Orphans of Wonderland

by Greg F. Gifune

  Right there, he thought. Lonnie died right there.

  Despite his best attempts to stop it, visions of Lonnie being shot and falling to the pavement fired across his mind’s eye, his body writhing and head bleeding as he died in the street. Alive, then dead, just like that. He wondered if Lonnie ever knew what hit him, if he’d had time to react or be afraid or even feel pain. Joel hoped not.

  He shut the car off, forced the thoughts and pictures from his head and called the number for Tuser Industries listed on Jerry Simpson’s business card.

  An automated program answered his call on the second ring. A vaguely pleasant female voice that might or might not have been human informed him he had reached Tuser Industries, and then offered an array of options. Joel selected the extension for human resources.

  “Good afternoon, human resources. This is Peggy.”

  “Good afternoon, Peggy,” Joel said. “Jerry Simpson, please.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Simpson’s in a meeting right now. Who may I ask is calling?”

  “My name’s Joel Walker. Can you tell me when Jerry might be available?”

  “Hard to say, really,” Peggy assured him in a tone so cheerful it bordered on cartoonish. “May I ask what this is regarding, Mr. Walker?”

  “It’s rather personal in nature,” Joel said as smoothly as he could.

  “I see. Well, if you’d like to leave me a number where you can reached, I’ll be sure Mr. Simpson gets it the moment he’s free.”

  Joel left his cell number with the happiest secretary he’d ever encountered, then disconnected and thought a moment, allowing the conversation with Bea and the things he’d found in Lonnie’s apartment to replay in his mind.

  He didn’t really have much to go on when it came to Tuser Industries, and couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a dead end, but Bea had said Lonnie’s difficulties coincided with his employment there. Added to the fact that the strange notebook was connected to this Jerry Simpson character, at a minimum it warranted looking into.

  Stepping from the car, Joel watched the corner a while, reenacting in his mind the morning Lonnie walked across the street toward the convenience store. Whether the shooter had arrived at the scene and/or fled in a vehicle of some kind, when the murder was committed, the shooter had been on foot, because the wound to Lonnie’s temple had been administered at point-blank range.

  But where had the killer come from? If one applied the theory that Lonnie hadn’t seen him coming, then the shooter had either approached him from behind or from his right. From the information Joel knew of the case, Lonnie had been shot in the right temple, meaning if the shooter had come from behind, he would’ve had to sidle up next to him, on Lonnie’s right-hand side—the street side—press the gun against his head and fire. Certainly possible as well as plausible, but had the shooter come from the right to begin with, he could’ve walked directly up to Lonnie from across the street, following a straight line to his target. Either option worked, but the second seemed more efficient and therefore more likely. The third choice was that the killer had come from the front. If this was true, he passed on the right side and shot him as they passed each other. If the third scenario was correct, Lonnie either didn’t know the shooter (because he would’ve seen him coming) or the shooter was the person he had come to meet, and he’d simply shot him so quickly Lonnie didn’t have time to react. Regardless of scenario, the killing had to have happened quickly and without error, because it was a Sunday morning and there weren’t a lot of people on the street. In one way that helped the killer escape without detection, but from another perspective, it also made the hit more dangerous because the fewer the people on the street, the more one stood out and the harder it was to approach someone without him realizing it.

  Joel searched the streets, looking for cameras. In today’s day and age there were always cameras. Always.

  A gas station about a block away had surveillance cameras on the roof, facing the pumps. Depending on the angle, they might have picked up something, though it was unlikely that at that distance they’d yield anything useful. Beyond that, from what Joel could tell, the area was void of cameras. Coincidence or convenience?

  Next, Joel thought about escape. Unless it had been a totally random and senseless execution, Lonnie’s murder was premeditated and planned. There seemed no question about that. So, following that logic, it stood to reason that there also must have been an escape plan. Regardless of the day or how busy or not the area was at the time of the killing, no assassin shot someone on the street in broad daylight without having a pre-established escape route.

  Joel turned and looked toward the gas station. At the far end of the drag, perhaps four or five blocks in the distance, there were signs for a highway. If there was a vehicle involved, he thought, the shooter went that way. Any other direction would’ve taken him deeper into the city and into more congested areas with a higher risk of encountering witnesses. It also would’ve made it far harder and longer to get out of the area, much less the city. Had he been on foot, he’d have done the opposite, walking in one of the other three directions, because on foot the congestion could provide cover and make it easier to get lost in the crowd or hustle and bustle of busier areas that morning, and had he opted for the quieter side streets, they could provide cover as well, as the shooter could simply walk away through numerous neighborhoods like someone going for a Sunday stroll.

  Although he couldn’t be sure, instinct told him a car had been involved. It just seemed more likely. This was murder, after all, and a damn efficient one that had worked and hadn’t resulted in capture or detection, at least not yet. That meant it was likely perpetrated by a professional, or at a minimum, someone who had thought this through and planned it in detail. And the odds that either would walk to and from any scene, much less this one, were difficult to conceive.

  Joel imagined a car already parked somewhere in this area, with at least two people inside. They would’ve known which direction Lonnie would be coming from and would have positioned themselves in a spot where they could easily see him coming but where they might blend in and not be seen by him. To Lonnie’s right, Joel decided. This way, as Lonnie approached, the shooter could get out of the car undetected, approach Lonnie by crossing the street in a straight line—the shortest and most efficient distance between two points—and shoot him in the right temple before he probably ever saw him coming. The car could then pull out, and because the drag was wide enough, make a U-turn and stop at the corner where the killing took place. The killer got in and the car took off in the direction of the highway, where it disappeared and could either head toward New Bedford and Cape Cod or Rhode Island and New York in a matter of seconds.

  A moment later, Joel found himself standing on the corner where Lonnie had died. He wanted to feel a strong sense of dread or horror, a residue of darkness where his friend had drawn his last breath and left this earth. But he didn’t. He didn’t feel anything. It was just a street corner like any other. There was no longer any sign or indication that, just weeks before, a man had been murdered here, on this very spot. All evidence was gone. Just like Lonnie. Gone.

  His phone rang. Still distracted, he answered without checking the ID. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Walker, Detective Rossi.”

  “Detective, hello.”

  “Are you in town?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “I’ve got a brief amount of time, if you’re still interested in talking.”

  “Absolutely,” Joel said, heading for his car. “Where and when?”

  The detective gave him the name of a Chinese restaurant on Rhode Island Avenue and told him he’d meet him there in ten minutes.

  He made it in about five, and quickly found The Dancing Panda, a family-style joint located in a dark, rectangular building set back from the road at the rear of a small parking lot. A giant neon panda holding a wok danced on the roof.r />
  Joel parked and went in through the bar entrance.

  The bar and restaurant beyond were dimly lit and mostly empty. Hesitating just inside the door, he saw a female Chinese bartender with spiked blonde hair and heavy eyeliner flash him a bright smile. Joel smiled back and drifted deeper into the bar. He was about to take a seat when a Chinese waiter appeared in the doorway to the restaurant portion of the establishment and asked, “Are you Mr. Walker?”

  “Yes.”

  “This way.”

  Joel followed the man across the restaurant, through a sea of tables with lighted candles under glass in the center of each, past some booths, and eventually into the darkest corner in the place.

  A lone man sat sipping a drink at a small table off by itself.

  “Detective?”

  The man looked up with a noncommittal expression and waved Joel in. “Mr. Walker,” he said, standing and extending his hand, “I’m Mike Rossi.”

  “Good to meet you.” Joel shook his hand. It was a firm handshake, almost aggressive, but not quite. Once they’d finished, Rossi motioned to the chair across from him, then sat down. Joel joined him.

  “Did you want anything?” Rossi asked. “You hungry? Maybe a drink?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine.”

  Rossi nodded to the waiter and he moved away. The detective was a bit younger than Joel had expected, probably early thirties, with dark, wavy hair, an intentional five o’clock shadow and a modest suit. “I come here a lot,” he said. “It’s quiet, you know? Food’s decent, drinks are strong and the help’s top-notch.”

  “Well, I appreciate you seeing me,” Joel told him. He already sensed a slight difference in the detective’s tone. He’d seemed friendlier on the phone.

  Rossi sat back and stirred what appeared to be a Coke with a plastic red stirrer. “I need you to understand that the Scott case is an open and ongoing investigation, so I’m not at liberty to discuss the case or any particulars associated with it.”

  “Of course. I was just hoping—”

  “Here’s the thing,” Rossi said, leaning forward onto the table, the dark intensity of his eyes eerie in the limited light. “I know who you are, okay?”

  And there it was. “Okay,” Joel sighed.

  “I know all about you and what went on here years ago.”

  “In all fairness—”

  “I’m going to give you a little piece of advice,” Rossi interrupted. “You know, just between us. It’s not twenty years ago. That was then. This is now. If you think you’re going to come here and start your carnival sideshow bullshit like you did back then, you’re in for one hell of a surprise, Walker, because I won’t have it, you hear me? I won’t have it. I got a partner I didn’t even bring with me because he was a rookie back in the day, and I wasn’t sure I could stop him from putting his foot in your ass. You see where I’m going with this?”

  Joel leaned forward as well. The candle on the table between them burned, the flame flickering and licking their faces with iridescent light. “I’m not here as a reporter. I’m here as Lonnie’s friend, and because his daughter asked me to look into things.”

  “Did she now?” Rossi seemed genuinely surprised.

  “Yes, she did. I’m here at her request, all right? I’m not looking to give you or the department or anyone else a hard time. I’m not here to cause trouble or to write a story or anything along those lines. I’m here as a favor and because Lonnie Scott was a friend of mine.”

  Rossi stared at him a while. “You hurt a lot of good people.”

  “I wrote a book.”

  “That was full of lies and fairy tales.”

  “I see. And when all that was going on, you were, what, in elementary school?”

  His expression remained even. “I was fourteen, a freshman in high school. So what? I had family in the department back then, including a couple uncles. You hurt the reputations of a lot of people. Decent cops who were doing their best during a very difficult time and trying to do their jobs and find out who slaughtered that girl.”

  “That girl had a name. It was Cindy—”

  “I know what the fuck her name was.”

  “That investigation still ongoing too? Was still unsolved last time I checked.”

  Rossi smoldered a moment or two more before responding. “You know as well as I do we have a very good idea of who the perp was, we just couldn’t prove it. What it never was, though, was the big devil-shit conspiracy you made it out to be on every talk show from here to the moon.”

  “She was slaughtered in a church, on an altar, and—”

  “Yeah, I know all about it, thanks.”

  “I never blamed the police.”

  “Not directly. You didn’t have to. You implied. You made people think the departments in Fall River and New Bedford and a few other places were a bunch of bumbling Keystone Cops. You even implied some officers could’ve been involved in the cult activity, or were being paid off to look the other way. Do you have any idea the damage that caused those departments? Do you even give a shit?”

  Joel sat back, breaking the showdown. “Look, Rossi, that—”

  “Detective Rossi.”

  “That was a long time ago, Detective Rossi.”

  “Cops don’t forget.”

  “Well, good for them. And yes, I give a shit. I never wanted to hurt anyone, least of all the police. I made some mistakes, I admit it, and I’m sorry for that. It’s easy to pile on me too, don’t forget that. I paid for my sins, Detective, trust me. And I wasn’t entirely wrong, but—”

  “But nothing. You’re not a cop. You’re not an investigator. You’re not even a reporter. You’re a joke, a sensationalistic, half-baked, almost-was has-been, and a piece of shit.”

  “Jesus, don’t hold back.”

  “If you think I’m here to debate the merits of your character, Walker, you’re out of your mind.”

  “Fine. Then why are you here?”

  “To let you know we’ve got this situation well in hand, thanks.”

  Joel laughed lightly. “Is this where you tell me to get out of town before sundown?”

  Rossi’s expression made it abundantly clear that he was not amused. “Do yourself a favor, Walker. Go on back up to yahoo land and do whatever the hell it is you do up there these days. You know, like get those local Little League scores out to the masses and whatnot. And let us do our job.”

  “Are you aware of the fact that Lonnie worked part-time for a company called Tuser Industries in New Bedford?” Joel asked.

  “Yes, we are aware of that.”

  “That’s interesting, because his family had no knowledge of it.”

  Rossi shrugged. “As I mentioned, ongoing investigation.”

  “Do you know anything about the company?”

  “They do research and development.”

  “What kind of research and development?”

  “What am I, your personal assistant?”

  “Gimme a break.”

  Rossi sipped his Coke. “And why would I do that?”

  “How about professional courtesy?”

  “The only professional at this table is me.”

  “Okay, how about just two guys talking?”

  Several seconds lived and died before Rossi answered. “They’re a privately owned company. They handle some government contracts, several with military applications, but they don’t discuss them due to national security, which is standard operating procedure when it comes to such things.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Why are you so concerned with the company?”

  “I was told that many of the difficulties Lonnie was experiencing started right around the time he began employment there.”

  “He was the night watchman, for Christ’s sake.” Rossi smiled, but t
here could not have been less humor in it. “Wait, let me guess, it’s all a big cover, isn’t it? It’s a secret satanic cult company, part of a huge network of secret satanic cult companies that span the entire country, maybe the whole world. And almost everybody’s in on it. Plus they eat babies, you know, whenever they can get hold of one, am I right?”

  “I’m glad you can find such humor in the murder of Lonnie Scott, Detective.”

  “Don’t get self-righteous with me, you fucking turd,” Rossi snapped, sitting forward and stabbing a finger at him. Then just as quickly, he seemed to recall that he was in a public place. Relaxing his posture, he lowered his hand and his voice. “There’s no connection to Tuser Industries and the murder of Lonnie Scott.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes. Why the hell would there be? Only in your twisted mind would some place he worked part-time in the most menial of positions be connected to this.”

  “Are you aware that he often slept there? At one point, during a vacation from his regular job, he worked a week straight and slept there the entire time.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t find that odd?”

  “Unusual maybe, but not unheard of. They must have employee barracks.”

  “For a night watchman in the most menial of positions?”

  “There is no connection between Lonnie Scott’s death and Tuser Industries, understood?”

  Joel knew Rossi might very well be correct, but he wasn’t ready to dismiss there being any connection just yet. “And how do you know that?”

  “It’s called investigation, Walker.”

  “Investigation or assumption?”

  “They’re not under any suspicion or investigation in these matters, is that clear? I suggest you stay away from them.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because, as I just explained, they have nothing to do with this.”

  It was a gamble, but Joel rolled the dice anyway. “Have you been told to leave them alone, Detective?”