“Thank you,” Reed said, walking in tandem with Billie up the two front steps and entering the house. The temperature dropped as they did so, the bright light from the outside world extinguished as the door closed behind them.
Reed made no attempt to move for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust, the space around him slowly coming into focus.
The home was much more modern than either of those he’d been in over the previous days, more so than his farmhouse as well. The open floor plan, contemporary furnishings, and trendy paint colors reminded Reed of homes he’d seen on HGTV. The plasma television hanging above a gas fireplace and an assortment of family photos lining the mantle gave it just enough of a lived-in feeling.
“Down,” Reed said, watching as Billie dropped to her stomach on the square of white tile he now stood on. “Apologies, I don’t usually bring her inside like this, but it’s just too hot to leave her in the car.”
Circling around in front of him, Abbott took a seat in one of the chairs, motioning for him to do the same across from her. “That’s alright. Truth is, I don’t know that I could trust a man who would leave a dog locked up on a day like this.”
Reed’s cheeks flushed. Perhaps his concerns earlier were nothing more than his own insecurities.
“Ms. Abbott,” he began, only to stop as a hand shot up in front of him.
“Mae,” she said. “Ms. Abbott is my mother-in-law.”
“Okay, Mae,” Reed said. “I know you must be busy, but I wanted to stop by and speak to you about...“
Again, he was cut off by a raised hand. Pulling herself up from the couch, Mae bent at the waist so she could see through the open doorway behind her and into the kitchen. “Lucy, honey, can you go play in your room for a few minutes while I talk to the nice policeman?”
There was no vocal response, just the sound of tiny feet pounding against the floor as Lucy did as she was told. A moment later a door could be heard closing somewhere in the back of the house, followed by Mae returning to her seat.
“Sorry, my husband and I still haven’t told her what happened yet,” she said almost as an apology, brushing both hands back over his face.
Reed nodded. The girl looked to be no older than three. Trying to explain to her that she would never see her grandmother again would not be an easy conversation.
Again, as with Janine Rosen, he wanted to offer kind words about a woman he never met, but decided to get straight to the heart of the matter, letting the family know he was committed to finding whoever had done such a vile thing.
“Mae, there is no way easy to ask this, but I have to be thorough, so I will get it out of the way right now,” Reed said. “Did your mother ever give any indication whatsoever that she might be a risk to commit suicide?”
There was no outward sign of sorrow, a sour look crossing Mae Abbott’s features. “None. My mother was an upright Christian woman who believed what the Bible says about suicide.”
Having attended church no more than a handful of times in his life, almost all of them on Christmas or Easter, Reed wasn’t exactly sure what the Bible said. He could infer from the look on her face and the tone of her voice though that it was ardently against it.
The sour look remained as she looked past him out through the front window. “These were her gravy years. That’s what she always called them. After my father split when I was just a baby, she raised me on her own. Worked two jobs, never complained, I’m sure you’ve heard the story by now.”
Reed hadn’t, but he nodded along just the same.
“This was her time to take it easy. She had gotten a settlement from a car accident a while back, didn’t have to worry about money anymore. Her only job was to be a grandmother, and she loved it. Was over here all the time.”
Tears came to her eyes as she snapped her focus back to Reed, the first sign of any emotion she had shown, besides the anger at the senseless crime and the loss her family would feel. “Already Lucy’s starting to ask when her grandma’s coming to visit. What am I supposed to tell that little girl? What am I going to say?”
The questions were clearly rhetorical, but that didn’t stop Reed from wishing he had some answer to give her. Most likely anything he offered would only raise her ire, adding to the venom she felt over the loss of her mother.
If the job had taught Reed anything through the years, it was that every person grieved differently. What Mae Abbott was doing now was no better than what Janine Rosen was doing, no better than what he had gone through six months prior.
“You mentioned a settlement,” Reed said. “Is there anybody who knew about it? Might stand to gain from it?”
The question further penetrated Mae’s exterior, her features shifting as she pondered the question. “No. It wasn’t a huge deal, an off-the-books thing with a car rental company for renting her something with bad brakes. The money wasn’t that much, but her house is paid for, and she had some savings back from years of putting in double duty.
“It’s not like she was living high on the hog, but she had more than enough to get by.”
Reed nodded. It was the first he had heard of the settlement, though if it was handled out of court, there wouldn’t be a record of it.
“Anything else? Any bad blood with someone? Anyone in the neighborhood have reason to do something like this?”
“Ha!” Mae said, spitting the word out, irony dripping from the single syllable. “My mother was loved on that street. Everybody knew if they were gone, they could ask her to keep an eye on things. If anybody was sick, she made them a pie or casserole and took it down.”
She stared at Reed in silence before shaking her head and sighing deeply.
“Listen, you seem like a nice enough man, and you coming here today shows you’re actually taking this seriously. I appreciate that, and I wish I could help you more.
“Fact is, though, if you’re looking for some underlying reason as to why this happened, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I’ve been up the last two days trying to find a reason why the hell anybody would want to harm her, and I haven’t come up with one yet.”
Leaning forward, her elbows resting on her knees, she stared down at the floor, the whites of her eyes again growing red, moisture apparent.
“I think that’s why I’m still so damn mad about it. The whole thing just doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Good Son’s first thought was to feign sickness, saying that he had a stomach bug and that he needed to head home for the afternoon. The notion had passed just as quickly as it arrived though, replaced by the realization that nobody would believe it. Every last person he worked with knew he would never dream of calling in sick. Even on days when he truly was deathly ill, when the welfare of everyone else around him would be better served by his absence, he showed up.
The worst part was that The Good Son would never be able to play it convincingly. Even with everything else going on, his guilt would be too much.
Fortunately for him, he didn’t need to go that route. By being the one to open for the morning, he only had to make it to mid-afternoon before being cut loose. On most occasions he would stick around, drawing an hour or two of overtime pay, but this day he had hit the door running.
Even his mother, who believed a spare dollar should never be left behind, would not be able to argue with his reasoning.
The V8 engine on his truck rumbled slightly as The Good Son pulled away from his spot in the back row and headed out. In the nine hours since arriving, the sun had shifted overhead, pushing the shade provided by the pin oak tree away from his truck. Left to bake in the afternoon heat, the cab was stifling. Combined with the heightened sense of anxiety passing through him, his skin was bathed in a film of sweat, dripping from his chin.
The Good Son barely noticed as he drove away from the store, recalling the address from memory. He didn’t know the exact location of the place, had only seen the name of the road in passing, but knew the area well e
nough to know where to start looking. From there it was only a matter of time, having the patience to start at one end and keep going until he found his destination.
Despite the events of the last few nights, patience was something The Good Son had in spades. His mother would never believe him, but it had been patience that allowed him to pick both Esther Rosen and Ira Soto. It was patience that allowed him to do the necessary reconnaissance to get in and out undetected.
Patience all those long nights on the internet determining the exact way to do what he needed to do.
It was that same patience that now removed any qualms he felt about leaving a few hours of overtime on the table. He had a second job, a far more important job to do, and he needed the time and freedom to do it properly.
Coming up on the street, The Good Son hooked a left and eased through the intersection. He kept his foot pressed down just enough on the gas to not arouse suspicion, leaning forward and resting both forearms across the steering wheel, his entire focus aimed on the residences filing by on either side.
The Good Son’s lips moved imperceptibly as he whispered the number he was looking for over and over again. Blotches of shadows passed over his truck as he rolled on, the brittle leaves of sycamore and poplar trees hanging out over the street.
Once upon a time, The Good Son imagined himself living on a street like this. The kind of place where neighborhood children played ball until dark, and families got together to have barbecues. Where neighbors checked on each other, made sure everybody was taken care of.
For years The Good Son had harbored such dreams, staring in longing at the homes on the other side of the line separating Franklinton from the surrounding areas. At least once a week he had asked when they too could join the lucky ones, just a couple miles away in conventional measurements but on a different planet compared to the place he called home.
Every time the answer was much the same, a caustic remark about the costs of raising a child, until one day a sharp backhand stopped him from ever asking again.
Sliding past a cross street, The Good Son saw the numbers on the mailboxes running steadily downward and again eased his foot off the gas. His pulse began to rise as he continued inching forward, the number growing ever closer, before coming into view.
The third house from the corner was a two story Cape Cod, the outside green, the shutters dark red. Flower boxes underlined the windows and fresh lines crossed the front yard, a mower having passed over the dead grass in recent days.
The Good Son took all of this in with a few quick glances before his gaze settled on the driveway. The garage door was up as he eased past, a familiar car parked inside. Beside it was an empty space, a few scattered objects strewn about.
As many times as possible The Good Son glanced over, gathering every bit of information he could. In the coming hours he had much to do, but this would provide him with a decent place to begin.
Twice he had failed already.
Time was becoming too precious for there to be a third.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The day had turned out to be much hotter than Reed anticipated. By mid-afternoon he ran out of the water he had packed, resorting to stopping by a mini-mart to resupply. While there he had succumbed to the liter-sized bottles of Mountain Dew lining one of the coolers as well, the combined effects of sleep deprivation and encroaching dehydration causing his eyelids to droop.
Parked on the back edge of the precinct parking lot, Reed let Billie roam free of her lead. She had wandered the lawn for a few minutes, relieving herself to mark her territory, before joining him alongside the car and taking down a bottle of water. In all that time Reed managed to make it through less than half of his own drink, hoping that 16 ounces of caffeine-infused carbonation would be enough to get him through the rest of the evening.
He only prayed his day would end there without them being called out into the night again.
More than a day had passed since his previous meeting with Grimes, though he didn’t have a whole lot more to share. The thought pulled his stomach into a tight ball as he led Billie up to the front door and stepped inside, the building mercifully cool.
Unlike their previous visits, a small staff was still on hand, desk lamps on, shirt sleeves rolled up. A few glanced up as Reed and Billie passed by, their gazes lingering longer than necessary, a response Reed suspected might never change.
He was the new guy. His partner was a dog. His former partner was killed.
Whatever the reason for the looks, there appeared to be no sign of them going away anytime soon.
The door to the captain’s office was closed as he arrived. The light was on inside, and he could make out several shapes through the frosted window, hear muffled voices on the opposite side. Settling himself into a chair along the opposite wall, he ordered Billie down beside him.
There they remained, both motionless, for the better part of five minutes before the door burst open. Reed looked up at the sound of it to see a pair of detectives emerge, neither one looking especially pleased.
The first one through the door was Pete Iaconelli, a senior detective in the precinct. Weighing north of 250 pounds, it was obvious the heat was getting to him, heavy sweat marking the underarms of his polyester button-down. His khaki slacks were wrinkled and dotted with stains of various origin.
One of the very first things he had ever said to Reed was that he was less than nine months away from retirement, and at the moment Reed got the impression that day couldn’t come too soon.
Behind him stood his partner Martin Bishop, a harsh contrast in every way. Regardless what the calendar said, his skin was albino-white and his hair was buzzed short. Weighing far less than Iaconelli, he managed to stretch it over an additional six inches of height, the results giving him a gaunt and hollow appearance.
As self-appointed ringleaders of the old guard in the precinct, the pair had given Reed an especially hard time when he first came over. They had seized on the passing of Riley and his pairing with Billie to poke fun at his ability as a cop, even dubbing him Ace Ventura for the first few months.
The abuse had been enough to leave both sides with a certain amount of wariness, even after a case had required them to work together. No longer was there any overt hostility, thought the atmosphere still settled somewhere close to begrudging collegiality.
“Gentlemen,” Reed said, reading their body language to mean they weren’t especially pleased with whatever just happened.
“Mattox,” Iaconelli replied. He paused less than a second before moving on, passing through the double doors and into the front part of the station.
“Detectives,” Bishop said, glancing down to Billie before looking to Reed. “Heard you’re working the Night Stalker case.”
Reed wasn’t aware the moniker had become official, hating everything about the archaic term, but he let it go. It was well known around the precinct who was the good cop and who was the bad cop in the Iaconelli-Bishop pairing. If the taller man was willing to take a moment and attempt professional decorum, he would certainly do the same.
Especially standing outside the captain’s door.
“We are,” Reed said, nodding. “So far a lot more questions than answers, but we’re working the process. Just have to hope another one doesn’t turn up before we get there.”
Bishop nodded, remaining silent.
“How about you guys?” Reed asked. “The Bottoms keeping you busy?”
“Oh yeah,” Bishop said, drawing it out. “Just got handed another one in there. Damn drop off.”
At the end of the hall the double doors cracked open, Iaconelli on the other side. He said nothing, simply glaring at his partner, before allowing the doors to swing shut again.
Not one word had been said. It didn’t have to be.
“Well, good luck with the Night Stalker,” Bishop said. “Let us know if you need anything.”
He was already drifting away as he said it, passing through the doors before Re
ed had a chance to respond. Staring in his wake, Reed smirked before rising from the chair.
“Come,” he said, drawing Billie up beside him as he knocked against the outside of the doorframe.
“Yeah,” Grimes said, seated behind his desk with his fingers laced. He looked directly at Reed, as if he’d been listening to every word of the exchange, waiting only for his next appointment to enter.
“Captain,” Reed said, sliding into a chair. “Down.”
Billie resumed her position at his feet as Reed looked across the desk at Grimes. He appeared to be no happier than Iaconelli had been a moment before, his resting face a heavy frown.
“That bad, huh?” Reed asked. He kept any trace of inflection from his voice.
Grimes turned his chair and stared out through his office window into the parking lot, watching as Iaconelli and Bishop left, Iaconelli’s arms flapping about as they went.
“What do you think he’s out there saying right now?” Grimes asked, his voice making it clear who he was referring to and how much he didn’t appreciate it.
Glancing to the side, Reed considered making a crack about how he was probably praising the captain and his decision to give them the case.
Instead, prudence won out.
“How bad?” Reed asked.
“Bad,” Grimes said. “Less than an hour ago a woman was dropped off at the Franklinton Memorial Hospital. No ID, no nothing. Somebody had taken a bat or a pipe or some such object to her head and dropped her off outside.”
“Damn,” Reed whispered, his face crinkling. “She going to make it?”
“Sure,” Grimes said, turning back to look at him, “just as long as the family is willing to keep her on life support.”
Reed winced, “Damn.”
The reason Iaconelli was so hostile was now clear. Less than an hour from the end of his shift, just months from the end of his career, he was being handed a case that prior experience would prove is almost unsolvable.
Nobody liked being handed a losing ticket, especially with so little time left.
The Good Son: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 2) Page 9