The Good Son: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 2)

by Dustin Stevens

  At the same time, he could only imagine what he and Billie must look like. Both were showing the effects of the heat, matted with sweat, dust, and dead grass.

  No place on earth abided by the adage misery loves company like a police station. If the captain was busting his hump, his detectives better damned sure be as well, or things would get ugly.

  Unfortunately for Reed, his appearance was about the only thing he had going for him on this trip.

  Knowing better than to even acknowledge whatever the captain was working on, if not to avoid any unintended wrath, then to prevent himself from being assigned something tangential to assist with, Reed said, “Just coming in to give the report on the John Doe found this morning at the Overland Dog Park.”

  Grimes’s mouth twitched slightly, the warning shot for a frown about to arrive. “John Doe?”

  “The crime scene guys have his prints,” Reed said. “They should be running them any minute now and hopefully have a name for us soon.”

  “No ID?”

  “Damnedest thing I ever saw. They took his ID, but left the cash and a couple of gift cards behind.”

  “Meaning this was a specific target, not a crime of opportunity.”

  “Sure looked that way,” Reed agreed, nodding. “COD was a broken neck. That seems personal.”

  “Very,” Grimes agreed.

  Crimes of opportunity, as the captain alluded to, were often messy. They included grabbing whatever was on hand, usually a club or pipe or some other blunt object. Such crimes involved very little forethought, arising on the fly once a situation presented itself that could be taken advantage of. As a result, both the crime scene and the body itself were generally messy.

  Bruises, wounds, and blood were a standard part of the MO.

  “And the place was clean,” Reed said. “Looked like a pretty clear drop point, but even beyond that, the body was immaculate.”

  “Damn. Scrubbed?”

  “Didn’t appear to be. No smell of ammonia or bleach, and the techs didn’t mention finding any.”

  Reed left the statement there. Grimes had been doing this much longer than he had, would know exactly where Reed was going without having to be told.

  The look on his face already said he didn’t need to hear any more bad news for the day.

  Keeping his hands in place, Grimes rotated his chair to look out the window. If he objected to Reed’s sedan parked in the front stall, or even noticed it, he said nothing, his gaze fixed on the line of trees in the distance.

  “I know this isn’t exactly Dublin,” he said, “or New Albany, or even Bexley, but damn. In what, four days, we’ve had four murders?”

  Reed was not aware that the assault victim Iaconelli and Bishop were given had passed away, though he remained silent.

  “Only two of them seem related and none of the four left behind a damn thing, or even have a suspect at the moment.”

  Reed knew the captain was only venting, espousing the same exact thoughts he had. This was far beyond anything that could be written off as the heat causing people to do crazy things. The heat made people steal things, get into fights, it escalated crimes of convenience.

  It did not suddenly turn suburbanites into vicious killers.

  Holding the thought a moment, Reed allowed his mind to work around the edges of it. Deep in the recesses of his brain an idea formed, something so outlandish he couldn’t believe he was even thinking it. He glanced up at Grimes, almost afraid to say anything for fear of what the response might be.

  “Captain, maybe it’s time to bring the media in on this.”

  Chapter Thirty

  There was never a good time to bring in the media. Their presence was such a distraction from the day-to-day operations of the precinct that not once before had Reed considered it until sitting in Grimes’s office listening to his boss vent.

  Even then, his natural inclination was to dismiss it almost just as fast.

  The vast majority of the time, the media was a nuisance. They thrived on the sensational and salacious, twisting facts and misinterpreting cases, using quotes out of context, all for the sole purpose of building ratings, and careers. It was a fact that Reed had learned the hard way years before, content from then on to let Riley handle all such matters.

  His strict policy of not speaking to the media had been eased somewhat by a general disinterest in The Bottoms. Everyone knew crimes occurred there, and no one cared. Only once in the preceding six months had he been lead on something that piqued media interest, but in that instance Grimes had handled things personally.

  The first reaction Grimes gave to the suggestion was exactly what Reed expected, the same thing he would have done if sitting on the opposite side of the desk.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Grimes said, snapping his attention back over to him. “That was some piss poor attempt at a joke?”

  The look on his face was so intense that for a moment Reed considered trying to play it off as such. “Look, Captain, you just said it yourself. This is a rash of incidents unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, and we don’t have a lot of leads. We’ll keep looking, because that’s what we do, but right now we’re giving it the two-hands-and-a-flashlight treatment.”

  The interworking of Grimes’s thought process played out clearly on his face. For a moment he flashed anger, wanting to snap at Reed for even suggesting such a thing. After that he retreated a tiny bit, registering the merit of the suggestion for the first time. Next came a consideration of the notion, the sour expression relaying that the very idea tasted bitter in his mouth.

  Finally, after almost a full minute, came step four, the part where logic won out.

  Or at least motivated the man to ask a couple of follow-up questions.

  “Why?” His tone, already laced with venom from a long afternoon at his desk, came out more accusatory than Reed knew he intended.

  Still, Grimes did nothing to correct it.

  Reed’s damp t-shirt had been begun to cool off, but he could feel it growing warmer, his body threatening to start sweating again. “It’s the last thing you said that keeps rubbing me the wrong way. With both of my cases, and now this one today, we have nothing to go on. No evidence, no eyewitnesses, no nothing. You know how rare that is nowadays?”

  Aware that he too was beginning to tread dangerously close to venting, Reed backed off. He stopped there, letting the captain fill in blanks, hoping to make this more of a two-way conversation than a request on his part.

  To do so would imply that he was sold on the idea, which he decidedly wasn’t. He was merely open to the thought of employing a necessary evil to jumpstart their investigations and hopefully stop whatever was going on in Franklinton.

  “Damn near impossible,” Grimes agreed, begrudgingly, the words coming out slow and pained. He fell silent again, appearing to process what he’d just said, none too happy about it. “What did you have in mind?”

  From that point on the topic of bringing in the media went from theoretical to a work in progress, the two batting around ideas for the better part of a half hour. Their initial reaction was to call a press conference, but they agreed that would require too much lead time and include too many competing stations with their own agendas. They needed something small they could control, while at the same time giving the impression they were being clear and forthright.

  The idea was to open the gates to useful information, not to get jammed up fielding requests from reporters craving information.

  It took over two hours to put everything together. The mutual decision was to bring in Channel 4, the local NBC affiliate with the largest share of the local news viewers. It would not follow the standard protocol, instead having Grimes seated with a single reporter, nothing more than a conversation.

  The hope was that the piece would relay sincerity in asking for any information from the public. The goal was not to create a Crimestoppers scenario and have the phones ringing nonstop for the next week, but to solicit genuine fe
edback.

  At least, that was the impression they were looking to create.

  In truth, the hope was that pasting the story across the television in such a way would have one of two effects. It would either slow the culprits down, letting them know that more eyes and ears would be on the lookout for them, or it would encourage them to do something foolish.

  Either way, the report would put people in Franklinton on alert, making them more aware of their surroundings. Women like Esther Rosen and Ira Soto would not be so easy to gain access to, men like whoever Reed had found that morning would no longer be stumbled upon by a morning jogger.

  The more the two kicked around the notion, the more it grew on Reed. His next strategy was to go back to the previous crime scenes and let Billie have a look around, to start really scouring through the backstories of Rosen and Soto. Even at that, the likelihood of finding something new or paradigm shifting was slim.

  Speaking with Channel 4 presented the chance for new information to become available without the need for another victim to provide it.

  That feeling still held firm as Reed stood outside the interrogation room on the second floor and stared through the one-way glass. On the other side of it was a standard square room, the walls made of concrete block painted slate grey. In the center of the room was a metal table of the same color, a steel ring rising from the center of it in case a prisoner needed to be handcuffed.

  Seated in the chair closest to Reed, the back of his uniform coat a solid black, was Grimes. He leaned forward with his elbows resting on the table, his fingers laced in front of him.

  Less than three feet away sat Yasmin Leveritt, a well-known local reporter in her mid-30s. She had glossy black hair parted down the middle and a heart shaped face with green eyes. She wore a somber expression as she settled herself into her seat, her attire matching her demeanor. Despite the heat she wore a blue wool suit, pearls visible in either ear and around her neck.

  The only other person in the room was the camera operator who worked with Leveritt, a tall, skinny guy who looked like he still belonged in the local high school’s A/V department. Standing several inches over 6’, he had red hair pulled back into a pony tail and wore a brown fishing vest over a plain white t-shirt. He was crouched down behind the camera as he worked out the perfect angle to capture both people, eventually getting things where he wanted them and offering a thumbs up.

  Reed turned on the speakers in the observation room, the sound of Leveritt and Grimes’s voices became audible, the volume a bit louder than expected, the sudden blast of sound bringing Billie to her feet in a flash.

  “Easy,” Reed whispered as he turned the sound down.

  “Captain Grimes,” Leveritt began, her voice neutral, bordering on solemn, “I understand that there has been a recent outbreak of violence here in the Franklinton area. Is that correct?”

  Reed could sense Grimes’s shoulders tense, the question deliberately framed to force him to correct her.

  “This week there have been incidents that resulted in the loss of four lives,” Grimes said, sticking to the script he and Reed had discussed. “Right now our department is working every possible angle, but we would appreciate help from anybody who may have seen anything that would aid our investigation.”

  Leveritt offered a sympathetic nod. “And is that to say that your department is at a loss right now regarding these incidents?”

  Once again Reed could see tension draw Grimes’s shoulders together, could almost imagine him trying to keep a dour look from his face. “Not at all. We just felt that with so many crimes occurring in one week, this was the right time to put residents on alert, and to ask for anything that might help us accelerate our investigation.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Hot water ran down from the faucet and across the top of The Good’s Son hands, washing away a thick mound of suds. In a sequence of practiced moves, he held the dishpan in one hand and the scrub pad in the other, working to extricate every last trace of scum from the bottom of the pan.

  His mother would check later, after he’d gone to sleep, just as she always did.

  The woman barely had the energy to take herself to the bathroom, but without fail she would drag her body to the kitchen to inspect his handiwork.

  The thought was only one more in a series of mixed emotions passing through The Good Son as he stood over the sink. With his shoulders hunched and his gaze aimed down, gravity won out, allowing the tears to fall from his eyes. The thought of his mother inspecting his work, of the things she had asked him to do this week, caused resentment to course through him. His face flushed with blood, made him angry that again she was reducing him to crying.

  More than that, though, he couldn’t shake the events of that morning. Try as he might to push aside the memory, to chalk it up as nothing more than what he had done to the previous women, it was different.

  That man did not need to die. He had done nothing wrong, and more important, he presented no obvious gain. Their situation was exactly the same as it had been 12 hours before, whether his mother wanted to admit it or not.

  Left to his own devices, The Good Son would have let the man go. He might have scared him, perhaps even told him to disappear for a while, but he would not have gone through with it.

  That would never do, though. The man was too close, was too visible, to ever let him go. The tongue lashing he got over an unclean pan would pale in comparison to what he would hear if he let the man live. No matter what he tried to do to cover it, she would find out, and she would come after him for it, just as she always did.

  The encounter had not been like the previous ones. The man was not a stranger, someone who was crept up on in the dark, dispatched before a word could be uttered or a tear shed. Instead, he was sitting at the kitchen table when The Good Son arrived, staring through the screen door as if he had been expecting the visit.

  There was no look of surprise as The Good Son entered, no pleas for his life. The man acted almost thankful, the feeling of relief noticeable as The Good Son did what he had to before carrying him to the car and dropping him off at the park.

  His original intention was never to leave him lying in the grass, especially so close to the jogging trail, but he just couldn’t do it any longer. The remorse, the guilt, the sorrow, that flowed through him each time he glanced into the passenger seat was too much to bear, the man propped up, his body stationary as he reclined against the window.

  A week before, The Good Son had never committed a crime in his life. Not once had he swiped a candy bar from the corner gas station, never had he jaywalked or gotten a parking ticket.

  Now he was a killer. The others were a means to an end. This man was different. He was a preemptive strike, a move spurned by greed, the look in his mother’s eye as she explained it bordering on gleeful.

  “That water’s not free you know,” she called from the living room, the same level of scorn she often employed present in her voice.

  The Good Son passed the pan under the faucet a final time, washing the white porcelain clean before turning off the water. His hands were bright pink and stung from the prolonged exposure to heat, sweat continuing to drip from his face as he placed the pan on the drying rack and took up the towel from the counter beside him. He used it to wipe his cheeks before starting in on the dishes beside him, drawing in deep breaths, careful not to let his mother hear a sound.

  He knew what it would cause, just as it always did.

  “Hey!” she called again. “Get in here, you need to see this.”

  The Good Son felt his eyelids slide shut as he raised a hand to wipe his nose. He rubbed it along the leg of his jeans as he walked into the living room and pressed a shoulder against the edge of the open doorway.

  On the couch, his mother paid him no mind. She was seated upright in the back corner, her attention aimed at the television, her body bathed in the pale glow from the picture tube. Following her gaze, The Good Son focused on the screen, the back
of a woman’s head in the foreground, a large, black man in a police dress uniform sitting across from her. Looking to be in his late 40s to early 50s, his hair was graying and heavy bags hung under his eyes.

  A banner was stretched along the bottom of the screen - Police Seek Information onFranklinton Murders - spelled out in bold letters.

  The Good Son felt his jaw drop open as he stared at the screen, the dish towel sliding between his fingers. It fell onto his bare feet, his body not even registering it as he stared in abject horror at the screen.

  “Can you turn it up?” he asked, not bothering to look over at his mother. When she ignored his request, he walked across the floor and snatched the remote from the table beside her, using it to raise the volume several notches.

  “In recent years,” the man on screen said, ”we have made tremendous strides in cleaning up the crime rate here in Franklinton. Until this past week, our numbers were some of the best in the metro area.”

  Pulling in short, choppy breaths, The Good Son shifted his body a few inches to the right. He dropped himself heavily into his chair, his legs too wobbly to support his weight, his back slapping against the faded material as he sat and watched.

  The interview lasted no more than four minutes, a telephone number flashing across the screen at the conclusion inviting viewers to call with any information they might have. From there it cut to a commercial, The Good Son lowering the volume again and tossing the remote onto the coffee table. It landed with a clatter, sliding a few inches before stopping.

  This was bad. Worse than bad.

  The Good Son had been incredibly lucky so far. He had been careful, and he had done his research, but this was becoming too much. The stakes were as high now as they had ever been, but any element of surprise was gone. Now every cop and every citizen in the area would have an eye out for him.

  It was over. Everything he had done, everything he had put himself through, all the pain he had inflicted, the certain damnation he had subjected himself to, was all for nothing.