Dark Web

by T. J. Brearton

  “Ah God,” Swift muttered.

  “What?”

  “Someone in the bar just made themselves happy by calling the press.”

  “You’re at a bar?”

  “Frank Duso. Fuck. That’s what he was waiting for.”

  “Swift, you’re at a . . . Duso? Lenny Duso’s son?”

  “Yeah. I gotta go.”

  Swift hung up and slipped his cellphone in his pocket. Then he dropped the beer bottle behind him in the snow. He started walking up towards the van as a reporter who couldn’t have been two years out of college, trailed by a fumbling cameraman, scrambled to get their shit together. Swift thought he recognized her — had she been at the McAfferty scene the day before? She was cute, with a big nose that was somehow sensual.

  He could jump in his car and probably be out of there by the time the news team got their thumbs out, but it would only stir up more controversy. So he smiled at them as he approached, and prepared a short, generic statement for them in his head.

  As he passed by one of the windows in front of Knotty, he turned to look inside. Frank was there at the bar. He looked at Swift through the window, smiled, and raised his glass.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Hey, Mike?

  How many times had he heard that voice and been irritated, because it interrupted, was inconvenient, and he resented having to be patient with the boy? What would he give now to hear those words spoken again in Braxton’s voice, that beckoning, that question?

  Hey, Mike?

  He could almost hear the words said out loud. And wasn’t that what had stirred him from the brink of sleep?

  Mike turned his head, reached over to the end table and fumbled to pick up his phone. He looked at the face. 2:33 a.m.

  At first he thought he’d woken up because he’d imagined this voice, because his sleep was fitful, but when he looked at his phone he saw that he’d received a text message. He grabbed the phone and put it in front of his face. Callie was in the girls’ room once again, so he had the bed to himself. His fingers poked at the screen and the message came up.

  Check out the cop, it said, and a YouTube link followed.

  The message was from a number Mike didn’t have programmed into his phone, but he recognized the prefix — 917. It was a New York City cell phone. Bull Camoine didn’t have a cell phone, but he might have gotten one of the pre-paid versions.

  Mike clicked on the link and watched with a growing sense of unease as the YouTube page opened. The video had already garnered over a few hundred hits. It had been posted only a couple of hours earlier, by NewsNinja. With some trepidation, Mike pressed the play button.

  A bright young reporter, all of twenty-five, maybe, stood before the camera with a kind of wound-up energy. Mike recognized her right away as the woman who had been in his driveway the evening before. Behind her was a vaguely familiar building. “We’re here at The Knotty Pine, where an anonymous tip-off informed us we could find the lead detective on the New Brighton case of a murdered thirteen-year-old boy.”

  Mike’s stomach knotted at the mention of his son. Despite their efforts to stymie the press, the death had been reported dozens of times over the past couple of days, maybe more, on the evening and morning regional news, perhaps as far down as Albany, over in Burlington. A homicide in the boonies of rural, upstate New York was still a big deal. Of course the media was still talking about it, and surely by now the prosecutor’s office — Mike thought the DA’s name was Cobleskill, and the ADA, a young hotshot named Mathis — would have issued their statement, along with the Captain and Lieutenant of the State Police. Mike and Callie had tried to ignore it all, but it just kept coming.

  As he watched the video he could see Detective John Swift walk over. The camera work was a little shaky, but Mike could see a smile spread across Swift’s face.

  Only the smile did not seem friendly, and the knot in Mike’s stomach tightened.

  “Detective Swift,” said the reporter. Mike thought he heard a slight tremulousness in her voice. There she was, a little slip of a thing, fresh out of the local SUNY journalism program, dressed in a smart pantsuit and a jacket with a puffy, furry hood surrounding her coiffed coils of blonde hair, standing out in the middle of nowhere at dusk. Mike recognized the place now; it was the bar on the far edge of town. Rumor had it that the local cops spent as much time there dealing with domestic disturbances as they did doing pick-up orders for the local mental health clinic. It made sense. The bar was just a way to get a different type of medication. But what the hell was Swift doing there? Maybe he was off-shift. As far as Mike knew, there were no other detectives on the case. Swift had a support team — at least a handful of others doing administrative tasks for him, Mike guessed — but he was pretty sure that Swift carried the investigation.

  “Detective,” the blonde reporter said again. “What can you tell us about the status of the investigation into the recent murder in New Brighton and the possibility that it’s related to the meth lab explosion in South Plattsburgh?”

  Maybe there was a bit of glassiness to Swift’s eyes. How many beers had the guy had?

  Check out the cop, the text message had said.

  Swift spoke. “You know I can’t comment on that. We’re doing everything we can to follow each and every lead, to exhaust all possibilities.”

  There was a moment of silence — hesitation, Mike guessed, on the part of the reporter, before she said, “With all due respect, Detective; at a bar?” The cameraman, as if on cue, swung the camera to the right to show the ramshackle establishment. There were several patrons looking out the window. One in particular, wearing a trucker cap over black hair, stood out. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Then the camera quickly swung back to face Swift.

  “Yes,” said Swift flatly, with that fake smile still on his lips. “I’ve stopped at a bar.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Mike muttered. What the hell was this?

  The reporter seemed to grow bolder, though Mike still heard the quiver in her voice. “Is this the first time you’ve stopped for a drink while on active duty, during an active investigation?”

  Swift scowled then. “It’s because this is an active investigation that I can’t comment. Thank you, now if you’ll . . .”

  “Detective, I smell alcohol on your breath.”

  Mike felt his muscles contract as Swift fixed her with a dark look. Even through the slightly pixelated video on his phone, Mike could see the menace in the aging detective’s eyes.

  Shit. Thought Mike. He didn’t have any reason to worry for Swift or his career, but this was the investigator on his son’s murder case. And Mike had thought Swift was on the ball. Seasoned and capable of getting the job done. Why was he letting some punk reporter get to him?

  “Is drinking part of an active investigation for you, detective?”

  Ooof. Mike reeled from that one. This was like watching some terrible prank unfold, one where the victim doesn’t know they’re being tricked. It was uncomfortable to witness.

  “No, this is not a part,” said Swift, simmering. “It’s none of your business. Good night.”

  Swift started to turn.

  “Do you have a drinking problem, detective Swift?”

  He had almost gotten his back to the camera, and now he stopped cold. He slowly turned back around.

  The reporter, incredibly, pressed further. “Is that why you were divorced several years ago?”

  “What did you say?”

  Mike cringed, yet, watching this, he was somehow galvanized, ready to get up, to get out there and solve this terrible mess on his own. Just like Bull Camoine suggested he do.

  “And your case last year. There was some attention about the manner in which you handled your suspect? A man who pressed charges for police harassment and aggravated assault, which your department was able to sidestep. Is that accurate?”

  Swift had completely turned now, and loomed in front of the camera. His expression had become a mask of contempt. “I’m
not going to discuss that. You need to get back in your van now, miss, and take it back to campus. This is not reporting. This is sensationalizing. You should strive for better.”

  Swift turned around to walk away again.

  “What do you think the parents feel about this? The lead detective investigating the murder of their only son is at a bar. A divorced bachelor with a history of violent behavior and questionable stability. How do you think they feel knowing that their son’s justice is in your hands?”

  Oh no, Mike thought. While he was pretty sure the young reporter with the blonde curls and hawkish nose didn’t give a shit in the begonias about how “the parents” felt, after her display in his own driveway, the question was still an indictment. Mike glanced down at the timeline on the YouTube video and saw there were only seconds left. He sensed what was coming.

  Swift took a few great strides towards the camera. The image jostled as he wrested the device from the cameraman’s grip. And for just a couple of seconds, the video footage took to the sky. A shaking aerial shot showed, for an instant, the bar, the parking lot, the van, and two people standing and looking up while a third was walking away — Swift had taken the camera and chucked it into the air.

  A moment later, the screen went black. End of video.

  PART FOUR

  IN THE POCKET

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  “This is insane,” bellowed Captain Tuggey. “You want me to be that guy, Swifty? You want me to be the guy who’s got to discipline you now? Suspend you? Fire you? Is that what you want?”

  They were in the Captain’s living room. It was after ten, but Tuggey was a night owl. His wife was asleep in the other room — or, more likely, pretending to be asleep and listening in. Their three children had all left the nest. Tuggey had a nice home he had built with his two sons a decade before, with cedar beams and a south-facing bank of solar windows. He wore white tube socks and a pair of grey sweatpants. His large, married belly was spanned with a polyester athletic shirt, unzipped down to the sternum.

  “John, you’ve got an opportunity to get out of here, to go work for the Attorney General — you’re letting your emotions get to you. You’ve been good, Swift, you’ve been real good, you’ve run a clean game for years since your last troubles with this kind of shit. Now this thing with the Duso kid is a mess. Was I wrong, Swift? Did you lose it with this kid? Okay, I don’t want to know; he was never going to get far with that suit and he knew it, even if he’s not the wooliest sheep on the hill. That was more Warren Eggleston’s play to get a little TV time like his big brother Tom. But now this . . . this thing with the reporter, John . . . talk to me . . .”

  “She was coached,” Swift said quietly.

  “She was coached? By whom? Where did she come up with that information on you?”

  Swift was standing inside the door, still in his boots. Tuggey had lit into him the moment he’d stepped into the house. The Captain made no move to offer him hospitality beyond the entryway.

  “I could see it in her face,” Swift said. “What she was saying was rehearsed. Somebody fed her personal information about me.”

  “That’s usually how it works. Who? Duso?”

  “Maybe.”

  “He’s not bright enough for something like that.”

  Swift said nothing.

  “But you think he was the one who tipped the reporter.”

  “Yeah.”

  Tuggey put his hands on his hips and sighed. He looked around the room, chasing the floor trim with his eyes, a builder’s habit. He probably always saw something that needed improvement, was always judging his own work. The room smelled of the balsawood flooring they’d freshly installed in the dining area, and the pine-scented candles Tuggey’s wife liked to burn. There was, however, a lingering fart smell underneath all of these olfactory notes, as if Swift’s situation had upset Tuggey’s stomach. Or, possibly, the dog’s — Like Swift, the Tuggeys also had a pooch, theirs a shiny brown chocolate lab, the kind you saw in a calendar-with-a-dog-each-month, perfectly groomed, with teeth-cleaning biscuits and spotless feeding bowls.

  “But maybe Robert Darring had something to do with it, too.”

  “Darring? What in the hell does this have to do with Darring?”

  “Frank Duso called me down to the Knotty, Cap. Said he had something for me on the Simpkins case.”

  Tuggey was wide-eyed now, grandstanding forgotten. He looked oddly childlike, still poised for a sermon, but his eyes wide, his arms limp at his sides. “He what?”

  “I’m not saying Darring knew Frank would be in lock up. I think Darring even screwed up a little, saying stuff to him about working with others. But they also talked about me. And Frank probably told Darring what he knew about me — whatever Warren Eggleston filled his head with when they were pursuing that claim of excessive force. Frank took the opportunity to call me up. And he also called up the reporters.”

  Captain Tuggey’s arms lowered. “Shit,” he said. “Shit.”

  “I know.”

  “Why’d you react like that, Swifty? Are you drunk? I can smell the liquor on you. You know, you made that crack about the ‘sacramental wine’ the other night, I didn’t think . . .”

  “Oh come on. Please. You can’t smell anything, Captain. You’ve tipped three or four yourself. I had one. One beer, Cap. Frank bought it. I just . . . I wasn’t thinking; I took it outside when I called Mathis.”

  Tuggey had his large mouth open like he was going to protest, but then he closed it.

  “She was coached,” Swift repeated. “Darring and Frank talked to each other, and Frank played the hand. Frank even called the reporter ahead of time. That’s the part Darring probably helped him with. Planning. Getting the timing right. Because Plattsburgh’s half an hour away.”

  Swift turned his head and looked away. Something shook loose in the back of his mind, as though a pile of thoughts had settled and then been disturbed. A half an hour to Plattsburgh, he thought. From Knotty’s, yes. From the center of New Brighton, maybe forty minutes.

  Swift glanced down at the ground for a moment and then back up at the Captain. “I’m sorry, Tug. I screwed up.”

  Tuggey’s mouth turned down in a kind of aww-shucks frown. His bluster and anger had passed. “Well, we’ll take care of it, Swifty.” His voice suggested it was time to leave — that they would deal with this more fully in the morning. The wheels were set in motion now. There would be an internal investigation, probably a mandatory psych visit; the works.

  “Alright,” said Swift.

  He turned and opened the door and walked back out into the night.

  “Go home, get some sleep,” Tuggey called from the doorway.

  Swift raised a hand as he walked away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  “Mike, I checked your phone.”

  It was the middle of the night. Callie had been in the bed in Hannah’s room and now she crept into the bedroom she shared with Mike. She was standing just inside the doorway. Mike had been lying awake. He sat up and struggled to see her in the dark.

  “What?”

  “You’ve called New York. And you’ve got text messages. ‘Check out the cop.’ What does that mean, Mike?”

  “You’ve been checking my phone?”

  “Who are you calling?”

  Mike sat up further, feeling adrenaline spilling into his veins. “What do you mean you’ve been checking my phone? Callie, listen to me . . .” He swung his legs out of the bed and got up. He walked around the bed to the doorway and stopped in front of her. He could see her only a little bit better. Her eyes were shining in the gloom.

  “You’re talking to Bull? Is that who? What are you doing?”

  “Honey, the cop, Swift, he . . .”

  “I don’t care about the cop.” Although she was whispering, her words were still harsh. “I care about my girls. I care about my son, my sanity.” She paused. It was so silent Mike thought he could hear their hearts beating. “I care about you,�
� she said finally.

  “And I care about you.” He reached for her, touching her hand, but she withdrew.

  “I want to take the girls and leave. Go back to Florida.”

  He was unable to speak for a moment. Florida? Was this a dream? She was waiting for his response. Finally he managed the words. “Callie, that makes no sense . . .”

  “I can’t take it. I can’t take it anymore. The cops, the press, not knowing what’s going on with you, what’s going on with Brax . . . I can’t take the looks from people. Like you said, we don’t have anybody here . . .”

  He wanted to tell Callie about the video the previous night, but seeing the lead investigator on their son’s case acting like a loose cannon in some cop show would only add one more reason for her to go. He wanted to tell her that help was a phone call away, but she would never go for it. Not now. Not after he’d kept things from her. Especially his past.

  “Callie. You’ve got to hear me out. When we met, you needed someone stable. I knew I could be that guy. I was that guy. I’m nothing like him, okay? Okay, Cal? Nothing. But I knew, I just knew, that if you knew about some of the things in my past, when I was just a kid — nothing more than a kid, Callie, but all the same — I knew I would lose you. Before I even had a chance.” He looked at her in the dark, trying to read her face. From what he could make out, she wore her determined look. “Time went by,” he said. “And some things just never made it into the conversation. They never needed to.” He could feel his words failing to make their intended impact.

  “We’re going to go stay with your father for a little while,” she said. “The condo never sold. It’s still half-furnished. It’s still ours.” She was talking about their place in Stuart, in Turtle Bay.

  “There are renters.”

  “Until the end of the month. Then we can move back in.”

  “Callie . . .” He stopped and rubbed his face with his hands. His wife had always been strong-willed. Defiant. But they used to talk, work things out. They had been a team. It felt like all that was fading.