The Husbands

by T. J. Brearton

  She paced the area, thinking, seeing what came into her mind. “And no bruising around her wrist, from the ME report.”

  “No.” Broward glanced around. “I’ll have to look at it again, but we’re pretty sure she wasn’t handled, not dragged here or anything. Where she was found was where she was shot. One shot, boom, she goes down.”

  “There was some dirt on her back.” Kelly bent down again and dug through the crushed weeds, finding the loose soil below. She dusted her hands off and stood back up.

  Broward was watching her. “We took samples. That all went to the lab, too.”

  “You think he got out of the vehicle?”

  “Well, there’s footprints all over here, we took a few castings, but nothing definitive that he approached her after he shot her. Could just be a little dirt got on her when she fell.”

  Kelly pulled her pea coat tighter. The rain had tapered off shortly after she’d landed but the afternoon temperature was falling. “I’d like to look around a little more.”

  “Sure. Let’s walk down to the lake.” Broward took a narrow path in the broomsedge. She followed. She saw the water through the tall golden stalks. She also saw a green plastic bench sitting almost hidden in the weeds. “That’s where Joel sits sometimes,” Broward said and then lifted his arms. “This is pretty much it. Just a few feet of these big grasses here. Kind of a barrier around the lake. My feeling has always been that Danica Payton was just looking out at the sunset, and that was the last thing she knew.”

  They walked back out of the tall grass and stood by the cars in the dirt lot. Kelly watched the traffic rolling past on Onondaga Lake Parkway. “I remember this spot. A real speed trap.”

  “Yeah we post someone here pretty regularly.”

  “But no one out running radar the night Danica was killed.”

  “No. No one out.”

  “And the thinking is that he shot her from over here. Maybe from his vehicle. The bullet entered the back of her head at an angle, suggesting he was lower down, maybe sitting in his car in the dark and she’s walking past and he shoots. Nothing to show he approaches her after that — he just drives off.” She scuffed some dirt with the toe of her boot. “So I guess the question is, why is there a casing there?”

  “Right,” Broward said. “That’s what we asked. If he’s in his car, and he fires, the bullet casing is going to pop out, land somewhere inside the vehicle, most likely. It could have bounced though, maybe off the side of the car, hit the ground. But you figure he’d notice that and pick it up.”

  Kelly thought about it. People in law enforcement thought about casings. Maybe hunters. Military personnel. The average person? Possibly.

  Broward said, “So you want me to gather everybody up? Have that meeting?”

  “Tell me more about Joel McKenna, the guy who found her. Does he own a .30-30?”

  Broward looked at the ground, put his hands on his hips. “He does. It’s a pretty common gun. Very common. We went over everything with him several times, story never changed. He uses a shotgun out here. And he was the one to call it in, even though he was already in the system from some stuff back in the day. Nothing major, though.”

  “He was in the system, so you checked the body against his DNA.”

  “We did.”

  “And you have a good crime scene unit here?”

  “They’re a county unit. Their best tech was out that day but we recalled him. If Joel McKenna’s DNA was on the victim, we would have found it.” Broward scratched his mustache again. “But it wasn’t. He was cleared.”

  “How about the .30-30 he owns? What’s the model?”

  “He’s got a Marlin. Lever-action.” He gave her a critical eye, probably considering the extent of her firearms knowledge.

  She knew that the .30-30 was the most common chambering in lever-action rifles. But just because the recovered casings had ‘30-30 WIN’ stamped on them didn’t mean the rifle used was a Winchester. Other rifles were chambered in the same load — Browning, the Savage Model 99, and Marlin. “You did a rifling test on it?”

  “We did not do a rifling test on Joel McKenna’s gun, no.”

  The inside of a gun barrel shaped the bullet as it fired, like a fingerprint, every gun different. “Why not?”

  “The mushrooming and contortion of the projectile dissuaded us.”

  A gust of wind hunted the gaps in her suit. “I would strongly recommend you have that done, Chief Broward. With all respect, if the rifling of his gun barrel matches patterns on the projectile recovered from the victim, that’s a dead-lock.”

  Broward gave her a look, a light smile playing on his lips, like he didn’t know how to take her.

  She’d already profiled him: he wasn’t quite tall enough for basketball, broad-shouldered enough for football, but he seemed the outdoorsy type. Probably had gotten stoned a couple times as a teenager. Liked to drink domestic beer. Smoked cigarettes for a few years, quit, started running to keep in shape with middle age coming on, probably wouldn’t mind sitting here and doing a little duck hunting himself, if he weren’t chief of police. She knew he was divorced, had two kids. She figured girls — daughters softened a man.

  “If you think it will help, I’ll make it happen,” he said.

  She looked toward the buildings which formed the downtown area, just over a quarter mile away. “Can we walk over to the restaurant?”

  “Roger Payton isn’t there. He was here for a while dealing with affairs and then he headed upstate to another place he owns up there in the Adirondacks. He should be back in a couple of days.”

  “I’d like to have a look anyway. If you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.”

  They started walking, passing by the memorial benches, avoiding piles of black and white goose poop. She pointed out a bench.

  “Yeah,” Broward said. “Joe Harbaugh. Her grandfather. Roger Payton said she liked to pay her respects, take her walks here.”

  “You felt okay letting Payton leave town?”

  Broward was quiet a minute, his jaw twitching. “We had nothing to hold him on. And he’s got a restaurant to run, so he’s not just going to disappear off the face of the earth. The guy had just lost his wife. I figured, pay out a little rope, let him go, but keep an eye on him.”

  “I watched the interview between him and Detective Faber.”

  He gave her a sidelong look. “Faber resigned.”

  “Ah. Okay.”

  It made sense — his name only showed up on the initial paperwork and he’d been overbearing, bordering on inappropriate, with the victim’s husband. But there could be more to it.

  Broward said, “Liverpool is just over two thousand people. There’s me, there’s Sergeant Ridgley, we’ve got three full-time officers and four part-timers and then there was Faber. Faber was used to burglaries and assaults. Not this. We haven’t had anything like this.”

  “Well you had the County Major Crimes Unit involved.”

  “For the crime scene work, yeah. And as I’m sure you know, they’ve got investigators. But Faber was quarterbacking it.”

  “So do you have a new detective now?”

  “We’re in the process.”

  They walked in silence for a minute, Kelly thinking about Danica Payton taking an evening stroll, somebody watching her, waiting for the right moment. The park was huge — a seven-and-a-half-mile linear greenway hugging the shores of Onondaga Lake. Several smaller roads crisscrossed through, accessing the marina and boat launch. At Christmas the roads were used for “Lights on the Lake” when locals and tourists drove slowly through a colorful display of lights shaped into holiday characters — her father had taken them when she was young. Mostly she remembered his swearing and frustration with traffic. Today, the Christmas decorations had yet to come, leaving only sparse trees scrubbed bare by November wind.

  To the east, Oswego Street split into Old Liverpool Road and Onondaga Lake Parkway, which passed the spot where Danica Payton had been murdered.
The Trading Post restaurant was still ahead, on Sycamore Street, and they were getting close.

  Broward kept talking. “You know, the thing with Detective Faber — Faber was old-school — work your suspects by telling them you’re trying to eliminate them so you can move on and get the bad guy. Faber liked Roger for it right off the bat.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “We talked to all the staff from the restaurant that night. If he’d slipped out, he’d done it so fast . . . no. And Roger doesn’t own any guns. What Faber did was try to trap Roger into admitting he’d hired someone.”

  “The style of shooting does have characteristics of a contract job.”

  “Except for leaving behind a bullet casing,” Broward said.

  “Except for that,” she agreed.

  * * *

  The Trading Post restaurant had been sided with half-logs to resemble a cabin. Kelly opened the thick, wooden door. “Can we get a table?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Best way to get a look around. Just two people having lunch.”

  The inside was cozy, wood finishing decorated with faux furs and beaver pelts and Native American blankets. The bar was nearly full, customers chattering and country music playing and everything smelling like fried food and barbeque sauce. A pretty brunette waitress gave the two cops a wary look, then forced a smile and called over. “Sit anywhere. Someone will be right with you.”

  They took a table in the dining area, where the décor shifted to an eclectic mix of vintage advertising posters. She sat down and looked around the busy scene, picking out an older couple who reminded her of her grandparents and two middle-aged guys in suits, eating burgers with gusto. She asked Broward if he’d change seats. “Sure.” Now she had a view of the bar and entrance.

  “So,” he said. “Quantico. You live there?”

  “I live near there.”

  “How often do you come out into the field like this?”

  “Not often. How much was Danica here?”

  Broward leaned back, hung a boot from his knee and pressed a thumb to the corner of his mouth, then looked at his thumb. “All the time.”

  “Did she hang out, sit at the bar?”

  “Oh sure. Roger doesn’t drink. Or, he didn’t. Danica wasn’t a big drinker, either. But she’d come in, visit with people, talk to her husband.”

  “And she had no stake in the restaurant?”

  He shook his head. “It’s all Roger’s. He bought it about ten years ago when it was on its last legs. Smart, though, he’s a pretty smart guy — he kept the original name. You see some people they come in and they take over a place and change the name and nobody shows up. Change the menu all you want but don’t change the name. It’s been The Post for like fifty years.”

  “Can you walk me through the last time she was here?”

  “Okay, well, she was here late that afternoon. Witnesses said everything was plumb. She talked to Roger, had a few laughs, they said, and then she went to the park.”

  “She told him that’s where she was going?”

  “I don’t think she said it explicitly. But she had her walking sneakers on, and she went over there pretty regularly. She couldn’t really run anymore, on account of her blown-out knee, but she walked. So Payton says, so her family says. I guess it was a busy night. Roger pitches in and runs food out of the kitchen when the rush comes. She stepped out just before the rush. He said they’d had a quick kiss goodbye and agreed to meet each other at home. He’d get in late — typically close to midnight on a busy night.”

  A waitress interrupted, hesitation in her eyes. “Hi. You guys eating, or . . . ?”

  Broward said, “Yeah, we’ll take those menus. Roger call in or anything recently?”

  “Still up at Green Pond. Supposed to be back the day after tomorrow. He called yesterday and talked to Eileen.” She studied Kelly a moment, her tongue poking the inside of her cheek. There was something in her eyes, back in the corner of her gaze, like a territorial claim. “Get you something to drink?”

  “I’ll take a Coke,” Broward said.

  “Just the water is fine.”

  “Okay.” She gave them a crooked smile. “I’ll be right back.”

  Broward scanned his menu then looked up. “Are you going to eat?”

  “I already did.”

  He closed the menu and looked worried.

  “No, go ahead,” she said.

  “I’m starving.” After a moment he looked up from the menu again and spoke in a low voice. “Some people got word about how Faber treated Roger. They said no way was Roger guilty. He was too in love, no reason to hurt his wife. Others thought he was good for it — maybe they’d been trying to have kids or something and he got upset. So neither side was happy with me — mad about Faber or mad I let Roger go.”

  “And then you made the connection to the Archer murders . . .”

  “That’s right. Which I guess made Roger Payton look even less guilty, since he was up there when it happened. Far as we know.” Broward glanced around and said, “Hey, I’m just gonna wash up. Hit the head. Be right back.”

  She watched as he crossed the restaurant and said something to the waitress who was getting his Coke from the bar. Then he disappeared into the back.

  Kelly noticed the two middle-aged men in suits were sneaking looks at her. She dabbed at her phone with a finger, made a few notes, sneaking looks back. When Broward reappeared, he picked his way across the dining room and headed for the two men. After a moment it was clear they were friendly with the chief. She took another sip of her water. Broward said something and the men looked over. Broward patted one of them on the back and returned to the table

  “Those guys — one of those guys sold me my house. They’re both in real estate.”

  She gave them one last look. The one who’d made eye contact with her looked vaguely familiar. “Let’s talk about the other victims, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “So far it seems that no one from this case — not Danica, not Roger, no one from the restaurant — is connected to anyone else.”

  “Not that we’ve been able to determine.”

  “But your brother-in-law is Detective Severin, who’s in charge of the Archer case. He’s married to your sister?”

  “That’s right. Eight,” he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, “no — nine years they’ve been married.”

  “The Archers are the most recent, killed twelve days ago. Tell me what you know about Ted Archer. He was a husband, he was a father, what else? Did he have any enemies?”

  “Well, for that you’ll have to ask Lou. You know, Detective Severin. But I think the answer is no. Ted Archer is a well-liked general contractor. Has his own business like Roger, few guys working for him, does some commercial and some residential. Pretty average guy, keeps about his business. He was at work, same as Roger, same as Blake Haig, husband of the first victim.”

  “And Ted Archer’s wife and son were discovered by deer hunters.”

  “Correct.”

  “But it’s not like they were out somewhere on a game trail.”

  “No. But they were right along the edge of Wheeler Road, and that borders the wildlife area. The mother was walking the son home from school.”

  “Borders it, but it’s inland a ways, it’s not on the lake, not on water.”

  “That’s right. Wheeler is back in a ways. It’s McCloud Road that runs along the lake, I think. But Wheeler is up above the green line and there are marshes around there. You think water has something to do with it?” His eyes shone.

  “I don’t know. Might, might not. And so mother and son were walking along Wheeler . . .”

  “And, well, same thing as you thought about Danica Payton — they were shot at relatively close range.”

  The waitress came back with their drinks. “You two ready to order?”

  Broward ordered a short rack of ribs, fries and a side of slaw. Kelly just handed back her menu. “Nothing, thanks.” />
  The waitress left again and Kelly said, “So Megan and Colton Archer were found just alongside the road. The hunters found them around dusk, three hours after they were killed. Just like with Danica Payton, it’s a quiet area, not a lot of people around.”

  “Right. DEC responded to the call because of the wildlife area, so did the sheriff’s department.”

  “The mother and son spent three hours on Wheeler Road, lying there, no one else saw them before the hunters?”

  He cocked his head and looked at the wall behind her. “I think — and you’ll see it — the way they fell, you’d miss them from the road.” Broward’s gaze slid back. “It was only because one of the hunters was looking out as they drove past — the start of the game trail is about an eighth of a mile from where the bodies were found — he was looking out of the truck and he thought he saw something. They circled around, found what was there, called 911, hung around until the deputy responded and called in Detective Severin. The hunters gave statements. Neither had fired their weapon.”

  She let this settle. “What is going on with Ted Archer right now? Did he run off somewhere, too, like Roger Payton?”

  Now Broward ran a hand through his dark curly hair. He looked uncomfortable. “No, he didn’t. Severin says, you know, Archer is just shut in his house. A total mess. He tried to go back to work a few days ago, fell apart in front of the crew, just collapsed into tears. Went home; hasn’t been back to work since. He’s got a couple of foremen, though, running his contracts.” Broward shook his head, as if imagining the sudden and tragic loss of his own family. “It’s just . . . it’s just, you can’t . . .”

  “I’d like to speak to him,” Kelly said.

  “Yeah. Yeah we can arrange that. Far as I know, like I said, he’s just been home. He’s just banging around in that house, alone. God what a thing.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ted had debated whether to call the cops. Endlessly.

  You could conceal a phone number using an app. Ted had searched for similar apps able to do the opposite — unveil a masked number. The Privus Pack seemed best. He paid for it and installed it on his phone.

  Unable to eat or sleep, he’d waited for the killer to contact him again. If anything, the anticipation distracted from memories of his departed wife and son. The call had been a blur and it took a day just to remember and write down the various things the killer said — healing means no more blame or shame; suffering is in the mind. Ted thought he’d gotten most of it, and he studied the words, but he was a simple guy and it seemed like bullshit.