She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be

by J. D. Barker

  I keyed in *69 on the phone.

  It rang once.

  “Keep him there, I’m on my way,” a voice said.

  Willy.

  From the open doorway, Kaylie said, “Get out, Jack. Now.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Get out, or I’ll scream.”

  The microcassette recorder still sat on the bed, next to the pillow. I grabbed it. The tape was missing. “Where’s the tape?”

  “I’ll scream. I swear I will.”

  “Dammit! What did I say?” I shouted.

  She did scream then. Kaylie screamed so loud the shrill pitch filled the room. I threw the microcassette recorder against the far wall and pushed past her and out into the hallway, where a dozen eyes watched me leave in stunned silence.

  Outside Geary Hall, I crossed the quad to a bank of pay phones at Findlay Commons. I dialed my apartment on Mifflin and got a busy signal. I hung up and dialed again, again after that.

  When the phone finally did ring, it only rang once before Willy picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Why did she call you, Willy?”

  There was a pause. “Where have you been, Jack?”

  “Arby’s.”

  “You’ve been gone a day and a half.”

  “There was a long line.”

  “Were you out drinking?”

  “Why did Kaylie call you, Willy?”

  “She was worried. We’re all very worried about you, that’s all. I know her from student union. She knows we’re roommates. She said you showed up on her doorstep looking like death warmed over and smelling worse. She said she calmed you down and then she called me, that’s all. Were you drinking, Jack? You’re not supposed to leave campus without telling me. If you were drinking, tell me. I’ll get you help. I’ll help you get past it, like I did in Pittsburgh.”

  I could see the Geary entrance from here. I watched for Kaylie as I spoke. “Tell Matteo whatever you want. I don’t need a babysitter.”

  Willy’s voice dropped lower. “The police called looking for you, Jack. Something happened to the woman who lived across the hall from you in Brentwood. I told them you pulled an all-nighter in the library. I said I was there most of the time, too. Come back to the apartment. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I heard something behind him. Soft, barely audible. A whisper? Another voice?

  “Is someone else in the apartment, Will?”

  “What? No. Of course not.”

  This time I was sure I heard it. Another voice behind his. A female voice.

  Across the quad, near McKean Hall, a girl in a white coat stood. I saw another, a boy with dark hair and glasses and a white windbreaker on a bench outside the biomechanics lab. He had a book in hand, but he wasn’t turning the pages.

  I hung up.

  I quickly walked the block and a half to the student union and withdrew all the cash in my account, a little under three thousand dollars.

  Two of the people in line wore white coats. I tried not to look at them.

  Back in my car, I drove off campus. At one point, I thought I saw a white SUV behind me so I got on 26, followed the highway to Lamont, then pulled a fast U-turn in a Circle K parking lot before doubling back west. They continued east. I kept an eye on my rearview mirror after that, but I didn’t see another. I followed 26 back to I-99, then took the highway for about twenty more minutes, getting off in Port Matilda. I stopped at a McDonald’s, ordered a Big Mac, large fry, and a Coke, and I sat near a window where I could watch the traffic. I was starving, but as each bite of food hit my acidy stomach, I thought for sure it would come right back up. Somehow, I managed to keep everything down. Although three white vehicles pulled in—a Toyota Camry, a Jeep, and a station wagon—none of the people in them wore white.

  I got a room across the street at the Aldean Motor Lodge. The hotel was rundown, at least twenty years past its prime and in desperate need of a coat of paint. The heavyset man with greasy hair behind the counter allowed me to pay for the night with thirty-nine dollars in cash and didn’t ask for ID. He gave me the keys to twenty-three and said the room was on the far end of the building. I parked my car in the back so it wouldn’t be visible from the street.

  The room smelled of stale lemons. The walls were covered in cheap, dark paneling with prints of ancient sailing ships hanging crookedly from nails. The carpet was a shag yellow with hints of brown and orange and worn thin at the door. A note above the television promised free HBO, but the crack running the length of the nineteen-inch tube put an end to that. The bathroom had no door, and the toilet looked like it hadn’t been scrubbed since Carter was president.

  I sat on the bed for a while, cradled my aching head, and wondered just what the fuck I was doing.

  Eventually, I shucked off my clothes and took a shower. I probably stood under the water for nearly an hour as the stink of the cemetery, and the filth of the past thirty-six hours circled the drain and eventually disappeared. After, I dried and changed into the last of my clean clothes.

  I’d either have to go home or buy more. I hadn’t decided which yet.

  The bottle of Jameson sat on the nightstand.

  I reached for it, changed my mind.

  Fuck.

  Not now.

  I dropped onto the edge of the bed and blew out a breath. I pulled the two books from my father’s grave close.

  In the top drawer of the nightstand, I found a Gideon Bible, a pad of paper with Aldean Motor Lodge printed at the top, and a cheap ballpoint. I grabbed the pad and pen and leafed through the Penn State yearbook. I scribbled out a list of the circled people:

  Perla Beyham

  Cammie Brotherton

  Jaquelyn Breece

  Jeffery Dalton

  Garret Dotts

  Kaitlyn Gargery

  Penelope Maudlin

  Richard Nettleton

  Keith Pickford

  Emma Tackett

  Edward Thatch

  Lester Woolford

  Elfrieda Leech

  I drew arrows connecting my mother’s and father’s names, then did the same for Stella’s parents.

  I stared at that list for nearly an hour.

  The bottle of Jameson sat on the nightstand.

  If I went back to the apartment, Willy would be waiting for me. Maybe Matteo too, at this point. He might have driven up. Maybe the police. Possibly all of them.

  The people in white, too.

  That’s where they’ll pick you back up, my mind whispered. If they lost you at all.

  Cecile Dreher saw me at Leech’s door. She may have told the police. If the police knew I was in the room when Elfrieda Leech shot herself, they may be wondering if it was even suicide. I had no motive, no reason to want her dead, but they wanted me. They made that real clear the last time. Police planted evidence, they lied. They’d do what they needed to do to build a case, even a weak one.

  At the very least, if I went back, Matteo would find some way to lock me down. Some facility, a thirty-day program. He’d find a jailer much worse than William Trudeau.

  The bottle of Jameson sat on the nightstand.

  A settled brain is a clear brain, they always say.

  Who’s they? I had no idea.

  I couldn’t drink. Not now.

  I looked back down at the list and realized what I had to do.

  I had to find them. All of them.

  That’s why my father left the yearbook.

  Why else?

  I left just a little after two in the morning.

  6

  The Penn State Registrar’s office was located in a brick building off Curtin Road between the recreation center and the Pegula Ice Arena. Nancy Vass had worked there for twenty-three years and planned to retire to Boca Raton in two more. She’d miss the students, she wouldn’t miss the cold. On the morning of March 15, 1994, when she arrived to work, she found the registrar’s office suffered the first and only break-in since the college was founded in 1855. Someone had
used a rock to shatter the glass in the door and gain entry. Although they would never determine what, if anything, had been taken, thirteen files were missing from the student records housed along the back wall in the beige file cabinets. One folder belonging to a former guidance counselor named Elfrieda Leech was gone too, this one from the employee records in the back room.

  About the same time Nancy Vass was dialing the campus police to report the break-in, I was seventeen miles away at Otto’s Buy Here Pay Here lot in Hublesburg, trading my Honda Prelude (and one thousand dollars cash) for a 1989 Jeep Wrangler. For an extra fifty, he sold me a license plate he pulled from a clunker around back.

  I wouldn’t speak to Willy or Matteo for the next four years.

  I’d never set foot back on the Penn State campus.

  I hadn’t reopened the bottle of Jameson but I would soon enough.

  And I’d see Stella again, too—possibly the only certainty left in my life.

  7

  On the night of August 8, 1994, Detective Joy Fogel stood among the trees behind the bench at South Side Cemetery and waited for Jack Thatch to appear. Five other officers were positioned in various places throughout the cemetery, also waiting for Jack Thatch. She instructed them all to wear plain clothes and attempt to appear as mourners, but she knew they all stuck out, plain as day. Another officer had been positioned in the hallway outside his apartment. The operation hadn’t been sanctioned by Pittsburgh PD. She would have never gotten approval for something like this. She couldn’t charge him with anything—she had nothing but speculation and bits of circumstantial evidence, nothing that would hold up. Instead, she rolled out the Wall of Weird first thing that morning and simply asked, “Who wants to help today?” There were sneers, jeers, and six volunteers.

  Jack Thatch did not appear.

  He had not been seen for nearly five months. Not since leaving Penn State for God knew where.

  At thirty-eight past one in the morning, she told everyone to go home. The operation was a bust.

  She went back to Pittsburgh PD, brewed a pot of coffee, and waited for the inevitable phone call telling her another body had been found, appearing black and burnt, but not. That call did not come.

  There was no body that year.

  Nothing in 1995, 1996, or 1997 either.

  Turns out, they were looking in the wrong place. Former Detective Terrance Stack, just Terry now, would figure that out, shortly before he died.

  August 6, 1998

  Twenty-Two Years Old

  Log 08/06/1998—

  Subject “D” —

  Audio/video recording.

  DISABLED

  —Charter Observation Team – 309

  1

  On August 6, 1998, Detective Joy Fogel was glued to the television set in the bullpen watching CNN along with all the other detectives. Monica Lewinsky was about to take the stand in the Grand Jury investigation of the President. When Stack called, she answered with five words, “This had better be good.”

  “Oh, it’s good. Get over here.”

  She found Stack sitting on the concrete steps at his front door sipping on a can of Diet Coke. To the best of her knowledge, he hadn’t drank a beer in nearly five years, but something about the expression on his face told her he wanted one. He rose slowly as she got out of the car. Arthritis was taking a toll on him. Back in April, she had brought a cake and the two of them celebrated his eighty-second birthday at their card table in the upstairs bedroom surrounded by the case dominating both their lives. He rattled when he walked that day, and when she asked him why, he pulled a bottle of Aleve from his pocket. “I’ve been popping these like candy. Easier to carry ’em with me than make the trek up and down the stairs.”

  Today when he rose and came toward her, he not only rattled but he cringed and pressed the palm of his right hand into his thigh to help straighten the leg out.

  “You can get something stronger than Aleve if you go to the doctor, you know.”

  He held the screen door open for her. “At my age, I’d be worried if things didn’t hurt.”

  Some blankets and a pillow were heaped on the couch in the living room. When Stack caught her looking at them, he told her sometimes it was easier to sleep downstairs.

  He took the steps to the second floor slowly, gripping the railing tight. By the time they got to the top, a sheen of sweat had broken out on the back of his neck. Inside the back bedroom, he dropped down into one of the chairs at the card table with a huff.

  Fogel tried to convince him to move into a retirement center or, at the very least, find a one-story home, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “Walking into a retirement center is no better than a dog heading to the vet to get the needle. It’s a one-way trip. I ain’t doing it. This here is my home, and I plan to die in it. I just hope somebody finds me before I stink up the place.”

  The house had always smelled of cigarettes and stale cheese, but Fogel kept that to herself.

  Looking up from his chair at the card table, Stack drew in several deep breaths before he finally spoke. “I got a buddy at the Bureau, name of Rudy Geyer. He pulled a big favor for us, but if you ever ask him, he’ll deny it. Could get in a lot of trouble. I had him put a flag on Thatch’s finances.”

  “You what?” Fogel dropped into the chair opposite him.

  Stack raised a hand. “Completely off the books. Nobody knows.”

  “But there will be a record somewhere.”

  “He says he can hide his tracks, and I believe him. He’s done it before. Those feds have all kinds of tricks, and I’ve learned not to ask. Sometimes it’s better not to know.”

  This was a slippery slope. Fogel knew if they learned anything from Thatch’s finances and the information was obtained without a warrant, none of the information would be admissible if they charged him. Worse yet, anything that information led to would be purged right along with the finances. She’d seen entire cases tossed by judges because of improper evidence collection.

  Stack’s yellow eyes fell on her. “Listen, you can ask all you want, but you’re not going to get a warrant for his finances. There’s nothing to tie him to Bellino. Other than wrong place, wrong time, nothing ties him to the Leech woman’s death, and we got nothing that proves it was anything other than a suicide, anyway,” Stack said. “The kid’s damn clean on paper.”

  “Brier placed him at the Flack murder.”

  “Brier placed him at the body,” Stack corrected her. “Everything we’ve got on this kid points to nothing but wrong place, wrong time, all of it.” He leaned forward. “And I’ve got to tell you, the finances give us something, which I will explain, but only if you want me to. Before we go there, though, it’s important that you know what I found only backs up more ‘wrong place, wrong time.’ That ‘wrong place, wrong time’ says something, though. It opens doors.”

  Fogel closed her eyes and rubbed her temple. “You were far less cryptic when you were a drunk.”

  “Corner store is only three blocks up the sidewalk. You’ll have to make the run, though. I’m not much into distance travel these days, and the hill at Klondike Road is a bitch.”

  “Not a chance.”

  He produced a manila file folder from one of the boxes beside him, set it on the table, and rested his palm on top. “I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t think it was important.”

  Fogel’s eyes dropped to the folder. “I’ll regret this, won’t I?”

  “Probably.”

  “Show me, before I change my mind.”

  This brought a smile to Stack’s face. He opened the folder and slid a stack of stapled pages across to her. “For starters, our boy is rich.”

  “What?” She studied the document. Some kind of trust.

  “When the aunt died, she filled the hopper with insurance policies. We’re not sure how she covered the premiums. Rudy’s looking into that, ’cause she didn’t make much. All told, she left him nearly three million dollars when she passed.”

  Fogel fell
back in her chair. “No shit.”

  “No shit.”

  “He doesn’t live like a millionaire.”

  “That attorney of his has him on a tight leash, also at the instruction of his aunt. It’s all in the trust. He gets a small allowance, but the bulk of the money is tied up until he graduates from Penn State,” Stack said.

  Fogel flipped through the pages. “But he dropped out of Penn State.”

  Stack shrugged. “I didn’t say he made sound life decisions, just giving you the facts.”

  “I suppose he could go back.”

  “I suppose so,” Stack agreed. “Until that time, he collects two thousand dollars per month, deposited right into his checking account, which he can access with an ATM card. His attorney’s office covers the bulk of his bills—rents, utilities, and the like, so this is more or less spending money.”

  “And you followed that spending money?”

  Stock nodded. “We followed that spending money.”

  Using the edge of the table, he rose to a stand and went to a map on the wall. “Each blue tack represents a cash withdrawal since he dropped off our radar four years ago.”

  Fogel followed him and studied the map. “He’s been all over the country.”

  “That he has.”

  “What are the red tacks?”

  “Those would be our ‘wrong place, wrong time’ events,” Stack said.

  “What do you mean?”

  He pointed at one in the southern corner of Montana. “August 8, 1994, Billings, Montana. Four people found dead in the hospice ward of St. Francis Hospital. All appearing to be burned beyond recognition, but not really burned. Their sheets, beds, the room itself completely untouched.” He pointed to the blue tack next to the red one. “August 23, 1994. Our boy takes twelve hundred dollars out of a bank one block away from the hospital.”

  “Two weeks later?”

  “Yep.”

  “Where was he before that?”

  Stack went back to the table and leafed through the pages in the folder. “Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He took out one thousand on August 9.”