While he didn’t look directly at the prosecuting attorney, a slightly plump young blond with long straight hair, Mac did see her, wondered why she hadn’t objected to this line of inquiry. Mac knew where it was going and couldn’t stop it.
“I’m still depressed,” said Mac.
“A man is accused of brutally murdering his wife,” said Tabler. “You didn’t choose to lose your wife, but you assumed going into the investigation that he had the choice?”
“We work on the evidence,” said Mac. “We go where it takes us.”
“And this time it took you to my client,” said Tabler. “Often evidence doesn’t lead. It follows, follows where you want it to take you. Is that right, Detective Taylor?”
“No,” Mac had answered firmly.
“You’ve made mistakes,” Tabler pushed.
“Yes,” said Mac. He wanted to add, “Haven’t you?” but decided not to.
The assistant prosecutor and Tabler made a last-minute plea bargain during the lunch break. Before the judge, the husband had admitted to having taken too many pills for a headache and going wild when his wife had asked him the same question she asked every morning: “One egg or two?”
He had gone into the kitchen and began beating his startled wife.
The plea bargain gave the murderer a minimum sentence of ten years. Mac felt that the settlement was partly due to his own testimony.
Now Mac said nothing, but opened the door and stepped through with Tabler behind him. Shelton and Jacob looked up.
Tabler smiled at the boy and said, “I’m your lawyer.”
Jacob nodded.
“Have you told them anything?” Tabler asked, taking the last chair in the room.
Mac stood against the wall behind Tabler, arms folded.
“He was advised not to say anything till you got here,” said Mac.
Tabler tried to turn his head to see Mac, but he couldn’t.
Mac went on, “We’d like the two of them to tell us again what happened on the night of the murder.”
Jacob pulled a folded sheet of yellow, lined paper from his back pocket and handed it to Tabler, who slowly and carefully read it. When he was finished, he handed the sheet back to Jacob.
“He’s already made a statement and signed it,” said Mac, moving now to sit next to the lawyer. “And it’s on tape.”
“Can’t be used in court,” said Tabler. “He did not have a lawyer present.”
“He volunteered,” said Mac.
Tabler was shaking his head.
“He’s twelve years old. No judge will accept it,” Tabler said. “However, I have no objection to reading my client’s account of the murder of his family.”
Shelton looked past Tabler at Mac, arms folded, sitting across from him. Their eyes met. Kyle Shelton looked away.
Jacob cleared his throat and in a shaking voice read the account he had signed. It was within a few words of being exactly what Jacob had said earlier. Essentially, Jacob recounted hearing noises and a scream. He ran into his sister’s room where he saw Kyle Shelton stab his sister and then his mother. Jacob was frozen in horror. Then his father, wearing briefs and a white T-shirt, came into the room and ran toward Shelton, who stabbed him many times. He knew he would get Jacob next. Jacob ran, got his bike and rode away, heading for the woods next to the road. He realized that he was covered with blood. He took off all his clothes and ran naked back to the house through the woods and through backyards. When he got back, Shelton’s car was gone. Jacob had gone to the murder scene, saw his family dead and with great difficulty put his mother and sister respectfully on the bed. His father was too big to lift or pull. Then Jacob had heard something—the downstairs door? Had Kyle Shelton come back for him? Jacob ran to his room and groped his familiar way to the closet and climbed up to his private place. He had stayed there for two nights. Then Mac had come with the dog.
“Shelton?” asked Mac.
“What the boy says is the way it happened,” he said.
“You have questions, I assume,” said Tabler.
“We’ve got lots of them,” said Mac. “I’ll start with Jacob.”
He moved from the wall, uncrossed his arms and moved toward the table. Jacob raised his right hand as if he were in school.
“Yes?” said Mac.
“How is Rufus? I’d like to see him again,” said the boy.
“Who is Rufus?” asked a confused Tabler.
“A dog,” said Jacob. “He found my private place.”
“I’ll see what I can do about you paying Rufus a visit,” Mac said.
Mac looked at Jacob and went on.
“I’m going to make some statements and then give you a chance to respond.”
“Response will depend on your questions,” said Tabler.
Mac nodded and asked his first question.
“Your father had a badly bruised bone in his right forearm. Medical examiner says it happened on the night of the murders. Any idea of how it was broken?”
Jacob shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”
“Your father was right-handed, right?”
“Yes,” said Jacob, looking at Mac as he had been told to do. He had been told not to look at Kyle.
“Would you take off your shoes and socks please?” asked Mac.
“Why?” asked Tabler.
Mac looked at Kyle, who knew exactly why Mac was asking.
“Your client claims to have gone barefoot and naked through the woods for a mile two days ago,” said Mac. “I have dated photographs that show the bottoms of his feet with no cuts, bumps or bruises.”
“I’d like to see those photographs,” said Tabler.
Mac handed the lawyer five eight-by-ten photos of the bottoms of the boy’s feet.
“For the record, I’ll ask again that your client take off his shoes and socks.”
Tabler put down the photos and nodded to the boy to do what he was being asked. When he finished taking off his socks and shoes, Jacob lifted one foot at a time. Tabler and Mac looked. Kyle stared at the wall.
“Your client didn’t walk home,” said Mac. “He never left his house. Mr. Shelton set up the evidence in the woods to make it look as if Jacob had taken his bike, pedaled down the road, went to the clearing, and left his damaged bike and his clothes there where we could find them.”
“How can you conclude that?” asked Tabler.
“From the evidence, particularly a leaf from a linden tree and a crushed caterpillar found in Jacob’s room,” said Mac, looking at Shelton. “The tree and the caterpillar came from the area where Jacob’s bike and clothes were found. We can get leaves from those trees and determine which one the leaf I picked up came from. Since Jacob never left home, the most likely person to have stepped on the leaf is Kyle Shelton. Your turn to take off your shoes, Kyle.”
The game was almost over.
“We’ll test them for traces of blood from the victims and the dead caterpillar,” Mac continued. “If we find traces of the caterpillar, we can match it to the dead one I found on the leaf.”
Kyle took off his shoes and handed them to Mac, who placed them on the table.
“Kyle, you want a lawyer now?” asked Mac.
“I suggest you do that,” said Tabler.
Kyle shook his head “no.”
“Then we go on,” said Mac. “We got some of your clothes and did a spectrographic collection of your scent and Jacob’s. I got a department dog that specializes in human scent, and let him take his time. Your scent was all over the clearing in the woods. There wasn’t the slightest trace of Jacob’s scent except on the clothing you left. Then I took the dog to check the Vorhees house. Your scent showed up in the upstairs hallway, on the stairway, in the kitchen, in Becky Vorhees’ room and in Jacob’s room, but not all over the room, just on a straight line to the closet. You want to tell me why you were in Jacob’s room?”
“No,” said Kyle, glancing at Jacob and touching the boy’s shoulder.
“Okay,
” said Mac. “I will. Rufus confirmed what I thought. You helped Jacob hide. Why?”
“I was afraid,” said Jacob, shaking.
“Jacob,” Tabler warned.
“That the police would say I murdered my family,” said the boy.
“No,” said Mac. “I think Kyle had a plan, not a very good one, too complicated, too many places to find holes full of evidence, too little time to take care of all the holes.”
“Detective,” Tabler said, looking at Jacob. “My client is through answering questions.”
“We checked your father’s background,” said Mac. “Found out why you’ve moved so much.”
“No more questions,” said Tabler.
“I didn’t ask a question,” said Mac. “I made a statement of fact. The next one is even more important.” Mac pulled a photograph of the vase from the box and held it up. Jacob began to cry. Shelton put an arm around him.
“There was a bruise on your father’s arm,” said Mac. “His right arm. It was sufficient to make him drop whatever he was holding and shatter the vase that he was hit with. Your father was the one with the knife. When you came into your sister’s bedroom, she and your mother had already been killed by your father. You grabbed the vase, hit him, took the knife when he dropped it and stabbed him.”
Tabler rose and said, “We’re leaving.”
“No,” said Jacob. “We told you what happened.”
“The knife wounds on your mother and sister were all approximately the same depth, made by someone considerably stronger than you. The ones on your mother and sister were straight in. The wounds on your father weren’t deep and were at an upward angle. They were made by someone much smaller than he was.”
“It was me,” said Kyle.
“You didn’t kill anyone,” said Mac.
“I killed many,” Kyle said.
“In Iraq,” Mac said.
“He’s had enough,” said Kyle, looking at Jacob, who had taken off his glasses, placed them on the table and leaned against him, his eyes closed and sobbing.
Mac nodded and said to the lawyer, “You should take him in the other room now. A detective will show you where you can have some privacy with your client.”
“My client…” Tabler began, suddenly sorry that he was involved in this whole mess.
“…didn’t commit any crime except not coming forward as a witness to murder,” said Mac. “He killed his father in self-defense. I doubt if a family court judge will do anything but order that he get therapy. I’ll recommend it.”
“Come with me,” Tabler said to Jacob.
The boy continued to cling to Shelton, who handed the boy his glasses and gently urged him out of his chair and toward the lawyer. Jacob put on his glasses and let Tabler guide him out of the room.
“Howard Vorhees came to his daughter’s room with a kitchen knife,” said Mac. “He came for a sexual attack, threatened her with death. She fought, screamed. He killed her. Jacob heard the noise, ran in just behind his mother. Howard Vorhees killed his wife. That’s when Jacob picked up the vase, hit his father’s arm, dropped the vase, picked up the knife and stabbed his father.”
“How…?”
“Reconstruction from the evidence,” said Mac. “That’s about when you came through the door, right?”
“Right,” he said.
“Wrong,” said Mac. “What were you doing there at the exact time of a triple murder in the middle of the night?”
“I was going to be with Becky,” he said. “She was expecting me. She left the front door open.”
Mac shook his head “no.”
“There was a call from Becky’s cell phone to yours after two-fifteen.”
“She called to ask if I was on the way,” he said.
“She was dead, Kyle. Jacob called you and you came to the house and moved the bodies. It took you about half an hour to get there. The trail of blood from the floor to the bed would have shown more blood if Becky and her mother were moved shortly after they were killed.”
“Jacob called me,” admitted Shelton. “When I got there, he was covered with blood. So was the knife in his hand. He was just standing there looking down at his dead mother. He wasn’t concerned with being accused of murdering his family. He was afraid of the world finding out the horror in that house. Better an intruder than the truth. I knew the intruder story wouldn’t work. Too much evidence. I sent Jacob to his room and put the bodies on the bed.”
“Why?” asked Mac, though he thought he knew the answer.
“It was the right thing to do,” Shelton finally said. “Lay out the respected and loved dead and leave a dead dog at their feet.”
“Then?” Mac prompted.
“Then I helped Jacob hide, put his bike and clothes in my car, found that wooded area and scattered it all in the clearing.”
“You knew we’d find them,” said Mac.
“I wanted them found. They were. Without Becky I was going back to a life of grief and despair, a life I had brought home inside me from Iraq. I could live in grief, growing old in low-pay jobs, or I could do it in prison for life and possibly save Jacob. It was worth a try.”
“Did you know the leaf was on your shoe?”
Kyle didn’t answer.
“You wanted us to find him in the house,” said Mac. “But you didn’t want to tell us directly and have Jacob think you’d betrayed him. So, you called me, left clues that got more and more simple. The quote you attributed to Anne Frank was obviously not by Anne Frank. You were telling me to look for a child hiding in the house.
“You’re guilty of helping to conceal a crime,” said Mac. “Considering the crime and why you did it and the fact that you have no record, my guess would be suspended sentence. That’s what we’ll ask the court for.”
“You think they’d let me take care of Jacob?” Kyle asked.
“Stranger things have happened,” said Mac, but he didn’t believe Kyle getting custody of Jacob would be one of them.
“ ‘Nobody should pin their hopes on a miracle,’ ” said Kyle.
“Who said that? Voltaire?” asked Mac.
“Vladimir Putin,” answered Kyle.
13
“WE’RE ALMOST BECOMING FAMILY,” said Bloom, opening the door to his shop with a look of resignation. “You have a warrant, I assume?”
Stella, Flack and a backup uniformed officer, who looked as if he could be a National Football League lineman, stood in the doorway.
“We’re not here to search,” said Flack.
Bloom said nothing and waited for them to make their move. Bloom was wearing a pair of neatly pressed navy trousers and a white shirt, also neatly pressed. The clothes did nothing to hide his paunch. He continued to look at them over the rimless lenses of his glasses. Stella thought he looked like anyone’s second-favorite uncle.
There was a smell of fresh coffee mingling with the pleasant smell of wood.
“We’d like to talk,” said Flack. “Will you please come with us?”
“Can we talk here?” asked Bloom. “I’ve got coffee brewing.”
“We’d like you to come with us,” Flack said.
The big uniformed cop shifted his weight, ready to move.
“My attorney has said I should cooperate with you no more,” said Bloom. “You’ll have to arrest me.”
“Sure,” said Stella. “You’re under arrest for the murders of Asher Glick and Joel Besser.”
Bloom shrugged and started forward toward the door.
“Stop,” said Stella.
Bloom stopped. Flack’s gun was out now. He motioned for the big cop to move forward and pat down Bloom as Flack began to issue the Miranda warning. The cop, whose name was Rossi, was taller than Bloom, easily six foot four. He had been a college wrestler at Rutgers and had tried out for the Steelers, who decided Rossi was just too slow.
“Clean,” said Rossi, standing up and taking out his cuffs.
Slump-shouldered Bloom put his hands behind his back. He heard the
metal jangle of the handcuffs and made his move. He turned and leveled a sudden sharp chop to Rossi’s throat. The big cop went down on his knees, gasping for air, still grasping the handcuffs in his right hand.
Flack stood ready to shoot if the suspect attacked him. The problem was that Bloom had no weapon and Bloom, when he wanted to, could look like a harmless middle-aged man with a paunch and poor eyesight. Shooting unarmed suspects or perpetrators was forbidden except under unusual circumstances. This certainly appeared to be an unusual circumstance.
Flack’s hesitation of less than a second would have meant nothing with most people he arrested. Bloom moved with surprising speed, throwing his full weight into Flack, who staggered backward and dropped his gun.
The only one between Bloom and escape was Stella, who stood in the doorway with no expression. She was unarmed.
Bloom had packed a single medium-sized duffle bag, which lay on his bed upstairs. He had taken little time to pack. The delay had been caused by the bureaucracy of the bank. He had called to tell them that he wished to withdraw all of his money, that he would be there within an hour. When he arrived at the bank, the clerk directed him to an assistant bank manager who looked more like a well-dressed young movie star. The assistant manager had assured Bloom that they were almost finished putting together the cash. Over an hour later, Bloom had left the bank with a thickly packed zippered tote bag. The bag was in the trunk of an Al-tima he had stolen no more than twenty minutes before Stella, Flack and Rossi had appeared at his door. The car was parked in a three-story lot within sight of Bloom’s shop.
Now he had to improvise. He had been taught to improvise and over the years had added many improvements on what he had been taught decades ago.
Bloom moved quickly toward Stella. Behind him Rossi’s gasps for air sounded like the wheezing of a person in the final throes of emphysema. Flack got to his knees, looked around for his gun and saw it in the left hand of Arvin Bloom.
Kills with his left, writes and eats with his right, thought Stella.
Flack started to stand on shaking legs. Bloom heard the detective over the gasps of the officer on the floor. Bloom turned the gun toward Flack, who started to reach for the backup gun taped to his ankle. Bloom knew just what Flack was doing.
Blood on the Sun (CSI: NY) Page 18