by BJ Bourg
Tom groaned and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. Blood leaked from several gashes in his face. A movement to my right drew my attention there and Rex came running up, kicked Tom’s hands out from under him and Tom collapsed back to the soft earth. Rex then dropped to his knees on Tom’s neck and jerked Tom’s arms behind his back. As Rex cuffed him, I read him his Miranda rights, and then spoke into my mouthpiece to let Dawn and the rest of the team know we had Tom in custody.
Dawn called back, breathless. “Where the hell are y’all? Are y’all okay?”
I told her we were okay and gave her our location, or as best I could. All of the trees looked the same and I’d gotten so turned around in the fight I didn’t know which direction was north.
“I’ve got this,” Rex said, retrieving his radio and talking Dawn into our location.
While waiting for them to arrive, I sat on the ground several feet from Tom and leaned against a tree. Tom choked and blood sprayed from his mouth. He turned to his side, gasped for air. His lips were also bleeding and he smacked his mouth to clear it of the crimson liquid. When he was able to speak, he said, “You’re lucky I’m old.”
“You’re lucky I’m not trigger-happy.” I grunted. “Killing you would’ve been a freebie. A grand jury wouldn’t give two shits for a lowlife killer like yourself.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“You killed your wife.” I pointed to his bloody knuckles. “With your bare hands. The police file says you broke your hand on her face, and that’s what gave you away.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“This time you were smart.” I started to nod, but stopped when the piercing pain shot through my skull. “You used brass knuckles to protect your hands.”
He grinned, revealing that he’d somehow lost more of his teeth during the fight. “You can’t prove shit.”
“DNA doesn’t lie, Tom.” I decided it was time to bullshit him. “Have you ever heard of the theory of transfer?”
“The what?” He rolled to a seated position, adjusted his cuffed hands. “What kind of theory?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rex’s brow pucker, like he thought he was about to learn some new secret investigative technique.
“Anytime you touch a piece of metal, traces of your DNA are absorbed into the surface of the object. The metal might seem smooth, but there are tiny crevices that can’t be seen with the naked eye.” I took a breath, blew out forcefully. I was glad the fight ended when it had, as I was almost out of gas and simply talking was wearing me out. “Anyway, try as you might, you can never remove all of your DNA from those minute crevices—no matter how hard you scrub or what chemicals you use. Your DNA is on that metal surface forever.”
I could almost see Tom’s brain working as he stared wildly about. I went in for the kill. “How would you explain your DNA being on the same brass knuckles that was used to kill two couples and a baby?”
His head jerked up. “I never touched that baby! I would never hurt a child.” I studied his face, frowned and nodded. “I believe you, Tom. Now tell me what happened to the baby.”
His shoulders hunched over and he lowered his head as he realized the implications of what he’d said. After several moments, he took a deep breath and exhaled long and hard. When he looked back into my eyes, there was resignation in his expression. “Look, I know enough to know when I’m behind on the score cards.” He shook his head. “I’ll need a knockout to win this fight, but my hands are tied behind my back and this asshole”—he jerked his head in Rex’s direction—“is trigger-happy, so I’ll just throw in the towel. I don’t mind going back to prison. I thrive there.”
“If you throw in the towel, you’re dead,” I said. “This is Louisiana. You’ll get the death penalty for what you did.” I paused, leaned forward for emphasis. “Instead of killing yourself, you can explain why you did what you did...you can make us understand what happened. That might help to keep you alive.”
After being silent for a long moment, Tom finally said, “I’ll talk. I’ll tell you what you want to know and answer all your questions, but you gotta do something for me first.”
“What’s that?”
“I have a kid—a little girl—that I ain’t seen since...” He hung his head.
“Since you killed her mother?”
His eyes flashed, but then the flame died and he only nodded. “I’d love to talk to her, to tell her how sorry I am, but I don’t know how to find her. I just miss her so much, you know? She’s my baby and I know how it feels to not get to see your baby.” He looked up at me. Tears mixed with his blood and spilled down his face. “I know I did some bad things, but I never touched that baby. I can’t hurt no baby.”
I despised killers, especially men as cruel as Tom Kosinski. Any coward could shoot or stab a defenseless victim, but it took a special kind of evil bastard to beat someone to death with his own hands. Despite that fact, I suddenly felt sorry for him. “I’ll do what I can to help you find your daughter. I promise.”
He closed his eyes and eased back to the ground, a strange peace seeming to spread over him.
CHAPTER 44
Before long, Dawn and Larry came sprinting to where we sat. Dawn walked over to Tom and nudged him roughly with her foot. “Get your ass up. You’re going to jail for murder.”
Tom groaned and rolled to a seated position. Dawn grabbed one arm and Rex grabbed the other, and they jerked him to his feet. We began making our way through the woods and I peered through the trees as we walked, but was unable to see the cabin. I hadn’t realized how far I’d run after him. Larry kept a wary eye on Tom, and I noticed his finger was on the trigger of his submachine gun.
We had to walk for several more minutes—with Dawn and Rex holding Tom’s arm to keep him from falling—before the cabin finally came into view.
They escorted Tom to the front porch of the cabin and had him sit on the steps. The rest of the team had brought the cars closer to the cabin and Dudley and Karla were preparing to process the house for evidence. I sat beside Tom and indicated toward the cabin with my head. “So, is this where y’all brought the baby after beating Janice and Bill Prince?”
He pursed his lips. “Look, as a fighter, I’ve got plenty respect for you, but you’re still a pig to me and I don’t trust pigs. Once I talk to my daughter, I’ll tell you everything you want to know...not before.”
“What if I can’t find her?” I wanted to know.
He shook his head. “I won’t say a word until I talk to her.”
I knew the man beside me was telling the truth. I pulled out a notebook and pen. “What’s her name and date of birth?”
“Jeri Keller. She was born on Christmas day. I’m not sure what year. She’s about twenty.”
“Keller? Don’t you mean Kosinski?”
Tom shook his head. “Keller was my wife’s maiden name and, from what I know, Jeri took her mom’s last name.”
“Do you know what city she lives in?”
“Last I heard she was in Beaumont, Texas.”
I grabbed my phone and dialed the number to the bureau. I stood and walked around the clearing as the phone rang. Jennifer Robinson, one of the central detectives, answered and I gave her the information I had on Jeri Keller and asked that she try to get her on the phone.
I shut off my phone, slipped it into my pocket. “They’re looking for her.”
Tom only grunted.
Within minutes, an ambulance came screaming into the clearing and two paramedics jumped out. One was a middle-aged man with a thin strip of gray hair wrapped around the base of his balding head and the other was a young woman with purple hair and a plump figure. Their nametags told me they were Alice and Drake.
Drake pulled a medic bag from the back of the ambulance and moved toward Tom.
Alice approached me, said, “Let me get you cleaned up.”
I touched the dried blood on my face, shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
“No
thing? Your nose looks broken.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” I grabbed both sides of the bridge of my nose and squeezed. Pain shot through my face. I then touched my right eye. It was puffy and starting to swell shut.
“You really should get checked out in the ER,” Alice suggested.
“I’ve got work to do, but thanks.”
She shook her head, squirted some type of solution on a sterile cloth and went to work cleaning my face. I knew where the cuts were based on the intense burn from the cleaning solution. When she was done, she pulled a clipboard around and asked that I sign a refusal form.
Dawn walked up as I completed the paperwork.
“I’m going to take Tom back to the substation and interview him,” I said. “Can you supervise the processing of the scene?”
She nodded, turned away and started barking orders.
I walked to where my cruiser had been parked, leaned against it and watched the medics work on Tom. Will you really answer my questions, or will you speak to your daughter and then tell me to go to hell? It was certainly a gamble I’d have to make. He was my last chance to find out what really happened out at Janice Prince’s house.
Fifteen minutes later, the medics announced that they had finished bandaging Tom’s face and they were leaving. I walked over to him. “Go ahead and get up.”
Tom did as he was told and I led him to my car and strapped him into the front passenger seat. I slipped into the driver’s seat and Rex rode with us, sitting directly behind Tom. As I drove off, I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw Rex’s hand on his pistol. Just don’t shoot me, kid, I thought.
We were traveling through Seasville and the sun was midway into its westward slide when my cell phone rang. It was Jennifer Robinson.
“We found her, Brandon.” There was a pause, a click, and Jennifer came back on the line. “Ms. Keller, you’re on the line with Detective Berger.”
“Jeri Keller?” I asked.
“Yes, sir, this is Jeri Keller,” a young, hesitant voice said.
“I have someone here who wants to speak to you.” I plugged my phone into the external speaker and gave Tom a nod.
“Jeri?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“It’s me, Jeri.” Tears filled Tom’s eyes. “It’s your dad.”
There was a long pause. “I don’t have a dad.”
“Jeri, I just want to—”
“I have nothing to say to you. I don’t know who those cops think they are, but I have nothing to say to you and they shouldn’t have contacted me. I’ve spent my life trying to hide from you and they help you find me? What kind of bullshit is this?”
“Baby, I’m calling you to say I’m sorry for what I did to your mom. I was wrong and—”
“Sorry? You killed the only real parent I had and you destroyed my life and you want to call and say you’re sorry? Why are you calling now? After all these years, why now? Is this some kind of rehabilitation program? A condition of your parole? Well, to hell with you. I don’t forgive you and I hope you die in jail!”
Tom’s chin was trembling. “I put together some money for you. It’s in a bank account at the National One Bank, under your name.”
“You think you can buy me? I’m not like you. I don’t want your money. Stay out of my life.”
“But, baby, please just let me—”
Clunk! The line went dead.
I pursed my lips, stared sideways at Tom. Tears were dripping from his face. I drove in silence until we were almost at the substation. Finally, when it appeared Tom had composed himself, I asked, “So, are you still going to talk to me?”
He nodded silently. “A deal’s a deal,” he said hoarsely.
CHAPTER 45
Magnolia Parish Substation, Seasville, LA
I sat in the chair beside the interview table facing Tom Kosinski. Four feet of empty space separated us—me representing good and Tom representing what was evil in the world. We were both comfortable with ourselves and with where we sat. Although we were on opposite sides of the moral and legal spectrums, a mutual respect had formed between us out in the woods south of Seasville. It showed in the way Tom looked at me, and I felt he could see it in the way I looked at him.
I stared at his battered face through my one good eye—my right eye having been reduced to a mere slit. The headache persisted, but my mind was clear. “Okay, Tom, I’m going to ask you to start at the beginning and tell me what happened with regard to the attack that took place in Bill and Janice Prince’s home.”
He pointed to the one-way glass behind me. “Who’s on the other side?”
I looked over my shoulder, shrugged. “I’m not real sure. We usually have at least one witness in the observation room to make sure the interview doesn’t get out of hand.”
He nodded, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Okay,” he began, “I first met Doctor Peter Wainwright when I was boxing in prison. We had a good program and they’d let some family members and a few rich people come in and watch the fights. There were bets placed in the back, under the table. A lot of money changed hands—a lot.”
“How’d the warden feel about that?”
Tom grunted. “He was in charge of the bets and he got the largest cut of the action. He controlled everything. If it weren’t for him, there’d be no fights, so you can bet he got paid.
“Anyway, I made Peter a lot of money and he appreciated it. We got to talking after one of the fights and he told me there was a boxing gym in his hometown and he said he could get me a coaching job when I got released.”
“Peter was affiliated with the boxing gym?” I asked.
“He sponsored most of the events and was constantly donating money for equipment and other stuff.” Tom sighed, hung his head. “I didn’t want to hurt him. We were friends. He helped me a lot. He had me build some stuff around his house and was so impressed with my work that he had his wife print up flyers advertising me as a handyman. It helped supplement my pay at the gym, gave me some spending money. He even bought me some tools and loaned me his truck to get the jobs done.”
I leaned close. “So why’d you do it? Why’d you kill him if he helped you so much?”
“He got cold feet. Wanted to turn us in, and I wasn’t going back to prison.” He shook his head. “We got to arguing and things got out of hand. Once I hit him, I knew I had to finish it.”
“He knew about what happened to Bill and Janice Prince?”
“Yeah, he ordered it.”
I forced myself not to react to his statement. “He ordered you to beat them to death?”
“No, he ordered me to get the baby so we could turn her in to the rightful owners.”
“Rightful owners?” I echoed.
“That’s what he called it when someone purchased a baby. He said if a couple paid a surrogate mother to have a baby, that couple was the rightful owner to the baby.” He grabbed a paper cup of Coke I’d gotten for him earlier, drank from it. He put the cup down and continued. “Janice and Bill refused to give up the baby once it was born, so Peter sent me in to retrieve it. I knew Marty could use the money and he seemed like a trustworthy kid, so I brought him along. It was supposed to be simple...we slip in, take the baby, and hand her over to Peter.” He shook his head. “But that damn baby monitor was on and Bill overheard us.”
“He interrupted y’all?”
“Yeah. He tried to stop us, but he wasn’t much of a man. I dropped him with one punch.”
“One punch?”
He nodded.
“Then why’d you beat him to death?”
“He’d seen our faces. I couldn’t let him live after seeing our faces.”
“I thought y’all wore masks?”
“A mask?” Tom looked puzzled. “I didn’t wear no mask.”
“Why not?”
“Um...well, I didn’t expect to be seen.”
“And Janice? You couldn’t let her live either?”
He was silent for a long mom
ent. When he spoke, his voice quivered a little. “I’m not a woman beater.”
I resisted the urge to ask him how beating his wife to death with his bare hands didn’t make him a woman beater. Instead, I asked, “Is that why you took it easy on her?”
He nodded. “I couldn’t bring myself to hit her hard.”
“But you had no problem beating Malloy to death. What was the difference?”
“I realized I had to make sure both of them were dead, because I didn’t want to leave another witness behind.”
“Like Janice?”
“Yeah...like Janice.”
I was thoughtful. “How’d Marty factor into all of this?”
“I’d asked him if he wanted to make some extra cash, and he said yeah. I got him to follow Janice around. He reported back that it looked like she and Bill were planning to leave town. When I told that to Peter, he said we had to move quickly before they left town. The clients were getting increasingly impatient, even threatened legal action. They wanted the baby they’d purchased and they wanted her like yesterday.
“I asked Marty to come along as a lookout and he was cool with it. We went to the Princes’ house to take the baby and that’s when it all went down.”
“So, wait, you’re telling me that Marty was cool with killing Bill Prince and beating Janice half to death?”
Tom hesitated, shook his head from side to side. “No, that part freaked him out, but it wasn’t part of the plan. They surprised us and Bill attacked me.”
“I don’t see Marty agreeing to go along with a break-in and a kidnapping.”
“Putting it your way, he wouldn’t have gone for it, but I explained that we were simply repossessing a baby that had been stolen from the rightful owner. He was happy to help correct that injustice.”
“Did his willingness to help have anything to do with the money you paid him?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, “the money had a lot to do with his willingness to help. Besides that, he was an impressionable kid, you know? You could just about talk him into anything if you gave him some attention.”