Brain Trust

by A W Hartoin

  I always wanted a sibling. I begged Mom for a brother, in particular, but now it seemed I owed my mother a card for making me an only child. I might be the only egg in my parents’ basket, but at least no one ever called me Princess Porks-a-lot.

  I whipped opened the passenger door. “Get in. I’ll drive.”

  “You can’t drive. I’m better,” said Fats.

  “She always thinks she’s better. Ask her who went to the Olympics,” said Rocco.

  I ran around the driver’s side. “I really don’t care. We have to go before those cops notice I’ve gone and tell Chuck.”

  “Badminton,” said Fats, attempting to wedge herself in the passenger seat. It was safe to say the Borgwald designers didn’t imagine a man as big as Fats, much less a woman. “I bet you didn’t even know that was an Olympic sport.”

  I didn’t, but I wasn’t about to say that. “Can you close the door?”

  Fats sniffed. “Of course, I can.”

  She couldn’t. In what was probably one of the least favorite moments of her life, Fats’ brother—also known as Skinny McSwizzle Stick—had to shove the door closed. I’m not sure the Isabella was mint anymore, but it was best not to think about it too much.

  Rocco called in the window. “There’s a jack in the trunk. You can use the bar to pry her out.”

  I hit the gas and Fats narrowly missed grabbing her brother by the throat. I could see him laughing in the rearview mirror.

  “Remind me to pound him later,” said Fats with her knees up to her chest.

  “I thought you two got along.”

  “We do,” she said. “If I didn’t love him, I wouldn’t bother to pound him. I’d kill him and dump the body.”

  There was a possibility that she was serious, so I left that alone and drove around the hospital. Perfect timing. There was my lanky boyfriend, walking across the street to a parking garage, exuding confidence.

  “Look at him,” said Fats. “Reminds me of Rocco. All piss and wind.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I said.

  “You’re running rings around him.” She grinned at me. “I have to do it.”

  “Oh, no. What?”

  Fats reached over and laid on the horn. Chuck glanced up and gasped. So sweet. We gave him finger waves and sped off.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  WE LAUGHED ALL the way out of the Central West End. My stomach hurt and it felt great.

  “This is a great morning,” said Fats. “Working for you is entertaining. I like it. Where are we going?”

  I had no idea, so I had Fats call Spidermonkey for Banging Bob’s mother’s address. I couldn’t chance asking Uncle Morty. You never knew which side he’d come down on and he did enjoy thwarting me for some perverse reason.

  Fats put the address in my phone and sat back to discuss The Klinefeld Group with Spidermonkey.

  I poked her and said, “Ask him about Alfonso and Rafael Cruz.”

  The über hacker’s inquisitive mind had already looked into the dry cleaner and his son. He repeated what we already knew and one tidbit that we didn’t. Waylon Parks defended Rafael Cruz on his drug charge. Finally, a connection. Cassidy Huff’s murderer, Brian Shill, was friendly with his prosecutor, Waylon Parks, who ended up defending Rafael Cruz, who probably attacked me yesterday.

  “My head hurts,” I said.

  “I wonder if Shill knows Rafael Cruz,” said Fats.

  My head hurt a little less as an intense feeling of hope came over me. “Let’s find out.”

  Fats asked Spidermonkey to see if Cruz knew Shill. But as soon as she said it, I knew it wasn’t right. Shill wouldn’t have Cruz pose as Cassidy’s killer. Blankenship would know he was lying. What would be the point? My head hurt again. “Ask him to send me Rafael Cruz’s mugshot and a picture of his father, if he can find one.”

  He already had them and texted them over as we arrived on Manderly Drive in Brentwood. Nice and close. I pulled up in front of a tiny bungalow with an immaculate yard and freshly painted trim a few minutes later.

  “When’s she coming?” asked Fats, still holding the phone.

  I opened my door, trying to judge whether I’d really have to pry Fats out. “We’re here.”

  “Not us.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I thought you read the file,” said Fats.

  “I did.”

  She pulled on her door handle and the door burst open. “She’s clueless,” said Fats. “Yeah, I’ll tell her.”

  I went around to see if I could help, but Fats managed to squeeze out on her own. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Dr. Karina Bock.” Fats trotted up the driveway past a line of older sedans.

  “Hey, wait.”

  She didn’t wait. They never wait. It’s like people can’t hear me. I texted the Cruz pictures to Shelley at Hunt and asked if she could show them to Blankenship. She didn’t answer.

  Fats pressed the doorbell as I ran up beside her, gasping. “I said wait. Why didn’t you wait?”

  “What for? I’m ready.” She did look ready. Ready to rumble. Valentina Dwyer was probably in her seventies. Unless she pulled a gun, we were probably good.

  “I’m not. We don’t have a plan.”

  “Do you ever have a plan?” she scoffed.

  “Maybe.” I would’ve poked out my lower lip if wasn’t already as poked as a lip can get.

  “No, you don’t. You’re flying by the seat of your thong. I know because half the world has seen it.”

  I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

  “How about you stop wearing thongs?” she said.

  “Like you’re not wearing a thong under those skintight yoga pants.”

  She rang the bell again. “The important part of that sentence is pants. You know how many men I’d have to kill if I wore thongs with skirts?”

  “How many?” I asked stubbornly.

  “Twenty-three.”

  “That’s oddly specific.”

  “Men,” she said. “I remember the bad ones.”

  There was a clang inside the house and someone yelled, “I’m coming!”

  “Hey, what was that about Dr. Bock?” I asked.

  The door opened and a woman, younger than I expected, was standing there. “Can I help you?”

  “Valentina Dwyer?” I asked.

  She looked at my face and shrank back a bit. She was a big raw-boned woman, almost six feet, with a mannish demeanor and spiky black hair with a hint of gray at the temples. “Yes. I’m Valentina.”

  “Hi, I’m—”

  “Mercy Watts,” she said. “Yes, I know. You’re here about my Bobby, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “This is Mary Elizabeth Licata. She’s helping me.”

  “Are you some sort of bodyguard?” asked Valentina.

  Fats stuck out a hip and struck a pose. “How’d you guess?”

  Valentina smiled in spite of herself. “I think it’s obvious.”

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind,” I said.

  She pushed open the glass storm door and said, “You can ask, but I don’t know how I can help you.”

  We walked into a small living room, neat and clean, stuffed with antiques ranging from a Victorian sideboard to a fainting couch. There was barely enough room to breathe.

  “Come this way,” said Valentina. “My stitching group is here, so you’ll have to come back to my sunroom.

  “What kind of stitching?” asked Fats eagerly.

  “Are you a stitcher?”

  “I embroider and my grandmother’s teaching me to quilt.”

  “How lovely. It’s nice to hear that young people are learning the old skills.”

  I squeezed past Fats in the narrow hall and asked, “Who are you?”

  “What?” asked Fats. “I can like needlework. At least it’s not badminton.”

  We walked into Valentina’s sunroom and were instantly greeted with a dozen warm smiles. The ladies and two
men were quilting, knitting, or embroidering. There were scraps of fabric everywhere, Cyndi Lauper on the stereo, and a small table covered with pastries, fruit, and an enormous coffee urn.

  “Are you coming to join us?” asked one lady, patting a seat next to her.

  “No, Janice,” said Valentina. “Go ahead, ladies. Find a seat.”

  I didn’t expect that. “Er…don’t you want to go talk in private?”

  Valentina picked up a quilting hoop with an ornate star in it and sat down. “I have no secrets here. They all know about my Bobby.”

  The group nodded sagely.

  “Alright then.” I sat down and one of the men offered me coffee and a donut. It made me feel guilty. I don’t know why. Nobody looked nearly as uncomfortable as I felt. “I’m sorry I have to ask these questions.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Valentina. “I think I’ve been interviewed a thousand times. There’s nothing you can ask that I haven’t already heard. Go ahead.”

  “You seem like you were expecting me,” I said.

  One of the men, whose name was Carl, said, “We all were. Your poor mother. A tragedy. Such a beautiful woman. And that man who was murdered. It got our attention, I can tell you.”

  “Why exactly?” I asked. “Bob was a long time ago.”

  “Not to me,” said Valentina. “It seems like yesterday that I found out. I think about what he did every day and try to atone. I know I can’t, but I try.”

  “But why would you think my mother had anything to do with Bob?”

  It was simple. Valentina and her group were avid news watchers. They’d been keeping track of the detectives that put Bob away as a serial killer, following their careers. The events in Sturgis piqued their interest and they watched in horror as my mother’s attack was covered. Valentina already knew that Avery’s wife got killed and she thought that was quite a coincidence. Then it was on the news that morning that blood had been found in Scott Frame’s truck. Valentina knew someone would be coming. She just didn’t know it would be me.

  I would’ve expected some malice toward The Brain Trust for locking up her only child, but there wasn’t any. She seemed resigned to it. Valentina had Bob at seventeen, too young to have a child, she said, and way too young to marry the father. The first Bob Horowitz. He was a drunk and a gambler. He smacked Valentina around, but lucky for her and her son, Big Bob went out for cigarettes one night when Bob was three and never came back. She raised her son herself, working like a man, she said, out at the Chrysler plant, installing stereos. She was one of the few women on the line and she made a nice living, although it was hard, exhausting work and she did all the overtime she could get. It all sounded pretty normal, except her son turned out to be a notorious serial killer.

  “Sounds good. What happened?” asked Fats, looking up from a quilt block.

  “So many people have asked me that and the answer is I don’t know,” said Valentina. “I never hit Bobby. I didn’t have to. He was sweet and easygoing. He gave me almost no trouble at all.”

  One of the women spoke up. “I can attest to that. My own boy, Sean, was hell on wheels, drinking and skipping school. I was so jealous of Valentina. Bob never did any of that.”

  They all nodded.

  “None of you saw this coming?” I asked.

  They shook their heads.

  “Did you ever doubt his guilt?”

  “The evidence was overwhelming and he confessed,” said Carl. “We didn’t want to believe it, but there it was.”

  “Did he ever confess to any of you, personally?” I asked.

  Valentina sighed and stuck her needle in her star. “To me, he did. I’ll never forget it. You can’t forget the moment your life changes forever. He called me from jail and I went down to see him. He told me he’d been charged with murder, but I thought there must be a mistake. He’d never raised a hand to anyone that I knew of.”

  “What did he say?”

  Valentina looked away into the distance, but she kept talking. “I went into this room, where he was shackled to a chair. It seems like a dream now, but it happened. I have to remind myself of that sometimes. I asked what happened and he told me he killed people. Lots of people. I was so shocked I think I stopped breathing and passed out.” She looked at me. “Then your father was there. He got me into a chair and asked me if I wanted to go. I didn’t know what to do, so I stayed. Bobby wanted to tell me exactly what he did, but I didn’t let him. I couldn’t listen to that. I asked him why and he seemed confused. All he said was that he had to. I asked him if someone made him do it.”

  I leaned forward.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Watts, but he said no. He was sort of insulted that I asked. Bobby was sensitive about his intelligence. He only ever got Cs in school and that was with the teachers helping.”

  “It didn’t seem odd to you that he was able to carry on murdering people for years and evading the police?”

  “Of course, it seemed odd. More than odd. My Bobby never had an original idea in his life,” she said.

  “I thought he was a DJ. That’s creative,” said Fats.

  “Oh, he was, but never a very good one. He just loved the music and was good at imitating the other DJs that had style.”

  One of the ladies said, “My son did the party scene for a while. He helped Bob with playlists and what to say. As long as my Tom wrote it down, Bob could do it fine.”

  I sipped my coffee and let warmth roll down into my chest. No wonder Dad thought he had an accomplice. Serial killers aren’t necessarily original, but it takes some creativity not to get caught. How in the heck did a C student who needed help with his playlists manage to evade my dad, much less the rest of The Brain Trust?

  “Did you or Bob know the detectives that caught him?” I asked.

  “No, but I remember your father. He was so kind to me.” For the first time, Valentina showed emotion. The tears bubbled up inside her and overflowed at the memory of kindness. I was often proud of my father but never more than at that moment.

  “The others weren’t so kind?” I asked to have something to say.

  “They weren’t nasty, if that’s what you’re asking. They were angry at what Bobby had done. Of course they were. I was. It was the worst time in my life.” She reached for Carl’s hand. “If I hadn’t had my friends, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

  “Do you remember anything about the detectives in particular?” I asked.

  “The lady detective, Keely Stratton, was kind, too. She wanted to know why he’d done it. You see, everyone thought I must’ve abused him, sexually or something else disgusting. I took a lie detector test.”

  “What for?” asked Fats. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “Detective Stratton said it would clear me of any wrongdoing and they could get on with figuring out what happened to make Bobby kill people.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. They never understood it. He wasn’t abused or picked on at school. I taught him how bad it was to hurt women and I never thought he’d hurt anyone. At least he didn’t rape anyone. I taught him that much.”

  I pressed the warm cup against my lip and said, “You talked to Bobby about rape?”

  Valentina had discussed sexual assault with her son. She thought she was doing the right thing. Maybe she was. Bobby didn’t do anything sexual to his victims. Rape was common with serial killers. Sometimes it was the whole point with murder being the cover-up. Maybe Bob didn’t because Valentina told him that she’d been raped by her father’s friend when she was twelve. The experience had been so horrible that she was institutionalized for a time. She impressed the need for consent and respect on her son.

  “I guess I should’ve talked to him about killing people, but I thought that went without saying. Obviously, you don’t kill people,” she said.

  “What about Avery Sampson?” I asked. “How well did you know him?”

  “He wasn’t mean, but he would hardly look at me. He i
nterviewed me once with your father. In the middle, he just got up and left. I don’t know what I said. I was crying. Maybe that did it.”

  “What about the others in the task force?”

  “Well, there was Gavin Flouder. He was kind, too, but we had little contact. I heard you solved his murder last year. You’re an unusual person.”

  “That’s one way to put it. So it was mostly my father and Detective Stratton? What about Scott Frame?”

  “I saw him a couple times, mostly in court. He was fine. Distant, like most of the police. I think they didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t know what to do with me either.”

  My phone buzzed and it was Shelley, confirming that Alfonso Cruz was Blankenship’s visitor. I was texting her back when Spidermonkey called.

  “You’re getting close,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah, to what? Another murder?” I asked and the stitching group gasped. I whispered an apology to them.

  “To figuring this out. You’re on to something. Your Mr. Shill was in prison with young Mr. Cruz and they had issues. Mr. Shill was a regular victim of Mr. Cruz and his gang.”

  “Yes!” I exclaimed. “Wait, I don’t know how that helps me.”

  “I don’t either, but I’m sure—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Spidermonkey said in an odd voice.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. I’ll call you back. It’s Loretta. She wants to redo the kitchen. I’m in hell.” He hung up without saying goodbye. That was odd, but I set my phone in my lap and asked Valentina, “Do you have some paper I could use? I have to draw this out. I’m missing something. I have to see it.”

  The stitching group sprang into action. Carl got printer paper and colored pencils they used for drawing their quilt designs. Lydia insisted they move the table into the center of the room so they could all see what I would write. “We’re solving a crime. Right now,” she said. “It’s so exciting.”

  No pressure.

  I spread out the paper and drew my timeline. I hated to put Bob’s name on there, but I did. There was no use in pretending he wasn’t in this up to his now dead eyeballs. Then I wrote Rafael Cruz, Brian Shill, and Waylon Parks, connecting them with arrows. I wrote a column of the Brain Trust members and connected them to Bob. My dad got an arrow to Brian Shill and Cassidy Huff, who I set off in a corner.