Convicted

by Jan Burke

  “Right. No public information release yet.”

  “Any trace on the call?”

  “Payphone near a convenience market. We’ve got someone on the way there now, but I’m sure she’s long gone.”

  “She?”

  “Caller was female, sounded young.”

  “The aunt?”

  “Not unless she can be two places at once. I was talking to her again when the call came in.”

  “But it was local? Not from Arrowhead?”

  “No, from here in Las Piernas. Makes me worry about the kid, though. It gets damn cold up there at night. Maybe Ben could go up there with the dogs. What do you think?”

  He looked back at the Kendall house, thought of Ralph Kendall saying that Jordy had been “out all night.”

  “Frank?” Pete asked.

  “I’ll talk to Ben. Meantime, do me a favor and try to find out if Jordy Kendall has a girlfriend.”

  * * *

  WHEN FRANK, BEN, AND THE dogs arrived at the search area in the mountains, the Sheriff’s Department already had a command post set up, and searchers out, but without any luck. Ben had worked on searches in the area before, and introduced Frank to Greg Fischer, the deputy in charge.

  “Ben,” Fischer said, looking at his filthy jeans and shirt, “you fall down or something?”

  “No, but I take my weekly bath on Sunday, so this only has to last another day.”

  Frank asked, “Any property near here owned by a family named Kendall?”

  “I’ll check,” Fischer said. Ten minutes later, he told them, “Down the road, about half a mile.” He gave Frank the address. “You want to tell me why you want to know?”

  “Just a hunch. Connection with the boy’s family. Come along if you like.”

  “I need to coordinate from here, but give me a call if you think you’re on to anything. Think we might need a warrant?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll call you if it looks that way.”

  At the Kendall property, Ben harnessed Bool again. Before long, the dog had picked up a trail. It seemed to lead from the house to the driveway, and down the road a short distance, but the dog lost it after that.

  Ben praised him and brought him back to the truck. “Might have been in a vehicle. Bool can sometimes track a scent of someone traveling in a vehicle, but conditions don’t seem to be the best for him here.”

  “He’s given us a good start,” Frank said. “I called Fischer, and he said to keep him posted. He might pull some of his guys over this way to help out.”

  “Let’s give Bingle a try.”

  * * *

  HALF A MILE IN THE opposite direction from the Sheriff’s search area, Bingle, who worked off lead, began barking, and rushed back to Ben.

  “He’s found him!” Ben said, and praised Bingle in Spanish, the language he used to give the dog commands, then encouraged him to “refind.” The dog bounded ahead a little, looked back at Ben and barked.

  “He’s alive, right?” Frank said, knowing that Bingle was trained to howl when he found a dead body, to bark for a live find.

  “Yes, but who knows what kind of shape he’s in,” Ben said, hurrying after the dog, who was impatiently barking again. He continued in this way for several yards.

  When Ben first saw Lex Toller, the boy was holding tightly to Bingle’s neck. Once again, Ben thought there must have been some mistake. Bingle was a big dog, and weighed more than many children of that age, but this child was too small for eight, surely.

  Lex was bundled up in a down jacket and a knit cap—both looked new. Beneath the jacket Ben could see a light sweater. He had a pair of soft long pants on—the type made for hiking in cold weather. The socks and shoes he wore looked new as well. There was a sleeping bag at his feet, and a supply of energy bars and water—and a teddy bear. There was a gauze bandage on his chin, a smaller bandage on his hand. There was a bruise on his forehead. He looked at Ben with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

  “¡Muy bien, Bingle¡ ¡Qué inteligente eres!” Ben said.

  Bingle showed his pleasure at the praise, but stayed with the boy, and seemed willing to let the boy hug him as long as he liked. Not something most dogs enjoyed, but no one would ever convince Ben that Bingle and Bool were like most dogs. Bingle was nuzzling the boy now, then lifted his ears and wagged his tail.

  A moment later Ben heard what Bingle had heard first—Frank coming up behind him. He heard Frank stop a few feet away.

  “Hi, Lex,” Ben said easily. “I’m Ben. That’s Bingle. And this is my friend Frank. We’ve been looking for you.”

  For a moment, he didn’t think the boy would reply, but his brows suddenly pulled together and he asked, “What did you say his name is?”

  Ben knew he wasn’t asking about the detective. “Bingle.”

  “Hi Bingle!” he said to the dog, and giggled as he got a kiss on the ear. “Is he a Spanish Shepherd?”

  “Mostly German Shepherd,” Ben said, moving a little closer. “He understands Spanish and English.”

  “Good dog, Bingle!” Lex said.

  Bingle returned this salutation with another kiss.

  “Are you hurt?” Ben asked.

  Lex shook his head.

  Ben heard Frank making the radio call to Greg Fischer.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” Ben asked Lex. “I see some bandages.”

  The boy’s hand came up to touch his chin, and his eyes clouded a little. “I want Aunt Sarah.”

  “Your aunt? Okay. Let us make sure you aren’t hurt, and I think we can take you to her.”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “I have to wait here for the police. I can’t leave with anyone else.”

  “I’m a police officer,” Frank said, and held out his badge for Lex to see. “Did Jordy ask you to wait for the police?”

  His eyes widened, but he said, “No.” He looked away, and petted Bingle. “I want Aunt Sarah,” he said again.

  They got no other information from him. If they asked him any questions, he said, “I want Aunt Sarah.” If he said anything else, it was a question about Bingle—or Bool, once he had been introduced to the bloodhound. He had a nearly endless supply of questions about them.

  “Why do these dogs work so hard for you?” he asked Ben at one point.

  “We’re friends.”

  “It seems like more than friends,” he said. “Like—I don’t know what. But more.”

  “Yes, I guess it is,” Ben said. “Devotion.”

  He thought again of David, and decided he would have liked this day’s work.

  * * *

  GREG FISCHER GUIDED THEM TO a nearby hospital. A doctor examined Lex, and said that other than the cuts and a few bruises, he was fine. “Not even dehydrated,” he said. “And if that kid spent the night outdoors, I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

  “What about the cuts?”

  “Those bother me, but they look more like they came from something with a sharp edge—broken glass would be my first guess. And they’ve already started to heal. Someone rinsed them out and put antibacterial ointment on them.”

  “And the bruises?”

  “Harder to know. He tells me he fell. The newest ones do look like that—consistent with a fall against a piece of furniture. He’s got older ones on his back, those look to me like someone hit him with a belt.”

  * * *

  WHILE LEX WAS GETTING BACK in the truck, Frank pulled Ben aside. “I know it’s been a long day, and you and the dogs deserve to go home and rest. But there’s one more thing I’d like to have you check out. You can go home and change, feed them, whatever you need to do, but I think Bool can help us put this together.”

  Ben listened to his request, thought of Alice in her bikini, and said, “I’ve got dog food with me. I don�
�t need to go home.”

  * * *

  WHEN FRANK BROUGHT LEX INTO the Las Piernas Police Department headquarters, Pete and Sarah Crane were waiting for them. Lex’s aunt gathered the boy into her arms and held him close to her as she wept with relief. “Oh, Lex, I’m so glad you’re safe. Oh, honey, I’ve been so worried about you.”

  After a moment, Frank said, “Ms. Crane, we know you’re anxious to get home, but we have some questions for both you and Lex, so we’ll need to ask you to stay here for a little while longer.”

  “After all he’s been through?” she asked indignantly.

  “We’re not exactly sure what he has been through, ma’am. Perhaps you’ll have better luck than I did persuading him to answer our questions.”

  She seemed ready to rebel, but then asked, “Have you told him yet?”

  He shook his head.

  “Lex, do you know what happened to your father?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Lex, I’m sorry. Your daddy—your daddy is dead.”

  “I know. Can I live with you now?”

  She looked worriedly at Frank.

  “Lex, were you there when he died?” he asked. “You aren’t in trouble. We just want to know what happened.”

  He frowned, then said, “I want to go home with Aunt Sarah.”

  Frank sighed.

  “Please Detective Harriman,” Sarah Crane said. “I promise we won’t leave town or—please, let me take him home. He’s been through so much!”

  The phone on Frank’s desk rang. He answered it while Pete made another try to get Lex to talk about anything other than dogs and where he wanted to live. It was Ben.

  “Any luck?” Frank asked.

  “Yes. I gave Bool the command to ‘find ’em’ as he sniffed the ground near the foundation vent. I thought that would be kind of a long shot. He was in and around the house, including the bathroom and the place where the body was earlier in the day. Then he headed across the street.”

  “To Jordan Kendall’s house?”

  “To his pickup truck.”

  “Let me speak to the officer who’s with you. I want that kid down here for questioning, but I want to make sure we handle this right.”

  “Before you talk to him, I should let you know something else. Bool found this scent near the stand that holds the other fireplace tools. The lab has the poker now, but I’d say whoever was in that pickup truck has been near that stand.”

  “Thanks, Ben.”

  * * *

  BEN WAS HAPPY TO BE on his way home with the dogs. His girlfriend, Anna, was already there waiting for him with her own dogs. She had called his cell phone, just to see how his day had gone. He had talked about the successes of the day, but she must have heard something in his voice, because she offered to come over.

  “I’ll even cook dinner.”

  “That’d be great,” he said. “Besides, Alice won’t go near my place if your car is in the driveway.”

  “Oh yeah, you need me tonight,” she said, laughing. “Don’t worry. I promise I’m able to defend a grown man with two big dogs from Alice and her sinking cantaloupes.”

  He laughed and told her he’d see her soon.

  Maybe by the end of the night, he wouldn’t be thinking so much about small boys who kept treasures under houses.

  * * *

  RALPH KENDALL WAS UNDOUBTEDLY PACING in the room next to them, Frank thought. He had willingly brought Jordan with him to the LPPD Headquarters, and Frank was glad that he had not yet had to place Jordan under arrest—the rules changed with custody. But the Kendalls had come here voluntarily. He separated them, telling Kendall that for legal reasons, they needed to talk to witnesses separately. That much was true. He was under no legal obligation to be truthful when questioning witnesses. At eighteen, Jordan Kendall could be questioned out of the presence of his father.

  “Jordan, we know you were inside the Toller house,” Frank began.

  Jordan stared at his folded hands and said nothing.

  “And Lex was found not far from your family’s cabin. He’s told us you brought him there.” A lie, but it didn’t seem to concern Jordan.

  “We record all 9-1-1 calls,” Frank said, and for the first time, saw that he had Jordan’s attention. “Your girlfriend—” Frank consulted his notes. “Monica? Her voice is on the tape, giving directions to find Lex that were a little mixed up. That could have led to his death, of course, but we were lucky. We found him anyway.”

  He watched the young man shift in his seat.

  “We have witnesses that saw her make the call, so she’s good for an accessory to kidnapping charge, and we can probably make her an accessory to Toller’s murder while we’re at it.”

  He turned pale.

  “Didn’t think about that when you involved her, did you?”

  “She had no idea what I was asking her to call about,” he said.

  “She can tell that to the jury, of course. Maybe they’ll believe her when she says that if someone asks her to call the police and tell them where to find a little boy in the woods, she thinks nothing of it.”

  He put his head in his hands. “Don’t do anything to Monica. I’m the one you want. For everything. I killed Toller. I took Lex to the mountains. All of it.” He looked up at Frank in defiance, and said, “And I’m proud of it! I’d do it again.”

  Frank waited, then said, “Tell me what happened.”

  “You see those cuts on Lex’s face and hand? You know how he got them? His old man smashed a photograph of Lex and his aunt Sarah into his face. That big man, smashing glass into that little kid’s face! Lex put a hand up to defend himself, but that just meant his hand got cut, too.”

  “Had Toller ever hit his son before?”

  Jordan looked away. “I don’t know. I think he did, but Lexie would never tell me. One time I told him I’d beat the crap out of his dad if his dad ever hurt him, and he said I’d better not, because his dad would shoot me. Even if he didn’t beat him, he hurt him in other ways. His dad picked on him, he always said mean things to him. Didn’t even feed him. Toller was a drunken son of a bitch who could go on a binge and forget he had a kid. Lex ate more food from our kitchen than he did from that one over there. You see his room? His dad wouldn’t let him have toys.”

  “I saw his hiding place. There were toys there.”

  Jordan shook his head. “I gave those to him. I felt sorry for him. So did my mom. We gave him Gabe’s hand-me-downs so he’d have something to wear. He’s so small, Gabe’s clothes from kindergarten fit him when he’s in third grade.”

  “So your parents thought he was abused, too?”

  “They called a social worker on him once. She made Toller clean up the house, and after about three months, that was that. Everything went back to the way it was. My parents said Lex would have been taken away if anything really bad had been going on. Shows what they know. That was before Sarah found Lex.” He looked pleadingly at Frank. “They’ll let her take him won’t they? They won’t put him in a home, or anything like that, will they?”

  “She’ll probably be able to keep him.”

  He sighed. “Then it’s worth it.” But Frank thought he looked scared.

  “Did Lex call you to come over after he was hurt?”

  Jordan nodded. “Not call, really. Just after Lex went in from the baseball game, his aunt came over. We knew his dad was pissed off at Sarah. We all heard them arguing. Heard him yelling that Lex would never live with her as long as he had anything to say about it. When he was in a mood like that, Mr. Toller was a real asshole. Lex almost always hides under the house when his dad is drunk and awake. So, I was kind of watching out for a signal. Sure enough, he sent one. You saw the mirror?”

  “And the Morse code.”

  “Yeah, well, he knew I’d be watching for word from him. So, whe
n I got over there, and Lex crawled out, he was scared—and he’d been hurt. He was cut and bleeding. It pissed me off. So I went in the house, and told Toller he was a big old asshole and to quit picking on Lex. We fought.”

  “Where?”

  “In the living room. Near the door. He went for this gun of his that he keeps by the door, and I grabbed the poker and whacked him with it as hard as I could. I—I kept hitting him.” He swallowed hard. “I guess I went a little crazy. But once I knew he was dead, I cleaned up Lex and got him out of there.”

  “He was willing to go with you after seeing you kill his father?”

  “He was still outside. I made sure he didn’t even see his dad. I took him over to my truck and told him to wait in it. I went into my house and took some winter clothes Gabe hardly ever wore, and a teddy bear he never played with, and gave them to Lex. I brought him up to the cabin. I stayed with him overnight, and early this morning, I set him up where I thought he’d be easy to find. Then I came home. If you hadn’t found him soon, I was going to go back up there to make sure he was okay.”

  Frank thought this through, then had Jordan go over it again several times.

  Pete knocked, stuck his head in the door. “Frank, can I borrow you for a minute?”

  When Frank stepped out and closed the door, Pete said, “Look, I’ve been listening in the other room, and so has the lieutenant. Congratulations on the confession, but hasn’t your day been long enough? You’ve got more than enough to hold him.”

  “Something’s not right. He’s in an argument with Toller, Toller is within reach of a gun, and this kid manages to cross a trash-filled room and reach a fireplace poker, grab it, cross the room again and bash Toller’s head in before Toller notices any of this, or turns around?”

  “Kid was young and fast.”

  “Pete—”

  “Ah, all right. So Toller wasn’t going for the gun.”

  “You saw where the body was.”

  Pete sighed. “Well, somebody hit him with that poker before he got to the door, that’s for damned sure.”