The Husbands

by T. J. Brearton

  Why even consider it?

  Maybe there was a grain of truth to it, something about redirecting his attention, about the promise of revenge, because since the first moment he’d thought of finding this guy and putting a bullet in him, the pain had begun to fade a little. A dark hope had filled his heart.

  And then the day itself had passed, and the windows darkened, marooning him in hell once more, and the killer never called. The night which followed was long and suffocating, and when morning finally came with the rain spitting against the windows and a hollow nausea rooting down inside of him, Ted called Detective Severin.

  The detective showed up promptly with another cop and peppered Ted with questions while the other cop, Epps, read Ted’s notes on the conversation with the mystery caller. They took it more seriously than he’d expected and stood around in Ted’s kitchen which used to smell like coffee grinds and ripening bananas and was now rank with spoiled food and cigarettes. Ted had stuck the shotgun away and hid the shells back in the wall, same place he’d kept them when Colton was . . . ah God, when Colton was around . . .

  “And this guy said ‘attenuate’?”

  Ted looked at Severin. “Huh?”

  “Your notes. Your transcript of what he said.”

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure. Something like that. ‘Inoculate.’”

  “So he has a little vocabulary,” Epps said.

  “Why’d you wait a day to call us?” Severin asked.

  “I bought an app for my phone that could show me his caller ID and I figured out how to record calls. I wanted to see if he’d call again. But he didn’t.”

  “And there was no way to call him back? No number? You couldn’t just hit a call back button or anything?”

  “I tried. Nothing went through.”

  “Huh.” Severin glanced at Epps then at Ted. “Will you excuse us for a minute, Ted?”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll step outside.”

  Epps scrunched his nose. “It’s cold and raining out—”

  Severin glared at him so Epps nodded, once, to himself. They moved to the door and Severin told Ted, “We’ll be right back.”

  Ted drifted to the window and watched them talk. Severin’s wife Leanne was the sister of Rob Broward, the Liverpool police chief. Ted knew Severin and Broward had been talking about the possibility of linked victims — Ted’s family and two other women, one of them pregnant. The media too — those articles on the so-called Park Killer. Severin and Epps were probably still wondering why he took so long to notify them. Someone calls you and claims responsibility for murdering your family and you call the cops immediately. Right?

  I’ll let you, Ted.

  I’ll keep my promise.

  It had to be bullshit. Maybe this son of a bitch who killed his family just wanted to twist the knife. Or maybe it was just some kind of fucked-up joke by someone else.

  But he couldn’t stop imagining it — finding this psycho, killing him slowly. He’d been telling himself it wouldn’t really stop the pain, just mask it for a while.

  Right. And killing this guy won’t bring them back. Nothing will bring them back.

  The door opened and the cold rushed in. There was something in Severin’s eyes, like sympathy. “Ted.”

  Ted waited.

  Severin looked into a corner, then his gaze wandered back. “I think you need to consider that this might be someone messing with you. You know, some random person.”

  “I don’t think so. I think—”

  “He didn’t provide any details of the shooting besides what he could’ve seen on the evening news. This could be some sicko taking credit for kicks.”

  “It was him.”

  “You don’t look so good, Ted. You’ve been cooped up in this house for days. The funeral home says you’re not moving ahead with the burial . . .”

  “That’s my business.”

  Severin looked away again, put his hands on his hips. Epps blew his nose.

  Ted considered what Severin said about the funeral. Meg and Colton had been killed on Wednesday, the week before Thanksgiving. Their bodies were on ice and soon frozen ground would make burial impossible, but like Severin said, he’d yet to move forward. He didn’t want to host a funeral in the middle of the holidays, didn’t want to see pictures of his wife and son beside two closed caskets while he sat listening to a priest talk about God and His mysterious ways. Didn’t want people cooking and bringing their sympathy casseroles to his house.

  The dining room table was still dirty, plates covered in old, hard food. No lights on except in the kitchen. Cold, too — he’d been keeping the thermostat down and could see his breath a little bit — the cops’ too. It was better cold.

  People had been through the house. Severin and others, telling him to leave things as they were while the investigation went on. Meg’s family had come; her parents, her sister, one of her cousins. He’d tried to be patient and understanding but hurried them out, preferring to grieve alone. To decide whether to go on.

  Since the killer had called he’d felt more focused, even lighter. And now Severin was doubting it all.

  “Ted,” Severin said, his face twisted with pity.

  “It was him.”

  Severin stopped. “Look, I can barely understand what you’re going through. But in a situation like this, Ted, the emotion you’re feeling . . .”

  “You’re not going to do anything?”

  Severin raised his hands. “Of course we’re going to get on this and see if we can nail it down. But we’ll need your phone.”

  “I gotta keep it.”

  Epps snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and put his hand out. Severin said, “Your phone, Ted. Come on. You want us to help you? Give me your phone, let us work on it.”

  “I can’t do it. I gotta have the phone, guys — please.”

  Severin exchanged looks with Epps. They both had that face, like they were warming up to arrest him, call in a psychiatrist, something. “He’s not going to call again, Ted. I can pretty much guarantee you that. But if he does, we’ll have the phone, we’ll deal with it. In the meantime, you ought to get some rest.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Ted.” Severin sounded like he was running out of patience. “You called us. Okay? Now let us help you. If there’s any truth to it, we’ll get to the bottom of it. Trust me.”

  Ted finally dug out his phone and placed it in Epps’ gloved, outstretched hand. Epps then rummaged in the kitchen cabinets until he found a plastic baggie to dunk the phone in and zip it up. Seeing the phone in the bag filled him with dread. Like his last chance at some sort of peace was gone, and he was lost again. This time, permanently.

  * * *

  Kelly watched the men in suits pay their bill and leave. She’d gone to high school with 400 kids in her same grade so it wasn’t always easy to put a name to a face, and it had been more than a decade, but one of them was definitely ringing a bell.

  Broward was talking. “Anyway, after Danica Payton and then the Archer killings, I called Auburn PD and asked about the Tammy Haig case from seven months ago. It was pretty much cold at that point, people had moved on, the media had gotten tired of playing with it. But I had Detective Orzo and Detective Ingram pull everything out and when the Haig evidence all matched up with Danica Payton and the Archers, that’s when we thought, okay, maybe a series.”

  “Four different victims.”

  He glanced up from his meal. “Five, counting Haig’s unborn baby. I know we don’t have fetal homicide laws in New York, but I consider the fetus a victim. Personally.”

  She took a sip of her water. It tasted slightly sulfurous. “We’ll say three different killings in three different counties. So if the Haig case was cold and the media had left it, where did the new stories come from? Calling him the Park Killer.”

  Broward scratched his neck. “I mean Three Mile Bay is not really a park, per se, it’s a nature preserve, but there’s not a lot of homicides around here. T
hree killings in three counties, like you’re saying, and they built their own story out of it. Right when we did, pretty much.” He gave her a look. “So now what?”

  “I’ll want to get everybody together, soon. But I need to see as much as I can before I do that, I need to talk to people. It’s better than basing any recommendation off field reports and medical examinations.” The way she formed the psychological portrait of a killer was like a Polaroid developing, at first fuzzy and indistinct.

  “Sure . . . but isn’t that what you do? I mean don’t you — I don’t know —read up on all this stuff, read about serial crime, look for patterns in an open case, you put together a profile. I know what you said on the phone. But you’re in the . . . the behavioral, ah . . .”

  She gauged him and decided he was more curious than pushy. “Behavioral Analysis Unit. BAU-5. We look for patterns in MO, in victimology, in signature.”

  “Signature . . .”

  “A signature might be part of an MO, it might not, but it’s the same across the crimes. An MO can change based on necessity, like waiting until the victims are in an isolated area, whether that’s in a park or alongside a nature preserve. But I think he’s carefully selecting these spots after watching where the victims go, waiting until they’re most vulnerable. So, that in itself might be part of the signature; part of a psychological need.”

  “Like, what gets him off.”

  “Right.”

  “And what’s the other one? You said victimology.”

  Kelly noticed some other diners looking over, eavesdropping. Broward’s volume had risen. She lowered her voice some more, hoping he’d catch on. “Victimology is partly about any relationship between victims and the offenders. Sometimes it might be the relationship of the victims to each other.”

  “Which could also be part of the signature.”

  “Yeah.”

  Only bones remained on Broward’s plate and he set down his fork and knife, opened a moist wipe and started cleaning off his fingers. “Listen, I’m glad you’re here and we can do whatever you need. We should do the rifling test on McKenna’s gun — you’re right about that. I overlooked it because I kind of know the guy, and I shouldn’t have. And we can interview people again: talk to Ted Archer, Blake Haig, go up and see Roger Payton. I’m just saying that there’s a bunch of us eager to hear what you think. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’d like to see the body next.”

  “We can do that. I just need to run back to the office for a few minutes. If there’s anything you need to do, you know . . .”

  “Nothing I need to do.”

  Broward snuck a look at her and she wondered if he’d checked into her background, what he might know. She had yet to notify her mother she was here, though her mother lived ten miles from where they sat. Or her brother, even closer, in Baldwinsville — Rick had three kids and a therapist wife named Uschi.

  “Well,” she said, “I need a coat. Is the Herb Philipson’s store still over on Oswego Road?”

  “Yes ma’am. You need a coat, huh? Yeah it’s still over there. That’s where I go.”

  Outside, it was getting colder. After agreeing to meet her at the morgue in a half an hour, Broward drove off. Kelly sat in the rental car and looked at her phone, thinking about her family.

  Then she drove away from Onondaga Lake.

  * * *

  The assistant medical examiner opened the door and rolled the body out of the cooler. Danica Payton was on her back, bluish in color, face serene, body stitched and scarred from the autopsy. Her organs had been weighed and replaced, stomach contents examined, blood checked for toxicity, pubic hair brushed out and skin swabbed for DNA evidence. Her head was shaved, a stitch encircling the top of her cranium where they had sawed off the top of her skull, removed her brain and extracted the projectile, which was now in a baggie and stored away in Broward’s evidence room. The small piece of lead-tipped copper which had ended her life.

  The blood toxicology report showed that she’d had a negligible blood alcohol content of .06, meaning she’d had about two drinks at the bar before leaving for her walk. And she was taking the anti-depressant Lexapro. Besides her blown knee she’d been in relatively good shape, a healthy BMI, no signs of chronic illness or infection.

  They drove to Broward’s police station and he unlocked the room and brought the three large file boxes to a table and set them down. Kelly opened one and went through Danica’s clothes. Everything had already been to the lab and back but she put on latex gloves.

  Danica Payton had been killed in August, and she’d been wearing yoga pants and a long-sleeved zip-up hoodie, baby blue. She’d had her cell phone on her, her debit card and her license. No wallet.

  Kelly held up the bagged phone. “You said this went to the lab for prints?”

  “Just the victim’s prints and Roger’s prints and one other person we eliminated — a waitress at The Post. She admitted picking it up off the bar and bringing it into Roger’s office after Danica left it there one night.”

  “Danica left her phone at the bar? When?”

  “A week or so before the murder. Detective Faber went through it, followed up on all the recent calls and texts. There were two unrecognized numbers that we determined were telemarketers. Robo-calls.”

  “I’d like to see a list of all her contacts.”

  “I’ll dig it out.”

  “Who was the waitress?”

  “Um, the one who we just saw. Courtney.”

  Kelly put the phone away and continued sifting through the box. Danica Payton’s sneakers looked brand new, fashionable. She’d been wearing ankle-length socks. A woman in her prime, thirty-three, in good shape, healthy.

  “All set?”

  She nodded at Broward.

  They left and he locked the door. “So, we’ll talk later?”

  Something Genarro had said about keeping Broward as the point person had been grinding her gears, but she’d spent a couple hours with the chief of police now, long enough to decide he was all right, even if he might be screwing a waitress at The Post. Not that her personal opinion of someone mattered, only whether they were going to be a help or a hindrance. She did her best work alone, but Broward held a few keys she could still make use of.

  “I’m going to the other scenes, I’ll talk to the lead investigators, and then I’ll schedule a meeting for everybody to get together and I’ll have something to present. Okay?” She felt slightly anxious about the way he was smiling at her. “What?”

  “I don’t envy you.”

  “I’m not sure I, ah . . .”

  “Well, it’s kind of a takeaway case. These guys are all . . . they’re, you know, they’re good guys. Just maybe territorial.”

  She pulled on the coat she’d purchased — short to the waist and with a fur-lined hood. Puffy and warm. She’d also picked up new boots, waterproof logging boots with thick soles and steel toes. “I’m not worried about that.”

  Which she was.

  She was hit with a bright light as she left the station.

  “Kelly Roth? Sarah Oxley, Channel Five News.” The reporter thrust a microphone forward. Kelly shielded her eyes and looked past the cameraman at a news van. Several pedestrians were gathered along the sidewalk, getting an eyeful. “Can you answer a few questions?”

  She proceeded slowly down the steps. “As soon as we’re ready, we’re going to hold a press conference and I can answer questions at that time. Thank you.”

  The reporter got in front of her, blocking the sidewalk. “But can you confirm an FBI presence here in Liverpool?”

  “I am an FBI agent.”

  “Is the FBI here because of a serial killer? Are you linking the Payton murder with the Archers and Tammy Haig? Is the Park Killer official?”

  “As I said, we’ll have all that information for you soon.”

  Oxley was young, eager, a fire lit in her eyes. “Ma’am, you’re Kelly Roth. You graduated high school from West Genesee. Is that
why you’re here?” The cameraman moved around to get a direct shot.

  Kelly squeezed past. “Excuse me, I have to go.”

  As she walked briskly away, she noticed one of the cars parked across the street contained two men in suits. The ones from the restaurant. Broward’s real estate agent and his lunch companion.

  Oxley hurried behind her, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. “Has there been a development in the Danica Payton homicide?”

  “I can’t comment. This is an active investigation,” Kelly said.

  She heard Oxley address the camera behind her: “That was FBI Agent Kelly Roth, a native of Baldwinsville. It seems the FBI have taken an interest in what could finally be confirmed as a case of serial crime. Liverpool’s own Danica Harbaugh, who married restaurant owner Roger Payton, is the first homicide victim Liverpool has seen in decades, and one of several victims in different counties all found with the same graphic bullet wounds . . .”

  * * *

  Kelly shut herself in the hotel bathroom and leaned against the sink. After a moment she looked at herself in the mirror and stared.

  Take it easy. You’re all right. You knew this might happen.

  She called Genarro at the office anyway. The receptionist said he was gone for the day so Kelly tried his mobile and he answered. “Didn’t expect to hear from you ’til tomorrow.”

  “Just letting you know I’ve been made, sir. A reporter came at me ten minutes ago, knew who I was, so the story is going to break.”

  “Okay,” Genarro said. “Ah, right now I’m . . . hang on.” The call got scratchy and she thought she heard him excuse himself. More rustling and then a door squeaked open and banged shut. She heard street sounds in the background. “Trudy’s retiring,” he said. Trudy was his wife.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt.”