by R E Swirsky
Dean had his first impression sorted. "You get a statement yet, Mike?"
"The boys themselves called it in. Confessed to the dispatch operator. Confessed to me as well. What they told me was..."
Dean raised his hand and cut him off once again. "Let me," he said simply and walked over to the boys for the first time. Both boys looked up at Dean. Confusion and disbelief lurked just behind the eyes of the younger boy, as if his sanity was hanging on by a thread, and he was about to scream. His dark bangs hung down and partially shielded his eyes. The older, clean cut boy, Tommy, displayed a strange, calm acceptance in his expression, as if he were in a constant shock.
Dean looked down upon the small coffee table in front of the boys where a bloody axe lay. It had clearly visible hand and fingerprints all over it.
"Let's see. Father killed first. Probably killed in a rage by one of the boys. Tommy would be my guess." He pointed at Tommy, but Tommy didn't respond and just stared back blankly. "Mother hears the ruckus and is killed with one blow as the boys sit and wait for her to walk into the room." The boys glanced at each other and in unison returned their gaze towards the floor.
Mike nodded. "Something like that, I suppose. Jason was still holding the axe when I arrived."
Dean walked back over to the mother and looked at her once more. She looked strangely peaceful as she lay staring up at the ceiling in the hallway. Her left hand almost seemed to be reaching into the cavity of her chest to her heart, but it was just an illusion as the axe had severed her hand in half and pinned it to her body.
Dean moved over to the window, pulled back the shears and looked outside. It was as he expected. The news had travelled quickly and there were multiple media vans on the street with camera crews already filming. He could see Jackson Heavy Head still in the process of having the barriers moved out onto the street to push the media back in both directions. The crowd continued to grow out side. He really needed to get these boys out of here and down to the station.
"You got this, Francesca?" he hollered as he pointed to the two boys. She shook her head no.
Dean waved her over and instructed the boys to stand up. He had the boys turn around while she took photos of them from all angles. Arms down at their sides, and then up in the air. She took close ups of their hands, front and back, and then their faces. Dean then had the boys remove their shoes and socks on the spot and bagged them. He had booties brought over for the two of them. The rest of the clothes would be removed at the station where they would be stripped and once again photographed from head to foot.
Dean was done with the boys for now, and he ordered Mike to arrange for the boys to be moved out. A van would back up to the front door of the house as close as possible. A blanket was brought to cover the boys so no photographers could capture the bloody images as they were removed from the home one at a time.
Dean breathed a big sigh. It all looked simple enough. The boys were still here with the murder weapon and they even confessed, twice. But he just had a feeling about what he saw. The footprints on the hearth bothered him immediately. It appeared as if the boys had gone over to the hearth purposefully to stand and look down upon their mutilated father's body. But why? Why would they step up on to the hearth?
Dean walked slowly back over to the front of the fireplace and avoided stepping on any bloody prints on the floor. He studied the hearth, and finally stepped up on to it just like the boys had, but off to the side where there were no bloody tracks. He turned around, faced out, and looked down upon Peter Oliver's body. There was something wrong in what he saw. He looked again at the boys’ footprints and noticed why it bothered him. He looked down to his own feet and then again at the bloody imprints. The boys had not stepped on the hearth and turned around. They had stepped up, and stepped off. They had not looked down at their father's body at all. They kept both feet planted side by side, just as he currently stood. He rubbed his chin in thought.
He studied the stones on the hearth again more carefully. He spotted a few finger prints in amongst the blood spatter on the stones. The boys had not only stepped onto the hearth, but had grabbed hold of a couple of the stones. Was it in a moment of anguish over what they had done? He didn’t understand it.
He hated that he had this feeling again. The last time he had had this feeling was with the Gardener murder, and he had been right about that one right from the start. However, he had been unable to do anything about what he knew deep inside was the truth. Now, the image of the footprints of these two young boys as they stepped up and off the hearth a half dozen feet from their dead father stuck the same way in his brain, and he knew that unless he understood why they stepped up on to the hearth, the thought would fester like an untreated wound.
CHAPTER 21
Gerald hated when he felt like the fool, and that's exactly how he felt as the liquor seeped into his veins. It slowly released the dragon inside. It had been nearly five weeks since Sarah left him, and the cold of winter had crept its way in with early December. The ground had a dusting of snow, and the first of the season's Christmas lights were already hung, brightening the evening streets and walkways of Calgary. Most people appreciated the vibrant colours and decor the season always brought, but not Gerald. He hated the ceremony of what it all represented: the false hope, the fake smiles and the gratuitous well-wishers everywhere he went.
Gerald slammed his empty glass down on the counter inside Ratskeller's Pub and immediately drew the attention of Dustin Toomey, the young bartender who worked the bar at night for extra cash to put himself through college. Gerald nodded at Dustin, an indication that he wanted another whiskey on the rocks. He had already put back a number of drinks since he arrived after work. Dustin quickly set another before Gerald on the bar. Gerald had never been inside Ratskeller's before. He liked the dark atmosphere. It suited his ominous mood.
Gerald grunted his approval at the quick response. He pointed his finger at Dustin. "You got a girl there, Dusty?" he asked gruffly. He heard the waitress call Dustin by name earlier.
"The name's Dustin, and no I don't," he replied politely and turned his attention down towards the other end of the bar where one of the waitresses hailed him.
Gerald smiled, pleased that he had offended Dustin. "That's okay, Dusty. Women ain't worth a shit anyways." He thought about Sarah. "Bitches, Dusty. All of ‘em."
Dustin stopped and turned back towards Gerald. "It's Dustin. I don't like being called Dusty," he said and walked down to the other end of the bar.
Gerald slugged back more of the drink and shifted off the bar stool to stand up. He leaned against the bar. He stared with devious purpose towards Dustin. "Hey, Dusty!" he shouted. "Sorry if I offended you, you little shit!" He laughed gregariously, and waited for a response.
Dustin ignored Gerald's comment.
Gerald wanted a reaction. He needed one tonight. It was what he always got at home when he wanted it, and he needed an outlet since Sarah was temporarily out the picture. Temporarily. He wasn't done with her yet. Not by a long shot.
The liquor felt good tonight. It burned down to his belly and warmed his veins. It slowly released the fire he thirsted for since he arrived in the pub. "Hey, Dusty! I'm speaking to you!" He called out again. He slapped his hand down hard on to the bar. "What's your fucking problem?" he shouted.
The dull murmur from the other patrons in the pub suddenly went quiet and all eyes turned up towards the bar. A few of the men near the bar caught Dustin's glance.
Dustin stopped his chat with the waitress and turned back to see Gerald staring down at him. His drunken expression shifted and deepened beyond simple intoxication. Dustin had seen this before: the drunken gaze, the eyes that wandered and could barely hold a stare as they shifted about continuously in a demon-like fashion. He knew it was imperative to control the situation immediately.
Dustin moved towards Gerald, careful to keep his manner
in check. He didn’t want to escalate the situation with any kind of confrontation. "Hey, let's keep it cool, hey bud?" he said as he locked eyes with Gerald. "Take a seat," he motioned, "and I'll..."
It was already too late. Gerald jumped towards Dustin and attempted to leap over the bar to grab hold. Dustin simply stepped back out of his reach. Rage etched across Gerald's face, and within seconds four men pounced on top of him. Regular patrons watched the scene unfold and immediately rushed to Dustin's aid. They grabbed hold of Gerald by the arms and neck. Gerald tried to swing and fight, but he was no match for the four men who pinned him down. They quickly wrestled Gerald from the bar and shuffled him out through the front door to the parking lot where they threw him into the snow-covered gravel. He scrambled to his feet, ready to attack, but the four men stood their ground side by side. Gerald quickly reconsidered. He wiped his arm across his mouth and pointed at the four of them.
"You all just made the biggest mistake of your lives!" he shouted and staggered a few steps to the side, trying to stay upright.
"Go home and sleep it off," one said.
"Yeah, and don't come back here. We don't want guys like you hanging around here. This is a nice place, you stupid drunk!"
Gerald stared back and thought one more time about rushing them, but his anger refocused itself. He wouldn't even be here at this bar in the first place if Sarah had not run off on him. He turned away, scrambled over towards his truck and lumbered up against it. He opened the door and attempted to step inside while the four men looked on and shouted at him. They warned him that he was too drunk to drive, and they would call the police if he dared to start that truck up.
Gerald didn't hear a word they said. The image of Sarah's defiance swelled inside and beckoned him to do something. He finally managed to pull himself inside the truck and slammed the door. He fumbled a few minutes before he was finally able to get the key into the ignition switch. He bolted like a rocket out of the parking lot. The gravel rocks and icy dust sprayed a trail of evidence of his crazed, drunken state.
Gerald drove away from the pub and knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to find Sarah tonight, and he knew exactly where he would start. Sarah's sister would know where she was. She must know.
"Sarah!" he screamed in anger. "You're gonna be sorry you ever walked out on me!”
He punched the gas and slammed his fist hard onto the steering wheel in anger. The vehicle shunted abruptly towards the ditch on his right. Gerald tried to correct the drift, and pulled the wheel hard to the left, but it was the wrong thing to do in his inebriated state. The left wheels of his truck suddenly lurched up into the air, and the vehicle went into an immediate roll. It tumbled over a number of times, tossing Gerald about, before it crashed through a wooden fence and slammed upside down against a large fir tree only a few blocks from the pub.
Gerald found himself upside down in the truck with his head twisted and planted against the roof. His feet were up behind him, and one foot was caught under the gas pedal. He groaned and struggled to free his foot, but he quickly gave up and passed out.
CHAPTER 22
Jason lay in the top bunk, Tommy on the bottom, when the lights went out in the dorm for another night. Spy Hill Correctional Centre for Young Offenders on the outskirts of Calgary wasn't at all like the boys thought it would be. They had expected to be in a cell similar to the one they were kept in for the last five weeks until the trial began. That one, in the back of the police station behind the Bluffington courthouse, was tiny and uncomfortable with only two narrow beds. Each bed was hitched out from the concrete wall on its own. A toilet was tucked in the corner behind a small pony wall. Spy Hill was much more communal with a number of dorm rooms instead of cells. The dorms had bunk beds lined up on each side of the long rooms; this one room was capable of housing up to sixteen inmates at a time. It was luxurious compared to the police station cell.
The boys had been interrogated repeatedly. First Dean interrogated them in Bluffington at the station the entire night after the murders. Then other members of the police force questioned them periodically over a number of weeks, and now at Spy Hill they were interrogated once again. Sometimes Dean would be there and sometimes not. At each interrogation, someone tried to draw out a bit more of the truth about the murders from one of the boys. Lawyers, doctors, therapists, and still more cops came each day wanting a piece of the two boys, but they were relentless and kept their silence no matter how hard and manipulative the interviews became. The boys learned how to avoid revealing any of the truth by simply not answering any of the questions put in front of them. Many tactics were used to provoke the boys into a response, but they succeeded in frustrating every one who came to see them. They each eventually left stupefied about the reason the boys had committed the murders.
Many motives were suggested and were examined with heavy pressure to the brothers. They ranged from wanting to escape from under the thumb of a ruthless, unrelenting disciplinarian of a father to trying to escape from an endless environment of physical and verbal abuse. When those suggestions got no response, they pushed the boys even farther with wild accusations of sexual abuse and buggery. The boys took it all and neither agreed with nor denied the suggestions. Even though neither could deny what their father had done to their friend Tim, it still hurt deep down to hear such statements spoken out loud by others.
In the end, the theory the police and reporters fell back on was the simple fact that the Olivers were very wealthy. The boys murdered for the money. Many found this simply impossible to believe because the boys could never expect to be recipients of the proceeds after openly confessing to a crime such as this. However, Dean's team couldn't really find any evidence to support any other motive. It was the best motive they had, but Dean himself couldn't buy into it. It didn't explain why the boys smashed the BMW prior to the murder nor the footprints on the hearth.
What bothered Dean most of all was how the boys cried often during the interrogation and showed very real remorse for what they had done. It struck Dean that the boys would take it all back if they could, but they still didn't respond with an answer to any question along those lines. It puzzled him deeply. It fit with a crime for money, but the boy's reluctance to speak caused Dean to believe that there was more to this crime.
"Bobby's coming up again tomorrow," Tommy whispered in the darkness. The lights in the dorm may have been out, but whispered comments often wafted throughout the dorm as the boys all settled in for another night. Only eleven of the sixteen beds were occupied.
Jason leaned over the edge of the top bunk, his hair draped down over his eyes. "Ask him to come see me too this time. No one's come up to see me yet." This wasn't quite true. The boy's Aunt Meredith had made a point to see both boys separately. She had not come up to console the boys. Not Aunt Meredith. Aunt Meredith was Peter's sister and she was extremely angry about what the boys had done. She had only visited to verbally berate and scold the boys. She told them, in no uncertain terms, just how despicable they were and that she personally hoped they both rotted in hell.
Tommy nodded. "Bobby's got a car now. Got his driver's license last week."
"Really?" Jason responded. Any news from the outside about their friends was welcome. It was a change and an escape from the usual inmate conversation. "What's he driving?"
"His mom bought him a used CRV. Not sure what year."
"I wish we could go for a drive somewhere. Anywhere actually," he said and laughed. "Get out of this depressing place."
Tommy didn’t laugh with him. His mind was elsewhere. "Bobby said something strange today when he was up to see me."
"Like what?"
Tommy shook his head. "I don't recall his exact words, but it was just the way he talked about what happened with you and me. He seemed really fidgety and on edge. Before he left, he asked if it was okay to bring Ricky up next time."
"Ricky?"
"Yeah, and it seemed so odd to me that he would even ask that. Ricky hasn't been to see us since we've been locked up. Not once. Not you or me. I got the impression that the only reason Bobby came by was to see if he could get some kind of response from me when he suggested that Ricky come up. I've got a feeling that there's a real big reason Ricky hasn't visited."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. That's just the impression I got from Bobby. I mean, why did Bobby have to come all the way up here just to ask if it was okay if Ricky comes by? Why didn’t he just bring Ricky? He is on our visitor list."
"Something happened since we've been locked up maybe?"
"I don't know. Anyway, Bobby is bringing Ricky up tomorrow."
"Will you guys shut the fuck up already and go to sleep!" another inmate shouted at Tommy and Jason through the darkness.
"Don't be such a pussy ass!" Tommy shouted back. "We're done talking now anyway. You can go have you're precious beauty sleep!"
"I'm gonna come over there and kick your ass, Oliver, if you don't shut your bloody trap."
"Oh yeah? You and who's army?" was the appropriate response. It was an old comeback, but a few chuckles were heard in the darkness from some of the other beds.
"Fuck you, Oliver," the response floated back through the darkness.
Jason rolled back to the centre of the top bunk and closed his eyes. He tried to put good thoughts forward as he closed his eyes to sleep, but the bad ones just rolled back like they had each night so far. He missed his mother dearly, and the image of his mother's dead body crept in again and caused Jason to cry silently into his pillow until sleep finally overtook him for another night.
Tommy lay below Jason in the darkness and continued to review Bobby's behaviour during his visit earlier in the evening. There was obviously much more to what Bobby had said. Or rather, what he had not said. Deep down, he suspected it must have something to do with what Tommy had heard in his father's study just before all hell broke loose. Memories of that moment still festered like a deep wound inside Tommy. As much as Tommy tried to put what he heard Tim say behind him, the memory would sometimes edge its way back unexpectedly. Now, it came back again as he thought over Bobby's visit.