The Husbands

by T. J. Brearton

  This whole thing probably meant he had a screw loose somewhere, there was that. And not just some cross-threaded bolt or bad switch, but major problems with his internal fuse, a busted surge arrester and he was unable to stop hunting and killing and disintegrating the people who were left behind. But nothing was more pathological than believing in your own free will, as if you lived in a vacuum, as if nothing and no one affected you beyond something you could brush off, choose to ignore.

  Cause and effect. This was cause and effect, and it was set out when time began. From that very first spark of all — once things had started everything in motion, nothing would ever stop until it all ran its course. You couldn’t mess with that, no one could, not even him.

  A little later, then, he went to the range. He took the first earplug and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed and rolled it and then stuck it in his right ear. While it expanded to fill his ear canal he took the other plug and squeezed it the same way and put it in his ear. He waited, swiveling his head, until the world of sound closed down to a hushed rumble. Then he pulled the earmuffs out of his bag and spread them and lowered them down over his head and gradually let go so that the tension held them against his ears. Now there was nothing. He tapped the right earmuff with his middle finger. Like someone tapping on a dock when you were six feet down in the water.

  Good — you couldn’t be too careful about that sharp report from the Winchester. Going off like that next to your ear, no protection — too many of the old guys had tinnitus.

  And when he was done he packed up his rifle in the rifle case and walked out. Coming in was a guy he recognized who said hello and he raised a hand and said to him, “Howdy,” and then he kept going out to his white Jeep Cherokee and got in it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Monday, December 3

  The dream was the same — she lay helpless on the ground, a yellow puddle near her head that smelled of garbage and copper, grit beneath her grasping fingertips, a rectangular cut of gray sky above. Then the people materialized, surrounding her, looking down at her, but this time their normally blurred faces took the features of Orzo, Dixon, Broward. Even Webber watched and smoked and laughed.

  When Kelly woke up the room was dark, a pale violet dawn tinging the windows. She rose and showered with the dream still buzzing in her mind.

  She strapped on her belt and gun and holster and drove to the command center in Somerville. The only other agent there at the early hour was Webber, sitting by the monitors, head nodding in a doze.

  Kelly sat down beside him. “How we doing?”

  He snorted awake. “Roth.” He blinked his eyes. “G’morning.”

  She checked her emails and found one from Orzo on Adam Grumett and turned back to Webber. “Heard from Dixon yet?”

  “Uh . . . I don’t think he’s back.”

  “I knocked on his door and there was no answer. Back? From the hotel?”

  “Back from . . .” Webber looked nervous. He pointed to the monitors which cycled through the various security cameras in the mall — this time of day there were metal grates drawn over the storefronts, a custodian polishing a floor on level three with one of those big riding buffer machines. “Dixon took a call last night,” Webber said. “Security stopped a guy about one a.m., coming out of the movies. A guy alone and they thought he was carrying.”

  She stood up, unsnapped her phone and dialed Dixon.

  “Kelly,” he said after a few rings. The noise in the background sounded like he was driving.

  “What happened?”

  “Some widower going to the movies to see an action flick. He’s got a concealed carry permit, no record, alibis for most of the shootings. He couldn’t think back to April or August, but he’s not our guy. We let him go.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Blue jeans, sweatshirt. Baseball cap for the New York Mets.”

  “I’d like to know if—”

  “Listen, we get someone who’s hot and bring him in, you get him in the box, and if there’s something that can stick, you make it stick. That’s your end. My end is to run around in the middle of the night harassing law-abiding citizens. You want to switch?”

  She ran a hand over her face and looked around the Quonset hut at all the desks and computers and monitors. Other agents were filtering in and the phones were starting to ring with tips on the hotline. Running a command center like this was costing tens of thousands of dollars a day. Neither she nor Dixon were bean-counters, but the expense of it loomed. “I want to talk to you,” she said.

  “You got something?”

  “How far out are you?”

  “I need to get something to eat, take a shower. Haven’t been to my room since yesterday. What’s on your mind?”

  “Adam Grumett’s got office hours for two of the other murders — the two Friday afternoons. I’m looking at the email from Orzo and Ingram right now. They just got through each time of death. Sometimes Grumett comes in again on weekends, catch up on things. He claims the Saturday Danica Payton was killed he was down visiting his daughter and she’s corroborated.”

  “Fine. So Grumett is out.”

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  “Okay.” Dixon was acting cold, angry with her.

  She sighed. “I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

  Before he could say anything else, she hung up. She moved away from Webber and phoned Broward.

  “Hey — was just going to get in touch with you,” he said.

  “Something happen?”

  “No, I mean I was going to check in, see how you’re doing.”

  “Medical records on all of the husbands. Anything there?”

  “I mean not without a subpoena. Faber tried with Payton but the judge wouldn’t lift the doctor-client privilege. What are we looking for?”

  “Health problems, any pills or prescriptions.”

  “Roger Payton had health problems.”

  “Like what?”

  She heard Broward moving around. “I mean he’s out of shape, he’s older. I know he’s got high blood pressure. And if you take a look at it — you know, I’ve been wanting to say this for a while — Danica Payton is the only victim without children. Jessica Carter-Spence left behind two, Megan Archer was killed with her son, Tammy Haig was pregnant. Danica Payton — no kids.”

  “And what does that say to you?”

  “Well, to be honest, maybe Payton was unable to perform in that department.”

  “You have anything that could help show that?”

  “No, not without the medical stuff. But it’s . . . I mean, for what it’s worth, there’s always been a little bit of talk about that. Just people in the area that knew them.”

  “I appreciate it. Give me a little bit and I’ll get back with you.”

  She went through the police report on Blake Haig. Medically there was nothing but a past work injury — a laceration on his hand he’d had stitched up, paid for by Xylem.

  Ted Archer had been in fine physical shape, though she knew Severin questioned his mental health. There was no indication of him seeing a therapist or being medicated.

  Outside, sitting in the Mazda, she called Broward again. “Where is everything at with Detective Faber?”

  “Well, he resigned, but Internal Affairs still have to close their books on it. He’ll face charges if it looks like he tried to coerce a confession with falsified evidence. The last I talked to him he was sitting at home, not doing much of anything.”

  “I’m going to talk to him about Roger Payton.”

  “Well, let me apologize to you in advance; he’s on the cranky side.”

  “Thanks. Can you meet me at The Post? I’ll text you when I’m done with Faber — shouldn’t be long.”

  * * *

  She drove with the windows down, putting her hand out the window to feel the raindrops, letting them cover the windshield for a time before she turned on the wipers, thinking about Billy Bath.

&
nbsp; Are you truly a good person, or are you merely afraid? Maybe it’s men with heroic courage who eschew society to become outlaws while cowards follow the rules.

  Bath liked to write about his exploits killing prostitutes. He also thought he was enlightened.

  I’m not a maniac, I’m what the kids call ‘woke.’ Once I realized the illusion, I was able to transcend any social constraints of civilized life. I learned what a gun truly was — the ultimate equalizer. The perfect tool to crack open the façade of society.

  She wanted the killer to have a reason. A history of abuse. A brain tumor. Maybe, like Roger Payton, trouble performing sexually. She didn’t want him to be like Billy Bath, from a middleclass suburb with two loving parents.

  She let the rain come in the open window and spit against her face, until she pulled away and rolled up the window.

  Chittenango was quaint, with squat brick buildings and a dwindling population, the birthplace of L. Frank Baum, of Wizard of Oz fame. Fitting. Oz never wanted people to see who was behind the curtain, pulling the levers. That was her job — to look.

  Faber lived on Lake Street, which sat on the edge of Sullivan Park. Kelly got out of the Mazda and stood looking across the street at the park. It could’ve been farmland, with a vast green lawn, a forest of maples and birch over a hundred yards away. Faber’s house was small, yellow, with a pickup truck in the driveway. She walked up to the front door and knocked and about two seconds later someone spread the blinds and peered out, like he’d heard her pull up. Then the door opened.

  He was in his late fifties, dressed in sweatpants and a Syracuse Orangemen hooded sweatshirt. “Help you?”

  She could hear a TV burbling in the background and smelled cigars. “I’m Agent Kelly Roth with the FBI.”

  “Yeah, I know.” His voice was gravelly, a smoker’s. She recognized the look in his eyes, the wary suspicion of an older cop.

  “Can I come in?”

  He looked past her, as if expecting more company. “I guess.”

  Faber muted the TV. He sat in an upright easy chair and didn’t offer her a seat or a drink or anything else.

  “I’d like to talk to you about Roger Payton,” she said.

  “On the record?”

  “Just an informal chat. One law enforcement agent to another.”

  “My union rep and lawyer told me to keep my mouth shut until the hearing. I don’t know what I can do for you.”

  “You have my word it will travel no further than this room.”

  He gave her a look that lasted a second past comfortable. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. “How long you been with the FBI?”

  “Eight years, all in.”

  “You’re not used to the field, though.” The air grew heavy with aggression.

  “I’m happy to discuss my career with you.”

  “But,” he said.

  “But there is someone out there killing women and children and I want to stop them. Can you help me?”

  He looked at her some more, and then he laughed. Reaching down, he grabbed the handle of the recliner and pushed himself back and laughed some more.

  If he wanted to be an asshole first, then she had to wait it out. She thought he had something to offer.

  He squinted at her. “They teach you that at the academy?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “That sucking up. ‘Can you help me?’”

  “I’m asking if you think you can help. There’s nothing more to it.”

  The humor drained from him, he snapped the leg-rest back into the chair, and jabbed a finger at her. “I was doing my job. Before all of this politically correct bullshit came into play, I used to be pretty good at it, too.”

  No matter how she reacted — calm and collected or offended and emotional — Faber wouldn’t like it, but she stayed measured. “Broward said you were a good detective.”

  “Oh did he? Was that what he said?” He made a dismissive sound with his lips. “Broward. Another one for the cause.” He looked at her again, his eyes hooded.

  As long as he was talking, maybe she’d get somewhere. “The cause?”

  He was ready for it: “The politically-correct, nanny-state bullshit. Sorry, but the feminist manifesto. We all have to be nice and hold hands now. There’s someone out there killing women and children? Oh yeah? That right? We gonna catch him by gathering around and doing therapy?” He sat forward. “You know, you’ve got all this psychologizing of criminals now. What you do. I saw you in the paper — Behavioral Analysis Unit. Guy takes a .30-30, gets out of his car, pops a woman in the back of the head while she’s watching the ducks. You want to analyze that? Here you go: Either it’s the husband, or it’s a lover, or it’s some random psycho and why he did it doesn’t fucking matter.”

  “You said the killer got out of the car . . .”

  Something passed over his features. “Yeah. He was close. I always said he got out of his car. Ballistics corroborated it.”

  “Ballistics didn’t corroborate it, actually. And even if he had gotten out — why didn’t she turn around? Why didn’t she move away when a strange man was walking toward her with a gun? No drugs in her system, she wasn’t intoxicated — her BAC was .06. If it’s Payton, she’s going to look, see her husband coming. Or anyone else — someone he hired, someone random — they get out, they walk toward her, she’s not going to just stand there.”

  “Because she knew him.”

  “She knew him?”

  Faber looked away. He pulled a cigar out of the humidor beside the recliner and lit it.

  “You thought Payton had hired someone,” Kelly said.

  “I never said that. I was poking at the guy, but I never said he hired someone. I never thought he did, not really. The whole thing got twisted around. I tried to lead him, yeah. I tried to get him to admit it, but — what? I can’t do my job now? I think a guy is good for it, I’m going to get him to try and cop to it, plain and simple. Sometimes blood, DNA, you don’t have those things. We didn’t have those things. I needed a confession.”

  “But you did think he was in contact with someone. If not someone he’d hired to kill his wife then someone else. Correct?”

  He just stared at her, a nerve firing beneath his right eye. He took a drag and squinted in the smoke. “I got pulled off the case.”

  “Is that a yes or a no?”

  “That’s a fuck you.”

  She cleared her throat, stood her ground. “Maybe I need to remind you—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So arrest me. Yeah, Roger was talking with someone.”

  She felt a release of something, like a pinch letting go in the back of her neck. “Do you know who the person was?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know? What’s your proof?”

  “He told me.”

  “Roger Payton told you someone was talking to him. Before or after the murder?”

  “That’s what I said. After.”

  “When, after?”

  “When I interviewed him.”

  “It’s on record?”

  “No. It comes after the part he asked me to stop recording. Didn’t you watch the interviews?”

  “They go on for almost nine hours. I didn’t watch all of it. I shut it off when I sensed coercion.”

  He looked like he wanted to snap at her again, but it passed, and he chuckled and blew smoke.

  “What did he say?”

  “Hey, listen. Guy like that — you want to figure him out? He didn’t know whether he was coming or going.”

  “In your opinion, did Payton have some underlying condition? Did you find anything to suggest he was ill, mentally or physically?”

  Faber waved a hand. “Well, he was a drunk for years, how about that? But none of that matters anyway, just an excuse. If he lost his shit it was afterward, and it was the guilt. Because he says to me, he says that someone talked to him. For all I know he’s talking about a voice in his head, or he’s already a
ngling for an insanity plea. See what I’m saying? That’s the end result of all this whiny, hand-holding sensitivity training — stone cold killers walking free because they act like a victim themselves. So? That’s his move, and I play right back at him. I tell him I know he did it and that he was too much of a pussy to pull the trigger himself so he had someone do it for him.” Faber grunted to himself and stared off into the room, sniffed and wiped at his face.

  “Maybe this, though — and I’m just playing my own hand here — maybe you thought it was Payton and you looked for evidence to support that instead of the evidence leading you.”

  His eye was twitching. “Yeah? Well you weren’t there during the interview, were you?”

  “He doesn’t own a rifle. Twenty people confirmed he was at work at the time of her death. I came here to ask what you knew about his physical and mental health prior to the murder, and you’ve answered, so thank you.”

  Faber glared at her. “You can look at the video all you want but you didn’t feel that room. I bluffed him that I had information he’d hired someone to kill her and the temperature went up ten degrees. I’m sweating, he’s sweating, right down to the balls. Then he asks me to shut the camera off. I’m thinking, here we go — payday. I shut it down, he tells me that someone called him. I says, someone called you? He says, yeah — they told him that if he listened to them, the whole thing would go away. The pain would go away. So that’s when I’m thinking, okay, this guy is already angling for an insanity defense. I turn the camera back on and ask him to repeat what he’s said but he just goes quiet on me. And by this time — you know, we got all of these rules about how you can’t grill a suspect for too long, all of this ACLU bullshit, so I let him go. And I never got a chance to follow that up because I got pulled off the fucking case. Meanwhile, Roger Payton goes up to his little cabin in wherever the fuck it is.”

  “You told Broward what he said?”

  “I told Broward I thought Roger Payton was trying to pull a fast one.”

  “Did you look at his phone?”