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

by Dustin Stevens

  As far as Reed could tell, the man worked in cyber security of some sort, keeping odd hours and getting compensated handsomely for it. Riley had mentioned more than once that he could buy the entire street if he wanted, choosing instead to indulge in every game system ever invented and consume enough Red Bull and candy to feed a small village.

  Despite the sun fast streaking toward the horizon, Reed brought Billie along with him. The summer evening was still too hot to risk leaving her behind, especially without knowing how long this task would take. He held her short lead in one hand and the payment for Deek in the other, a canvas gym bag used to get it inside. Around his neck hung his badge, the sun winking off the polished brass.

  The doorbell to the home, a one story ranch painted yellow with blue shutters, chimed a short three note tune as Reed pressed it and stepped back, Billie by his side. The sound had barely died away as footsteps approached, the movement sounding like slippers sliding across tile.

  “Good evening, can I help you?” a woman well into her 70s asked, peering out at him. Already, she had retired to pajamas for the evening, a pair of fuzzy slippers on her feet. Tight curls encased her head and thick glasses rested on the end of her nose, making her eyes appear to be the size of golf balls.

  It was at least the 20th time the two had met, though she acted as if she’d never seen Reed before in her life.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Chamberlain,” Reed said, extending the badge an inch or two toward her. “Is Deek home?”

  In years past, Riley would have handled all early salutations, the two falling into friendly banter within seconds. Less than a minute after arriving, Mrs. Chamberlein would usher them in and try to force food at them, laughing the entire time.

  Those days were now gone. She peered at Reed with a momentary look of distrust before her gaze found the badge, and then Billie. “Yes, of course, Officer. Deek’s in his office working. You go right on down.”

  Reed thanked her and stepped inside, Billie staying close. He managed to keep his face clear of any reaction to her use of the word office as he passed through the foyer and opened a side door to the basement, carrying the bag containing Deek’s payment.

  He descended a set of wooden stairs, pushing himself to the outer edge where there was only bare wood, allowing Billie to take the middle, her paws using the carpet there for extra stability. With each step the structure groaned under their combined weight, the sound of music growing louder as they went.

  How they had not managed to hear it from the first floor, or the front step, or even as they drove up, Reed wasn’t certain, the volume and the associated bass reverberating through the space.

  “Hey!” he called as he reached the bottom, glancing around the room. He could see no movement of any kind beyond a psychedelic screensaver on the 80” television to his left, the vibrant colors moving in time with the music.

  “Hey!” he yelled again, raising his voice and extending the word a couple of extra syllables.

  Once more, his was voice drowned out by the persistent thumping of the music.

  He leaned down to Billie and commanded, “Speak!”

  Four vicious barks rang out, each one louder than the previous. After the second one the music cut away, the silence jarring as Billie completed her outburst and resumed her position beside Reed.

  “Good girl,” Reed said, patting her on the neck.

  “What the hell?!” a voice exclaimed, a head appearing on the opposite side of the room a moment later.

  A bank of computer monitors obscured everything about the voice’s owner from the waist up, but that was all Reed needed to confirm it was Deek.

  “Oh, you,” Deek said, a look of mild surprise on his face, though not nearly as pronounced as the first time Reed had shown up unannounced months before.

  “Me,” Reed replied.

  “And you brought your, um...”

  “Partner,” Reed said, shooting Deek a look that let it be known no further comment was required.

  “Right,” Deek said. In slow, stilted steps he came out from around the computer screens.

  At 6’ tall, he stood a bit shorter than Reed, and weighed at least 50 pounds less. A plain black t-shirt and gym shorts hung from his frame, and a plume of blonde hair jutting from his head. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit this evening?”

  Reed raised his eyebrows, sensing the sarcasm, not quite believing the stop was a pleasure for either party. The simple fact was, the man vacillated between being annoying and a full-on pain in the ass, though there were few better in the cyber world, and none Reed knew personally.

  Reaching to his side, Reed unzipped the bag and wrapped his hand around the neck of a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, sliding it free. “I need a favor.”

  Like Pavlov’s dog, Deek’s mouth dropped open, the man almost salivating as he stared. “No, a favor is when somebody shows up wanting something for nothing. What you’ve got there is a down payment on any damn thing you need.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Considering you’re wearing your badge, that makes this an official request, which means it isn’t anything that can land both our asses in jail, so yeah...just like that.”

  Reed couldn’t help but smile. As strange as the logic was, it did make sense.

  “Down,” Reed commanded, leaving Billie by the staircase. He dropped the empty bag to the floor and walked halfway across the room, the bottle held at arm’s length.

  To his right, the basement had been converted into a living space with a king size water bed and kitchenette. Neon signs for various brands of alcohol illuminated the area, casting a harsh glow over everything. On the left, single leather recliner rested in front of the enormous TV, a tangle of video game controls on the floor between the two.

  Between the two was Deek’s workstation, the backs of a half-dozen monitors facing the stairs. From where Reed stood he could not see a single screen, was not sure he even wanted to.

  “Two tasks,” Reed said. “One pretty simple, the other I’m not so sure.”

  Five feet away Deek crossed his arms over his chest, the stance managing to make him appear even skinnier. “Shoot.”

  “You heard anything about the murders in Franklinton this week?” Reed asked.

  For a moment Deek’s eyebrows came together, appearing to make a genuine attempt to answer. “No. To be honest, I’m not even sure what day it is right now. Been pretty buried with work.”

  A handful of retorts ran through Reed’s mind, but he let them slide, knowing better than to offend someone whose help he needed.

  “Well, there have been four of them,” Reed said. “Three of them were women living in the area. I need you to run their financials and see if they have anything in common. All three women were organ donors, and we think the killer had access to their driver’s licenses. Best bet is it was someone who worked a cash register or a front door checking ID’s.”

  “Huh,” Deek said, dropping his hands to his side and shrugging. “Okay, easy enough. What’s the second request?”

  “I need you to hack into a federal government database and get me a list of people awaiting liver transplants in the greater Columbus area.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The first task took Deek a grand total of eight minutes. Normally, pulling someone’s credit card reports and financial statements would have taken longer, but using Reed’s position as a detective allowed them to bypass a lot of red tape – as long as no one found out.

  Under the guise of forensic accounting, they pulled everything for the previous four weeks on all three female victims, Deek placing them side by side on a trio of adjacent monitors. He then ran a quick algorithm, explaining everything to Reed as he worked in a language that barely resembled English, before highlighting three businesses.

  Over the time leading up to the death of Esther Rosen, all three women had shopped at a Wal-Mart, a BP gas station, and a lawn and garden supply store known as Big Q.

  Wi
th the sun already beginning to dip below the horizon, Reed left Deek to work on the other request. Against his better judgment, he left the bottle of Johnny Walker behind, trusting that his temporary consultant would have the willpower to withstand breaking the seal until the second objective was accomplished.

  After that, Reed knew all bets were off.

  Together he and Billie cut a path straight across the front yard and climbed into the car, ignoring the fact that the interior temperature was just a degree or two cooler than the sun as they took off.

  Two of the three common businesses, Reed felt fairly safe in disregarding for now, at least placing them at the bottom of the list. He had purchased enough gas in his life to know that most people paid at the pump by credit card. There was no need for them to enter the store, much less show anybody ID.

  As for Wal-Mart, Reed stopped in occasionally for things on his way home in the morning. One of the reasons he preferred the store to the K-Mart down the road was they had self-service checkouts, allowing him to avoid any human contact on the back end of an overnight shift. And on the rare occasion he paid a cashier, he was never asked for ID.

  That left only Big Q, a place Reed vaguely remembered seeing some print advertisements for, but had never actually seen in person, much less been inside. Aiming his way south from Deek’s, he punched the location into his GPS and listened as the directions were spit back at him, the store on the outer edge of Franklinton, just barely within the jurisdiction of the 8th.

  And just a short drive from all four victims.

  Propping his elbow up on the middle console, Reed used a hand to shield his face from the setting sun to his right. He pinched his gaze against the glare of it and kept his speed 10 miles above the limit, his mouth pulled tight as he plotted his next steps.

  Right now Deek was digging for the organ transplant list. Iaconelli and Bishop were en route to speak with Bethanee Cleary, a task Reed was all too happy to hand off and would no doubt hear about later. Somewhere nearby, Greene and Gilchrist were awaiting instruction. Grimes was up-to-date on everything, seemingly willing to offer any further support that was needed.

  Encroaching media and a chief hell bent on closing every case the minute it was filed had a way of doing that.

  For the time being, everything Reed could control was covered. Knowing that did nothing to calm his nerves, didn’t deter the need to catch whoever was doing this, but at least it allowed him to narrow his focus.

  Go to Big Q. Find out if anybody there might be his guy.

  If so, investigate him. If not, hope that Deek had made enough progress to begin moving on somebody else.

  The grating voice of the GPS directed Reed to a building that stretched almost a block in length. From the outside it looked like a warehouse that had been repurposed, most of the structure made from concrete block painted grey. Flowers of every color were stretched along the building garden center, just to the side of the wide front entrance. On either end of the building a pair of roll top doors stood open, ready for customers to load up larger purchases.

  Pulling into the lot, Reed made a quick scan of the parking lot, seeing a pair of silver vehicles, one an SUV, another a pickup truck.

  Nothing resembling the sedan the witnesses had described.

  Leaving the front windows rolled down, Reed climbed out, jerking his damp t-shirt away from his chest and lower back. The movement brought a puff of air against his skin, the temporary relief much welcomed as he opened the back and clipped on Billie’s short lead. The badge swung from his neck as he led her to the front door, aware that they were drawing a few stares. He made a point of meeting every one, watching for any suspicious behavior, holding the eye contact long enough to make people uncomfortable, waiting for someone to get jumpy.

  Each one became a bit fidgety before hurrying on their way, but nobody did anything that seemed out of the ordinary for a citizen being stared down by a cop and his wolf sidekick.

  The front doors of the store parted automatically, a breeze passing over them as they stepped through, the building cooled by fans circling overhead. Reed paused just inside the door, letting his vision adjust to the lower level of light.

  Just as the exterior had indicated, the place was a lawn and garden store similar to Lowe’s or Home Depot. The aisles were extra wide and exceptionally tall, steel steps on rollers placed at intervals throughout to help reach the highest items. White boards announced various sales in thick black marker.

  Arriving unannounced, Reed walked straight to the closest cash register, a middle aged woman who barely came to his chest behind it. She glanced up at him, her unease showing, before a forced smile crossed her face.

  “Good evening, sir,” she said. “How may I help you?”

  Reed didn’t bother lifting the badge from his chest. It was already eye level with her, clearly visible. “Hi, is the manager available, please?”

  The smile wavered just a moment, the woman reaching for a red telephone mounted on a pole beside her. “Sure,” she said, lifting the mouthpiece. “Mr. Beauregard to register three please, Mr. Beauregard to register three.”

  The distorted sound of her voice spilled from overhead speakers, echoing throughout the store before fading away. Quickly, she replaced the receiver and took a step back from it, another pained smile crossing her face.

  “Thank you,” Reed said, releasing the poor woman from her misery and stepping away from the counter. He moved until there was nearly 10 feet between them before stopping and hooking his thumbs into the rear pockets of his jeans.

  He heard the manager long before he saw him, a pinched, angry voice descending from one of the aisles. It seemed to materialize from nowhere, drawing the attention of both Reed and the woman behind the counter.

  “Dammit, Cindy,” he said, extra bravado inserted for effect, “what have I told you about using the PA system for non-emergencies?”

  A moment later, the owner of the voice emerged from two aisles over. A short, slovenly man, he was only nominally taller than the woman he called Cindy, a thin smattering of bottle-black hair smashed flat to his scalp. A rotund middle section hung down over wrinkled khakis, his gait more side-to-side than straight ahead, something Riley would have referred to as a duck walk.

  Behind the counter Cindy stood rigid. She raised her right hand and pointed a single finger over toward Reed, saying nothing.

  The man took three steps forward, ready to berate her further, before turning to see Reed and Billie waiting for him. On sight, the venom he carried just a moment before evaporated, his pace slowing as he redirected himself. Six inches at a time he walked closer, his jaw working up and down in silence.

  “Detective Reed Mattox,” Reed said, taking a step closer, “my partner, Billie.”

  The man nodded, glancing down to Billie before looking up at Reed. “Uh, Dan Beauregard. How can I help you, Detective?”

  He cast a quick look around as he asked the question, on the lookout for any stray customers who might be lingering nearby to watch the interaction.

  Normally, Reed would take the man aside, asking if he had an office where they could speak in private, saving anybody the indignity of meeting with a detective out in the open. Tonight though, running short on time and having already seen the way the man treated his employee, Reed didn’t feel the inclination.

  He had a job to do, and protecting feelings wasn’t a part of that.

  “Two questions,” Reed said, holding up the index and middle finger on his left hand, the proverbial peace sign. “First, are you the manager here?”

  Beauregard’s voice misfired twice before he finally spoke. “Yes, I am.”

  “Do you folks require customers to show ID when making a credit card purchase?”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The nap was a rare occurrence, something The Good Son hadn’t done in years. The combination of nerves pulled taut and the nocturnal schedule he’d kept lately had finally caught up to him, his body succumbing to complete
exhaustion. When he awoke, he was face down on his bed, his cheek smashed into his pillow, his skin feeling sweaty and sticky.

  “Damn,” he muttered, running a hand back over his forehead and wiping it against the bed beside him. He looked toward the window, seeing no light through the blinds, the world outside dark.

  A bolt of electricity shot through him as he checked the digital clock glowing red beside the bed.

  “Shit!” he spat, rolling onto his feet and stumbling down the hallway, his body careening from one side to the other, fighting for balance.

  This was not something he could do right now. They were on a schedule. He could not afford to make mistakes like this, no matter how tired he was.

  “Mama,” he said, crossing straight into the living room and turning on the lamp beside the couch. His heart pounded as he knelt down, placing one hand on her shoulder and shaking gently. “Mama. Mama, it’s time to get up. You have to take your medicine.”

  There was no response from the shriveled form as The Good Son slid a hand beneath her ribs and the other under her knees, lifting her and shifting her toward him. He rotated her almost a full 180 degrees, before lowering her back into place.

  Her doctors had warned of this. With each passing hour, the need for a new organ was growing more urgent, the meds alone no longer enough to keep her functioning. She should be in a home, being watched around the clock, but her adamant refusal and their dwindling funds made that impossible.

  Instead, the responsibility was his, just one of many he had inherited.

  His heart pounding, The Good Son rose and ran into the kitchen, his heavy steps shaking the living room. He went straight for the medicine bottles there, stopping by the sink just long enough to run two inches of water into a cup.

  Balancing everything against his chest, he deposited it all on the coffee table, sinking to his knees beside her.

  “Mama, drink this,” he whispered.