“What’s on your mind?” Dr. Casper finally asked in a slow, calculated tone.
Gwen rubbed her fist across her mouth, bit on her knuckle as she thought.
“I want to tell you about the night Tanner and Andrew were killed.”
Dr. Casper stood rock-solid still in the doorframe. He raised his eyebrows. “Haven’t you already told the police about everything you know?”
“No. Something happened that night with my friends and me. We haven’t told anyone.”
She looked down into her lap, collecting her thoughts, and then finally back to Dr. Casper.
“It’s about Mr. Gorman. We know he didn’t kill Tanner and Andrew.”
Dr. Casper took a couple of steps into the room.
“Gwen, I’m not sure I’m the person you should tell this to.”
“You’re the only person I can tell.”
Westmont Prep
Summer 2019
CHAPTER 65
BY NINE A.M. ON TUESDAY—JUST A COUPLE OF DAYS REMOVED FROM their Saturday night trek through the shadows of Westmont Prep and to the back of duplex number fourteen—word of the video had circulated to each corner of campus. Nearly every student was clamoring to see the footage. Because Tanner had taken the video, and it currently resided solely on his phone, he used it as a magnet to attract the attention he was so thirsty for. In the chemistry lab, students huddled around him, watching and rewatching the semi-pornographic but mostly comical video of a naked Charles Gorman thrusting his hips, bunny-like, until he turned his head to the side and offered the camera a frenetic expression of ecstasy. Gwen didn’t need to watch the video to gauge which part the others were viewing. When the group burst into laughter she knew Tanner had paused the video on Mr. Gorman’s face. She felt sad for Mr. Gorman. Such a private part of his life had been stolen and was now being dished out to everyone with a voyeuristic need, by someone who craved acceptance from his peers more than he respected the basic tenants of privacy.
Tanner had created memes from what he considered the best parts of the video. There was one titled The Jackhammer, which included Mr. Gorman’s naked buttocks bouncing furiously up and down in a fast-forward loop. Another was labeled Mr. G’s Money Shot and included a zooming close-up of Gorman’s grainy and darkened face when he turned his head to the side.
“He’s an idiot,” Gavin said to Gwen. They stood at their lab station with Theo and Danielle. “He’s going to send that video to someone, and before long it’s going to show up on social media. Then we’re all screwed.”
“Tell him,” Gwen said.
“I did. Last night when I saw the memes he was creating. I told him we’d get in a lot of trouble if that video leaked. He doesn’t care. He thinks it’s his ticket into the good graces of Andrew Gross, and he’s sure it will be considered a clear trump of Mrs. Rasmussen’s underwear hanging from the library.”
“Good morning,” Mr. Gorman said as he entered the lab. “Quiet down and break into your lab groups.” He looked at the group huddled in the back corner of the lab. “Mr. Landing, what’s so amusing over there?”
“Nothing,” Tanner said, slipping his phone into his back pocket. Smiles and snickers plagued the entire class.
“I was just preparing for the experiment we’re doing today.”
“Excellent,” Mr. Gorman said. “Surely, then, you’ll be able to explain it to the class?”
“Uh, yeah,” Tanner said, barely able to control his laughter. He looked at Andrew Gross, who was standing across from him. “Today’s experiment will create a slow buildup to a sudden eruption.”
At once, the classroom broke into laughter. Mr. Gorman waited for silence.
“There is a short video we’ll watch about today’s experiment,” he said as he dimmed the lights and pulled the projector screen down. He started up the projector and a blue square of light fell onto the screen. As soon as it did, Gwen’s stomach dropped.
“Oh, God,” she whispered to Gavin. “Please tell me he didn’t.”
Mr. Gorman started the video. The blue color vanished, and a second later the meme titled The Jackhammer appeared. The classroom was silent as Mr. Gorman’s naked body popped up on the screen. It took a moment for Charles Gorman to understand what he was seeing, because the video played for several seconds before he shut the projector down and quickly left the room.
It was June 18.
CHAPTER 66
CHARLES GORMAN WAS IN A PANIC. SOMEHOW THEY HAD RECORDED him. He guessed that the video had been taken through his bedroom window, but he had only gotten a short glimpse of it before shutting the projector off and hurrying from the lab. Now his mind played tricks on him, and his memory was spotty as the recurrent loop of the video ran through his mind. It got worse and worse every time he thought of it. Combined with his other discovery, it was enough to have him at the edge of rational behavior.
He had searched every corner of his duplex for it. Now he was on a fast walk to Gabriella’s office. He knocked on her door harder than intended. She opened it a moment later.
“Charles,” she said, glancing over his shoulder to see who might be witnessing them together.
“I need to talk.”
“I’m in the middle of a meeting at the moment—”
“It’s about the other night.”
Gabriella lowered her voice. “Charles, this is not a good time. And nothing has changed. We need to keep to ourselves for a while.”
“That’s not possible anymore,” Charles said as he brushed past her and into the house. When he walked into the front room, he found Christian Casper sitting in the chair.
“Charles. Good to see you,” Christian said.
“Charles just stopped by,” Gabriella said from the doorway, “to discuss—”
“My journal is missing,” Charles said.
“Pardon me?” Gabriella said.
“My journal. I can’t find it. It has everything you and I have ever discussed during a session in it.”
“I think I’ll leave you two alone,” Christian said as he stood.
“No,” Charles said. “You’ll need to know about this, too.”
“Charles,” Gabriella said, “I can tell you’re upset. Let’s discuss this privately.”
“I told you it was too late for that. They recorded us.”
Christian Casper swallowed awkwardly. “I’m going to excuse myself.”
“They did what?” Gabriella said.
Charles took a deep breath. “The other night.” He glanced quickly at Christian and then back to Gabriella. “When we were . . . together. They recorded us through the window.”
Gabriella placed her palm over her mouth. Her jaw unknowingly hung open.
“Who, exactly, are we talking about? And what did they record?” Christian asked.
Charles closed his eyes. “Gabriella and I are in a relationship. She was at my duplex on Saturday night when students opened the back door and blew an air horn through the house. I thought it was just a stupid prank, until today. I started my projector and instead of a chemistry lesson, a video of the two of us started playing.”
“Good God,” Gabriella said, sitting in a chair.
He looked at her. “Please tell me I left my journal here after our last session.”
Gabriella shook her head. “No, it’s not here.”
Charles ran his hand through his hair, swallowed hard. He, too, sat down. “They took it. The little bastards took it.”
“What was in it?” Christian asked.
“Everything,” Charles said. He looked at Gabriella. “Everything about my past.” His teeth clenched again, as if he had no control over his jaw. “And all my ramblings about what I wanted to do to Tanner Landing and Andrew Gross.”
Gabriella placed her hand on her forehead, as if a feverous spell had come over her. “What did you write, Charles?”
“Everything I told you about! Everything you encouraged me to document as a way to get it out of my system.”
/> “Stop, please,” Gabriella said. She looked at Christian. “Will you please excuse us?”
“He knows what I wrote, Gabriella. I told him about it, so let’s get past the idea that we can keep any of this private any longer. If those kids read my journal, I’m screwed. And I’m not talking about losing my job over a consensual relationship. I’m talking about legal consequences. For Christ sake, grade school kids have their lives ruined by doodling pictures of guns. What I wrote about was . . . awful. And gruesome. And detailed.”
“I’ll call them in,” Gabriella said. “We’ll have a meeting with the students.”
“Yes,” Christian said. “This has gone too far.”
“Do you honestly believe they would admit to taking my journal. Or to the video?”
Gabriella finally looked up at him. “What are our other options?”
“I think we should cancel classes for the rest of this week,” Christian said. “Until we get a handle on this situation.”
Gabriella nodded her head. “I agree.”
Charles Gorman’s eyes were glazed over, wet with worry as he stared off into the distance. His face was stoic and detached.
PART VIII
August 2020
CHAPTER 67
THE ALGORITHM HAD PRODUCED THOUSANDS OF HITS FROM THE INITIAL set of criteria Lane had entered—train, train tracks, railroad, rail system, suicides, and all versions of irregularly shaped pennies. Apparently, he learned, rail yards are dangerous places. With a list ten pages long, he would need an army of help to follow up on all the leads. Had he been back in Chicago he could employ a few of his graduate students to dig through the findings, but here in Peppermill it was just him and his aching head. He had no choice but to narrow his search until the algorithm spit out a manageable list of leads. He had spent all of Thursday doing just that. Of the ones that remained, the most interesting was one he was chasing from New York. He had worked the phone the previous afternoon and into the evening, and then this morning until now, at noon on Friday, he finally connected with someone useful inside the NYPD.
“The guy you’re looking for is retired down in Florida.”
“Do you have a number for him?” Lane asked.
“Sure. But don’t be offended if you don’t get a return call. He had some... issues,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “He’s been MIA for a while. Not even the guys up here have had any luck reaching him.”
“I’ll take the number just the same,” Lane said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Yep. Here it is. Good luck.”
Lane scribbled the number, offered his thanks, and prayed it wasn’t a dead end.
CHAPTER 68
RETIRED DETECTIVE GUS MORELLI CARRIED HIS LA RUBIA, A BLOND ale from Wynwood Brewing, out of his condo and hobbled down the steps to the beach on Friday evening. He typically watched the sunset from the screened-in lanai of his third-story condo, but tonight he needed to clear his head. The rented condominium was fifty steps from the beach—he’d counted, a habit he’d taken up since cancer had claimed his right leg three years ago. He gauged just about everything nowadays by how many steps it would take to get there.
He’d all but mastered his gait on even ground, but sand was still a son of a bitch. He took his time when he stepped onto the beach. None of the other retired folks around the condominium complex knew that he walked on a titanium prosthesis. Despite the Florida heat and humidity, he wore long pants and kept to a reasonable enough pace on the sand to fool most people. For those who did notice something unusual about his gait, they’d suspect many other scenarios before concluding that he’d lost a leg. Maybe he was recovering from surgery. Since arriving down south, he had learned that nearly every old person in Florida had been under the knife in the last year. It was like a sport for them, trying to one-up each other by comparing surgical procedures. Or perhaps he was recovering from a fall, another common hobby among the population he had found himself part of. Old people stumbled around like drunks, and nearly every one of them sported a boot or brace at some point during the year.
He paused a moment to take a pull from his La Rubia, hoping to drown out his cynicism. Despite the serenity of Sanibel Island, Detective Morelli still had work to do to curb his contempt for old folks. They brought back dark memories from his time at the rehabilitation hospital, where he spent several weeks after he lost his leg. There, he was lumped in with the helpless and forlorn. For a few weeks he was a member of the feeble elderly class who depended on nurses and aides to do everything from eat dinner to take a leak. Gus was determined to never again be grouped into that demographic. The years were out of his control; how he handled them was completely up to him.
Maybe, he considered, anyone who spotted him walking gingerly across the beach might believe he was simply taking his time, enjoying the sand and surf during retirement. That would be a hard sell, though, because he didn’t believe it himself. Now a case from his past was waking from a long slumber and jostling Gus along with it. He headed to the beach tonight attempting to figure out if he was angry about being taken from hibernation or if it made him feel alive again.
Swallowing his beer he moved gingerly across the sand and down to the surf, where the ground was smoother. He sipped his beer and looked out across the ocean. He watched for the moment when the top crest of the sun dipped below the horizon. According to an old man he’d met on his first day on Sanibel, a green flash appeared the instant the sun sank below the horizon. After three months of sunsets, Gus was starting to think the old man was full of shit. Still, he squinted his eyes at the horizon and waited for the sun to sink into the ocean. All he was really thinking about, though, was the phone call he had received earlier in the day from the forensic psychologist out of Chicago who was interested in an old case Gus had been involved with. The setting sun and its reflection glistening across the ocean disappeared as his thoughts drifted back to an autumn day in New York when a teenaged boy was killed on the train tracks.
The Bronx, New York
Oak Point Yard was home to freight trains that passed through New York on their way west. The cargo included lumber from Canada, produce, fuel, and imported goods that had made the trek across the Atlantic. The trash train ran through this rail yard, too, as did two Amtrak lines that used the electrified tracks and ran at high speed. It was dark when Gus arrived at the scene. The local police had roped the place off, and he ducked under the tape as he headed toward the tracks. The terrain was rocky, with stones giving way under his weight as he walked. The medical examiner met him.
“What’s it look like?” Gus asked.
“A total mess,” the ME said, a short woman in a windbreaker and black jeans. “High-velocity train meets pedestrian. It’s never pretty. I estimate the train was moving about fifty miles per hour. The victim was struck by the lead car, carried a couple hundred yards down the tracks—two hundred twelve yards total—before finally being pulled under. The freight train was a mile long and the conductor never saw the kid, so he never stopped.”
“What’s left of him?”
“Not much.”
“How was it called in?” Gus asked.
“The vic’s brother was with him. Said they were playing on the tracks when it happened. The brother ran home, parents called nine-one-one.”
“Are they here?”
The ME nodded and pointed toward a group of people. “Over there. Do you want to see the body before we wrap it up and take it in?”
Gus shook his head. “Nah. I’ll take a look at the photos when you’re all done.”
The medical examiner turned to head back to her team.
“Hey, Doc?” Gus asked.
She turned back.
“You said the train dragged the kid two hundred twelve yards. How did you get such an exact number?”
“Two ways,” she said. “First, we found blood and skull fragments on the gravel where we suspect the kid was initially struck. Between there and the location of the body, we
found bits and pieces of him, along with a discernable trail of blood.”
Gus nodded. “But two twelve is pretty specific. How do you know you aren’t off by a yard or two?”
“Because of the second way we narrowed down the exact spot he was hit,” the ME said. “The train knocked him out of his shoes. One of them, anyway. It was still on the track where the first bits of skull and blood were located. Figured that was the exact spot. We measured from there.”
“Christ,” Gus said. He took a deep breath and headed toward the dead kid’s parents. They were speaking with an officer when Gus walked up.
“I’m Detective Morelli. I’m so sorry about your son.”
The parents nodded. “Thank you,” the woman said, barely holding back tears. Her face was flushed and her eyes red-rimmed.
“I understand your other son was present at the time William was struck by the train?”
The woman nodded. “He’s our foster child, but yes, he was with William.”
“Can I speak with him?”
The woman nodded. “He’s with one of the officers.”
Gus followed the woman to a group of officers. Sitting on the ground was a teenaged boy. “This is Detective Morelli,” the woman said. “He wants to talk with you about what happened to William.”
The boy looked up. Gus noticed that his eyes were clear, not red-rimmed like his mother’s. Foster mother, Gus reminded himself.
“Hey,” Gus said.
“Hey,” the kid said back.
“Sorry about your brother.”
“Thanks.”
“Let’s take a walk. You okay with that?”
The kid shrugged and stood up. Gus put his hand on the kid’s shoulder, and they walked through the group of uniformed officers and away from the kid’s foster parents.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Gus asked as they headed south, with the tracks to their right and the commotion of everything that had transpired behind them. Gus led the kid out of the train yard and into the parking lot, where his unmarked squad car was located.
The Suicide House Page 21