by Alex Kava
“Actually, we were just finishing up,” she announced, enjoying Kramer’s raised eyebrows and his befuddled look, probably another practiced gesture. He obviously didn’t think they were close to being finished. “Why don’t you send me the details later today, and I’ll get back to you,” she said, standing now—a practiced gesture of her own—and pushing back her chair as if she had an appointment with Pakula.
Max Kramer reluctantly stood. “Okay, so I’ll do that and give you a call this afternoon.”
Kramer hesitated at the door, waiting for Pakula to step aside. Grace wished she could get Pakula’s attention, just long enough to give him Grandma Wenny’s evil eye and warn him to keep his cool, to play nice.
“No hard feelings,” Kramer offered when Pakula stepped away just enough to let him pass. Grace cringed. Why didn’t Kramer cut and run?
“Oh, sure,” Pakula said. “Why would there be any hard feelings? You go on national TV and tell Bill O’Reilly and the whole fucking world the Omaha PD framed Jared Barnett. Why would I have any bad feelings about something like that?”
Kramer shook his head as if he didn’t have time to deal with such nonsense. “It’s nothing personal.”
“No, of course not,” Pakula agreed, but Grace knew…she knew that wasn’t the end of it.
“If you ever need to dial 911 and nobody shows up—that’s nothing personal, either.”
Kramer shook his head again. That’s when his phone started ringing, and he reached inside his jacket’s breast pocket, bringing out a slim cell phone. He was answering it and walking down the hall without even considering that he might owe Grace an explanation. After all, didn’t he say he forgot his cell phone?
Pakula stood in the doorway watching Kramer. Grace waited. Finally he looked at her and said, “You had breakfast yet?”
She shook her head.
“How ’bout we pick up a couple of Egg McMuffins on our way to the autopsy?”
CHAPTER 33
8:15 a.m.
Platte River State Park
Andrew no longer noticed the residual pain from his mending collarbone. Who’d have guessed that an instant remedy would be a bullet wound to his head?
Christ! It hurt. It felt as though the entire side of his forehead had been scraped away and left raw and bleeding. He felt as if he was going to vomit as waves of nausea rolled over him. His vision had finally begun to return to normal after seeing triple for a few hours. He wished he could turn off the ringing in his ears, though, and the banging in his skull meant his head would surely explode any minute and simply take him out of his misery.
They were taking turns using his shower and eating his food. Maybe when they finished they’d simply take his car keys and wallet and leave. He still wasn’t sure if the guy named Jared had intended to shoot him or just scare him. After getting a good look in his eyes, Andrew thought he recognized the guy, but he couldn’t place him. He didn’t think this Jared was the type who missed a shot. Maybe that’s what Andrew wanted to believe. Maybe that’s what he needed to believe.
The younger one, Charlie, had helped Andrew up onto the sofa. Like an idiot, Andrew had thanked him, an automatic response but so inappropriate that even the kid had looked at him as if he had misunderstood. Then he’d grinned and nodded. All cleaned up and with his hair red instead of black, he looked like a kid. He had overheard him call the woman Mom, and Andrew couldn’t help thinking that was just great. He was being assaulted and robbed by Ma and Pa Kettle out in the middle of the woods.
It was Charlie’s turn to watch over Andrew while the woman showered and Jared took a nap in the back bedroom, probably stretched out where Andrew had been only hours before. He hoped he was finding that damn foam pillow just as uncomfortable as Andrew had.
Charlie had Jared’s gun. Andrew noticed the two men handle the gun, but neither allowed the woman to have it. The gun currently sat tucked in the waistband of Charlie’s jeans—actually, a pair of Andrew’s jeans. He and Jared had helped themselves to Andrew’s clothes.
Charlie had chosen one of Andrew’s favorite Nebraska Huskers T-shirts. The clothes were too big for him but somehow he made them fit.
Charlie was in the kitchen constructing his second sandwich. His mom had made him the first one. That must have been what she was doing when Andrew had discovered them earlier.
Andrew didn’t care. They could eat his food and take his clothes, his wallet, hell, even take his brand-new car. That had to be what they really wanted. He wanted them to leave.
From where he sat he could see out the porch, and he could make out a piece of the sunrise through the trees. Soon it would be completely light and maybe this nightmare would be over.
The woman came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. With her hair wet and her skin pink and clean she looked too young to be Charlie’s mom. Actually, dressed in only that towel, it was difficult for Andrew to think of her as anyone’s mother.
“Do you think you have anything in your suitcase for me?”
Andrew stared at her, surprised that she’d bother to ask. Not just ask but actually make it sound as if there might be something special in there for her. Or did she simply want him to look at her? Was that her game? The menfolk got off by bullying him. Was this her way of getting off?
“Help yourself,” he told her, waving his hand at the scattered contents of his suitcase. Jared and Charlie had left everything on the kitchen table. They’d shoved the case aside to make their sandwiches, leaving a pair of socks dangling over the edge. She started sorting through his things almost hesitantly, slowly and carefully, even folding some of the mess the guys had made. Maybe Andrew had read her wrong. Maybe she had asked out of politeness, out of respect.
He continued to watch the horizon, preferring the blurred blue and purple hues to the chaos inside his cabin, his retreat.
“Does this work?” Charlie had found the nine-inch TV and was already plugging it in. “Probably no cable out here, huh?” But he searched for it along the walls, anyway. He kept his sandwich in one hand while he turned on the TV and started moving around the rabbit ears with his other hand. The static didn’t slow down his bites. However, when he dropped a piece of its precious contents—a slice of tomato, followed by a slice of onion—he stopped everything to pick it up off the carpet, give it a quick inspection and pop it into his mouth. “Seven-second rule,” he said to no one in particular.
Finally he found a station that came in. Andrew recognized the orange halos from his own attempt to watch last night. It looked like the morning news.
“No tornado touchdowns reported, though there were several reports in Douglas and Sarpy Counties of funnel clouds being spotted. We’ll have more about that later. Now for an update on the bank robbery that took place at the Nebraska Bank of Commerce on south Highway 50. The amount of money that the two masked robbers got away with is still undetermined.”
Andrew glanced at Charlie who seemed glued to the TV. The woman had stopped to watch, too. He remembered the report from the night before…two suspects in a high-speed chase, south on Highway 50. The helicopter had been sweeping the park looking for them. How the hell had they missed them? Because they had missed them—here they were sitting in his fucking cabin.
He watched the news station display a graphic of where the suspects were last seen. Their car was reportedly found just off Highway 6 and residents in the area were warned to lock their vehicles and be on the lookout. There was no description of the robbers given, and Andrew immediately found himself making a mental list of their characteristics.
“The two are said to be armed and dangerous. As of this morning’s report the names of the victims have not been released.”
Andrew jerked to attention. Victims?
“What we are allowed to tell you is that two bank employees and two customers were killed. One employee remains in critical condition at the University Medical Center. Police have not released any details, however, an anonymous source close to the investi
gation has said that all four victims were shot at close range. If you have any information…”
But Andrew’s mind flew into panic mode. Suddenly he realized why Jared’s face looked so familiar. He had seen him on several news shows. His picture had been plastered on the front page of the Omaha World Herald. Jared Barnett. Andrew had heard Tommy Pakula curse that name over the last few weeks, insisting Barnett had gotten away with murder. Andrew had done too much research, had spent too many hours listening to cops, knew too many statistics to deny the one thing he now knew for certain. Jared Barnett wouldn’t simply be taking his wallet and his car and leaving.
At least not before finishing what he must have tried to do last night—but missed.
CHAPTER 34
8:27 a.m.
Melanie fell back in the chair, her hands wringing the khaki shorts she had pulled from the heap of clothes. All that blood. She had seen it on Jared’s and Charlie’s coveralls. What did she think it was from? And the gunfire. Of course there were victims. Someone probably got in the way, made a stupid move. That’s probably what happened.
But four…shot at close range. There had to be a mistake. The media always blew everything out of proportion, hyped the news for better ratings.
She watched Charlie. He was cleaning his high-tops, rubbing off the mud with a towel from the bathroom, trying to return them to his standard of bright white. It hadn’t fazed him one bit to listen to the report, to hear what kind of mess he may have left behind. Instead, he seemed more concerned with the mess his shoes were in. That’s when Melanie noticed he was scrubbing two pairs of high-tops. She had forgotten that Jared had borrowed a pair when he first got out of jail. And here Charlie was cleaning his uncle’s shoes, too. Taking care of his uncle. It should have been the other way around—Jared should have been taking care of Charlie.
She smoothed the fabric of the shorts with shaking hands, not taking her eyes off Charlie. Her boy couldn’t hurt anyone let alone shoot an innocent bystander. And certainly not at close range. Charlie didn’t even know how to fire a gun. They had never had to use guns before. She wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t even allow them in her house. Accidents happened with guns, bad accidents. Maybe that was what had happened in the bank. Maybe it was an accident.
“We have half an hour.” Jared startled her, making her jump. She wondered how long he had been standing there, leaning against the wall. “Fill that cooler.” He pointed to a small one in the corner. “Maybe with sandwiches and Pepsis. And why aren’t you dressed yet? Forget about fashion statements. Just put something the fuck on.”
Her cheeks burned, but she didn’t move. She could feel Andrew Kane’s eyes on her. Charlie hadn’t moved from the TV screen.
“You can’t boss me around like when we were kids, Jared. I’m not moving until you tell me what the hell happened.” There, she’d said it. It didn’t matter that her voice sounded small and whiny.
“You let me worry about things. Do what I tell you to do and everything’ll be fine.”
She couldn’t help thinking that was exactly what he had said all those years ago. The other mess they had gotten into. It was almost twenty-five years ago, when she was ten and he was twelve. There had been so much blood back then, too. Blood splattered on the walls and in the cracks of the kitchen linoleum. And there had been a gun, too. Jared had told her he’d take care of things. Everything would be fine, he had promised. It would be their secret.
“I need to know what happened,” she insisted, disappointed that her voice sounded too much like that ten-year-old little girl.
“It’s not up for discussion, Mel. We need to get the fuck out of here.”
Jared pushed past her, bumping her chair. He started going through Andrew Kane’s things. He turned over one of the brown sacks, spilling the food contents all over the counter. He ripped open a box of granola bars and started searching the room.
“This is bad, Jared,” Melanie tried again. Maybe it had been an accident, she repeated to herself. That’s what her mother had told her happened with that Rebecca girl, though Melanie wasn’t sure how their mother knew. Jared never talked about it.
Jared ignored her, passing back behind her again. He grabbed two muddy backpacks from under a chair. That was the first time Melanie realized Charlie had remembered to bring her backpack along with his own.
“This yours?” Jared dropped it on the table in front of her. “So you’re saved. Probably got a change of clothes and a makeup kit. Right? Go put some clothes on, Melanie.”
“On the TV news they said there were victims, Jared.”
He swung Charlie’s backpack onto the table beside hers and opened it to put the granola bars inside. But instead he started shuffling through the contents, pulling out one of Charlie’s comic books, a couple of maps, several Pez dispensers, which he held up for a better look, shook his head then tossed back inside.
He kept one of the maps out and started unfolding it. Then he stopped and with the sweep of his arm, cleared the tabletop of everything—mayonnaise jar, spoons, open loaf of bread, empty Pepsi cans, all crashing to the floor, along with Andrew Kane’s suitcase and clothes. The only things to survive his sweep were the two backpacks and the map, which he began filling the table with.
The racket pulled Charlie away from the TV and into the kitchen area. However, Melanie noticed that Andrew Kane didn’t flinch.
Charlie stood over Jared’s hunched shoulders, not just curious but worried. Melanie recognized that pinched forehead and narrowed eyes. He didn’t like anyone messing with the few items he felt were valuable enough to keep in his backpack.
“What the hell are all these red circles?” Jared pointed out several on the map.
“I got a bunch of different state maps.” Now Charlie sounded excited, the little kid anxious to impress his mentor. Charlie reached for his backpack and began pulling out a stack of folded road maps. “I circle towns with cool names. You know, someday I’d like to visit them, just to say that I did.”
Charlie crouched down closer to the map spread out on the table. “See here—” he put his index finger on one “—Princeton. Bet you didn’t know there was a Princeton, Nebraska. I figured it’d be cool to tell people I went to Princeton.”
Charlie laughed and Jared actually smiled.
Jared started looking over the map, too. He pointed to a red circle and said, “I see what you mean, kid. Here’s Stella, Nebraska. You could tell people you spent the night in Stella.” He shoved Charlie with his elbow. “Get it? In Stella?”
Melanie watched them. She couldn’t believe the two of them, laughing and making jokes.
“I’m thinking they’ll be looking for us on the interstate,” Jared said.
“Actually, they think we stole a red pickup from some farmer,” Charlie interrupted with a wide grin. “I heard it on the news.”
“Really? That buys us some time. We’ll stick to Highway 6 all the way to Colorado. Looks like you’ll get to go through some of your red-circled towns, Charlie.”
“Cool. I’ve got the Colorado map, too. I’ve never been to Colorado.”
Melanie picked up her backpack, hugging it to her chest, ignoring the crusted mud flaking off and smearing the towel. She stood up, ready to go change, but waited, watching the two men in her life plot her future. Neither of them had even asked if she wanted to go to fucking Colorado. They had gotten her into this mess and yet neither of them seemed to realize how much of a mess it was.
“They said you killed four people, Jared.” She didn’t mean for her voice to sound so hysterical, but it worked. It got both their attention. “Is that true? Four victims. That’s what they said on the news. All shot at close range. Dead.”
“Four?” Jared repeated and he looked to Charlie, who nodded his confirmation. “You mean one of those fuckers is still alive?”
CHAPTER 35
8:32 a.m.
Grace took the last bite of her sausage biscuit just as Frank Irwin pulled back the drop sheet fro
m the corpse.
The woman looked smaller now laid out on the stainless-steel table. With all the blood washed away Grace could see that the gunshot wound had sliced open her jaw. The gash started just under the chin and stretched almost to her ear.
“The bullet shattered all her teeth on that side,” Frank said, opening the woman’s mouth with his gloved fingers. “Entrance was here below the chin. Exit was here, taking out the left tonsil and the side of the neck.”
“Pretty strange way to shoot someone, right, Frank?’’
“Pakula already told me your theory, Grace.”
“And?”
“It was seven years ago. I wasn’t here back then, although I heard about it. I pulled the photos and X rays.” He walked over to the light box, flipped a switch and propped up two X-ray films side by side.
He didn’t need to tell her. Grace knew the other X ray was of Rebecca Moore’s shattered jaw. Rebecca’s body had been found in a ditch, north of Dodge Park seven years ago. She had been raped, stabbed three times, shot in the mouth and her body stuffed in a huge, black garbage bag before being thrown into a ditch. Another high-school student, Danny Ramerez, thought he saw her get into a pickup outside of Central High School with Jared Barnett. Seven years later Danny Ramerez suddenly said he was mistaken.
“The injuries are similar,” Frank said. “I wasn’t able to determine the caliber. And it sounds like we don’t know for sure what kind of weapon he used here, or do we?”