He stood by the end of the bar, mouthing the end of a long-necked beer bottle. The honeys were out in force, and Roscoe’s eyeballs probed the dusk for a likely target. He never had a problem with women. They liked his dark skin and his bright eyes. Some even said he looked like a TV star. And that made it easy for him to score.
“How do!” Roscoe spotted his mark sitting at a table by the dance floor. She had long, curly blonde hair, bare flesh spilling out of a ruffled shirt, and a curvy butt polishing the seat in time to the music.
He shuffled over and leaned down in her face. “Evenin’.”
She looked up at him, her eyes as blue and hypnotic as his own, her face youthful and smooth. “Hello.” She was a nineteen-year-old farm queen, beautiful and bubbly. And she was ready.
“Excuse me!” A male voice suddenly interrupted his move from behind. Roscoe turned around, and found himself confronted by a hulking miner.
“Whut the hell do you want?” Roscoe was not at all intimidated. Back home, he ate punks like this for lunch.
“Cain’t talk to her,” the miner said. “She’s with Charlie.”
Roscoe glanced back at the table. The girl was alone. Then he turned and put his hands on his hips. “I don’t see no Charlie.”
The miner put his hands on his hips also. “He’s on night shift.”
Roscoe smiled. These West Virginia bozos! Letting their women out under guard. “Too bad for Charlie,” he said sarcastically. Then he turned back to the girl.
“Guess you didn’t hear me!” the miner said as he grabbed Roscoe’s shoulder.
Miller whipped around and delivered a kick to the miner’s groin with the metal tip of his boot.
“Agggg!” There was a scream of pain as the man went down.
Instantly, six other grimy look-alikes converged from the bar.
Roscoe took a defensive position, and reached into his jacket pocket.
The miners began to approach, their faces set with the look of revenge.
“You-all gonna die!” Roscoe barked as he pulled out a handgun.
The men froze. After what had just happened to their friend, there was no question this guy was serious. He was one crazy motherfucker.
Roscoe stood calmly as the miners gathered up their fallen comrade and retreated to the bar. Then he stuffed the gun back in his pocket, took the blonde by the elbow, and pointed her toward the back door. He had some heavy-duty plans for the rest of the night.
The sunlight was streaming into Appalachian Park from a cloudless sky. For a weekday morning, the place was understandably deserted. Dads and moms were at work, and kids were at school. The only movement, except for the darting birds en route to their nests, was from two lone figures in the middle of the ball field.
“Catch it!” Gardner shouted as a baseball arched high into the air and dropped toward Granville’s outstretched glove. A day off from the office had been mandatory, after yesterday. He and Jennifer had barely spoken last night, and he knew if he went to work, he’d be tempted to get into the Bowers file again. So, he and his son were playing hooky at the park.
“Awww…” Granville juggled the ball, and it dropped to the ground.
“That’s okay,” Gardner yelled. “It was a good try. Throw it back, and I’ll hit you another.”
Granville gave the ball a mighty heave, but there was little power behind it. Gardner had to run up to fetch it, then backtrack to the batting area. It was strange, really. The two of them in that situation. Granville was unfit for school, and Gardner was unfit for work. Both were psychologically wounded.
Gardner pondered that point as he hefted the ball with one hand and swung the bat with the other. A child could not even walk into a grocery store and be free of a visitation from hell. Predators were everywhere, and every time they struck, the consequences were unfathomable.
“Get it!” Gardner yelled as the ball squibbed off his bat and bounced across the ground.
Granville moved to the side and positioned himself in front of it the way his dad had taught him. Suddenly the ball hit a rut and jutted off at an angle, striking Granville in the knee. He dropped the glove and fell backward, ending up in a sitting position on the ground.
“Shake it off,” Gardner yelled. “Get up, and shake it off.”
Granville stayed down, rubbing his knee.
“Gran! Get up.” The ball had not hit him that hard.
But the boy didn’t get up.
Gardner walked over and plopped down on the grass next to his son. “You okay?”
The boy had tears in his eyes. “Uh-huh,” he said weakly.
Gardner pulled up the child’s pants leg and exposed his knee.
“Where’d it hit?”
“Here.” Granville pointed to a spot, but there was no mark. The skin was clear.
Gardner rubbed the area gently with the tips of his fingers.
“Sometimes the ball doesn’t go where we think it’s gonna,” he said softly. “Sometimes it takes a crazy hop.”
Granville looked up through his tears. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
Gardner was not expecting that reaction. “Sorry?”
“Uh-huh. I know I’m not s’posed to cry.”
“Who told you that?”
Granville pulled his pants leg back down and stood up. “You did. You said to pretend it didn’t hurt…”
Gardner stood up also. He’d told Granville to pretend the ball was a marshmallow that just mushed when it hit.
“But it did hurt,” Granville continued.
Gardner picked up the boy’s glove and handed it to him. “I never said it wouldn’t hurt.” He put his hand on Granville’s narrow shoulder. “You just can’t let it stop you from playin’…”
Just then, Gardner was struck with the irony of his own words. The comment could just as well have referred to himself. He was on sick leave too, out of the game. He had been preaching perseverance and tenacity all his life. But lately he’d quit.
Gardner took his son’s hand and led him to a nearby bench. They sat down, and Gardner looked into Granville’s wide brown eyes. “Gran, I need to talk to you about something,” he said.
“What, Dad?” Granville could tell that his father was about to discuss something important, and he started to squirm.
“I want you to think real hard,” Gardner began. “Real real hard…”
“What is it, Dad?” The boy’s voice quavered.
“I want you to think about the day you got hurt,” Gardner said softly. “Tell me what you can remember…” It was time for the prosecutor to find out for himself how much the only eyewitness really knew about the crime.
Part Three
SUSPECTS
seven
Gardner leaned against the bench’s backrest and looked at his son. Granville’s legs dangled above the ground and he nervously traced a semicircle in the air with his right foot.
“Gran, I want you to think back to the day you got hurt,” Gardner began. “Do you remember going to the cave?”
Granville’s foot speeded up its circular motion, and he gripped the edge of the bench with both hands. His eyes were cast down.
“Do you remember the cave?” Gardner repeated. This was definitely against the rules that Nancy Meyers had decreed: there should be but one inroad into Granville’s troubled mind, the therapeutic course prescribed by her. No interrogation. No pressure. But the investigation was stalled, and the killers were still on the loose. They might decide to come back for Granville. Gardner couldn’t wait. He had to act now.
“Gran?” Gardner took him gently by the chin and turned his face. “I really need you to talk to Dad, okay?”
The boy hesitated, but finally made eye contact. He appeared to be holding his breath. It was obvious that even a benign reference to the day of the murders could cause an electrical storm to erupt inside his brain. Granville’s eyes broke contact almost immediately, as if they were searching for a safe haven away from his father’s words.
&nbs
p; Gardner felt a surge of frustration. The information was in there. Inside his head. But the boy was too scared to even turn in that direction, much less confront what lay beyond the door.
“Gran.” Gardner tried to CASE away from the urgency of his previous words. “We don’t have to talk about that now. Let’s talk about something else.” Going in head first was not the way, Gardner thought. Maybe he could sneak around the side.
Granville’s face slowly turned back, and it seemed that he was breathing again.
“What say that we go out to Simpson’s pet store and look at some pups? Would you like that?”
Granville nodded. Since the “talk” began he hadn’t said a word.
“Great,” Gardner continued. “Maybe we can find one just like Minnie.”
The sun suddenly burst through the overcast in Granville’s eyes. Minnie had been the family dog, back when he, Carole, and Granville were a family, a docile golden retriever with a mother complex who allowed her tail to be pulled, and herself used as a stand-in for a riding horse on many occasions. After the divorce, she’d found a home with a family across town, and blended in there as if she’d never even known the Law-sons. But she was sorely missed. By Gardner, in his separate life. And by Granville, whose love for the dog went deeper than anyone knew. “Remember the bally-wally?” Gardner smiled as he recalled teaching Granville how to make Minnie fetch. They’d nicknamed an old beat-up tennis ball “bally-wally,” and they would chant that phrase as they went out to throw the ball for Minnie to race after, snap up in her mouth, race back, and drop at their feet. “Bally-wally! Bally-wally!” Granville would sing. And Minnie would go crazy. Jumping and leaping in anticipation of the chase, even before the ball was thrown. Just the mention of the words “bally-wally” would send Minnie into hyperspace, running in circles, to the delight of Gardner and his toddler son.
Granville was smiling now. “You gonna buy one, Dad?” Granville asked.
Gardner smiled. The tactic was working. “We can look. Maybe if we find one like Minnie your mom might let me get it for you. But you know they’ve got some other animals there too.” Gardner tensed. He did not want to shift subjects so fast that Granville would realize he was being maneuvered back to Bowers Corner.
“Uh-huh.” Granville was still throwing Minnie the Bally-wally in his mind.
“They’ve got snakes, and gerbils, and hamsters, and rabbits…”
Granville stopped smiling.
Gardner let out his breath slowly. “You love rabbits, don’t you, son?”
Granville went silent and began to swing both feet. He gripped the bench with his hands, his face cast down again.
“What’s your favorite? White? Or black?”
The feet speeded up.
Gardner swallowed hard. “You used to be real good at catching them. Remember?” He was back at the Bowers’.
The feet were now a blur of motion.
Granville was struggling. It was as if he wanted to help Dad. He really wanted to, but something was standing in the way.
“Uncle Henry said you were the best catcher he ever saw.” Gardner said softly, looking at his son as the word “Henry” was uttered.
The feet kept up their pace, and Granville gasped aloud. Tears began squeezing from his eyes and dribbling down his cheeks.
“So did Aunt Addie.” Gardner’s heart felt like breaking as he said the dead woman’s name, but he had to keep pushing. Granville was trying. Trying hard.
Suddenly Granville stopped swinging his feet and looked into his father’s eyes. Tears were splashing everywhere. “Dad!” he screamed. His voice sounded as if it had come from the bottom of a well.
Gardner scooped Granville into his arms, and hugged him, and kissed his head, and told him again and again that it was okay.
Gardner knew he’d made a start. As agonizing as it was, he’d have to keep going, pushing Granville until the menace revealed itself. So that Dad could destroy it forever.
“Got it!” Brownie yelled. The results were back from the laser fingerprint job on the soup can, and there, in photograph number six, was the fuzzy oval outline of a latent print on the edge of the label.
Brownie steadied the photo under his laboratory magnifier and eyeballed the photo close up. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” he said to himself. Inside the faint outline was a network of interconnecting lines, the ridges, whorls, and bifurcations of the print. There was enough there to make a comparison.
He removed the photograph and placed it on the optical imaging receptor of his classification computer. After several adjustments of the light-dark control, he finally had it suitable for a feed into the system.
“Okay, let’s roll,” he said, pushing the enter button, which allowed the computer to store the pattern of the print into memory.
Then he moved over and sat at the console, activating the compare-and-classify control. The screen responded by flashing a series of lightning-fast images of fingerprints into view as thousands of prints in the same general subcategory were juxtaposed to the one that Brownie had just fed in. The fingerprints of local felons and misdemeanants were on file there, but the system was also tapped into the Maryland and FBI data banks, which provided access to almost a million more prints.
“Come on, baby,” Brownie sweet-talked the machine. “Come on. Give it up.”
It seemed as if the computer was running the gamut of loaded prints. The pattern was changing faster and faster, as the optical imager came up short on the comparison each time.
Finally, the images began to slow down, and then they stopped.
There was an audible beep and the word UNKNOWN appeared on the screen.
“Shit!” Brownie whispered, giving the console a gentle whack with the palm of his hand. “You done let me down, baby.”
He moved the switch to the review mode, and ran the numbers on what the machine had just done. OFFENDER FILE COMPLETE, the summary said.
The print wasn’t in the file. That meant that the person who left it had no criminal record.
Brownie rose and went to the case file on the lab desk. He ruffled the pages and pulled out Addie’s and Henry’s prints that were lifted at the morgue. In a minute, the comparison was run, and the result was negative. Neither Addie nor Henry’s had left the print.
“Who else?” Brownie said. Then a thought struck, and he hit the keys to access the law enforcement officers’ prints stored in the personnel files of the department. The place had been swarming with cops after the shooting. Maybe one of them touched the can.
Again, there was a whirring sound as the unknown print went up against the hundreds of prints in the personnel File.
Suddenly, there was a double beep. A match!
Brownie dropped the case file and raced to the screen.
POSITIVE COMPARISON was captioned at the top, and at the bottom the name of the person who left the print.
“Son of a bitch,” Brownie moaned.
The print belonged to: SERGEANT JOSEPH BROWN.
It was late afternoon and Jennifer was at the State’s Attorney ‘s office scouring the police report on the Bowers case for the thirtieth time today. Sitting at Gardner’s desk, in the privacy of his inner sanctum, she had been absorbed in the file for hours.
Jennifer leaned back in Gardner’s leather chair so that the air conditioning vent in the ceiling could blow some coolness across her face. The weather was heating up outside, and moist tendrils of summer were somehow finding their way inside the building. She closed her eyes.
She missed Gardner. He was like a petulant child sometimes, bent on having his way, but she couldn’t freeze him out for long. Her heart was too soft to hold the anger that flared when he got bullheaded.
Jennifer opened her eyes and focused on the photo of gran-ville perched on the corner of the desk. He was laughing, and his hair was flying as his father had caught him zooming down the hill at Watson Road on his bike. The boy was always in the middle. Caught between Mom and Dad in the breakup. And now,
between Dad and a killer.
Jennifer snapped forward and flipped the file open to the bank records that Brownie had obtained. Gardner had belittled the monetary connection, but she and Brownie were convinced that somehow money was at the root of the shootings.
The report was specific on one point: there was no bank account in the name of either Henry or Addie Bowers. Not in Western Maryland National. Not in Mountain Federal. Not even in Apple Valley Savings and Loan.
Jennifer picked up the phone and dialed Brownie’s number at the lab. The line buzzed twice and a familiar husky voice answered: “Brown.”
“Brownie, Jennifer.”
“Afternoon.” There was an uncharacteristic sadness in his tone.
“Catching you at a bad time?” she asked.
“Uh, no. Not really.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I did something stupid, Jennifer.”
The response took her by surprise.
“Spent the whole damn afternoon lifting my own fingerprint off that soup can.”
“What?” Jennifer wasn’t following.
“Ran the latent print through the computer and it came back registered to Sergeant Joseph Brown. Don’t even know my own damn print!”
“How did that happen?” Jennifer’s voice was sympathetic.
“Don’t know. I swear I never touched that can. I know better than that. All the damn evidence I’ve collected, never made a dumb move like that one.”
“So you touched the can, so what?”
“So that was my big lead. Chance to find out who dug the slug out of the wall.”
“No other prints on the can?”
“Nope. Just the thumbprint of a dumb-ass cop!”
Jennifer knew that Brownie was trying too hard. That’s probably why he’d screwed up. His relationship with Gardner was so close that his objectivity was slipping too.
Silent Son Page 10