapped the pen he still held in his right hand on the dash.Dean smiled, sat upright, and put the car into gear. “Let’s talk to the Canadians.”* * *Dean sat at his desk, and Guthrie sat at his. Both were on there telephone, on the same line. Dean gave Guthrie a thumbs up and called Renard Desplains at the Sûreté du Québec. Renard, a longtime detective, also worked as the U.S.-liaison officer out of Montreal, a couple of hours north of Zion.“Bonjour ceci est lieutenant Renard Desplains de la Sûreté du Québec,” said the rough voice of the French-Canadian Renard.“Renard, this is Dean Wallace of Zion. In the States.”A short pause. “Ah, oui, oui.” Renard and Dean knew each other casually, having participated in several cross-border conferences, meetings, and an investigation since his return to Zion.“Look, I’m calling about a murder down here in Zion. I have my partner, Jeremy Guthrie on the line as well.”“A murder?” The distinctive ticking of a lighter.“Yep. One of Zion’s folks got themselves murdered. Thing is, it was really close to the border. Less than a mile. We think there were footprints leading to the border, but with the snow, wind, and some melting, it was at best a guess.”“How long ago?”“The person disappeared the day after New Year’s Day. The second. He was almost certainly killed that night. A William ‘Billy’ Nimitz. Aged twenty-five. I’ll send you a picture. He worked at an auto shop down here in Zion.”“I see. How can I help?”“Well, thing is, I found a lot of cash in his home, tucked away in the closet. Way more than what one earns at a body shop working normal hours.”Renard took in a long drag. “You think drugs?”“That’s a possibility, yeah.”“Oui, that would make sense.”“So I’m calling, to see if you know or can keep an eye out for anything close to the border down here near Zion.”Renard muttered something quickly in French, covered the mouthpiece, and then came back. “Désolé. I will. I will ask around, but it is a long shot, you know, eh?”“Yeah, yeah. What about drug trafficking?”“We have seen the normal. Heroin mostly between here and there.”“Anybody or groups specifically?”“The normal. You are aware of these, eh?”“Yeah, I think we’re on the same page there.”“Excellent.”“Hmmm.” Dean put a cigarette in his mouth. “The only thing I can’t figure is the copy of The Communist Manifesto with the cash.”“Pardon?” Renard covered the mouthpiece but less effectively this time. Someone was wanting to speak to him. “Désolé. What’s this?”“I found a copy of The Communist Manifesto with all the cash. And a copy of that book in his front coat pocket when we found the body.”“Oui, oui. Look, I must go. But have you spoken to the FBI? Ciao.”The line went dead.The FBI? What was Renard talking about?
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CHAPTER 11Beside his desk, Dean found Jeremy waiting for him. Dean nodded, grabbed his coat off the back of the chair, and pointed to the exit. Halfway toward the door, he patted his coat and realized his flask was still in his desk. He jogged back, slid open the bottom drawer and, with his back turned to the rest of the station, stuffed the half-full flask into his inside coat pocket.When he turned around, Etheridge was wrapping his coat around the back of his chair, a small styrofoam cup of coffee on the desk. Jeremy was standing beside Laura’s desk. As Dean walked back, Jeremy opened the door and stepped outside.Once in Dean’s car, Jeremy broke the silence. “So a homicide, eh?”“Yeah. Here’s the file.” Dean handed it to him. He started the car. “We’re still waiting on the Doc’s report. Should have it today.” A stream of cold air rushed out of the vents. Dean turned down the heater. “It’ll warm up fast.”Jeremy opened the folder. “Where we going first?”“Let’s start at McCord’s.”Dean pulled out of his parking space, crunching over the snow and gravel. He turned onto the square and kept on High Street for four blocks before turning onto Fox Street. Two blocks down, McCord’s Body Shop sat back from the street. A half-dozen cars sat in front of the body shop. The mayor had long tried to adjust the ordinances to prevent the unsightly view, but Charlie McCord found a rare ally in Joe Banks, whose own business was a similar eyesore.Dean parked the car in the lot. He left it running and looked over at Jeremy. “So you’ll need to look at the photos and evidence we collected at the site. You will probably want to go out there to see it for yourself today or tomorrow.”“Makes sense. What do we have that you can tell me?”“Right. Billy Nimitz walked into that clearing. We’re not sure from where. We haven’t found his car yet, and we’re not sure when he got there. Obviously, some time after he was last seen by his friends on the second. Somewhere along the way in the woods, he jacks his knee and ankle. Doc Cotton says there’s no way he was going to run. Painful to walk. So he leans against a tree. His knee’s probably throbbing.“Someone else comes into the clearing. Sees Billy. Puts a bullet in his head. Probably dropped the gun, but we need to wait on ballistics. Billy has a thirty-eight in his pocket. Was buried deep in it. Both the Doc and I missed it with all the coats and gloves. There’s a copy of The Communist Manifesto in his front coat pocket. When I check Billy’s closet at his parent’s house, I find a crap load of cash and a copy of The Communist Manifesto.”“He was a pinko?”“Probably best to leave it as, ‘We found a copy of the book.’”“How much cash?”“Nearly twenty thousand.”“Jesus.” Jeremey rubbed his chin.“So was he meeting someone out there?”“Or did he come across someone?” Dean turned off the ignition. “No way of knowing right now. That said, I don’t know why you’d go out there—no trails, nothing—unless you’re meeting someone, right?”“So he could’ve jacked his knee if he were running away.”Dean nodded. “Yeah, he could’ve. So let’s go with the probabilities: he was meeting someone. But is that the killer or just the reason he’s out in the woods?”“Meaning, maybe the killer was not there to kill Billy but whoever he was meeting?”Dean gave a thumbs up and opened the car door to a rush of cold air.They got out of the car and walked up to the front of McCord’s. Dean rubbing his gloved hands together while Jeremy stuffed his deep in his coat pockets and brought his shoulders in tight.The garage doors were closed, but through the grimy windows, Dean could make out two cars and shapes of people. The brick facade had been painted white years ago and not touched since. They walked into the front entrance—the bell hanging on the inside dinging—and the smell of auto grease and oil hit Dean immediately. The concrete floor was covered in a film of black grime accumulated over the years. A small counter with a cash register sat on the right. On the left stood a set of shelves with Pennzoil, Havolene, Castrol, and Marathon oil cans. A door behind the counter led to the garage.Jeremy pulled his hands out of his pockets and stood beside the counter. Dean stood close to the entrance door.Charlie McCord—former tight end for the Zion Panthers—ducked as he walked through the door. He wore a gray coverall with the dark blue McCord Body Shop logo embroidered on the left chest. Stray black hairs from his balding head fell down toward the back. Thick sideburns were peppered with more gray than black. He held a thick, short cigar at the side of his mouth, the leaf wet with his chewing on it. “Ah, this ‘bout Billy?” He wiped his hands on a grimy, red rag.Jeremy looked at Dean and when he realized Dean was not going to say anything said, “It is Charlie. Did you hear?”“I heard he was found out at the Pratt farm. That’s it. Sad to hear. What happened?” He set the cigar on the edge of the counter.“He was killed,” said Dean.Charlie’s eyebrows lifted and he took in a short breath. “God, that’s awful.” He pulled a stool, silver with a red vinyl seat, over and plopped heavily onto it.“It is. It is. And we’re doing some follow up now that we know it’s not a missing person’s case.”“Sure. Sure. How can I help?”“Tell me about Billy.”“Of course. Anything I can do. Billy was a good kid. He started working for me, um, let’s see, it’s probably been five years. Didn’t know a thing when he started. But we were training him. Getting him up to speed. He started as a helper, basically. Cleaning up. Grabbing parts and tools. Checking people in and out. Calling them. That kind of stuff. Over time, we got him changing oil, which we do for a few of the ladies in town, you know. He started to learn how to fix dents and rust. He painted his first car not too long before.” Charlie hung his head and shook it. “Damn. I liked that boy.” He looked back up at Dean, still shaking his head.Dean said, “How was he? I mean what was he like?”“Nice. Nice kid. If I had a daughter, I’d let her date him.”“Anything odd the day he disappeared? Or the weeks prior.”Charlie looked down at the counter, frowned, and shook his head. “No. Everything seemed normal. I didn’t talk to him much beyond work, mind you.”Dean grimaced and cocked his head to the side. “So when I talked to William’s parents last night, they said he’d never shown up to work.” He noticed the quick and focused glances between him and Guthrie.Charlie picked up the cigar. “I think they, um, well, have it wrong. He did show up. Late. But he showed. He showed.” He rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Yeah, I mean he was late.”“Okay. What time did he show up?”“Hold on.” Charlie held up a finger, stood up, and walked to the door that led to the garage. He opened it, leaned out and reached for something, his head and arm disappearing behind the wall.Dean raised his hand casually into his coat pocket, hand on his pistol, unsnapping the button strap in a singular, practiced motion.Charlie leaned back in, looking at a timecard in his hand. Dean dropped his hand.The former football player looked over the card, tapped it with his middle finger. “He came in around nine. Clocked out at five-thirty.”“Why was he late?”“I don’t know. I’m flexible, you see. My boys put in their hours, they get the work done.” He looked up. “I’m sorry if his folks got the wrong impression about him not being here. They were pretty upset though.”“Sure. I think they were.”Jeremy, who had been taking notes, asked, “What about his friends? You know them?”“Nah. I didn’t.”“Billy had a girlfriend, right?”“Yeah, he talked about her. I can’t remember her name. Susan. Sarah. Something like that.”“Sarah Esposito?”Charlie snapped his fingers and pointed at Jeremy. “That’s it.”“You know her?” asked Dean.“Nah. I seen her around town I guess. But I didn’t know her.”“Tell me about the day he went missing.”“Just a normal day. Except for that, of course. I got to the shop my normal time.”“Which is?”“Six. Always been an early riser.”“Sure.”“So I get here and start to open up shop. The guys start coming in normal time. Eight. I want them here at eight. Well, Billy’s as prompt as the rest of them, so when eight-thirty rolls around, I’m thinking he must be sick or something. So I called his home. He lived with his parents, you know?”Dean and Jeremy nodded.“Anyways, they tell me they hadn’t seen him since the day before.” Charlie stuffed the rag into his back pocket. “That’s the last I know. Well, like I said, he did show up. Left on time. That’s it. Then Jeremy here shows up with his questions.”“Were you guys working on anything before the holiday?” asked Dean. “Or did anything odd happen over the past few weeks?”“Nothing odd. No. Not that—no. Hold on.” Charlie reached down behind the counter and pulled out a battered metal box. He lifted the latch and started thumbing through a list of index cards. “I keep everything sorted here. Insurance, you know?”“Yeah, sure.”Charlie kept flipping. “Ah, here.” He pulled out an index card and gave it to Jeremy. “So this would have been that Friday before the weekend. The twenty-ninth. And the second, when we all got back. Mrs. Hendrickson’s car.” He reached over and tapped her name on the card Jeremy was holding. “She’d slid into a tree. Real light. She wasn’t going fast or anything. But she banged up her passenger door. We were fixing that.” He kept flipping. “And Mr. Davis. Chris. Yeah, he wanted to repaint his Corvette.”Everyone knew Chris Davis and his Corvette, a silver 1974 Stingray Coupe. Davis and his brother, Jack, ran the biggest law firm in Zion—anything from wills to injury lawsuits.“Nothing odd about those, though,” said Charlie. “I know you guys are wanting to find something odd, something that’ll give you an answer or a direction or whatever, but I ain’t got it here. Everything was normal. Absolutely normal.”“How much overtime did William work?” asked Dean.Charlie tilted his head and squinted. “None. None at all.”“None?”Charlie shook his head.Jeremy looked at Dean, who nodded toward the door. Jeremy said, “Thanks, Charlie.”“Sure. Sure thing.”Just as Jeremy was getting ready to step outside, Dean looked back at Charlie and asked, “Did Billy have any money issues you know of?”Charlie slid the stool back to its corner. “No, not that I know of.”“What about his political views? You guys ever discuss that?”Charlie looked at Dean, one eye squinting in confusion.“You know. Republican? Democrat?” Dean shrugged. “Socialist?”“I don’t know. We never talked about it.”“Thanks.” Dean walked out into the cold air, followed by Guthrie. They got into the car and started it. It was still warm enough to start cranking out warm air.“So what do you think?” asked Guthrie.Dean leaned back in the seat, the vinyl creaking. “We’ll see. Seemed pretty straightforward other than that he didn’t show up, he showed up late discrepancy. But I can see upset parents making that mistake.”His partner, Dean did not know what else to call Guthrie now, shook his head and tapped the pen he still held in his right hand on the dash.Dean smiled, sat upright, and put the car into gear. “Let’s talk to the Canadians.”* * *Dean sat at his desk, and Guthrie sat at his. Both were on there telephone, on the same line. Dean gave Guthrie a thumbs up and called Renard Desplains at the Sûreté du Québec. Renard, a longtime detective, also worked as the U.S.-liaison officer out of Montreal, a couple of hours north of Zion.“Bonjour ceci est lieutenant Renard Desplains de la Sûreté du Québec,” said the rough voice of the French-Canadian Renard.“Renard, this is Dean Wallace of Zion. In the States.”A short pause. “Ah, oui, oui.” Renard and Dean knew each other casually, having participated in several cross-border conferences, meetings, and an investigation since his return to Zion.“Look, I’m calling about a murder down here in Zion. I have my partner, Jeremy Guthrie on the line as well.”“A murder?” The distinctive ticking of a lighter.“Yep. One of Zion’s folks got themselves murdered. Thing is, it was really close to the border. Less than a mile. We think there were footprints leading to the border, but with the snow, wind, and some melting, it was at best a guess.”“How long ago?”“The person disappeared the day after New Year’s Day. The second. He was almost certainly killed that night. A William ‘Billy’ Nimitz. Aged twenty-five. I’ll send you a picture. He worked at an auto shop down here in Zion.”“I see. How can I help?”“Well, thing is, I found a lot of cash in his home, tucked away in the closet. Way more than what one earns at a body shop working normal hours.”Renard took in a long drag. “You think drugs?”“That’s a possibility, yeah.”“Oui, that would make sense.”“So I’m calling, to see if you know or can keep an eye out for anything close to the border down here near Zion.”Renard muttered something quickly in French, covered the mouthpiece, and then came back. “Désolé. I will. I will ask around, but it is a long shot, you know, eh?”“Yeah, yeah. What about drug trafficking?”“We have seen the normal. Heroin mostly between here and there.”“Anybody or groups specifically?”“The normal. You are aware of these, eh?”“Yeah, I think we’re on the same page there.”“Excellent.”“Hmmm.” Dean put a cigarette in his mouth. “The only thing I can’t figure is the copy of The Communist Manifesto with the cash.”“Pardon?” Renard covered the mouthpiece but less effectively this time. Someone was wanting to speak to him. “Désolé. What’s this?”“I found a copy of The Communist Manifesto with all the cash. And a copy of that book in his front coat pocket when we found the body.”“Oui, oui. Look, I must go. But have you spoken to the FBI? Ciao.”The line went dead.The FBI? What was Renard talking about?
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November 22, 2016
The Clearing - Chapter 10
Start with Chapter 1CHAPTER 10January 9, 1979Grandma.” Jenny clasped her arms around Jessica Wallace.Dean’s mom smiled and clasped back and then lifted her granddaughter off the porch a couple of inches and swung her back and forth. “Jenny, it’s so wonderful to see you again.” She winked at Dean standing on the sidewalk beside the porch, his hands in his pockets.His mom seemed younger than her age by a decade, betrayed only by her quickly graying hair. Her dark brown eyes could be mistaken for black in the right light. Thin, tall, yet strong, Jessica was a Zion native. She worked part time at Willows Realty but spent most of her days reading, gardening, and “tending the home”—her phrase. When she had had three boys in the home, life had been different for her. Days of packing lunches, making dinners, seeing them off, volumes of laundry. To Dean’s eyes, she did not miss those days, but she had never really gotten over the death of Nolan, the youngest of the Wallace boys. He had died in an ambush outside a village Dean could not remember the name of anymore. A mortar shell exploded in a tree above him. The wound was invisible, so fine was the splinter that killed him. Dean had thrown his Purple Heart into Monroe Lake when he found out. His mom had sprouted a sadness that never seemed to leave her. Her every smile tinged with mortality.“We’ve got some fun things to do today, my sweet,” said Jessica. “Now let’s get in from this cold.”Dean leaned over and kissed his mom on the cheek. “Thanks. I’ll see you this evening.”“No thanks needed.”As his mom and daughter walked into the house, Dean retreated to the warmth of the car. At the station, Laura told him to go into the chief’s office. He was on the phone and wanted Dean in there. She grimaced, cluing him in on the chief’s mood.Dean rapped twice on his dad’s door before cracking it open. Eric waved him in when he saw Dean and then gestured for him to close the door.“Yes, I know,” said his dad.The chief’s office was paneled with wood from floor to ceiling. The wood beginning to curl outward at the base. Carpet was long ago abandoned in the station because any heavy rain storm could send a torrent of water down the outside steps, so the floor was a light tan linoleum with darker dots and splotches to provide variety.Eric paced back and forth behind his industrial desk, gray metal with a black highly varnished wood top. Photographs in small frames leaned on their easels. His three sons on a fishing trip in 1958. A snapshot of Eric and Jessica on Coney Island. A family vignette near Niagara Falls—the Canadian side. On the wall behind him, an official portrait of Eric with the mayor. Dean’s official Marine photograph with his Purple Heart citation. Nolan’s official Marine photograph. Only that one image from 1958, though, of Tony, the middle of the three.Their father had always been an overwhelming presence in their lives. Chief of Police for many years of their youth, they lived not unlike many a preacher’s child. Obedience, doing the right thing, all of that was presumed. It hardened Eric too—always being the chief. Never off.“Look,” Eric waved for Dean to sit in the chair across from the desk,” this is my city’s jurisdiction. I’ve got a former NYPD detective here. We’ll handle it ourselves. I’ve already told the sheriff it was on city land.” The chief, whose fist pressed down on the top of his desk, shook his head at the voice on the other end and then bit his upper lip. “Look here, colonel, this is my jurisdiction. I don’t want and don’t need your help. Capiche? Mmm. Yes, a good day to you too, sir.” Eric shrugged the phone’s handset from his ear, tossed it lightly with his shoulder, and caught the shoulder rest attached to it, setting the handset in the cradle in one smooth motion. “How the hell did the state police find out about Billy?”Dean grunted. “The news? The bullet Doc Cotton sent to the lab in Albany?”“They say it’s a homicide.”“It is.”“Why did I find out this morning?”“Because I found out late last night and had Jenny.”“You should’ve called.” Eric paced behind his desk, looking down at the floor.“Okay.” Dean rubbed the leather padding on the right arm of the chair he was sitting in.“And now the state police want to come in and take it over.”Dean nodded. “I don’t think that’s a bad idea. They’ve got—”“I don’t care if it’s the best damned idea since sliced bread. It’s not their case. It’s not their jurisdiction. It’s mine. And it’s your case.”Dean held up his hands. “Fine. But they’ve got more—”“Zip it. I’ve already pissed off the colonel, so I ain’t going back groveling for his help now.”Dean crossed his arms.“So tell me. What’s next?”“We talk to the people we know Billy talked to before he disappeared. When Jeremy talked to them back a few days ago, he approached it like a missing person’s case, which is what it was. So we go back now. We talk to them like what it is: murder. That usually shakes up the scenery. We’ve also got what we think are steps going north. Killer could have crossed into Canada. So I want to call the provincial police up there. I know someone there. It probably won’t lead anywhere, but you never know.”“Good. Do it.”Dean stood up. “One thing, one of Billy’s friends I’m talking to is Alex Smith.”“Henry’s boy?”“Yep.”“Just talking though.”“Right now, yes.”“You think he’s involved?”“At this stage, anyone could be involved. But, no, I have no reason right now to think he is. But you know what he’s like. He’ll raise a stink to his dad, probably. Just wanted you to know.”“I never liked that prick.”
Dean nodded and left, not sure if his dad was referring to Henry or Alex.
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Dean nodded and left, not sure if his dad was referring to Henry or Alex.
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November 15, 2016
The Clearing - Chapter 9
Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 9Dean had first turned onto the Pratt farm’s gravel road the night he picked up Cindy Pratt for the school winter dance just after he had turned sixteen. He had been nervous, his palms so sweaty he had worried he would ruin the steering wheel he clutched so hard his knuckles were white. He had loved Cindy since before he could remember, though he was just a boy out there to her. Her original date to the dance, Tom Perkins, had broken his leg a few weeks earlier during basketball practice. Tom and Cindy were an item, but he had called on his good friend, Dean, to step in and take her to the dance so she would not have to miss it. If Tom had known Dean’s feelings for her, he would not have made the suggestion. But he did not and he did.Dean had not swept her off her feet at that dance, as he had dreamed of, but he was no longer just the boy who hung out with Tom and Eliot and Christian. Dean won her in the end. Lost his friend, but won her, and she was the prize. Tom got a football scholarship and disappeared from Zion shortly after. Eliot was a lawyer in New York. Christian died on some hill near the Cambodian border.He bounced over the final ruts in the driveway as he pulled to a stop next to the S-class, light brown Mercedes-Benz, its wheel wells splattered with dirt and dirty snow. A familiar orange-warm glow emanated from the front windows of the house. He used to be a part of that cozy family, before he had dragged it to shit. He turned off the car and gazed into the glow for a few minutes before getting out and walking up the front porch.As he got ready to knock, the door opened. Jenny stood there beaming. “Daddy.” She hugged him, her thin arms wrapping around his waist, just above his revolver and radio. Her long blond hair was braided into pigtails that fell down onto her collarbones and the front of her shirt. She looked up at him with her green eyes and smiled again.“Hey there, pumpkin.” He hugged her back.Cindy sat on the couch across from a well-stoked fire next to her mother, Eileen. Both shared a remarkable resemblance: the same chin and nose and eyes. Cindy, if she had been so inclined, was model material. Jenny’s eyes and hair were her mother’s. Cindy waved and returned to talking to her mother.“Daddy, are we going to do anything fun?”He had given this some thought. “How about some sledding?”She beamed and hugged him again. “Let me get my stuff.” She unclenched him and ran up the stairs.“No running,” said Cindy, who was now standing and walking toward him. “Hello.” She stopped in front of him and slid her hands into her jean pockets. She wore a light cream colored blouse with red trim and buttons.“Hi.” He half smiled at her. “You look good.”She ignored his last statement. “School starts Monday, so I’ll be back on Saturday to pick her up. Okay?”He nodded. “How was the drive up?”“Long.”“Well, be careful going back.”“Don’t strain yourself over the concern.” She said it without anger lacing the words. Matter of fact. Nearly monotone.He closed his eyes and breathed in deep and reminded himself the toxicity in their relationship was his fault, or at least he blamed himself. That did not make putting up with any of it any easier though. “Geez, I was just trying to be nice.”“Save it for when it counts.” She gave him a stern look, like a scolding from a parent.He held up his hands in defeat.Jenny came back down the stairs, slowing when she saw her mom. She sat her bag down on the floor and hugged Cindy.Dean picked the bag up and watched the two of them. They had a familiarity he had forever lost with his daughter. He would be spared much of the difficulty of raising a teenage girl, but he would have preferred to have had that so he too could be embraced every day. He pinched his mouth to hold back the sadness.“Behave, okay?” Cindy rubbed her daughter’s head.“I will Mommy.”Cindy pulled them apart and guided Jenny toward Dean and the front door. “I’m serious.”Jenny walked out to the porch.Dean looked at Cindy. “See you Sunday.”Cindy nodded and turned back toward the fire.* * *On the drive back, Jenny peppered him with questions about where the good sledding hills were and told him stories of slumber parties and school with her friends. He knew, by the time they pulled into his driveway, that Jessie and Connie were her best friends and that Christmas break had been fun but was getting boring.While unlocking the front door of the house, he asked, “Did you have supper yet?”She shook her head and ran inside. He turned on the light. “How about pizza?” Despite having eaten at Brunetti’s for lunch and having had dinner, pizza sounded tasty.“No mushrooms.”“Pepperoni?”“Yes.”“All right, then. Let’s get you settled in, and I’ll have one delivered.”He opened the door to her bedroom, where two years earlier, he had set up the twin bed with a blue bedspread, white headboard, and a white, pine dresser. Jenny walked in. “What’s that?”“That,” Dean said as he tapped the small desk he had bought a few weeks ago and placed in here, “I got for you so you can do your drawing and stuff.”“Oooh.”He sat down her bag. “Okay, I’m going to order the pizza now.” As he walked out of her room, he said, “With so many mushrooms they’ll think they’re in a mushroom farm.”“Stop it.”He caught the door jamb with his left hand, leaned back, and smiled at her. After calling Brunetti’s and ordering a large pepperoni pizza, he turned on the TV in the family room. Little House on the Prairie was on. The phone rang, so he turned down the sound of the TV and answered the phone. “Hello?”“Dean is that you?”“Yeah.”“Dr. Miles Cotton.”“Ah, yes, doc. Thanks for calling.”“Yeah. Look, I did the autopsy today. And no way it was a suicide. I’m ruling it a homicide.”“I thought it would come down that way. What makes you say so, though?” Dean covered the phone’s mouthpiece and coughed quickly.“—no powder residue.”“But the weather could have done that.”“Yeah, but here’s the other thing. I didn’t notice it at the scene. Neither did you. But it was cold and his coat was thick. I thought I reached in. But we had gloves on.”“I understand. We missed something.”“Yes. Yes. There was a pistol in his inside coat pocket. Small thirty-eight. Snub nose. Six bullets in the cylinder. Serial number is filed away.”“Yeah? So either he brought two guns or—”“Right. Except, that’s not likely. If this was suicide, he would have used the revolver in his pocket. Powerful enough. Simple gun to work.”Dean contemplated the idea. The coroner’s logic was sound, though not all encompassing. Billy could have walked in with two guns. “Any idea how long he’s been out there?”Miles paused. “Could be two days. Could be two weeks. It’s been cold since before Christmas. But with the way the birds had gotten to him and allowing for some thawing of the parts of the body exposed to the sun, I’d estimate, he’s been out there at least a few days. Around New Year’s or so. I can’t be anymore precise.”“So since he disappeared.”“That’s what I’d go with.”“All right. What else can you tell me?”Miles yawned and mumbled, “Sorry,” part way through. “He’d busted his knee and ankle. I’m guessing he stepped in a hole or tripped over something. But it wasn’t long before he was killed. Inflammation but no healing. He would’ve been in pain.”“He couldn’t have run from his killer?”“Unlikely. Though I guess a jolt of adrenaline could have helped. But where he was when we found him was where he was when he was shot.”“Tripped. Hurting. Takes a seat against a tree. Bam. Killer drops the gun there.”“That’s the short of it.”“Anything else doc?”“Nope. That’s it. My report’ll be on your desk tomorrow.”“Thanks.”“Yeah. Have a good night.” Miles hung up.Dean sat the phone down.“Something wrong daddy?” Jenny opened the refrigerator and grabbed a Big Red.“Oh, nothing. Just work, pumpkin.”When the pizza arrived, he placed a couple of slices on a plate for Jenny and only a single slice for himself. After the TV show ended, he tucked her in, letting her read with the lamp next to her desk.He sat on the couch. He clicked to the movie A Small Town in Texas. He ignored it mostly, though he paid attention when Poke barrels over the corrupt sheriff and sparks a chase scene featuring more pursuit vehicles than any small town had a right to.When he turned in, he laid awake longer than normal. He had seen plenty of death and murder through the years. The cruelty of man was no philosophical puzzle to him. He had seen it. He had done it. But that was war and New York City. This murder in Zion, his hometown, the town he had fled to after everything crumbled, this place of solace—as much as he hated to admit that—felt different. A violation of that peace, that security he expected here.He slept fitfully through the night.
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CHAPTER 9Dean had first turned onto the Pratt farm’s gravel road the night he picked up Cindy Pratt for the school winter dance just after he had turned sixteen. He had been nervous, his palms so sweaty he had worried he would ruin the steering wheel he clutched so hard his knuckles were white. He had loved Cindy since before he could remember, though he was just a boy out there to her. Her original date to the dance, Tom Perkins, had broken his leg a few weeks earlier during basketball practice. Tom and Cindy were an item, but he had called on his good friend, Dean, to step in and take her to the dance so she would not have to miss it. If Tom had known Dean’s feelings for her, he would not have made the suggestion. But he did not and he did.Dean had not swept her off her feet at that dance, as he had dreamed of, but he was no longer just the boy who hung out with Tom and Eliot and Christian. Dean won her in the end. Lost his friend, but won her, and she was the prize. Tom got a football scholarship and disappeared from Zion shortly after. Eliot was a lawyer in New York. Christian died on some hill near the Cambodian border.He bounced over the final ruts in the driveway as he pulled to a stop next to the S-class, light brown Mercedes-Benz, its wheel wells splattered with dirt and dirty snow. A familiar orange-warm glow emanated from the front windows of the house. He used to be a part of that cozy family, before he had dragged it to shit. He turned off the car and gazed into the glow for a few minutes before getting out and walking up the front porch.As he got ready to knock, the door opened. Jenny stood there beaming. “Daddy.” She hugged him, her thin arms wrapping around his waist, just above his revolver and radio. Her long blond hair was braided into pigtails that fell down onto her collarbones and the front of her shirt. She looked up at him with her green eyes and smiled again.“Hey there, pumpkin.” He hugged her back.Cindy sat on the couch across from a well-stoked fire next to her mother, Eileen. Both shared a remarkable resemblance: the same chin and nose and eyes. Cindy, if she had been so inclined, was model material. Jenny’s eyes and hair were her mother’s. Cindy waved and returned to talking to her mother.“Daddy, are we going to do anything fun?”He had given this some thought. “How about some sledding?”She beamed and hugged him again. “Let me get my stuff.” She unclenched him and ran up the stairs.“No running,” said Cindy, who was now standing and walking toward him. “Hello.” She stopped in front of him and slid her hands into her jean pockets. She wore a light cream colored blouse with red trim and buttons.“Hi.” He half smiled at her. “You look good.”She ignored his last statement. “School starts Monday, so I’ll be back on Saturday to pick her up. Okay?”He nodded. “How was the drive up?”“Long.”“Well, be careful going back.”“Don’t strain yourself over the concern.” She said it without anger lacing the words. Matter of fact. Nearly monotone.He closed his eyes and breathed in deep and reminded himself the toxicity in their relationship was his fault, or at least he blamed himself. That did not make putting up with any of it any easier though. “Geez, I was just trying to be nice.”“Save it for when it counts.” She gave him a stern look, like a scolding from a parent.He held up his hands in defeat.Jenny came back down the stairs, slowing when she saw her mom. She sat her bag down on the floor and hugged Cindy.Dean picked the bag up and watched the two of them. They had a familiarity he had forever lost with his daughter. He would be spared much of the difficulty of raising a teenage girl, but he would have preferred to have had that so he too could be embraced every day. He pinched his mouth to hold back the sadness.“Behave, okay?” Cindy rubbed her daughter’s head.“I will Mommy.”Cindy pulled them apart and guided Jenny toward Dean and the front door. “I’m serious.”Jenny walked out to the porch.Dean looked at Cindy. “See you Sunday.”Cindy nodded and turned back toward the fire.* * *On the drive back, Jenny peppered him with questions about where the good sledding hills were and told him stories of slumber parties and school with her friends. He knew, by the time they pulled into his driveway, that Jessie and Connie were her best friends and that Christmas break had been fun but was getting boring.While unlocking the front door of the house, he asked, “Did you have supper yet?”She shook her head and ran inside. He turned on the light. “How about pizza?” Despite having eaten at Brunetti’s for lunch and having had dinner, pizza sounded tasty.“No mushrooms.”“Pepperoni?”“Yes.”“All right, then. Let’s get you settled in, and I’ll have one delivered.”He opened the door to her bedroom, where two years earlier, he had set up the twin bed with a blue bedspread, white headboard, and a white, pine dresser. Jenny walked in. “What’s that?”“That,” Dean said as he tapped the small desk he had bought a few weeks ago and placed in here, “I got for you so you can do your drawing and stuff.”“Oooh.”He sat down her bag. “Okay, I’m going to order the pizza now.” As he walked out of her room, he said, “With so many mushrooms they’ll think they’re in a mushroom farm.”“Stop it.”He caught the door jamb with his left hand, leaned back, and smiled at her. After calling Brunetti’s and ordering a large pepperoni pizza, he turned on the TV in the family room. Little House on the Prairie was on. The phone rang, so he turned down the sound of the TV and answered the phone. “Hello?”“Dean is that you?”“Yeah.”“Dr. Miles Cotton.”“Ah, yes, doc. Thanks for calling.”“Yeah. Look, I did the autopsy today. And no way it was a suicide. I’m ruling it a homicide.”“I thought it would come down that way. What makes you say so, though?” Dean covered the phone’s mouthpiece and coughed quickly.“—no powder residue.”“But the weather could have done that.”“Yeah, but here’s the other thing. I didn’t notice it at the scene. Neither did you. But it was cold and his coat was thick. I thought I reached in. But we had gloves on.”“I understand. We missed something.”“Yes. Yes. There was a pistol in his inside coat pocket. Small thirty-eight. Snub nose. Six bullets in the cylinder. Serial number is filed away.”“Yeah? So either he brought two guns or—”“Right. Except, that’s not likely. If this was suicide, he would have used the revolver in his pocket. Powerful enough. Simple gun to work.”Dean contemplated the idea. The coroner’s logic was sound, though not all encompassing. Billy could have walked in with two guns. “Any idea how long he’s been out there?”Miles paused. “Could be two days. Could be two weeks. It’s been cold since before Christmas. But with the way the birds had gotten to him and allowing for some thawing of the parts of the body exposed to the sun, I’d estimate, he’s been out there at least a few days. Around New Year’s or so. I can’t be anymore precise.”“So since he disappeared.”“That’s what I’d go with.”“All right. What else can you tell me?”Miles yawned and mumbled, “Sorry,” part way through. “He’d busted his knee and ankle. I’m guessing he stepped in a hole or tripped over something. But it wasn’t long before he was killed. Inflammation but no healing. He would’ve been in pain.”“He couldn’t have run from his killer?”“Unlikely. Though I guess a jolt of adrenaline could have helped. But where he was when we found him was where he was when he was shot.”“Tripped. Hurting. Takes a seat against a tree. Bam. Killer drops the gun there.”“That’s the short of it.”“Anything else doc?”“Nope. That’s it. My report’ll be on your desk tomorrow.”“Thanks.”“Yeah. Have a good night.” Miles hung up.Dean sat the phone down.“Something wrong daddy?” Jenny opened the refrigerator and grabbed a Big Red.“Oh, nothing. Just work, pumpkin.”When the pizza arrived, he placed a couple of slices on a plate for Jenny and only a single slice for himself. After the TV show ended, he tucked her in, letting her read with the lamp next to her desk.He sat on the couch. He clicked to the movie A Small Town in Texas. He ignored it mostly, though he paid attention when Poke barrels over the corrupt sheriff and sparks a chase scene featuring more pursuit vehicles than any small town had a right to.When he turned in, he laid awake longer than normal. He had seen plenty of death and murder through the years. The cruelty of man was no philosophical puzzle to him. He had seen it. He had done it. But that was war and New York City. This murder in Zion, his hometown, the town he had fled to after everything crumbled, this place of solace—as much as he hated to admit that—felt different. A violation of that peace, that security he expected here.He slept fitfully through the night.
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November 8, 2016
The Clearing - Chapter 8
Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 8Dean returned to his desk and stood by it. He was anxious to get started. He lit another cigarette.A rush of cold air swept in. Instead of Guthrie lumbering through the door, Paige McFadden strode in. Her long red hair flowed out from beneath her orange Syracuse University knit cap with a black pom-pom on top. Laura, always wary of the press, stood up, looked at Paige and then at Dean.He frowned, shrugged, and sat down behind his desk. “Come on back, Paige.”Paige winked at Laura and walked toward Dean. She was short, had always been so, and was pale with green eyes that reminded Dean of ripe Granny Smith apples. A year older than Dean, she had been a journalist since high school when she wrote for the Zion High School Gazette. In sixty-six, she had penned an editorial condemning the build up of U.S. troops in Vietnam. The school administration refused to allow her to publish the piece, resulting in a several-week controversy that finally saw the Beaconprint it, though the editor had made sure in a preamble that he printed it only to demonstrate the freedom of the press.Paige stopped in front of the desk, leaned over, and said, “So, I hear Billy Nimitz’s body was found in the woods near the Pratt farm. Care to comment?”“We did.”“Did what? Find his body or commented?”“Found a body.”“That’s it? I can’t write a piece using just that.”“What do you want?” He shrugged.“Any details? Any information you can provide? I’m asking here.”Dean put his elbows on the desk and leaned in close to Paige, looking only a little up at her. “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation. We don’t have official word from the coroner yet as to the manner of death.”“So we’re looking at suicide or homicide?”Dean leaned back, the chair squeaking as he did so.“I know it was a gunshot. So don’t bullshit me with accidental.”“Why are you asking me when you already know?”“Could be an accidental gun shot.”She glared at him, but a friendly one.“Will you call me when the coroner gives his report? You have my number.” She waited for Dean to say something, but when he did not, she continued, “It’s an awful long way to go for suicide. I mean, he hiked a good long ways.”“I’ll think about it.”“Nice, Dean, nice. You know my number.” She thrust herself up from the desk and flew out as quickly as she had stormed in.Guthrie stepped aside at the door to let her pass. He looked down at Dean.Dean shook his head. “Let’s get lunch.”* * *They drove separately to Dean’s preferred pizza place near the high school, Brunetti’s. As they waited for the large pepperoni, mushroom, and black olive pie, Guthrie told him about his current case load of minor thefts, burglaries, and shoplifting. He had heard about the Nimitz boy.“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Dean. “I was looking for the missing person’s report.”“Ah, yes. That’s in my desk. I haven’t filed it yet. I was still going over some of the details.” He swept his hand over his balding head, the dark brown hair dotted with gray clinging over his ears. His mustache, however, was a dominating fixture on his face, its edges looping over the top lip and the sides arcing down toward the chin with a bit of a flare. He could stand to lose a few pounds, and Dean knew his fitness reports were marginal. “I was wanting to ask you—”“Yeah?”“Can I work this case with you?”Dean cocked his head to the side. “It’s probably a suicide and not much of a case.” He did not need Paige, however, planting any seeds in his mind that Billy Nimitz did not shoot himself.“Yeah, yeah.”The waitress, dressed in a red-and-white checkered skirt with a white button-up top, slid the pizza onto the table and set two plates and sets of utensils down. “You boys okay?”They nodded.“But if it’s something else. That’s what I mean,” said Guthrie.“If it’s something else, we’ll probably have the state troopers come in.”Guthrie snorted as he slid a slice onto his plate and offered to do the same for Dean. “Your dad ain’t going to let that happen.”Dean nodded. Guthrie was right. The old man hated any interference. He would prefer to blow a case all on his own than get help and do it right. He always cited the Marine adage that the Army loses the hill and the Marines take it back. But if this was a homicide, the Zion police had little experience in dealing with that. “Maybe. We’ll see. Not much point in talking about it now.”“Just a word man. Just tell me you’ll include me. I want something other than—than—than shoplifting. You’ve done this in the big city, where it counts. I’d love to be a part. I mean, I’m not sure I’ll feel like a detective otherwise.”Dean shook some red pepper flakes on his slice, bit into it, and said through chewing, “Okay.”* * *Back at the station, Dean pulled the folder from Guthrie’s desk drawer, carried it back to his own desk, and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee before sitting down to read the thin sheaf of papers bound by a single paperclip. The top item was a photo of Billy Nimitz. He held a good size rainbow trout—twelve inches perhaps—at chest level with a broad smile plastered across his face. He still wore waders, a hat with a number of lures at the top. Behind him, the stream where he caught it and the forest.Guthrie’s narrative was no more and no less informative than Archie Nimitz’s account. Guthrie had asked the right questions, probed for the right details. He, however, had only done a cursory search of Billy’s bedroom.Guthrie had separate reports for his interviews with the girlfriend, Sarah Esposito, and each of his friends: Corey Bender, Josh Frasco, and Alex Smith.Sarah was twenty-seven and lived on Madison Street in an apartment. She worked the day shift at Adamson’s, that historic, long-lived manufacturer of tables, cabinets, curios, and other furniture. Outside the mayor, Tommy Adamson, the fifth family owner of the business, was the most powerful figure in Zion. Sarah saw Billy the day before his disappearance, New Year’s Day. The notes indicated he gave his girlfriend a gift, but no note on what that gift was. No note on what they talked about or did.Corey and Josh had been with Billy at the Shambles the night of his disappearance. They had a few drinks, ate fries and mushrooms, and that was it. Alex Smith said he and Billy had not seen each other for a week and could not remember the details of their last meeting.No leads. No indications of where Billy had gone off to or that he was going anywhere. Dean lit a cigarette. No point in digging in more if this was a suicide. Billy’s last moments would be his own. His reasons his alone.He picked up the phone and called Doc Cotton. The phone picked up on the fourth ring. Tess Gibbons, Cotton’s secretary, answered. “Doctor Miles Cotton, Family Practitioner and Coroner’s office. How may I assist you?”“Hey Tess, this is Dean down at the station.”“Hello and good afternoon. I bet you’re calling about that poor Nimitz kid, right?”“I am. I am.”“Well, the doctor hasn’t gotten to him yet. But he will later today. Should I have him call you?”“Yeah, please do. Probably best to call me at home this evening.”“I’ll make sure he does.”“Thank you.”“Bye now.”Dean typed up a report regarding his interview with Nimitz’s parents and finding the cash and book. He pulled it out of the typewriter, signed it, dated it, and slipped it into the folder, which he then filed in the records room.At 2:49 p.m., a call came in about a break-in at a home on Elm Street. Dean and Zach, who had reported mid-day for the transition shift as the chief liked to call it, drove to the home and interviewed the victim and her neighbors. The thief had broken a window at the back of the house, unlocked it by reaching in, opened the window and then absconded with an heirloom pocket watch and jewelry of varied value, leaving the back door wide open to the cold. By the time they wrapped up at the scene, with little hope of solving the case, it was early evening.Dean’s ex-wife, Cindy, would be en route to her family home, the Pratt farm, from NYC to drop their daughter off. The last week of winter break. He stopped off at the Shambles to grab a burger and fries. He recognized Alex Smith at the bar. He had a beer and a shot glass in front of him. With his long, straight hair and small circular glasses, he tried to imitate John Lennon of the Let It Be cover. When Dean sat a few stools down from Alex, he gave him a cold stare and sucked hard on his cigarette. He crushed it out, waved at the bartender to get his attention, and held up an empty glass of beer.Dean ate his burger and most of his fries watching the TV sitting up on the shelf above bottles of whiskey, vodka, and gin. The weather report was for cold days ahead, a prolonged winter. He left enough cash on the bar to cover his meal and a tip and walked out. He thought he heard Alex mumble as he did so, “Pig,” but he was not sure. If so, he had been called worse.
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CHAPTER 8Dean returned to his desk and stood by it. He was anxious to get started. He lit another cigarette.A rush of cold air swept in. Instead of Guthrie lumbering through the door, Paige McFadden strode in. Her long red hair flowed out from beneath her orange Syracuse University knit cap with a black pom-pom on top. Laura, always wary of the press, stood up, looked at Paige and then at Dean.He frowned, shrugged, and sat down behind his desk. “Come on back, Paige.”Paige winked at Laura and walked toward Dean. She was short, had always been so, and was pale with green eyes that reminded Dean of ripe Granny Smith apples. A year older than Dean, she had been a journalist since high school when she wrote for the Zion High School Gazette. In sixty-six, she had penned an editorial condemning the build up of U.S. troops in Vietnam. The school administration refused to allow her to publish the piece, resulting in a several-week controversy that finally saw the Beaconprint it, though the editor had made sure in a preamble that he printed it only to demonstrate the freedom of the press.Paige stopped in front of the desk, leaned over, and said, “So, I hear Billy Nimitz’s body was found in the woods near the Pratt farm. Care to comment?”“We did.”“Did what? Find his body or commented?”“Found a body.”“That’s it? I can’t write a piece using just that.”“What do you want?” He shrugged.“Any details? Any information you can provide? I’m asking here.”Dean put his elbows on the desk and leaned in close to Paige, looking only a little up at her. “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation. We don’t have official word from the coroner yet as to the manner of death.”“So we’re looking at suicide or homicide?”Dean leaned back, the chair squeaking as he did so.“I know it was a gunshot. So don’t bullshit me with accidental.”“Why are you asking me when you already know?”“Could be an accidental gun shot.”She glared at him, but a friendly one.“Will you call me when the coroner gives his report? You have my number.” She waited for Dean to say something, but when he did not, she continued, “It’s an awful long way to go for suicide. I mean, he hiked a good long ways.”“I’ll think about it.”“Nice, Dean, nice. You know my number.” She thrust herself up from the desk and flew out as quickly as she had stormed in.Guthrie stepped aside at the door to let her pass. He looked down at Dean.Dean shook his head. “Let’s get lunch.”* * *They drove separately to Dean’s preferred pizza place near the high school, Brunetti’s. As they waited for the large pepperoni, mushroom, and black olive pie, Guthrie told him about his current case load of minor thefts, burglaries, and shoplifting. He had heard about the Nimitz boy.“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Dean. “I was looking for the missing person’s report.”“Ah, yes. That’s in my desk. I haven’t filed it yet. I was still going over some of the details.” He swept his hand over his balding head, the dark brown hair dotted with gray clinging over his ears. His mustache, however, was a dominating fixture on his face, its edges looping over the top lip and the sides arcing down toward the chin with a bit of a flare. He could stand to lose a few pounds, and Dean knew his fitness reports were marginal. “I was wanting to ask you—”“Yeah?”“Can I work this case with you?”Dean cocked his head to the side. “It’s probably a suicide and not much of a case.” He did not need Paige, however, planting any seeds in his mind that Billy Nimitz did not shoot himself.“Yeah, yeah.”The waitress, dressed in a red-and-white checkered skirt with a white button-up top, slid the pizza onto the table and set two plates and sets of utensils down. “You boys okay?”They nodded.“But if it’s something else. That’s what I mean,” said Guthrie.“If it’s something else, we’ll probably have the state troopers come in.”Guthrie snorted as he slid a slice onto his plate and offered to do the same for Dean. “Your dad ain’t going to let that happen.”Dean nodded. Guthrie was right. The old man hated any interference. He would prefer to blow a case all on his own than get help and do it right. He always cited the Marine adage that the Army loses the hill and the Marines take it back. But if this was a homicide, the Zion police had little experience in dealing with that. “Maybe. We’ll see. Not much point in talking about it now.”“Just a word man. Just tell me you’ll include me. I want something other than—than—than shoplifting. You’ve done this in the big city, where it counts. I’d love to be a part. I mean, I’m not sure I’ll feel like a detective otherwise.”Dean shook some red pepper flakes on his slice, bit into it, and said through chewing, “Okay.”* * *Back at the station, Dean pulled the folder from Guthrie’s desk drawer, carried it back to his own desk, and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee before sitting down to read the thin sheaf of papers bound by a single paperclip. The top item was a photo of Billy Nimitz. He held a good size rainbow trout—twelve inches perhaps—at chest level with a broad smile plastered across his face. He still wore waders, a hat with a number of lures at the top. Behind him, the stream where he caught it and the forest.Guthrie’s narrative was no more and no less informative than Archie Nimitz’s account. Guthrie had asked the right questions, probed for the right details. He, however, had only done a cursory search of Billy’s bedroom.Guthrie had separate reports for his interviews with the girlfriend, Sarah Esposito, and each of his friends: Corey Bender, Josh Frasco, and Alex Smith.Sarah was twenty-seven and lived on Madison Street in an apartment. She worked the day shift at Adamson’s, that historic, long-lived manufacturer of tables, cabinets, curios, and other furniture. Outside the mayor, Tommy Adamson, the fifth family owner of the business, was the most powerful figure in Zion. Sarah saw Billy the day before his disappearance, New Year’s Day. The notes indicated he gave his girlfriend a gift, but no note on what that gift was. No note on what they talked about or did.Corey and Josh had been with Billy at the Shambles the night of his disappearance. They had a few drinks, ate fries and mushrooms, and that was it. Alex Smith said he and Billy had not seen each other for a week and could not remember the details of their last meeting.No leads. No indications of where Billy had gone off to or that he was going anywhere. Dean lit a cigarette. No point in digging in more if this was a suicide. Billy’s last moments would be his own. His reasons his alone.He picked up the phone and called Doc Cotton. The phone picked up on the fourth ring. Tess Gibbons, Cotton’s secretary, answered. “Doctor Miles Cotton, Family Practitioner and Coroner’s office. How may I assist you?”“Hey Tess, this is Dean down at the station.”“Hello and good afternoon. I bet you’re calling about that poor Nimitz kid, right?”“I am. I am.”“Well, the doctor hasn’t gotten to him yet. But he will later today. Should I have him call you?”“Yeah, please do. Probably best to call me at home this evening.”“I’ll make sure he does.”“Thank you.”“Bye now.”Dean typed up a report regarding his interview with Nimitz’s parents and finding the cash and book. He pulled it out of the typewriter, signed it, dated it, and slipped it into the folder, which he then filed in the records room.At 2:49 p.m., a call came in about a break-in at a home on Elm Street. Dean and Zach, who had reported mid-day for the transition shift as the chief liked to call it, drove to the home and interviewed the victim and her neighbors. The thief had broken a window at the back of the house, unlocked it by reaching in, opened the window and then absconded with an heirloom pocket watch and jewelry of varied value, leaving the back door wide open to the cold. By the time they wrapped up at the scene, with little hope of solving the case, it was early evening.Dean’s ex-wife, Cindy, would be en route to her family home, the Pratt farm, from NYC to drop their daughter off. The last week of winter break. He stopped off at the Shambles to grab a burger and fries. He recognized Alex Smith at the bar. He had a beer and a shot glass in front of him. With his long, straight hair and small circular glasses, he tried to imitate John Lennon of the Let It Be cover. When Dean sat a few stools down from Alex, he gave him a cold stare and sucked hard on his cigarette. He crushed it out, waved at the bartender to get his attention, and held up an empty glass of beer.Dean ate his burger and most of his fries watching the TV sitting up on the shelf above bottles of whiskey, vodka, and gin. The weather report was for cold days ahead, a prolonged winter. He left enough cash on the bar to cover his meal and a tip and walked out. He thought he heard Alex mumble as he did so, “Pig,” but he was not sure. If so, he had been called worse.
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November 1, 2016
THE SHATTERED BULL Has Launched!
The Shattered Bull launches today for only $2.99 (ebook) or $10.99 (print). Get your copy from Amazon, Apple, B&N, Kobo, and others. Order your copy!
This is the first book in the Drexel Pierce series.
Chicago. Murder. Justice.
As Detective Drexel Pierce struggles to overcome the mysterious death of his wife, the murder of a city alderman, Hal “the Bull” Nye, and its investigation threatens Pierce’s career. Found in his secure, downtown, high-rise condominium, with no obvious mechanism of death, what killed the Bull may be as mysterious as who killed him. The lone clue that could expose the killer is a cryptic message burned into a desk.
The obvious suspect is the Bull’s young girlfriend, Kara. While Drexel’s commander pushes to arrest her to please the politicians and media, Drexel seeks out the truth, following a trail of pasts best forgotten, mobsters, and rivals. In doing so, Drexel’s brother, troubled by his own history of heroin abuse, becomes a pawn in a tangle of competing interests.
As the machinery of investigation closes in on the Bull’s young girlfriend, Drexel risks it all to save her and save his illusions of a society that believes in truth.
Order your copy!
This is the first book in the Drexel Pierce series.
Chicago. Murder. Justice.
As Detective Drexel Pierce struggles to overcome the mysterious death of his wife, the murder of a city alderman, Hal “the Bull” Nye, and its investigation threatens Pierce’s career. Found in his secure, downtown, high-rise condominium, with no obvious mechanism of death, what killed the Bull may be as mysterious as who killed him. The lone clue that could expose the killer is a cryptic message burned into a desk.
The obvious suspect is the Bull’s young girlfriend, Kara. While Drexel’s commander pushes to arrest her to please the politicians and media, Drexel seeks out the truth, following a trail of pasts best forgotten, mobsters, and rivals. In doing so, Drexel’s brother, troubled by his own history of heroin abuse, becomes a pawn in a tangle of competing interests.
As the machinery of investigation closes in on the Bull’s young girlfriend, Drexel risks it all to save her and save his illusions of a society that believes in truth.
Order your copy!
The Clearing - Chapter 7
Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 7January 8, 1979The alarm woke Dean at 6:47 a.m. Darkness still clung to Zion, and the way the wind scratched at the windows and the cold made everything seem more fragile than it really was told him it would be yet another bitter cold day. He rolled onto his back, felt a small tinge of guilt about the twenty he pocketed, and chased it away lighting a cigarette.After he stubbed half of it out, he unrolled the heavy quilt over him and got up. He took a long, extra hot shower before wandering from the master bedroom down the hall past Jenny’s room and a spare bedroom. The kitchen was small, but he did not need a big one for what little he did in it. He made a pot of coffee, grabbed the Zion Beacon from the front porch, and dusted off the ice crystals. He lit a cigarette and poured himself a mug of coffee, splashing in a finger of Wild Turkey.The Beacon was informed of Nimitz’s death too late to get it into this edition, but he expected it would have something the next day. Instead, the front feature story was about the fall of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia and the victory of the insurgents and their ally the Vietnamese army, which had invaded just this past Christmas. The Khmer Rouge defeated. No surprise. He drifted back to his time in Vietnam, marching through the jungle and avoiding being killed. He poured another coffee. The local news focused on how the money for snow removal was disappearing faster than planned. The colder, snowier than expected winter was wreaking havoc with the city budget.He threw the Beacon into the trash beneath the sink and tossed the dregs of his coffee into the sink. He set the mug in the base of the sink and filled it half with water. After he grabbed his coat and donned the campaign hat, he walked into the garage.He lifted the garage door, pulling with extra effort to free up the edge that had frozen to the concrete overnight. He started the cruiser, pulled the car back, stepped out of the car, closed the garage door, and jumped back into the front seat. He waited a few minutes and then cranked the heat to high as he made his way into town, which was quiet. The few commuters drove their cars with months of winter plastered along the sides and snow gripping the back bumpers.The Town Council house, which hosted the mayor’s office as well, was two blocks off the main square, which functioned as a large traffic circle. From Dean’s home, he entered and passed the first two turnoffs for the third. The square was dominated by the courthouse. The building, constructed between 1887 and 1890, was a two-story, red brick building dotted with cream brick embellishments. Four entrances, one on each side of the square, were covered by arches. A center clock tower, rising an additional two stories above the main building was added in 1902, though the bricks were not exactly the same, those of the tower a less vibrant red. A wrought-iron fence came out to the edge of the square’s interior sidewalk. Dean passed the four-pounder Revolutionary War cannon that local history insisted turned a British platoon of grenadiers invading from Canada early in the war—an event celebrated with undue bombast and pride every June.Outside the courthouse, the square consisted of two-story buildings with a variety of facades featuring a number of businesses, including restaurants, law firms, a dress and suit shop, the cinema playing Superman, and Gable’s Hardware and Seed.He parked the car at the station and walked to the Square Meal. The front door was frosted over, obscuring the Open sign he knew was there. The warm air hit him and he saw those sitting at the tables nearest the door shiver. Dean closed the door behind him and walked up to the counter. Mayor Conner Phelps and a few of the ward members, including Joe Banks and Eric Wallace, sat at their normal table toward the back. If you were lucky enough to get elected as a alderman in the town, it did not mean anything unless you were invited to the mayor’s breakfast table. Rumor had it that Phelps purposively kept some on the outs just to demonstrate his power, which he had lorded over the city since the early Sixties, taking over after his father.Debbie Josephs, chewing gum even at that hour of the day, sat a mug of coffee on the counter. Dean looked up and smiled. “Thanks.”She winked and carried the hot pot of coffee back to the machine. Dean lit a cigarette. He looked over at the mayor’s table. He shook his head and turned away. A big fish in a very tiny pond was the mayor. He would be squashed by any Brooklyn or Bronx councilman’s clerk. He picked up the copy of the Beacon sitting on the counter just so he would have something to read.After finishing three cups of coffee and his normal breakfast of two scrambled eggs, bacon, and wheat toast, he walked back to the station, leaving the mayor and his cabal ruling over the city.Laura, her shoulder-length brown hair at least a decade out of style, greeted him as he entered. He passed Etheridge Stone, the sergeant and supervisor of the patrol officers, at his desk. Stone, the only black man serving in Zion’s government, had none of the bearings of a sergeant. Wiry and with an Afro cut just under the maximum length allowed by the chief, he was six years older than Dean. He had known drill instructors and Marines tougher than anyone else but none as skinny and seemingly benign as Etheridge. The sergeant was putting on his coat to head out to patrol. Dean stopped by his desk.“Hey,” said Etheridge.“Morning, sergeant.” Dean called him sergeant despite Etheridge’s protests. “Did you hear about the body we found?”“I did. I did. Kid named Billy Nimitz, right?”“That’s the one.”“Sad thing.”“It is. So we’re not sure yet if it was suicide or homicide. The way the body was, where the gun was at, I don’t think it was suicide. But we got to wait on Doc Cotton. Anyways, if you hear anyone talking about it or anything like that, take it down. Bring it back to me. Okay?”“Sure thing. No one’s been murdered in this town since sixty-eight.”“Yeah, Freddie. And keep an eye out for William’s car. A seventy-three Dodge Challenger. It’s canary yellow and has a black hood stripe.”Etheridge nodded and put his cap on.Dean retreated to his desk, grabbing a cup of coffee along the way. At his desk, he looked around, and then poured a finger of whiskey from his flask into the cup. He took off his coat and took a drink before walking back and turning right near Laura’s desk and into the records room. A wall of gray and tan filing cabinets stood before him. They were ordered by types of crime or reported crime. Moving violations dominated along with other misdemeanors. He found the cabinets for miscellaneous felonies—filed there because of how few a year occurred. The armed robberies, murders, stolen vehicles, and so on entered this corner of the records. Dean assumed that William Nimitz’s disappearance would appear here.He opened the cabinet and searched in the late December time frame, but did not find the file. He closed the drawer and walked back out and to Laura.“Morning.”She smiled. “What can I do for you?”“Two things. Can you put out an APB for William Nimitz’s seventy-three Dodge Challenger. You’ll need to call to get the plate number. Once you have that, make sure the sergeant gets it, too.” Dean watched her write the information down and look back up at him. “Also, I’m looking for the Nimitz missing person file. Did Guthrie file it in something other than miscellaneous?”“No, I don’t know where he put it.”He looked down the room at Guthrie’s empty desk. “Is he out someplace?”“Yes. Some burglary out on Somers Avenue.”Dean nodded and walked back to his desk to await Guthrie’s return. He took a small stack of paperwork that had been sitting on his desk’s inbox. The top memo provided a few updates on legal changes. The next described a shift in policy for using the assigned police vehicle for personal use. The final was a thank-you letter from Gary Bent for assistance when his house was broken into while on vacation. He read through them all, killing time.Dean’s dad walked in around ten in the morning, handing his hat and overcoat in well-practiced form to Laura. He paused at the edge of her desk and looked down at Dean and nodded before disappearing into his office.At eleven-thirty, Dean walked back to Laura’s desk and asked her to get Guthrie on the radio. She turned around in her chair and grabbed the handset, turned up the volume, and said, “Unit 142?”They waited a half minute or so. Laura looked at Dean and he nodded. “Unit 142?”“142.”Dean waved for the handset. “142 this is 141.”“Go 141.”“Status?”“Leaving scene now.”“Destination?”“Follow up on potential suspect.”“Lunch?”“What’s that 141?”“Lunch?”“Copy that. I’ll swing back to HQ.”“I’ll be here 142. 141 out.”“142 out.” Dean handed the handset back to Laura. “Thanks.”She took it from him and smiled.As Dean turned to walk away, he heard from his dad’s office, “Goddamnit, this is not a county case. The Pratt farm—and you damn well know it—is in city property.” Dean shook his head and walked back to his desk. If the sheriff or state police were calling about jurisdiction, the other could not be far behind.
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CHAPTER 7January 8, 1979The alarm woke Dean at 6:47 a.m. Darkness still clung to Zion, and the way the wind scratched at the windows and the cold made everything seem more fragile than it really was told him it would be yet another bitter cold day. He rolled onto his back, felt a small tinge of guilt about the twenty he pocketed, and chased it away lighting a cigarette.After he stubbed half of it out, he unrolled the heavy quilt over him and got up. He took a long, extra hot shower before wandering from the master bedroom down the hall past Jenny’s room and a spare bedroom. The kitchen was small, but he did not need a big one for what little he did in it. He made a pot of coffee, grabbed the Zion Beacon from the front porch, and dusted off the ice crystals. He lit a cigarette and poured himself a mug of coffee, splashing in a finger of Wild Turkey.The Beacon was informed of Nimitz’s death too late to get it into this edition, but he expected it would have something the next day. Instead, the front feature story was about the fall of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia and the victory of the insurgents and their ally the Vietnamese army, which had invaded just this past Christmas. The Khmer Rouge defeated. No surprise. He drifted back to his time in Vietnam, marching through the jungle and avoiding being killed. He poured another coffee. The local news focused on how the money for snow removal was disappearing faster than planned. The colder, snowier than expected winter was wreaking havoc with the city budget.He threw the Beacon into the trash beneath the sink and tossed the dregs of his coffee into the sink. He set the mug in the base of the sink and filled it half with water. After he grabbed his coat and donned the campaign hat, he walked into the garage.He lifted the garage door, pulling with extra effort to free up the edge that had frozen to the concrete overnight. He started the cruiser, pulled the car back, stepped out of the car, closed the garage door, and jumped back into the front seat. He waited a few minutes and then cranked the heat to high as he made his way into town, which was quiet. The few commuters drove their cars with months of winter plastered along the sides and snow gripping the back bumpers.The Town Council house, which hosted the mayor’s office as well, was two blocks off the main square, which functioned as a large traffic circle. From Dean’s home, he entered and passed the first two turnoffs for the third. The square was dominated by the courthouse. The building, constructed between 1887 and 1890, was a two-story, red brick building dotted with cream brick embellishments. Four entrances, one on each side of the square, were covered by arches. A center clock tower, rising an additional two stories above the main building was added in 1902, though the bricks were not exactly the same, those of the tower a less vibrant red. A wrought-iron fence came out to the edge of the square’s interior sidewalk. Dean passed the four-pounder Revolutionary War cannon that local history insisted turned a British platoon of grenadiers invading from Canada early in the war—an event celebrated with undue bombast and pride every June.Outside the courthouse, the square consisted of two-story buildings with a variety of facades featuring a number of businesses, including restaurants, law firms, a dress and suit shop, the cinema playing Superman, and Gable’s Hardware and Seed.He parked the car at the station and walked to the Square Meal. The front door was frosted over, obscuring the Open sign he knew was there. The warm air hit him and he saw those sitting at the tables nearest the door shiver. Dean closed the door behind him and walked up to the counter. Mayor Conner Phelps and a few of the ward members, including Joe Banks and Eric Wallace, sat at their normal table toward the back. If you were lucky enough to get elected as a alderman in the town, it did not mean anything unless you were invited to the mayor’s breakfast table. Rumor had it that Phelps purposively kept some on the outs just to demonstrate his power, which he had lorded over the city since the early Sixties, taking over after his father.Debbie Josephs, chewing gum even at that hour of the day, sat a mug of coffee on the counter. Dean looked up and smiled. “Thanks.”She winked and carried the hot pot of coffee back to the machine. Dean lit a cigarette. He looked over at the mayor’s table. He shook his head and turned away. A big fish in a very tiny pond was the mayor. He would be squashed by any Brooklyn or Bronx councilman’s clerk. He picked up the copy of the Beacon sitting on the counter just so he would have something to read.After finishing three cups of coffee and his normal breakfast of two scrambled eggs, bacon, and wheat toast, he walked back to the station, leaving the mayor and his cabal ruling over the city.Laura, her shoulder-length brown hair at least a decade out of style, greeted him as he entered. He passed Etheridge Stone, the sergeant and supervisor of the patrol officers, at his desk. Stone, the only black man serving in Zion’s government, had none of the bearings of a sergeant. Wiry and with an Afro cut just under the maximum length allowed by the chief, he was six years older than Dean. He had known drill instructors and Marines tougher than anyone else but none as skinny and seemingly benign as Etheridge. The sergeant was putting on his coat to head out to patrol. Dean stopped by his desk.“Hey,” said Etheridge.“Morning, sergeant.” Dean called him sergeant despite Etheridge’s protests. “Did you hear about the body we found?”“I did. I did. Kid named Billy Nimitz, right?”“That’s the one.”“Sad thing.”“It is. So we’re not sure yet if it was suicide or homicide. The way the body was, where the gun was at, I don’t think it was suicide. But we got to wait on Doc Cotton. Anyways, if you hear anyone talking about it or anything like that, take it down. Bring it back to me. Okay?”“Sure thing. No one’s been murdered in this town since sixty-eight.”“Yeah, Freddie. And keep an eye out for William’s car. A seventy-three Dodge Challenger. It’s canary yellow and has a black hood stripe.”Etheridge nodded and put his cap on.Dean retreated to his desk, grabbing a cup of coffee along the way. At his desk, he looked around, and then poured a finger of whiskey from his flask into the cup. He took off his coat and took a drink before walking back and turning right near Laura’s desk and into the records room. A wall of gray and tan filing cabinets stood before him. They were ordered by types of crime or reported crime. Moving violations dominated along with other misdemeanors. He found the cabinets for miscellaneous felonies—filed there because of how few a year occurred. The armed robberies, murders, stolen vehicles, and so on entered this corner of the records. Dean assumed that William Nimitz’s disappearance would appear here.He opened the cabinet and searched in the late December time frame, but did not find the file. He closed the drawer and walked back out and to Laura.“Morning.”She smiled. “What can I do for you?”“Two things. Can you put out an APB for William Nimitz’s seventy-three Dodge Challenger. You’ll need to call to get the plate number. Once you have that, make sure the sergeant gets it, too.” Dean watched her write the information down and look back up at him. “Also, I’m looking for the Nimitz missing person file. Did Guthrie file it in something other than miscellaneous?”“No, I don’t know where he put it.”He looked down the room at Guthrie’s empty desk. “Is he out someplace?”“Yes. Some burglary out on Somers Avenue.”Dean nodded and walked back to his desk to await Guthrie’s return. He took a small stack of paperwork that had been sitting on his desk’s inbox. The top memo provided a few updates on legal changes. The next described a shift in policy for using the assigned police vehicle for personal use. The final was a thank-you letter from Gary Bent for assistance when his house was broken into while on vacation. He read through them all, killing time.Dean’s dad walked in around ten in the morning, handing his hat and overcoat in well-practiced form to Laura. He paused at the edge of her desk and looked down at Dean and nodded before disappearing into his office.At eleven-thirty, Dean walked back to Laura’s desk and asked her to get Guthrie on the radio. She turned around in her chair and grabbed the handset, turned up the volume, and said, “Unit 142?”They waited a half minute or so. Laura looked at Dean and he nodded. “Unit 142?”“142.”Dean waved for the handset. “142 this is 141.”“Go 141.”“Status?”“Leaving scene now.”“Destination?”“Follow up on potential suspect.”“Lunch?”“What’s that 141?”“Lunch?”“Copy that. I’ll swing back to HQ.”“I’ll be here 142. 141 out.”“142 out.” Dean handed the handset back to Laura. “Thanks.”She took it from him and smiled.As Dean turned to walk away, he heard from his dad’s office, “Goddamnit, this is not a county case. The Pratt farm—and you damn well know it—is in city property.” Dean shook his head and walked back to his desk. If the sheriff or state police were calling about jurisdiction, the other could not be far behind.
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October 25, 2016
The Clearing - Chapter 6
Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 6The police station was in the basement of the town council building, itself a modest two-story renovated home. Brick with thick, white columns at the front entrance. To get to the police station, however, Dean used the side entrance down a ramp of concrete that also served as an efficient channel for water during heavy rains. He swung the door open.In New York City, the front desk was manned by a uniformed officer who controlled all access into the building, usually several floors. Here, during the day, the chief’s civilian secretary, Laura Mannheim, took the calls, told people to wait, managed the chief’s calendar and appointments, and handled dispatching. At night, one of the two officers on duty fielded any incoming calls. That night Reginald Hargrove sat at his desk reading a copy of Sports Illustrated, an issue from December that Dean had already read with Earl Campbell on the cover.Reggie looked up and nodded. “Hey.”“Any messages?”Reggie shrugged and went back to the magazine, licking the tip of his thumb, touching a corner of the page, and lifting it—pausing before turning it over.Dean walked by the largest office in the basement, his father’s, and past the hall that led to an interview room and a small evidence locker, which had a clipboard hanging from a string wrapped around the wire gate enclosing it. Dean’s desk was at the far end of the room, where he had requested it, in the shadows. A gray IBM Selectric II sat on the left side of the desk and a desk light just behind it. On the left side, a beige phone beside a container full of pens, the blue and black end caps chewed up.He tossed the manila envelope on the desk and sat down in the wheeled, cushioned chair, and pulled the plastic white ashtray toward him. He squeezed out a cigarette, tapped it on the top of his hand, put it in his mouth, and lit it with a red disposable lighter, which he stuffed back into his pocket. He inhaled and held before audibly exhaling. He pulled out the flask, took a swig, and refilled it from the bottle in the bottom drawer. He stared at the envelope.He smoked the cigarette down to its end and stamped it out in the ashtray full of butts and ash. He scratched his chin and opened the envelope, pouring the bundles of wrapped ten-dollar bills onto the desktop. The unwrapped bundle and rubber band fell over the top of those followed by The Communist Manifesto. He recounted the bundles, fourteen and slid them and the book back into the envelope. He tossed in the rubber band. He counted the loose ten-dollar bills until he totaled ninety-five three times. He slipped two of them into his front pocket, watching Hargrove still immersed in his magazine as he did it. He slipped a blank evidence form in the typewriter and wrote up the contents of the envelope, noting only ninety-three loose bills. He slipped the envelope and the typed sheet into a larger manila envelope and grabbed the evidence locker key from his top, center desk drawer.He grabbed the clipboard that hung from a string, looked at his watch, wrote his name and the time on the first blank line available, about two-thirds down the page. After unlocking the metal gate, he found the boxes Zach had brought back from the Pratt farm and tossed the envelope in it. He locked up and walked out, nodding to Hargrove as he left.* * *Sadie Harper pulled the cigarette out of Dean’s mouth, inhaled, and put it back in his mouth. She smiled as she let out the smoke. Underneath the diaphanous black robe, she was naked. He loved her body best this way. After the sex, when they were relaxed, but the sensuality of her body was just visible, fleeting, and surprising. She pulled her long, blond hair back into a pony tail, letting the band snap. “Light me one,” she said, her native Georgia accent just leaking into the sentence.He pulled out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, used his other one to light it, and gave the fresh one to her.“What’s this about the Pratt farm?”“News travels fast.”She sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. “It’s a small town.”“We found William Nimitz out there, near the border.”“Oh dear. Was he the kid at the body shop? McCord’s?”“Yeah. You knew him?”She drank from the glass of water sitting on the end table. “I know some of the guys that work there. Not Billy though. But he seemed like a nice boy.”“Hmm.” He leaned up on this elbow and twisted around. His watch was on the side table. Approaching midnight. “Does everyone call him Billy?”She ignored his question. “Is Jenny still coming up?”He nodded. Jenny was his ten-year-old daughter who lived with his ex-wife most of the time. “She is. I pick her up tomorrow.”“Is Cindy bringing her up?”“Yeah. Going to see her old man while she’s at it.”“Most men don’t care, you know?”He squinted at her. “What do you mean?”“Like you, is what I mean. Taking your daughter for the weekend and days at a time. Most men, they want to forget about their kids. Wham bam, see you later, and all that. Not you.”“You’re too cynical.” He tossed off the covers and sat up. Shrapnel scars in the thick meaty part of his thigh and calf dotted down the outer side of his right leg. He slipped on his pants and buckled the belt.“I’m not. And you’re the cop. Aren’t you guys supposed to be the cynical ones?” She cinched the robe around her tightly. “When will I see you next?”As he stuffed his shirt into his pants, he said, “With Jenny here and this case, probably a few days. Can you handle that?” He half smiled, a touch of the devious in him.She smiled broadly, letting all her teeth show, the smile that pleased him most, the one that seemed genuine. She walked over to him and put her arms around his neck. “I’ll be lonely. I’ll miss you. But I can handle that.”“I see.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tight, his arousal apparent to her.“Oh, Dean, you know how to turn a girl on.” She let go and stepped back, letting her hand fondle the front of his pants before stepping back and giving him a clear path out of the room.He adjusted himself. “I think you tell that to all the guys.” He laid the two tens from the shoebox and another ten on the dresser as he walked out.
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CHAPTER 6The police station was in the basement of the town council building, itself a modest two-story renovated home. Brick with thick, white columns at the front entrance. To get to the police station, however, Dean used the side entrance down a ramp of concrete that also served as an efficient channel for water during heavy rains. He swung the door open.In New York City, the front desk was manned by a uniformed officer who controlled all access into the building, usually several floors. Here, during the day, the chief’s civilian secretary, Laura Mannheim, took the calls, told people to wait, managed the chief’s calendar and appointments, and handled dispatching. At night, one of the two officers on duty fielded any incoming calls. That night Reginald Hargrove sat at his desk reading a copy of Sports Illustrated, an issue from December that Dean had already read with Earl Campbell on the cover.Reggie looked up and nodded. “Hey.”“Any messages?”Reggie shrugged and went back to the magazine, licking the tip of his thumb, touching a corner of the page, and lifting it—pausing before turning it over.Dean walked by the largest office in the basement, his father’s, and past the hall that led to an interview room and a small evidence locker, which had a clipboard hanging from a string wrapped around the wire gate enclosing it. Dean’s desk was at the far end of the room, where he had requested it, in the shadows. A gray IBM Selectric II sat on the left side of the desk and a desk light just behind it. On the left side, a beige phone beside a container full of pens, the blue and black end caps chewed up.He tossed the manila envelope on the desk and sat down in the wheeled, cushioned chair, and pulled the plastic white ashtray toward him. He squeezed out a cigarette, tapped it on the top of his hand, put it in his mouth, and lit it with a red disposable lighter, which he stuffed back into his pocket. He inhaled and held before audibly exhaling. He pulled out the flask, took a swig, and refilled it from the bottle in the bottom drawer. He stared at the envelope.He smoked the cigarette down to its end and stamped it out in the ashtray full of butts and ash. He scratched his chin and opened the envelope, pouring the bundles of wrapped ten-dollar bills onto the desktop. The unwrapped bundle and rubber band fell over the top of those followed by The Communist Manifesto. He recounted the bundles, fourteen and slid them and the book back into the envelope. He tossed in the rubber band. He counted the loose ten-dollar bills until he totaled ninety-five three times. He slipped two of them into his front pocket, watching Hargrove still immersed in his magazine as he did it. He slipped a blank evidence form in the typewriter and wrote up the contents of the envelope, noting only ninety-three loose bills. He slipped the envelope and the typed sheet into a larger manila envelope and grabbed the evidence locker key from his top, center desk drawer.He grabbed the clipboard that hung from a string, looked at his watch, wrote his name and the time on the first blank line available, about two-thirds down the page. After unlocking the metal gate, he found the boxes Zach had brought back from the Pratt farm and tossed the envelope in it. He locked up and walked out, nodding to Hargrove as he left.* * *Sadie Harper pulled the cigarette out of Dean’s mouth, inhaled, and put it back in his mouth. She smiled as she let out the smoke. Underneath the diaphanous black robe, she was naked. He loved her body best this way. After the sex, when they were relaxed, but the sensuality of her body was just visible, fleeting, and surprising. She pulled her long, blond hair back into a pony tail, letting the band snap. “Light me one,” she said, her native Georgia accent just leaking into the sentence.He pulled out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, used his other one to light it, and gave the fresh one to her.“What’s this about the Pratt farm?”“News travels fast.”She sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. “It’s a small town.”“We found William Nimitz out there, near the border.”“Oh dear. Was he the kid at the body shop? McCord’s?”“Yeah. You knew him?”She drank from the glass of water sitting on the end table. “I know some of the guys that work there. Not Billy though. But he seemed like a nice boy.”“Hmm.” He leaned up on this elbow and twisted around. His watch was on the side table. Approaching midnight. “Does everyone call him Billy?”She ignored his question. “Is Jenny still coming up?”He nodded. Jenny was his ten-year-old daughter who lived with his ex-wife most of the time. “She is. I pick her up tomorrow.”“Is Cindy bringing her up?”“Yeah. Going to see her old man while she’s at it.”“Most men don’t care, you know?”He squinted at her. “What do you mean?”“Like you, is what I mean. Taking your daughter for the weekend and days at a time. Most men, they want to forget about their kids. Wham bam, see you later, and all that. Not you.”“You’re too cynical.” He tossed off the covers and sat up. Shrapnel scars in the thick meaty part of his thigh and calf dotted down the outer side of his right leg. He slipped on his pants and buckled the belt.“I’m not. And you’re the cop. Aren’t you guys supposed to be the cynical ones?” She cinched the robe around her tightly. “When will I see you next?”As he stuffed his shirt into his pants, he said, “With Jenny here and this case, probably a few days. Can you handle that?” He half smiled, a touch of the devious in him.She smiled broadly, letting all her teeth show, the smile that pleased him most, the one that seemed genuine. She walked over to him and put her arms around his neck. “I’ll be lonely. I’ll miss you. But I can handle that.”“I see.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tight, his arousal apparent to her.“Oh, Dean, you know how to turn a girl on.” She let go and stepped back, letting her hand fondle the front of his pants before stepping back and giving him a clear path out of the room.He adjusted himself. “I think you tell that to all the guys.” He laid the two tens from the shoebox and another ten on the dresser as he walked out.
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