by Joel Goldman
I ?ipped on the early news in time to see a report on the murders. Adrian Williams was the spokeswoman for our office, a polished fashion plate who knew how to feed the media beast. She recited what little was known, made the usual comments about an ongoing investigation, and appealed to the public for patience and help.
By now, I knew the preliminary forensics report would be finished. The number of shots fired, the estimated distance between shooter and victims, the number and quality of fingerprints—all that and more would have been laid out for my squad. A more detailed rundown on the neighborhood canvass, together with the list of known associates, would have yielded a chart of people to interview, priorities ?agged with a red check alongside their names.
I tried watching the rest of the news but couldn’t concentrate on the latest fistfight between dueling county commissioners or the postseason prospects for the Royals and the early odds on the Chiefs breaking their Super Bowl drought. I didn’t care about the coming changes in the weather or the latest triumph of the station’s Problem Solvers.
I cared about Keyshon Williams, imagining the paramedics unraveling the boy’s fingers from his mother’s hair and picturing the coroner laying his arms alongside his body in preparation for removing, weighing, and measuring his vital organs. I already knew the cause of Keyshon’s death, but the person who had caused it was still upright and breathing. I couldn’t live with that.
I called Ammara Iverson, remembering the tears in her eyes when Troy Clark led me out of Marcellus’s backyard. I hoped her soft spot hadn’t hardened.
“Hey, Ammara. I just saw Adrian on the news.”
“Girl looked good too, I bet.”
“Like a million damn dollars of taxpayer money.”
Her laugh came from deep in her throat, full and honest. I liked the sound.
“How are you doing, Jack? Feeling any better?”
“Yeah. I got some sleep. I’ll find a doctor tomorrow and get this thing figured out.”
“That’s great.”
“Listen, what did CSI come up with?”
She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, Jack. I can’t help you with that.”
“Can’t help me? What does that mean? I’m taking some time off. I didn’t go over to the other side.”
“It’s not my decision. Troy and Ben Yates sat us down, told us how it would be. Said any leaks and somebody’s going to get their ass kicked.”
“I’m not a reporter, you know.”
“Troy made a special point that we weren’t supposed to talk to you about the investigation.”
I was standing in the kitchen and slid onto one of the stools. “Why me?”
I heard her breathing, deciding what to say. “Troy said that since we don’t know what’s wrong with you or how stable you are right now, we can’t evaluate the risk of keeping you in the loop. I’m sorry, Jack.”
I was scared I had a brain tumor or a fatal disease. Troy just thought I was crazy. I wasn’t sure which was worse. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.
“You still there, Jack?” Ammara asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. Listen, we never had this conversation, okay?”
“Sure. Take care of yourself.”
Troy had pushed me to do the right thing, to take myself out, to get help. If I’d been shot or run over or just had a bad cold, he would have told me the same thing. If I had refused, he would have passed it off as admirable stubbornness and devotion to the job. Instead, when he found me shaking uncontrollably under the tree in Marcellus’s backyard, he saw a security risk, someone no longer to be trusted.
Troy couldn’t let go of the possibility that someone on our squad or close to it had leaked the existence of the surveillance camera to whoever was responsible for the murders. If he were right, he wouldn’t trust anyone, least of all me.
I spun Troy’s scenario until it snagged on something I had felt but not been able to pin down since I first saw the cash lying on the ground. I’d caught a glimpse of someone running away from the scene, vaguely familiar but not clear enough to identify in the dark.
Colby Hudson fit the profile, as did thousands of other men in Kansas City. Except Colby had shown up in the morning looking like he’d run a marathon in the storm after having an unauthorized, unsupervised, unrecorded meeting with Javy Ordonez at the same time five people were executed, possibly on Javy’s instructions.
I went over the timing in my mind, suddenly realizing that I had been wrong when I told Colby that he was Javy’s alibi, a statement Colby hadn’t denied. Colby had said that Javy learned about the murders a couple of hours after they happened while the two of them were at an after-hours club. I was in Marcellus’s backyard less than an hour after the shootings. Colby could have been the person I had seen running away and still made it to his meeting with Javy. He could even have been the person who told Javy that Marcellus was dead. If so, there was only one way he could have known that.
I worried that my suspicions were feeding off my feelings about Colby’s relationship with Wendy and Troy’s leak paranoia. I didn’t like it, but that didn’t mean I was wrong. If I was right, Wendy could be caught in the middle. I called her, treading softly.
“Buy you dinner?”
“Dad, are you okay? Colby said you weren’t feeling well.”
In spite of everything that had happened, Wendy was still my girl and I was still her dad. I felt it every time we talked.
“I thought you guys didn’t talk about me.”
“Says who?”
“Says Colby. What else did he tell you?”
“Just that you were shaking a lot. What’s going on?”
“Probably nothing. I’m taking some time off until I get it checked out. How about dinner? I’m buying.”
“Sorry, Dad. I can’t make it. Colby is thinking about buying a new house. He wants me to go look at it tonight.”
“A new house? Really. Where?”
“In Lions Gate. He says he can get a good deal on it.”
“He better. There’s nothing in there for less than three-quarters of a million. Where’s he getting that kind of money?”
“He’s made some good investments and he’s getting a good deal on it.”
I hoped that he’d bought stock in Google when it was cheap. I didn’t care how good a deal he was getting or where he found the money as long as the deal was clean.
“Well, good for him. Listen, I’m taking a few days off. How about lunch tomorrow?”
“Dad, I haven’t eaten lunch since I started this job last spring, you know that. Are you sure you’re okay?”
No commodity traders or their assistants ate lunch while the market was open. After a week on the job, Wendy told me she liked the chaotic atmosphere of fortunes being made and lost in a split second, saying it was like walking a tightrope with your eyes closed, “sort of like living with you and Mom.” She specialized in dark humor that made her hurt as much as it made her laugh. She was living proof of the old saw that what didn’t kill you made you stronger.
“I’m sure I’m okay. Sorry, honey. We hardly get to see one another. I’ve got the time for a change and thought I’d give it a try.”
“I could do an early breakfast.”
“Great. How about seven-thirty at Classic Cup on the Plaza?”
“Perfect.”
“Have you talked to your mother lately?”
“Are you kidding? At least three times today and it’s still light out.”
“Did you tell her anything?”
“About what?”
“About what Colby said. You know, about me shaking.”
“She asked about you so I told her. I didn’t think it was a secret.”
“I didn’t say it was a secret, sweetheart.”
Wendy let out an exasperated sigh. “You two are amazing. You’re going to screw up being divorced as much as you screwed up being married. You’re perfect for each other.”
“Yeah. A match made
in heaven. Listen, instead of breakfast, maybe you, Colby, and I can have dinner tomorrow night.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll check with him. I’d like that.”
I had never asked Wendy to bring Colby anywhere, including to dinner. She couldn’t keep the happiness out of her voice. I was glad that she didn’t ask me why I had made the invitation. She wouldn’t have liked the reasons.
Chapter Thirteen
With Troy’s gag order, I was reduced to relying on the media to keep up with my case. I knew that press coverage was often sketchy and slanted, whipsawed by selective leaks and pressure to goose ratings with sensational stories, but it was all I had for the moment. My DVR allowed simultaneous recording of two stations. I set it to tape the news broadcasts on two of the local network affiliates that had built their audiences with ceaseless coverage of grisly crime.
The murders were a big enough story to warrant team coverage. The station I’d been watching was still working its way through its roster. One reporter had just finished interviewing Marcellus’s mother when I hung up the phone, the woman dissolving in tears when asked how she felt after discovering that her son was one of the victims. I wondered who she’d be crying for when we searched her house, as we certainly would before the sun set. She had cooked both his dinner and his crack and would end up serving time that should have been his.
The camera cut to another reporter standing in front of three people, turning to them for comment, the name of each appearing on the screen as they answered the reporter’s questions. LaDonna Simpson, the white-haired, elderly neighbor who lived next door clicked her tongue in regret about the decline of a neighborhood she’d lived in for over fifty years. Tarla Hicks, the girlfriend of the jailed neighbor on the other side of the house, posed for the camera like she was auditioning for the pole position at a strip joint, describing the Winston brothers as good dudes she’d partied with in the past and would miss.
Latrell Kelly, who lived in the house directly behind the victims, was the last one to be interviewed. He had round shoulders, a pudgy middle, and a soft voice. Ammara’s description of him had been dead-on. Mass murderers came in all shapes and sizes. Meek and mild didn’t rule anyone out. I turned up the volume when the reporter asked Latrell what upset him most about what had happened, keeping the microphone close to his mouth to make him heard.
“That little boy,” Latrell said. “Nobody takes care of a little boy, you see what happens.”
It wasn’t a confession. It was a reminder, his words pricking the dull ache I carried for my dead son. The reporter threw it back to the anchors, who nodded somberly and promised to stick with the story, telling viewers to stay tuned for Triple Action Weather with ESP Doppler and the latest from the RV show. I turned off the TV as the phone rang. Kate’s name popped up on the caller ID.
“Welcome home.”
“Thanks. I haven’t had time to unpack,” she said. “What’s up?”
“I need your advice on something. Wendy already turned me down for dinner. I’m hoping you won’t make me zero for two. I can only take so much rejection in one day.”
“Second choice has never sounded so good. How about one of those soulless chain restaurants that you suburbanites find so sophisticated?”
“You mean like IHOP?”
“I have visions of a Belgian waf?e with my name written on it in whipped cream.”
“There’s one at 119th and Metcalf. I’ll call ahead and have them reserve our usual booth. I should warn you that the violin players are off tonight.”
“We’ll make our own music. I’ll see you in an hour.”
After Joy moved out and filed for divorce, my phone conversations with Kate had edged into a new intimacy, both of us saying that we missed the other and looked forward to being together again. There was no heavy breathing, no suggestive questions about what she was wearing, just a quiet acknowledgment that things had changed. She was on the road, in the middle of a trial. I was here, in the middle of an investigation, both of us feeling the pressure of getting it right. If this was to be our first date, neither of us had said so. I arrived ten minutes early, found a booth along the windows facing 119th Street, and took deep breaths every few minutes, hoping that would keep the shakes off the table.
Kate was on time, stopping for a moment inside the door until she caught my wave from across the restaurant. She was wearing her dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, a lime green tank top under a black jacket and jeans. A tremor shook both of us as we embraced. She pulled back and searched my face for an explanation.
“This isn’t about one of your cases, is it? This is about you.”
“Let’s at least order our waf?es first.”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll lose my appetite?”
“You live downtown. I’d hate to make you drive all the way out here and then cheat you out of your waf?e. We’ll eat. Then we’ll talk.”
She kept her eyes on me while we ordered. It was like being x-rayed. The tremors were humming just under my skin, waiting for their cue. The waitress left and they took center stage doing a one-minute number that rivaled the latest hip-hop moves. I tried to talk as I shook, my words garbled in a strangled stutter.
Kate studied me like I was a test subject. “How long has this been going on?”
I shrugged and took a deep breath. The tremors became distant ripples, my voice tripping over them until they faded.
“Like this, about a week. It started a couple of months ago, low key at first but lately it’s been picking up steam.”
“Have you been to a doctor?”
“No. Didn’t think I need to until now. I’m off duty until I can walk and chew gum at the same time without shaking. I was hoping you’d know a doctor I could see.”
“The University of Kansas Hospital has a movement disorder clinic. I’d start there. You said the symptoms started two months ago. That’s when Joy left, isn’t it?”
“You think there’s a connection?”
The waitress delivered our waf?es. Kate paid no attention.
“It’s possible. Stress aggravates everything, including movement disorders. And, there are a lot of those to choose from, like Parkinson’s, ALS, MS, myoclonus, dystonia, Tourettes, and tics. The psychology journals I read usually have a few articles each year about them, but it doesn’t come up in my jury work, so I’m not a student.”
“It’s more annoying than anything else,” I said.
“Are you lying to both of us or just yourself?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that ordering a mocha at Starbucks and the barista doesn’t stir the chocolate so you end up with a latte on top and a layer of chocolate on the bottom that drips on your chin when you try to get it out—that’s annoying. Loss of control over your body, which, by the way, is an apt metaphor for losing control over your life, together with worrying whether you’ll lose your job are definitely more than annoying. And, if they aren’t, fear of dying beats annoying any day of the week.”
I leaned back in the booth. “Which of the wrinkles in my face told you that?”
“All of them. Your eyes are wide, your brow is raised, and your lips are set on full-time quiver—classic expressions of fear. I’d bet you’d rather bust down a door blindfolded than shake and not know why.”
My re?ection in the window was a poker face.
“It’s your micro expressions, Jack. You can’t see them. They come and go in a ?ash when you talk about the shaking. If it makes you feel any better, I’m probably the only one you know who can see them. How long have you been off work?”
“About twelve hours.”
“Your idea?”
I shook my head and told her about the murders, about my backyard breakdown, Troy’s suspicions about a leak on the squad, and my suspicions of Colby. I told her more than I would ever have told Joy and more than Troy would have wanted me to tell anyone. She listened closely, asking just en
ough questions to ?esh out the details.
“What makes you suspicious about Colby Hudson?”
“Nothing solid. Just loose threads and gut feelings.”
“I thought you were the Dragnet version of FBI agents, the kind who only wants the facts and leaves the intuitive stuff to more sensitive types like me.”
“I believe in what I can prove—whose blood, whose fingerprints, what motive, means, and opportunity. That’s what puts criminals away. Not a wink and a nod that no one can see. But I’ve been cut off from the real evidence. Suspicion is all I’ve got left.”
“Why not let it go? Let Troy and the rest of your team work it out.”
“Two reasons. I can’t get that boy, Keyshon, out of my mind.”
“Don’t confuse him with your son. Nothing you do or don’t do will change what happened to either of them.”
“That doesn’t pay the debt.”
“Jack, you aren’t responsible for what happened to your son or that boy. The man who killed your son was a classic psychopath. No one, including me, could have seen him coming. It’s no different with Keyshon.”
“Kevin was my son. That makes me responsible.”
“Keyshon wasn’t your son. You didn’t even know him.”
“I knew enough. I knew that he was living in that house. I was watching it every day, putting my case ahead of him. I left him there to take his chances with people who’d buy, sell, or kill you for drugs, money, or sport. It’s like one of the neighbors said on the news.”
“What’s that?”
“Nobody takes care of a little boy, you see what happens.”
Kate folded her arms across her chest, grinning. “You’re a throwback, you know that? One man, standing up, alone. It’s brave, righteous, and sexy. But if you shoulder that much weight, you’ll shake yourself into a million little pieces.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in putting me back together again?”
“Maybe,” she said with another smile. “I’ve never been big on jigsaw puzzles, but you might be worth the effort. You said there were two reasons. What’s the second one?”