by David Beers
Joe laughed quietly. Nothing was as it should be when you had to check police off the list. The moon was up and the baby was asleep, although he doubted the same of Patricia. He didn't know if she would be able to sleep until this guy was apprehended, killed this time if the world cared about any justice. She might not even stop worrying if they locked the man up, certainly not if they put him in one of those science fiction jails again.
He worried too, but not for himself as much.
He wanted to meet this man.
Brand had been someone to pity when his child died. He morphed into someone to fear when he announced his plans. Then, when Joe's father disappeared, he became the boogey man—a monster that could get anyone at any time. They buried Joe's father when Joe was fifteen, and Brand became someone to hate. Someone to rage against. Someone to put all his feelings on; Joe had someone to direct his grief at. Most people have to be angry at God when someone they love is taken. Joe was angry at Matthew Brand. Joe hated Matthew Brand, had dreamed about taking a fucking axe to those clear glass containers they kept the creeps in. Letting all that gas out and then laying into Brand with the axe after. Splitting his skull open and not stopping there, just continually chopping until his bones turned to pieces, and then mush, so that you couldn't tell the difference between brain and bone. Just a gray soup.
That went on until he was in college, and he let the anger go—not completely, but enough to realize other things in life mattered besides revenge. The rage faded further after he met Patricia, and still further after their marriage. With the birth of Jason, he possessed too much in life that he loved to be holding all that anger and hate. All that madness. He had let it go.
Joe walked to his chair in the living room and reclined on it.
The anger wasn't gone though; that's what he was realizing. The anger still lived inside him, and he had only put it in a closet. A deep closet with lots of jackets and clothes to muffle its screams and then he locked the door with chains and a padlock. The anger probably could have stayed there forever, understanding its place and that all its screams and rage weren't going to free it. Until now. Joe had heard the noises in that closet building ever since the first news story. Building up to a cacophony of voices inside his head, all of them screaming at one person.
Matthew Brand.
Joe didn't really want the cops sitting outside his house. He didn't want his doors locked. He wanted Matthew Brand to be able to walk inside this house, to come face to face with Joe and do his best to steal Joe away. Joe was twenty-five and hadn't known his father for ten years. Joe's son was three and would never know his grandfather. Joe's father would never have the chance to meet his bride. This man ended a life and in doing that stunted so many others. His mother lived alone in a house by herself, having never remarried and probably never would. All of it because Brand's son had died. Joe would say it, he wasn't scared: had been murdered by four police officers. The thing was, Joe didn't care. Not at fifteen when he watched a truck dump a lot of dirt over his father's grave, and not now sitting in this chair. Things happened and you moved on; you didn't decide the world had to burn. You didn't set fire to everything your hands touched. You. Moved. On.
Brand refused. Brand decided his intellect meant the rest of the world should bow to him. Had ruined lives everywhere he went and what was his punishment? They decided to keep him alive because they might need him some day. And now? Brand was starting back up?
So let him come. Let him come here and see the person that had locked away his rage for years. Let him come and try to kill Joe, or his son, or his wife. Let him come.
* * *
Matthew opened the door to the warehouse, the sun behind him shining in but no other lights illuminating the place. The Internet was a much easier place to navigate when you could use your fingers and eyes instead of only your brain. Everything could be done so much quicker. Now this Bitcoin thing made buying almost anything in complete anonymity possible.
Matthew was the proud owner of a new warehouse.
Filth covered the inside. Large metal tables and machinery littered throughout. Scratches and chipped metal dressed the pieces that Matthew could see. Grease covered the floors, the walls, and looked like it might even extend to the ceiling. Everything was dirt and grime. Everything in here must be cleaned if Matthew's plans were to bear fruit.
The pictures on the Internet were accurate. The place used to be an industrial laundry shop. All the dirty fabrics that restaurants owned, from lobster covered tablecloths to ketchup stained napkins, came through here. Much of the machinery had been sold off, and the rest could be sold off for scrap. Brand would sell nothing. Would only buy. Everything would start here. He might have to travel across the country, but his work would begin and end in this warehouse. His son would be born here.
The room would be bright, lights shining down and chasing away any shadows hiding in corners. It would be as clean as any hospital room, free of dirt and disease. Matthew could almost see the equipment he would wheel in here. He pictured the wires neatly drawn across the floor, weaving their way to the operating tables. From where he stood, at the entrance to his new property, Matthew could see how everything would look, how it all would turn out.
Next, he wanted to see Joseph Welch.
Chapter Twelve
"What are you looking at, honey?"
"Nothing," Marley said.
"Then why are you standing at the window?"
Jerry listened to the slight sigh from his daughter as she stepped away from the blinds.
"Just stupid kids at school."
Jerry remained at the entrance to the living room. He knew this would come eventually, especially with the visibility of this case.
"What did they say?"
"It doesn't matter. It's not true."
"Probably not, but I'd still like to know."
Marley glanced to her right, at the blinds again, before looking back to her father. "Some kids said that the guy Mom is chasing is going to come after me next."
Sweet Jesus.
"Marley, no one is coming after you. No chance. The guy Mom is chasing is running away, not trying to come here. He knows if Mom gets near him, then it's game over. If you were running from the police, do you think you would go to the police's house?"
Marley smiled at that, bringing a smile to Jerry's face too.
"No, but I'm not crazy."
"Crazy doesn't mean stupid. He would have to be stupid to do something like that. No one is coming here, and if they do, Mom taught me how to use her gun so you don't have to worry. Now do you want to go get pizza or stand here and stare out the window?"
Marley smiled wider. "I'll still be looking out the windows in the car, won't I?"
"Don't be a smart aleck and go get your shoes on," Jerry said. He watched his daughter practically skip from the room, gone the thoughts of the criminal possibly lurking out on the street.
His smile dropped from his face and he rubbed his brow with his hand. This wasn't what she was supposed to be thinking about. Bullying happened in school because kids were mean, and that wasn't going to change regardless of how many news specials ran on television, but being bullied about a criminal coming to your house to kill you? That was something Marley didn't need to face. That was something no ten year old should have to worry about in any legitimate fashion. Had he been telling her the truth? That they need not worry about Brand showing up here? Hell, Jerry didn't know. Jerry didn't know what that psycho thought. Just because it hadn't happened before didn't mean it couldn't.
The words hadn't become cross with Allison yet, but he felt that they would soon. Even when he had let Marley call before school, the words had been civil if a bit clipped on both sides. He was running out of civility though, and seeing his daughter peer through blinds to try and look out for a real life boogey man wasn't creating any sense of appreciation in him. It made him want Allison back here, back with her family and not sitting in some laboratory hours away. Not on
the news giving press conferences. Not wearing a gun all day long and only speaking with her daughter each night. If it was just him, he could handle it. He had handled it before Marley showed up and he knew when he married her the career path she chose. He didn't need someone to raise him. He didn't need a mother.
Marley did.
He listened as Marley's feet came down the stairs, the surprise of pizza tonight immediately shattering any thoughts of a psycho-killer wanting to steal her life and give it to some long dead kid. The thought of talking to her Mom would even be dashed for an hour or so.
"Ready!" She called out as her feet touched the first floor.
"Alright, kiddo, pile in the car."
How long are you going to keep distracting her?
* * *
"I need to talk to Mom alone. Go on up to your room and watch TV there, okay, kiddo?"
Marley leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
"K," she said, pulling away and turning to climb the stairs.
Jerry put the phone in his right hand, listening until Marley was out of earshot.
"Hey," he said.
"What's going on? What do you need her to get out of the room for?" Allison answered.
Jerry closed his eyes and leaned back into the couch. "This isn't working, Allison."
A pause came across the phone instead of his wife's words.
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"Marley. She's at an age where you leaving isn't looked at as normal anymore, an age where she's seeing that other girls' Moms aren't heading out every few months on their job. She needs you here with her. I can't be a mother and a father, Allison. I don't know how, and the next five years are as crucial as any. If you stay gone, what if she shows up here with a boyfriend and a positive pregnancy test when she's fifteen?"
"Is this a joke?"
"No," he said.
"What do you want me to do? Leave work and come home because you're worried that me being gone for a few weeks might cause her to become a teenage parent?" The civility was falling away like snow at the beginning of an avalanche.
"This isn't a joke. You know what she was doing today when I walked into the living room? She was pulling the blinds down and looking out at the street because one of the kids at school told her Brand might come here to get us. I told her that wasn't possible, but what the hell do I know?"
Silence rather than the anger followed. He couldn't even hear Allison's breathing over the phone.
"How long does this go on for? Not this case, but all of them? How many years before they'll give you a steady desk? I mean, would you even take it or are you really fine with this?"
"I thought we both were," she answered. "I thought we both made that decision years ago."
"It might be time to rethink it. You can't answer my questions. You can't tell me when this will be over, none of it, and that's not fair to Marley. She hasn't asked yet, probably because she isn't understanding that far into the future, but she will one day, and then what do I tell her? Well, babe, we agreed before you were born that your mom was going to run around with her job as long as she wanted and I'd stay here with you."
"You decide to bring all this up now? When I'm at the cusp of doing something really big here, you bring up our daughter and have the nerve to say something like that to me. It's not fair, Jerry."
"Is it fair to Marley?"
"You couldn't wait another month? You couldn't wait a goddamn month until this is over and bring it up then?"
He opened his eyes and leaned forward onto his knees. He didn't care if she was angry. He didn't care if she thought he was being unfair, and he didn't care if he actually was. He cared about Marley and about her complete lack of control in this situation. She couldn't even call her mother when she wanted. Marley had no choices here, except to listen to her parents because they 'knew' best.
"In another month Marley might not even be asking to call anymore. Is that what you want?"
"Fuck you."
"What do you want then?"
"I just want to do my job for a little bit longer and then we can talk about all this. That's what I want," she said.
"So you want Marley and me to go on hold for a little while?"
"I want you to keep up what we agreed until I can talk about it some more. Is that too much to ask?"
"I don't know, Allison. Maybe it is."
Chapter Thirteen
Matthew stood at the side of the window and peered through the small break between the wall and the blinds. He stood extremely still, not even a single muscle twitching involuntarily. The police car didn't move, and neither did the people inside. Street lights shone down every few dozen feet, but other than that the world outside was dark. All was at peace.
The house, too. A single light burned in the hallway, a night light plugged in at the bottom of the wall. Matthew had made his way through the near black house silently.
The police outside weren't asleep but they weren't exactly alert either. Matthew imagined they were doing this because they had been told, not out of any real sense that he would show up. Matthew looked far and long to make sure they were the only police around, not wanting to be lured in only to have a trap sprung on him.
He walked a mile to the house, creeping through back yards and different neighborhoods. No barking dogs and no insomniac neighbors heard him. Perhaps the years spent unable to move in a gas induced coma had made him silent, or perhaps he had always been this quiet, he didn't know.
He stood next to the bed of a young boy with brown hair and a face that still carried baby fat. The boy slept on his side, blankets kicked off his feet, and one leg curled up underneath him. On the wall opposite the bed a sign hung that said 'Jason's Toys' and beneath it a trunk.
So this was Jason Welch.
Well met.
Matthew moved away from the window and to the side of the crib, looking down on the boy. He reached in and rubbed his hand through the child's disheveled hair, a smile growing across Matthew's face. He used to rub Hilman's hair the same way.
"You'll have a chance to meet him soon, Jason."
He walked from the room and down the hall; his footfalls sounding more like feathers falling than feet. The door to the room he wanted stood slightly opened and maybe that was God shining down on him, because Matthew wouldn't have stopped even if he had to turn the knob and open the door himself—possibly waking the inhabitant up with unnecessary noise. Matthew put the back of his hand on the door, pushed, and listened for a creak. He wouldn't run if so; he would only be more alert. He wouldn't run if the devil himself was inside the room with a smile and a hard-on.
The door swung open and no sound came.
Matthew Brand stood next to Joseph Welch and his beautiful wife.
He approached the bed with the same stillness as outer-space. This wasn't a boy below him, but a grown man. Did he remember life twenty years ago? Did he remember what the world seemed like under Clinton's presidency? Did he remember life when his father was accused of murder and then set free without even a reprimand? No. What this man knew of it he had read in newspapers or been told. Matthew Brand might even be a myth to him, someone who once existed but no longer did. Someone in a distant past who no longer mattered, who had done his damage and was now erased.
That's what no one understood. Not his ex-wife. Not the man on this bed. Not the politicians who had decided it would be best to freeze him like a piece of meat in case they ever needed to thaw him for his brain. They thought, somewhere in their heads—even if they wouldn't admit it—that Matthew Brand had been apprehended and his mind's reign was over. They thought that the world controlled him just as it did themselves. They thought man didn't bend the world, that the world bent man. That Matthew Brand had been tamed and his will finished.
They didn't understand and how could they? His will wasn't theirs. His mind wasn't theirs. They saw the world as it was and he saw it as it would be—a setback was not the same as being stopped.
; The boy he'd seen twelve years ago in a bed very similar to this one had grown up into a strong man. One with a family that probably loved each other. Let them love, then. For a few more days. Let them get all their love out into the world, or as much as they possibly could, because love—for them—would end very soon.
* * *
"Yeah, I wouldn't call it lying, Agent Moore. I would call it protecting my interests. One can't be too careful around cops today, if you hadn't gotten that memo."
"Yeah, well, I think a judge would call it lying and I think he might have some sanctions for someone obstructing justice."
"Oh, goodness. I keep forgetting how just you are, Agent Moore. I keep forgetting that you're on the side of the good guys, practically a knight—albeit a female knight—riding around on your white stallion prepared to protect the people. By the way, have you happened to find out where our friend, Mr. Brand, is hiding?"
"Your notes will be at the address you gave me?"
Jeffrey heard the woman's voice change. Good. He wanted it to change. She thought of herself as the shot-caller and everyone else here to take orders. She wasn't actually in charge of shit and at least part of her knew it. Matthew Brand controlled things right now and that was why she should shut up about obstruction of justice charges. She might be able to get him on it, but it would be a long fight and in the end Brand would have cut up a dozen people.
"I don't know, which address did I give you? My mind's fuzzy from the flight," Jeffrey smiled into the phone, wishing the bitch on the other side could see it.
"I assure you this isn't a joke, Mr. Dillan."
"And I assure you, Agent Moore, this whole investigation is going to be one of the biggest jokes in the history of law enforcement. You'll find my notes at the address. Now, my turn. What do you have for me?"
There was a pause on the other side of the phone. Jeffrey took a second to reorient himself, actually looking out the windows of the car instead of driving on auto-pilot. Palm trees and rain, which wasn't exactly what he wanted. His windshield wipers sent the water droplets flying off his car, but more replaced them immediately. Summer in Florida wasn't all glamour, despite popular conception. Afternoon showers all summer long and Jeffrey had driven right into one. It would make a good opening to the book. In a life intent on finding happiness, full of good times and noodle salad, rain had come again.