She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be

by J. D. Barker

  “I don’t want to lie.”

  “Omissions aren’t lies. Answer their questions, but keep your responses brief. Don’t offer any additional details. I don’t want to hear anything but yes or no come out of your mouth. If you’re not sure if you should answer something, take a second, collect yourself, give me a chance to weigh in. I tell you to stop talking, you stop talking. Let me control the exchange, got it?”

  I nodded.

  Matteo drew in a deep breath. He hefted his bulky form from the chair, went to the door, and gave it two hard knocks.

  Fogel came in a moment later, carrying a large box. Detective Horton came in behind her. She had pictures of all the bodies found in the house—Stella was not among them.

  The four of us wouldn’t leave that room for another three hours, but I would eventually leave, without the handcuffs. A little whisper at my ear had returned too, the one telling me how a drink would make all of this so much easier.

  2

  Detective Joy Fogel stared at the Wall of Weird.

  She stared at Faustino Brier’s empty desk, a half-full cup of coffee next to his phone, the liquid inside cold and cloudy.

  The last time she looked at a clock, it was half past three in the morning.

  Photographs of Brier’s lifeless body littered her desk. Photographs of the other victims too, twenty-one in all. From weapons fire to grenades, the destruction could have been caused by a small army, yet all evidence pointed to a single assailant. She had pictures of him too, him and his car, but nothing else. The guy was a damn ghost. A well-armed, competent ghost.

  “What the fuck, Brier,” she mumbled, flipping through the photographs.

  His blank gaze stared back at her, the bullet hole in his forehead like a third eye.

  They shouldn’t have split up. That was such a rookie move, and yet she hadn’t thought twice about it. Now Brier was dead, and she was probably looking at a suspension the moment her captain read the report, also sitting on her desk, far from complete. She had no idea what to even write.

  She had one lead.

  A single tire track had been left in the mud off the driveway. According to Forensics, the treads belonged to a Pro Temp 265x70R16 A/T Sport. She was told the tire didn’t match Brier’s car or the GTO. This was a stock tire not available to the general public, supplied only to General Motors, specifically to Chevrolet. Chevrolet used these tires on all Suburbans produced between the years 1990-1993 in the United States. Uniformed officers questioned all the neighbors and had been told that not only had they seen a white Chevy Suburban, but they saw more than a dozen identical white Suburbans come and go from the property on a regular basis, yet none had been on-site today.

  Fogel obtained a picture of a 1993 white Chevy Suburban and pinned it to the Wall of Weird next to the image of the black GTO.

  Oh, and that damn house.

  About two hours ago, she spoke to a frustrated Zeke Grinton in Public Records. She tasked him with identifying the owners of the house at 62 Milburn Court. Usually a straightforward task, this proved to be anything but. The deed for the house was held by a corporation named Barrington Farm and Feed out of Wisconsin. Barrington Farm and Feed consisted of no more than a P.O. Box in the town of Dells, no physical property locally. No employees. That corporation was owned by another called Brainard Textiles in Vermont, another shell. From there, Grinton traced ownership back through six other corporations, holding companies, and LLCs, then lost the trail entirely when it went overseas.

  Another dead end.

  Then there was Stella Nettleton.

  Fogel glanced up at the Have you seen me? poster tacked on the Wall of Weird, the sketch of the beautiful girl staring back. Social Security had no record of a Stella Nettleton. She had people checking birth records too, but already knew that would turn up nothing. They hadn’t found anything on Richard Nettleton either when the letter first surfaced, a copy of which was pinned beside the poster on the Wall.

  When the phone at the corner of Fogel’s desk began to ring, she nearly jumped out of her skin. The loud electronic chirp cut through the otherwise silent and empty room, a room made even quieter by the early hour. She scooped up the receiver and pressed the flashing button for line one. “Fogel.”

  “I’m sorry about Faust.”

  Former Detective Terrance Stack, just Terry now.

  Fogel closed her eyes, her fingers tightening on the receiver. She tried to muster a response, but nothing came out.

  “Do you need to talk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Be here in twenty,” Stack said. “I’ll get a pot brewing.”

  3

  Officer Elvin Putney dropped the remains of his cigarette and crushed the butt under the toe of his shoe. He then pulled another from the pack in his right front pocket, struck a match, and lit the tip. He sucked the nicotine deep into his lungs, held it, then slowly let it out in a series of smoke rings that drifted out from the front stoop of the house, over the driveway, and disappeared in the dark sky.

  He glanced down at his watch.

  Three twenty-eight in the ever-loving morning. Another hour and a half before he would be relieved and could head home for some shut-eye. He was one of four officers tasked with maintaining security on 62 Milburn Court. Collins was at the guardhouse, Burton was in the back near the pool house, and Sevilla was inside probably sleeping. He hadn’t seen or heard from him in over an hour.

  He wanted to be sleeping.

  A mosquito buzzed past Putney’s face, and he snatched the insect out of the air with his free hand. When he opened his fist, what was left of the bug was in his palm, a black and bloody mess. “Got you, you little shit!”

  “I’ve got movement,” a voice crackled from the radio at his shoulder. Burton, at the back of the property.

  Putney squeezed the transmit button. “What kind of movement?”

  “Not sure,” Burton replied. “Just something from the corner of my eye.”

  “Want me to come back there?” Putney said.

  Silence for a moment, then, “Negative.”

  “Could be deer. I’ve seen three of them since I got here.” This from Collins at the guardhouse.

  “Maybe,” Burton said.

  Putney pressed his transmit button, another smoke ring rising into the night sky. “Maybe it’s another reporter sniffing around?”

  “Negative,” Collins said. “We ran the last of them off around midnight. I’ve got eyes on the cul-de-sac, and it’s empty. I’ve had the occasional looky-loo pull in, but they see my cruiser and turn right back around. Got mountains at the back of the house, nobody’s coming that way on foot.”

  “There it is again. Too big to be a deer. Five, maybe six feet tall. Dammit, got another about twenty feet down the tree line,” Burton replied.

  Putney let the cigarette fall to the pavement and stomped out the remains, then reached for his microphone. “I’m coming back there.”

  Static, then Collins from the guardhouse. “Negative, hold your position until we know what it is. Could be a diversion.”

  Fuck you, Collins. You don’t give orders, we’re all the same rank. Putney tapped his microphone again. “Do you need backup, Burton? Give the word.”

  No response.

  That’s when Putney saw something. The slightest of movement from the trees behind the fountain toward the far edge of the driveway. He pulled his Maglite from his belt, flicked the switch, and directed the bright beam toward the trees. He didn’t see anything move, but for a second he thought he saw eyeshine reflected in the light. Then it was gone.

  A branch cracked off to his right, at the trees on the west end of the house. He swung the beam around. This time he caught someone shuffling sideways behind the trunk of an old oak. “Pittsburgh PD!” he shouted. “You’re trespassing on a crime scene! Put your hands in the air, and step out where I can see you!”

  Putney’s free hand fell to the butt of his Glock .45. His thumb flicked the leather band holding i
t in place, releasing the snap. “Come out! Now!”

  A man in a long, white coat stepped out, his hands at his sides. He held something in the right. He looked to be about forty years old, with dark hair. His expression was blank, unreadable.

  “Drop it!”

  The man didn’t move.

  Putney leaned into his microphone and pressed the transmit button with the hand holding the flashlight. “I’ve got someone here, just stepped out of the woods.”

  No reply.

  “I said, drop it!”

  More movement, to the right of this man.

  A woman stepped from the trees, also wearing a long, white coat, also holding something in her hand. Another after that, another man, about ten feet down the tree line. Two more came out from the far left.

  Putney wanted to take a step back, deeper into the stone archway covering the house’s entrance, but he didn’t, he didn’t move.

  Others began filing out from the trees. He had no idea where they were all coming from, fifteen or twenty of them now.

  He pressed the transmit button again, his voice low. “I need backup at the entrance. Anyone copy?”

  No reply.

  The figures in white all stepped toward him, toward the house, moving as one unit. When they took a second step, then a third, Putney tightened his grip on the Glock. Rules dictated that he could not draw his weapon unless threatened. At the very least, he’d be looking at a suspension, possible termination if he fired a shot. He drew the Glock anyway and held it out toward the first man to appear. “Not another step!”

  The group continued toward him.

  The woman he had noticed second raised the item in her hand, held it in front of her chest.

  Putney aimed the Glock at her. “Don’t do it!”

  She raised her other hand, sparked a lighter, and brought the flame to the thing in her other hand.

  A candle. Only a fucking candle.

  Putney felt a wave of relief slip over him.

  The others followed, candles lighting up all around. Two dozen, maybe more. They were still stepping out of the woods.

  “If this is some kind of vigil, you need to move back to the street. This is a crime scene,” he told them.

  The crowd continued toward him, their pace quickening from a walk to a run, the candles held out before them, flames winking and pulling as they rushed forward, these people in white.

  Not a vigil.

  4

  Former Detective Terrance Stack, just Terry now, was waiting for Fogel when she pulled into his narrow driveway. Sitting on the front stoop, beer in hand, his eyes focused on something in the cracked sidewalk. At first, he didn’t look up. When he finally did, she wished he hadn’t. His eyes were lined and bloodshot, with dark bags beneath. He raised the beer at her in a mock toast, took a drink, then looked back down at the sidewalk.

  Fogel crossed the overgrown yard and took a seat beside him. The scent of beer hung over him, mixed with other odors she cared not to think about. His hair was greasy. He desperately needed a shower.

  “I told Faust this case would put him in an early grave, not that he paid me any mind. They might as well dig two, if you plan to keep chasing this. Maybe three, since I’m not much for my own advice. We can all take the long sleep together.” His speech was slightly slurred. Not the speech pattern of a drunk but of someone who drank so much, their body had grown accustomed, lingering in that slightly buzzed but not yet stoned state of the professional alcoholic.

  This was a bad idea, Fogel thought. She should have gone home.

  “What happened to him?”

  Fogel told him about the black GTO, the man who drove it, how they split up. How they found Faustino’s body. Everything else that happened in the past twenty-four hours.

  Stack listened in silence, nursing the beer, nodding occasionally as she went. When she finally finished, he said, “My missing kid from ’78 is Stella Nettleton, right? The two adults we found in the Dormont house, they were her parents, Richard and Emma.”

  Fogel reached into her briefcase and pulled out a copy of the letter from Richard Nettleton and handed it to Stack.

  Stack waved it off. “Faust gave me a copy of that as soon as he got it. I know all about the Thatch kid too. What we could piece together, anyway.” He stood, his body protesting with a series of cracks and pops. “Come on, I got something to show you.”

  He held the screen door for her and she stepped into the house, holding her breath as she passed him. The small television droned in the living room, the volume low. Some black and white movie with Katherine Hepburn in her prime. A rumpled newspaper was on the table next to a recliner, a picture of the Milburn Court house above the fold with the headline Decorated Officer / 21 Others Dead. A dozen empty Iron City bottles littered the floor around the table.

  Stack shuffled past her. “The coffee I promised is upstairs.”

  He was halfway up the steps before he realized she wasn’t following. He offered a wry smile. “I’m too old and tired to try anything funny, and with three exes running around out there, my finances are maxed. No room in the budget for a fourth. What I need to show you, it ain’t exactly portable.”

  Without waiting for a response, he continued up the steps and disappeared onto the second floor.

  Brier trusted this guy, and she trusted Brier. Fogel clucked her tongue, weighed her options, then followed after him.

  The stairs opened onto a narrow hallway with a bathroom at one end, a bedroom at the other, and a third room between them both. The door to the third room was open, the light on. Stack’s shadow stood patiently against the far wall.

  Fogel went to the open doorway and gasped.

  Stack took another sip of his beer and wiped his mouth. “Wife number two used this space as a sewing room, but she was never very good at it. All the drapes in this house are uneven, and I’ve got a stack of shirts boxed away in my closet somewhere that were far better off before she tried to replace missing buttons. I swear, she’d use half a spool on a single button and create this mound of thread, never got the color even remotely close, neither. She didn’t know how to tie them off properly, so after a few hours, things would start to come undone and I’d be walking around with thread trailing behind me. The guys at the precinct used to say I looked like a parade float, complete with streamers. Back at the beginning, when I still loved her, I’d wear them. A couple years in and I started keeping spare shirts in my car. By year three, I gave up the ghost altogether and boxed them. She did a number on this sweater—”

  “How did you…” Fogel’s voice trailed off.

  “The Wall of Weird Faustino put together at the pen was for quick reference at the precinct. This is where he really worked, where we really worked. I started collecting copies of evidence here back in my day. Then when he took over the case, he kept everything current. Anything new came in, we made sure a copy found its way here. Copies only, mind you. Neither of us were trying to hoard evidence. We wanted a quiet place to work the case. Can’t wheel that board out at the precinct without creating a big stink—there’s nobody to bug us here.” Stack reached into his pocket. “Faust had a key, probably still has a key. I made one for you after you came by last year, figured you’d be back.”

  Fogel took the key from his outstretched hand and studied the room.

  The back wall was identical to the Wall of Weird, only larger. The photographs of all the victims and crime scenes were spaced further apart, with hundreds of index cards tacked in the spaces between. Red yarn connected some of the images, yellow connected others. On the wall to the left stood file boxes, dozens of them. Some were labeled with the names of victims, others had addresses, three said Duncan Bellino. A folding card table sat in the center of the room with two chairs. On top of the table sat two boxes. One had Nettleton written across the front in black, blocky letters, the other had Thatch. On the floor was a third box, this one labeled Black GTO Guy.

  Stack nodded at the boxes. “Faustino
and me didn’t come up with much on the guy in the car, but what we do have is in that box. For the past few weeks, we’ve been digging into Thatch’s parents. The Nettleton box has the letter, not much else. Now we can tie it to the house in Dormont, that crime scene. That’s something, for sure. The plan was to find the link between the two families, see where that takes us. If you’re in for the long haul, I could really use your help here. You’ve got access to resources I can’t touch anymore, department databases and the like.”

  “I’ll stay, if you take a shower,” Fogel said.

  “Been meaning to do that anyway.”

  “And if you lay off the beer.”

  Stack raised the bottle in his hand to his lips and drank the rest in three long swallows, then he set the empty one down on the table. “Done.”

  “I’m gonna need that coffee you promised, too.”

  “There’s a fresh pot in the corner over there. I don’t lie about coffee.”

  Fogel glanced around the room again, then sat at the table. “Okay, tell me what I don’t know. Let’s start there.”

  Log 08/12/1993—

  Subject “D” within expected parameters.

  Audio/video recording.

  “He’s just sitting there,” Carl said. “Staring at the wall.”

  “Maybe he’s meditating.”

  “He looks like he’s waiting for something.”

  “I can’t imagine what,” Warren replied.

  “Did the doctor see him today?”

  “He had many visitors today.”

  “Who?”

  Warren didn’t reply.

  “Did the doc meet with him today?”

  “She meets with him every day. They have a lot to discuss.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “I dunno. I didn’t listen.”

  “You’re supposed to listen. That’s the job.”

  Warren pressed the microphone button. “David, what did you discuss with Doctor Durgin today?”

  Thirty seconds elapsed, then: “The future, mostly. We talked about Carl, too. We talked about Carl a lot. Carl, Carl, Carl. What to do with Carl.”