by Tom Secret
“Brad! Brad, don’t hang up! You need to come. I can explain everything. I won’t even have to explain because you’ll hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Just get yourself ready. I’m calling Lola now.”
73. THE HOT SEAT
Tuesday, 8:32 a.m.
Captain Colby’s jowls quivered as he paced back and forth across the narrow interview room. “Where were you at midnight last night, Donatello?”
“I already told you, I was home. Alone.”
“But you have no one to corroborate your statement.”
“How could anyone corroborate it if I was alone!”
Colby flashed a look at Carlson that Donatello couldn’t read.
“You say the last person who saw you, is a bar owner named Ronnie, but you don’t recall when you left.”
“Correct.”
“Well, we’ve spoken to this Ronnie, and he says you left at ten thirty p.m., giving you ample time to get to Castro’s house and murder him.”
“Are you out of your tiny fucking mind, Colby? You’ve got nothing on me, so you want to frame me for Castro?”
“I’ve got probable cause. Sergeant Carlson will testify you told him if Castro revisited you, you would, and I quote, ‘take care of him myself.’ Castro was putting pressure on you for unpaid taxes, and you were angry about it. That’s probable cause—motive and opportunity.”
“Absurd is what it is, Colby. You can’t pin this on me.”
“It’s Captain Colby! Tell me your whereabouts last Thursday between two and four p.m., and Friday between seven and nine p.m.?
“What! Walton and Black?” Donatello struggled to think, but his head was full of whiskey vapors. “I can’t remember. I guess I was at home until the calls came through to attend the crime scenes.”
Carlson weighed in. “How convenient! Three murders, no alibi, and plenty of motive.”
“Wind your neck in, Carlson. I never even met Black or Walton, so what motive have you dreamed up for why I’d murder them?”
“So, you admit you had motive to kill Castro.”
Donatello couldn’t control his sneer as he regarded the two douche bags. “I want my attorney, now!”
“We’re not done with you, Donatello,” Colby said.
“Oh, yes, you are!” Donatello rose from his seat.
Carlson stepped forward with clenched fists.
Donatello shook his head. “Really, Carlson? You gonna rough me up? No, wait till I cuff both my hands to the chair. Then I won’t get any grief when I send your taffy ass to the ER.”
The door opened, and Carlson and Colby’s faces sank in unison as Inspector Wilkes entered.
“Give me the room, Captain.”
“I’m in the middle of interrogating a suspect!”
“No, you’re not. You’re in the middle of harassing a fellow officer, and I watched you on the monitor deny him his right to counsel, so this interview is over. Give me the room. You, too, Carlson, get out of my sight!”
Colby shoved his finger an inch from Donatello’s nose. “This isn’t over! Capisce?”
The Inspector pushed Colby’s arm down. “It is, for now, Captain, and if I catch you doing that again, I’ll be backing Donatello’s harassment case against you.”
Colby glared at his superior, then pushed past Carlson as he stormed out of the room, and disappeared around the corner with Carlson in tow.
Wilkes closed the door, switched off the monitor, and sat down in Colby’s chair. “Want to tell me what’s going on, Don?”
Donatello counted to ten as he worked to unclench his face.
“Your blood’s up, so take your time.”
“You witnessed what they’re accusing me of, Inspector! Colby knows I’m onto him, and he’s trying to frame me for those murders. He’s the missing link that’s been staring me in the face all these years, and I’m convinced he’s up to his neck in this child-trafficking business.”
Wilkes seemed to consider his next words.
“Donatello, I got you back in to dig the dirt on Colby, not dig yourself into a murder wrap. Now, you’ve made a grave allegation, so I hope you have more than your legendary gut instinct to back it up.”
“When Lance and I were at the warehouse on Saturday, Colby saw all the cages but didn’t bat an eye! We’re certain he’d been there before.”
“You need to do a lot better than that.”
Donatello hung his head. “I know, but he’s in on it, sir.”
“Where were you last night when the IRS guy got murdered, Don?”
Donatello met Wilkes’s gaze. “I left Ronnie’s bar late, and went straight home.”
“Well, at least it explains why you smell like a distillery. Can you line up an alibi if you need one?”
“You mean, create one?”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that. Did you tell Carlson what you’d do if Castro came back?”
“You heard that as well, sir?”
“As I said, I saw their little performance, and it sounds like Colby has a shot at proving motive. At the very least, this is the chance he’s been waiting for to get you out of his hair permanently.”
“But he’s setting me up!”
“It won’t be the first time. Look, Don, I will bat for you one last time, so if there is anything I should know, now’s the time.”
“Sir, I’m getting close. Please, just keep Colby away from me a little longer until I can prove he’s involved.”
Donatello watched Wilkes study him. “I’ll get you forty-eight hours. After that, assume you’ll need that alibi—times three.”
74. HUMPTY DUMPTY
Tuesday, 8:50 a.m.
Silence hung in the air like a bad odor as Lola’s battered old pink VW Beetle crawled through the morning traffic.
“He said we shouldn’t bring the children.”
“I don’t care what your father says, and anyway, where was I supposed to put them? They sure aren’t in any condition to go back to school.”
Brad looked behind them. Lilly was studying the gingham feet of the stuffed bunny in her lap, while Jack sat like a statue, staring out the side window. He hadn’t said a word since he got in the car, and, come to think of it, he hadn’t said a word on Saturday, either. They had broken him, and no amount of therapy would put him back together.
Brad tried a different topic. “Was there enough food at the house?” Lola flashed him a withering look. Another taboo topic, apparently. “Next right,” he said.
Lola took the turn. “I’m stopping by the hospital on the way back, just so you know.”
Brad looked over his shoulder at Lilly and Jack. “Are they all right?”
“Not for them. It’s for me.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“No, or you won't tell me?”
“It’s personal—something I have to take care of.”
“You mean someone?”
Lola glared. “Daisy died in my arms because of her!”
Brad checked again to see if Lilly or Jack was listening over the roar of the old engine, but they seemed miles away. He’d wanted to tell Lola that the receptionist worked for Black, but had been afraid of what she might do. Now he was glad of his choice.
“It won’t bring her back.”
“She has to pay for what she did!”
“The children need you now more than ever.”
“That’s rich, considering what you’ve done.”
“And I’ve still got to pay for it.”
Lola ignored him and drove on in silence.
Fifteen minutes later, they had left the busy streets and picked their way along single-lane roads flanked by hoarfrost-covered banks and frozen stubble fields. Up ahead, where the asphalt road curved right, lay a rutted track flanked by ancient trees that formed a leafless canopy overhead as far as the eye could see.
“Keep going straight,” Brad said.
The suspension groaned as the wheels bounced in and out of
potholes, shaking them in their seats and pushing Brad’s pain beyond the meds’ capacity to suppress. An overgrown track appeared on the left. “There! Turn!”
Lola pulled a face that screamed objection, but she slowed and took the turn.
The canopy of twisted branches was thicker here, casting a ghostly half-light onto the woodland floor as they wended their way deeper and deeper into the woods. Brad peered among the ancient sentinels, wanting to see creatures abound, but knowing they had entered the resting place of the damned.
They rounded another bend, and the track grew lighter, then lighter still until the forest fell away and they pulled to a halt in front of a derelict timber-clad 1920s sawmill.
Brad climbed out and flipped the seat forward for Jack to follow. He spotted Marcus in the shadows of the building’s opening.
“You shouldn’t have brought the children, Brad.”
“Lola had no choice. Why are we here?”
“There’s someone I want you both to meet.”
“Who?”
“An old friend of yours.”
“I have no old friends.”
“That’s what you think. Follow me, Lola. Best to leave the kids in the car.” Marcus disappeared into the building.
Brad looked back at Lola, grim-faced, with her hands still clutching the steering wheel and the seat belt fastened across her front. Jack and Lilly hadn’t moved either, so he followed Marcus inside the familiar structure.
The first section of the mill was cavernous, with a vaulted timber roof. Flanking a central gangway were two giant storage bays, stacked with worm-eaten planks, waiting for a haulage truck that would never arrive.
The second room was even more massive and shared the same vaulted roof. Curved timber wind-brace rafters on either side were each as thick as a man and twenty feet long. No wonder this place was still standing.
The floor was hard-packed dirt and sawdust. Brad strode past the long benches, some with multiple sets of rusted metal rollers, with giant circular saws in the middle; others bearing great machines with openings at each end, and steel cogs for removing tree bark, lining the insides like giant shark’s teeth.
“Over here,” Marcus called.
Brad followed the sound and walked around one of the biggest log-stripping machines in the place, then stopped dead. Before him was a long, rusted industrial bench with fluorescent lights suspended above. Slumped next to one leg, with his bare arms behind his back, were the decomposing remains of Randall P. Cilcifus.
75. KROK AROUND THE CLOCK
Tuesday, 9:19 a.m.
Brad stood transfixed. The man he had almost pummeled on his front drive lay slumped against the steel table leg with his eyes closed, rocking his head, groaning, and gnashing his teeth.
The arms of the man’s jacket were cut away, exposing what should be skin but was now green and purple scaling with putrid, gaping holes. In the middle of the holes, yellowish bone glistened as his body twitched.
“What in the hell did you do to him, Dad?”
Marcus worked to prepare something on the metal bench.
“I’ve been giving him Krokodil every few hours since Sunday morning. It’s—”
“I know what it is! My question was why?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know, Son. Things I should have told you long ago.”
Brad shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t wanna hear it.”
“I couldn’t tell you, because I had nothing but questions. Until my sojourn with your old friend Cilcifus here.”
“Someone named Judge Seymour raped Jack, Dad!”
Marcus span around to face Brad. “Oh, sweet Jesus! That’s why he didn’t greet me… how… how is he?”
“How the hell do you think he is? He’s twelve, and he’s broken!”
“I’m sorry! I… I got so caught up hunting this one…”
“That’s it; you’re sorry? Jack’s life is destroyed, and that’s the best you’ve got?”
Marcus stood frozen, his mouth hanging open. Brad recognized the look in his eyes. It was one he knew all too well because he saw it every time he looked in the mirror.
“Son, I don’t… where did you find them?”
Brad understood now that they both were lost, and no amount of vitriol would save them. “Black told me Michaels had another warehouse on Dragon Street. I found Lilly and Jack in cages with over forty other children. They were pimping them out.” Brad’s tears trickled down and stung his mangled nose. “With Michaels filming it all before ship… why are you shaking your head?”
“Brad, please bring Lola in here. You both need to hear what this one and I have to tell you.”
Brad glanced between his father and Cilcifus. “She can’t leave Lilly and Jack on their own out there, and if they see this, they’ll have nightmares for the rest of their lives.”
“They’ll have those, anyway.”
“Well, I don’t want to make them any worse. Let’s go outside.”
They walked in silence through the building, out into the morning light and found Lola leaning against the car door, arms folded and ankles crossed. Lilly was orchestrating a conversation between Mopsey, the rabbit, and a devil’s coach horse beetle she had found under the fallen leaves, and Jack was in the backseat where they’d left him, staring into oblivion. Marcus stopped short between the warehouse and the pink VW, while Brad joined Lola beside the car.
She had a fiery look in her eye. “Why have you dragged us into the middle of nowhere, Marcus?”
“Because there’s someone inside who has something to say to you.”
“And I should give a damn because…?”
“He ordered the taking of your children and has been a thorn in your lives for a very long time.”
“What do you mean?”
“He needs to tell you himself. But I also have something you need to hear, and now I think Jack should hear it as well.”
Nudging Lola aside, Brad stuck his head through the drivers-side window. “Son, can you hear what we’re saying out here?”
Jack remained motionless.
Brad came back from the window, leaned against the car next to Lola, and folded his arms. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“All right. Remember how, before Daisy died, I disappeared without a word?”
“How could we forget?”
Marcus shot Brad a glare, then looked at the frozen ground. “I’ve never been completely honest with you, Son. Your mother and I had only dated a few times, but we were not an item, and I had taken precautions, so when she fell pregnant with you, I was stunned.”
“No one wants to hear this, Father!”
“But you need to. Anyway, I vowed to do the honorable thing but—”
“What’s this got to do with you disappearing?”
Marcus raised his hands. “Please, Brad. The problem was, I was in love with another woman, and her name was Vivienne.”
Brad let the silence of the woodland clearing overwhelm them, as the realization dawned that whatever he was about to hear, it no longer mattered. “Did you tell Mom?”
Marcus shook his head. “I didn’t want to hurt her, so I stood by her.”
“Stood in her way, more like it! She wanted to be with Black, remember?”
“How could I forget?”
“Mommy, look, I found a big worm.”
Lola gave Lilly a weak smile. “That’s nice, sweetheart. Just let it be, though, okay?” She jabbed the heel of her pink Nike into the ground. “Marcus, can’t we have this discussion somewhere warmer?”
“Please hear me out. Celia and I knew we wanted different things.” Marcus looked at Brad. “But for your sake, we stayed together, only living separate lives, which is part of the reason I was never around. Your mother saw Black when she could, and I saw Vivienne.”
“Dad, look, I appreciate you telling me this, but it’s history. Mom’s long gone, and the kids are getting cold.”
Marcus ignored him. “Fast forward, and y
ou had married Lola and were expecting Jack’s birth. Vivienne and I had tried to have children together for years, but by then we’d given up. She was forty-five; I was ten years older and looking forward to seeing my first grandson. But then she fell pregnant and gave birth to two beautiful twin girls, Isabella and Amberlee.”
“I have sisters?”
Marcus’s head dropped. “Just before Daisy died, they were abducted, and I chased all over Europe searching for them and the people who took them.”
Lola’s foot stopped jabbing. “Where are they now?”
Lilly trotted over with the worm wriggling between her fingers, and Mopsey dangling by her side.
“Lost. I went to the police but got sandbagged at every turn. I tried to obtain political intervention but got nowhere until I met a senator named William Clairman, who said something he couldn’t have known about my girls. So I pulled him off the street, questioned him with extreme prejudice, and worked my way through a long line of pedophiles and traffickers.
“Was he involved in their abduction?” Lola whispered.
Marcus shook his head. “Clairman was a customer, but he gave up others who were; only they swore they were taking orders from people they never saw, so I hit brick wall after brick wall. The last name I got was of a cop who knew the paymasters, but by then my girls had been missing for weeks, and I was beside myself with desperation, so rushed the interrogation.”
“What happened?” Lola whispered.
“Detective Jonah took what he knew to his grave.”
Brad’s mind was racing. “Wait a minute. You’re saying Cilcifus was the paymaster you couldn’t find six years ago?”
Marcus’s face was solemn, as he gave the faintest nod. “One of many. But he’s done far more.”
“How did you know he was involved?” Brad said.
“I didn’t, I’d given up hope until those men showed up at your house, and every bone told me there was a connection with my girls. Then you came home with the ledger that contained all their names.”
Tears streamed down Lola’s face. “What are you going to do now?”
Marcus looked from her to Brad, his face aged in the past few minutes. “Hunt down the bastards that took my girls and bring them home; but first, you need to hear what Cilcifus has been dying to tell you.”