The Best American Mystery Stories 2012

by Otto Penzler

  He never came home.

  Until now.

  “I’m taking you off the case.” Bernard was hunched over his desk, beefy arms covering two separate piles of papers. He was staring at the file in front of him as if his next words were written on it.

  Webb leaned against the door, arms crossed. Despite the stuffy heat of Bernard’s office, Webb still felt a chill, as if the cold from the death scene had got deep into his bones. “I can be objective.”

  “Like hell.” Bernard caught a thin strand of hair and twirled it over his bald spot. “You went to high school with him. Florence—”

  “I went to high school with him, Ethan went to high school with him, and Mike Conner is Jenna’s brother-in-law. Stanton’s kid married Tom’s kids’ half-sister—and Pete flew Tom out of town in ’62. Everybody in this town is connected to Tom somehow. You lived next door to him for six years.” Webb’s hands, hidden beneath his arms, were clenched into fists. He didn’t know why he was fighting for this one so hard.

  “I know,” Bernard said. “That’s why I want to give this one to Darcy.”

  “Darcy?” Webb tilted his head back so his crown hit the wood. Bernard was watching him, tiny blue eyes lost in his florid face.

  Webb had trouble arguing this one. He’d fought for Darcy Danvers. No one had wanted to hire a woman cop, let alone a woman cop from out of town. She’d come in with more ribbons than anyone, more experience with real crime. She was athletic and tough, smartest woman he’d ever met—hell, smartest anyone he’d ever met—and a real street fighter.

  “She doesn’t know this town,” he said, trying not to wince. That had been Bernard’s argument against hiring her, the city’s argument against keeping her, and the basis of Webb’s defense of her five years back.

  “She knows it good enough,” Bernard said. “She’ll follow through where the rest of us won’t.”

  “I’d follow through,” Webb said.

  “Even on Flo?”

  Webb closed his eyes, his sister’s face rising before him, not as it was now, but as it had been that night long ago, puffy, tear-streaked, miserable.

  “Even on Flo,” he said.

  But he didn’t get a chance. Bernard took him off the case anyway. Webb staggered out of the office, short of breath and dizzy. Too many emotional shocks. First Johanssen, dead, then losing the case. It should have been his. It had to be his, to make up for thirty-three years.

  Darcy was standing at her desk, a file of ancient clippings open in her hands. At forty, she was teenager-skinny, her arms long corded muscle, her breasts nearly flat against a trim torso. Her brown hair was cut short, above her ears, and the lines on her face were only visible up close. From a distance, she looked like a fifteen-year-old boy.

  “I want to help you,” he said.

  “No dice.” Her voice was cigarette-gravel. Two packs a day, filterless. Cigarettes for her, booze for him. Somehow they made it through the long, cold winters. “Bernard took you off this case.”

  “You’ll need a local guide.”

  “I can find one.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “You don’t know what Johanssen did.”

  She closed the file. “Dumped his wife and four kids for a sixteen-year-old groupie who claimed she was nineteen. Took her to Germany, married her without getting a divorce. Second marriage still might not be legal.”

  “Surface stuff.” He took the file from her, glanced down. It was from another case, a knifing at the same bar, in ’62. He tossed the file on the desk.

  “There’s always knifings at Tups,” he said.

  “When Tom Johanssen’s band was playing?”

  “Nobody plays at Tups. Tom Johanssen’s band was drinking. Johanssen and Cindy Waters were already on an airplane for Minneapolis.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Local knowledge,” he said. “Still think you don’t need me?”

  Darcy studied him. Her left eye was gray, her right eye green, a fact that had always intrigued him.

  “So,” she said slowly. “Where were you when Johanssen got shot?”

  “Got a TOD yet?”

  “About ten-thirty, give or take. Coroner’s not in yet.”

  Webb shrugged. “In my car. Listening to the scanner and thinking about lunch.”

  “Alone?”

  “In this town, detectives don’t have to partner.”

  She frowned at him. He once told her she was the only partner he wanted. “Can anyone give you an alibi?”

  “Does anyone need to?”

  The room had gone silent around them. Maybe he’d raised his voice. He didn’t know.

  “It might help,” she said, picking up the file he’d tossed. “Word has it Johanssen screwed your sister.”

  “Got that wrong,” Webb said. “He didn’t screw my sister. He destroyed her.”

  Webb’s sister, Florence, wasn’t pretty. She’d never been pretty, not even as a little girl, but she’d been close. The wrong kind of close. Her features, taken separately, were perfect: oval eyes, long narrow nose with just a hint of an upturn, high cheekbones, and bow-shaped lips. Put together, they looked like she’d been colored by a child with a crayon too fat for the child’s hand.

  But what made it worse was that she wanted to be pretty. More than she wanted anything else.

  She almost achieved it with Johanssen. She’d been twenty-one then, trim, with hair so black it shone blue in the sunlight. Her smiles had come from her heart and she walked with a lightness she would never have again.

  Webb used to think she had finally grown into her body until he stumbled on Johanssen, shoe- and shirtless in Flo’s bedroom in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. Flo had been in the bathroom. Webb could hear the water running.

  Johanssen had grinned, hair tousled, cheeks still flushed, the sheets smelling of sex. Your sister’s one hell of a woman, he’d said.

  Webb had squeezed his fists tight, held them against his sides, not sure he wanted to fight in his parents’ home. You’ve got one hell of a woman at your place.

  Not for much longer, Johanssen’d said as he slipped on his shirt.

  That what you’re telling Flo?

  Yep.

  It’d better be true, Webb had said, or I’ll be coming after you.

  I’m sure you will. Then Johanssen had grabbed his shoes and slipped out the window, as if he’d done it a thousand times before. And he probably had.

  The conversation had echoed in Webb’s mind for years afterward. The beauty of it was that Johanssen had never lied. He’d never promised that he’d take Flo with him when he left. At least not to Webb. And probably not to Flo.

  But Johanssen’s strange honesty couldn’t excuse what he finally did do. He’d chosen Flo because she was needy, and she’d fallen for him so deep that she’d never love anyone again. That would have been enough for Webb, but there was more.

  Johanssen’d chosen Flo because of her college money. She’d won two science prizes her last year of high school, the only girl in the state to do so at that time, and she’d gotten three grand in awards. That, plus a thousand-dollar inheritance from a dead aunt and savings from four years of full-time work while living at home, brought Flo’s savings account to well over $5000.

  In 1962, with that much money, a man could buy a house.

  Or go a long way toward disappearing forever.

  On the afternoon he left, Johanssen slept with Flo for the last time. Then he’d convinced her to go to the bank, take out all her money, and give it to him. He’d buy plane tickets with it, he said, start a new life far away from here, with a new wife. He just never said who that new wife would be. And while Johanssen’s band was getting drunk at Tups Tavern, Flo had sat in her parents’ living room, in her very best dress, looking as pretty as she would ever get, waiting for a knock that never came.

  She’d refused to press charges, said it was her fault, and didn’t change her mind no matter how much her family pushed. She kept her job, never tried
college, never moved out of the house, and never fell in love again. And whatever chance she had at pretty died that night, along with her heart.

  Sometimes Webb thought it was all his fault. He should have beaten up Johanssen in Flo’s bedroom and chased the bastard out of her life.

  But he hadn’t. And that was something thirty years of police work could never change.

  One missed moment, one bad call, had ruined his sister’s life.

  Forever.

  Flo still lived in their parents’ house. It was a three-bedroom starter home, built postwar, and had a little over a thousand square feet counting the basement. Their parents had been dead ten years and Flo had yet to buy her own furniture. She still slept in the same room she’d had all her life.

  Webb walked in without knocking. He shut off the television, like he always did, and crossed the empty living room into the kitchen. His sister sat at the wobbly metal table, slapping cards on the faded yellow surface, a cup of cold coffee at her side.

  “You’ve heard,” he said.

  “Every asshole in town’s called me,” she said, without looking up. “Thinking I’d be pleased.”

  “Are you?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Her hands were shaking. He didn’t know if that was from the caffeine, the news, or both. He always suspected that she’d harbored a hope about Tom Johanssen, a hope that Johanssen would come back for her, that he’d made a mistake.

  Webb went to the counter, grabbed the pot off her Mr. Coffee, and poured the remaining coffee into the sink. Then he tossed out the grounds. The garbage below the sink was overflowing. He’d have to take it out before he left.

  He made a new pot of coffee, grabbed a chocolate from the basket on the sideboard, and took his normal seat at the table. Behind him, the Mr. Coffee wheezed. It was at least fifteen years old.

  Flo set her cards down and studied her hands. They were so thin he could see the bones. Her skin was a sallow yellow—she never got any sun—and he doubted that she ate more than enough to keep herself alive.

  “What was he doing here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How long had he been here?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “Don’t know or won’t say, Webster?” Her voice cracked as she spoke, taking some of the force from it. The force, but not the pain.

  “Don’t know.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. He’d been so worried about her that he hadn’t learned the basic facts. A mistake he had never made before. Maybe Bernard had been right.

  Maybe Webb didn’t belong on the case.

  “You always know.” She got up, poured the coffee out of her cup, and then stuck her cup between the dripping coffee and the pot.

  “They don’t want me on this case.” His voice was low.

  She spilled, cursed, and ripped off a paper towel. Then she paused, leaning over the sink. “Because of me?”

  He debated not telling her, but that wasn’t fair. Then she’d think he was lying about what he knew.

  “Yeah,” he said, staring at her cards. Frayed edges, chocolate stains on the back. She played solitaire a lot. “Because of you.”

  She didn’t move. “It shouldn’t make a difference, should it, Webster? Thirty-three years ago? That shouldn’t affect now, should it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, pushing away from his mother’s kitchen table. “You tell me.”

  Options. Choices. The facts Webb knew about Tom Johanssen ended about 1970. He’d left a half-second before the scandal broke, joined the army, flew Cindy Waters to West Germany, and married her there. After he got out of the military, he’d moved to some wide-open western state, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Utah, and worked for some computer firm. There were rumors of continued scandalous behavior, from affairs to drug abuse to corporate raiding. He made a fortune. Enough for two houses of his own. He paid off his parents’ and his grandparents’ mortgages, had two more children, flew his older children to Montana-Idaho-Wyoming-Utah once every few years for skiing and the obligatory parental visit.

  And not once did he return.

  Not once.

  Until now.

  That was where Webb’s investigation had to start. At Johanssen’s decision to return to the land of his sins. Never mind that Webb was off the case. Darcy’d still be digging up graves by the time he had answers to the most pressing question.

  The secret wasn’t in who Johanssen had hurt. Webb suspected that the list probably extended well beyond midwesterners. The secret lay in what had made him change enough to come home.

  If Webb found that, he’d find the killer.

  He knew that as well as he knew his own sister’s name.

  He had to work fast. Once Bernard caught him, he was out of time, probably with a suspension, badge and gun turned in for good measure. So he laid the attack like a well-planned military maneuver. People first, machines second.

  Johanssen’s parents still lived on the corner of Maple and Pine in a red-and-white clapboard house that had seemed bigger when Webb was a kid. He had only been to the house a few times, the most memorable a class picnic at the end of his junior year. The house had seemed wrong, even then. Johanssen was too glamorous, too intelligent to come from a house that had no books on the walls, and which had yellow and brown slipcovers all over the furniture. His parents, Gladys and Phil, were so firmly working-class that Webb had trouble associating them with their son. As the picnic wore on that bright sunny afternoon, it soon became clear that Johanssen had done the planning, the cooking, and the cleaning to make it all happen. Webb had felt a stab of pity. His own parents would have helped even if they didn’t believe in a project, but it was obvious that Johanssen’s wouldn’t.

  Webb grabbed his badge before he got out of the car. He didn’t like rooting this deep into his own past. He didn’t like the memories and the way they made him feel, as if he were smaller than he really was. In life Johanssen had made him feel that way; he seemed to do the same in death.

  The sidewalk leading to the front door was cracked and broken. The concrete steps showed the signs of harsh winter. A fake grass welcome mat that dated from the sixties sat soggily near the stoop. Webb was careful not to step on it as he knocked.

  The yellow curtain covering the window nearest the door moved slightly. Then voices echoed, and finally the door opened. The hunched old man staring through the screen was barely recognizable as Phil Johanssen.

  “Mr. Johanssen,” Webb said, holding up his badge. “I’m Detective Webster Coninck. I’ve come to talk to you about your son.”

  “No need to be formal, Webb,” Phil Johanssen said, as he pushed open the screen. “I remember you just fine. Sorry about your losing your folks. Gladys sent a card both times.”

  “I know,” Webb said. “Flo and I appreciated it.”

  Flo had gasped each time she saw the word Johanssen on the envelope. She had hoped that the card inside came from Tom.

  Webb slipped inside. The house smelled of mothballs, liniment, and fried foods. Phil Johanssen still wore his slippers. His blue pants hung on him, and his red-and-black plaid shirt looked like it dated from the seventies.

  Gladys stood in the door to the kitchen. She looked much the same, only faded, as if she had been in the sun too long and it had leached the color from her. Her hair, once the exact same shade as Tom’s, was now gray, and the wrinkles on her face had the effect of dulling it.

  “Webster,” she said, and her strong alto took him back to his teenage years quicker than anything else ever could. “I was hoping you’d come.”

  “Mrs. Johanssen,” he said. “I’m so sorry about Tom.”

  She made a small snort and took his hand. Her grip was surprisingly firm. “Come into the kitchen. I haven’t had a boy at my table in too long.”

  The kitchen had been remodeled. It had a window over the sink, and oak cabinets that still gave off a faintly new scent. The countertops were a shiny ceramic, and the stove, refri
gerator, and dishwasher were matching white. The table, covered with a vinyl tablecloth, sat against a bay window opening into the backyard. Plants littered the large sill. On the walls around them, Gladys’s spoon collection alternated with Phil’s pipe collection.

  That was the smell Webb missed, the faint odor of pipe smoke clinging to everything.

  “He gave up smoking for his health,” Gladys said, following Webb’s gaze. “But he couldn’t give up the pipes.”

  She sat down beneath the spoon collection. Phil sat in front of the bay window. Webb sat across from her. The chair was covered with a crocheted cushion that didn’t fit his body.

  “Has anyone else spoken to you?” he asked, careful to keep his voice gentle.

  “Just the boys who came to tell us the news,” Phil said.

  “Like on the TV,” Gladys added. Her hands rested on the vinyl cloth, fingers laced together. Her knuckles were white from the tightness of her grip.

  So Darcy hadn’t been there yet. She would arrive soon.

  “So,” Webb said, “when did Tom tell you he’d be coming home?”

  “Didn’t know until them cops showed up,” Phil said. “You’d think the boy would call if he was coming home after all those years.”

  “So you had no idea he was coming?”

  “I did.” Gladys had her head down, her hands pressed so tight that they were turning red. “He called two days ago. Said he’d be here tonight. I didn’t say nothing because I thought he wouldn’t come. Like all them other times.”

  “Dammit, woman.” Phil shoved his chair back. “You could have said something.”

  “The disappointment—”

  “Wouldn’ta killed me.” He got up, bowed in an odd, formal way to Webb, then left the room.

  Gladys’s lower lip trembled. She brought her head up. Webb was sorry for thinking that they hadn’t cared about Tom’s death. They had been trying to put a good face on it.

  For company.

  “It would have hurt him something awful, Webb. The last time Tom didn’t show, Phil went to bed for a week. Didn’t want to do that to him this time.”