Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  “Worse than that.”

  “Right. But we have to protect Mom. You have to protect Mom. Dad can’t do it ‘cause he’s dead, and I can’t ‘cause I’ll be there soon. It’s up to you to handle it, Danny. Will you?”

  Danny closed his eyes.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Look me in the eye and promise,” Earl said.

  “I’ll handle everything,” Danny said, staring. “I give you my word.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Earl said. “I’m gonna make a little show for the copper. He’s gonna report this visit to the detective bureau, and I want it our way. Now c’mere.”

  Danny stood, leaned over.

  Earl patted his cheek with deep affection.

  Then punched it, hard.

  “You want nothing to do with me?” Earl roared as Danny stumbled back. “Fine! Who the hell needs ya? You’re dead to me now, Danny! Dead! Get out of my room, you traitor!”

  “You’re the traitor, Earl, killing those poor officers!” Danny shouted back. “You’re a disgrace to our family! Man like you isn’t any brother of mine!”

  “Get out!” Earl bellowed, jangling both cuffs. “Before I break these apart and throw you through the goddamn window!”

  The cop chuckled.

  Danny walked away.

  Dying inside.

  Sunday

  4:01 a.m.

  Emily slipped into a Black Sabbath T-shirt.

  “Uhn,” she heard Marty say.

  “Go to sleep,” she whispered. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “What time is it?”

  She checked her glow-watch. “Four-oh . . . man!” She cringed at the tree limb scraping the window like Goliath’s toenail. Between work and her ongoing home reconstruction, she kept forgetting to call the tree company. The limb was too thick - and too high off the ground - to prune herself, and she didn’t want Marty climbing around with a chainsaw.

  “In the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  Another groan. “You don’t run till five.”

  “I know,” Emily said, double-knotting her Nikes. She was too keyed up to sleep. Two days had passed without finding a viable suspect. Or even a decent clue - if Bloch knew more about Zabrina Reynolds and her family, he wasn’t saying. “Between the homicides and the execution, I’ve got a lot of energy to burn off-”

  Click.

  Marty looked like a sleepy walrus next to the bedside lamp. “Guess I’ll get up, too,” he said.

  “You want to run with me?”

  He made a face, as she knew he would. Marty derided running as a “perfectly good waste of heartbeats.” His exercise was weight lifting.

  Along with what they’d done for two heart-pumping hours before falling asleep.

  “What are you going to do while I’m gone?” she said, smiling at the memory.

  “Get us one step closer to done,” he said.

  She nodded. The land beneath their feet once held the two-story log home her late husband, Kinley Jack Child, built as his wedding present to her. Two years ago, it was wrecked by the serial killer who’d laid waste to the city. Unable to coexist with those ghosts, she had the house - no longer “home” - leveled and removed.

  Marty talked her out of selling the land.

  “Jack chose this spot for one reason,” he said of the sloped, wooded lot that overlooked the DuPage River and Naperville Riverwalk. “Because you’d adore it.”

  “I do,” she’d admitted.

  “So let’s rebuild.”

  “You and me?”

  “With our own four hands. As a testament to Jack’s vision, and to dance on that other bastard’s grave. Living well is the best revenge, right?”

  “But build a house?” she asked. “Can we do that?”

  “Baby,” he’d replied, enveloping her in his arms. “We can do anything.”

  The more she thought about it, the more she agreed.

  A builder handled the foundation, exterior, and utilities. She and Marty tackled the interior, from floors to fixtures. Marty asked her to move into his house for the several years the project would take, but she didn’t want to jinx their love with too rapid twenty-four-seven.

  He stayed over most nights, though - his beloved beagles passed last fall from a fast-moving virus, leaving his own walls full of gloom. Together, they turned the bare bones into a home. Every tile, light, and gallon of paint were glued, screwed, and brushed on by themselves. As soon as she could flush her toilets and run the AC, she bought a king-size bed - they barely fit in a queen, let alone a double - and moved in.

  When they were finished, she intended to ask Marty to unpack for good. She was ready to commit till death did they part.

  “Want your ice cream?” Marty asked as they trundled down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  “Just one spoon,” she said about her pre-run meal. “I’ve had way too much sugar this week.”

  He walked to the freezer, pulled out French vanilla. Her standard pre-run meal choice.

  “I’ll take peach today,” she said.

  “Ooh,” he said, spooning it into her mouth.

  “I’m trying.”

  His nod said he understood.

  “Love you,” she said as she headed out the back door. Down her backyard hill, three miles out, three miles back, three cups of French roast, and a shower.

  Maybe a spot more “exercise” if time permitted.

  “Back at ya,” he said, hefting a carton of floor tiles and heading for the powder room.

  9:00 a.m.

  “Chief?” the patrolman gasped as he two-stepped away from the tide that covered half the floor. “I think . . . I’m . . . gonna . . .”

  “Not in the crime scene,” Holbrook Chief of Police Gene Mason said, gently escorting the youngster outside. He took advantage himself, breathing in the sun-washed air. The blood didn’t bother him - he’d seen worse at highway wrecks - but the jack-o’-lantern throat sure did.

  “Scare up any witnesses?” he asked, stepping inside.

  “None,” his lead detective said as he mapped the scene. “We canvassed twice. Except for the barbershop, all the businesses were closed by seven. And since it’s so damn hot . . .”

  “Everyone was indoors, AC blasting. Yeah, I get it.” Mason had grown up in Arizona, but August heat still kicked his butt.

  He pointed toward the service station at the end of the block. “They’re open till midnight. Maybe the killer was dumb enough to buy gas.”

  “Forty-seven customers between six and closing, Chief,” the patrolman squeaked from the doorway. Green, but game, Mason noted. Good for him. “All locals.”

  “You know that how?”

  “The manager came down to see what was going on. I asked if he had any strange customers last night.”

  Mason nodded. Young Frank’s parents were in Reno, enjoying their second honeymoon. His wife was in Little Rock, visiting her folks. His grandfather, who founded this shop in 1973, drove down at eight to start the day shift. He heard rap music through the door. Concerned because his grandson never left anything turned on, he peered through a crack in the blinds.

  He screamed, and fainted. A passerby called nine-one-one.

  The patrolman arrived with the ambulance. He saw a familiar leg through the crack, drew his gun, kicked the door.

  “All locals?” Mason asked. “Manager’s sure?”

  “Yes, sir. I told him to write down the names before he forgot.”

  “Good work,” Mason said.

  He looked at Frank and suppressed a shudder. This was bad business. With no witnesses, maybe unsolvable. He couldn’t have that. He liked the Mahoneys. And unsolved murders hurt the tourist trade.

  “Go confirm everyone’s whereabouts last night,” he told the patrolman. “Get Billy, RJ, and Mike to help you. Then scoot out to the interstate and visit the truck stops. Copy the register receipts and security tapes.”

  “You think a big-rig did it?” th
e detective said. Holbrook, at the intersection of Interstate 40, several major highways, and old Route 66, got a lot of truck traffic.

  “Doubt it,” Mason said. “Most of those boys are on satellite tracker. They stop more than a few minutes, home office gets on the horn and raises hell. I’m hoping somebody cut them off, and they noted the license plates.” He doubted that, too, but still needed to check. “What time did you say Frank died?”

  “Nine last night,” answered the Navajo County medical examiner. “Give or take. They kept this place like an icebox, which slows body cooling.”

  “You factor that in?”

  “Sure.”

  “Nine it is, then,” Mason said. He swung back to the detective. “You hit motels and campgrounds. Get the records of anyone staying last night. In fact, go back a couple weeks. Could be a tourist did this.”

  “Grand Canyon’s too tame so let’s whack a barber?”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  The medical examiner said he was done with the television. Mason walked around the edge of the room, careful to step only in cleared areas. He picked up the remote control and hit the power button.

  “Wow. I can hear myself think,” the examiner said.

  “Thought I smelled something burning,” Mason said, sniffing theatrically.

  “Frank woulda said something like that, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Mason said. “I know.”

  The examiner looked wistful a moment, then bent to his task. Mason put the remote back atop the TV. It slipped off the hard plastic and clattered under the stand.

  Mason grumbled and dropped to his knees. His bursitis flared. He ignored it. He spotted the remote near the back, slid it out.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “What?” the examiner said.

  “There’s two burnt matches under here. Came out with the remote.”

  The examiner brought over an evidence bag. “This place was no smoking, right?” he asked.

  “Without exception,” Mason said, peering at the curled charcoal sticks. “Grandpa’s sister was a pack-a-dayer. Died of emphysema back in Illinois. Anybody dared light up, Grandpa ripped their heads off. Even the old coots took it outside without being told.”

  “So what are these doing here?” the examiner wondered.

  Mason shrugged. “One of those weird clues you get sometimes, I suppose.” He thought it through. “Maybe we can find out. What’s the name of that computer database?”

  “What database?”

  “You know. With the initials. Tells you if your clues popped up anywhere else in the country.”

  “CSI?”

  Mason shot him a look. The examiner smiled.

  “Let’s see . . . AFIS . . . NICS . . .” Mason snapped his fingers. “NCIC.”

  “National Crime Information Center,” the examiner said.

  “Right. I’ll post this on NCIC. See if there’s anything about matches.”

  “Why?” the examiner said.

  “Something to do,” Mason said.

  August 13, 1966

  “It’s your constitutional right not to speak to us, Earl,” Detective Burr said. “Isn’t that so, Detective Rogan?”

  “He’s not obliged to say a word,” Rogan agreed. “That new Miranda Warning says Earl can shut his piehole tight as he wants, and we can’t do a thing about it.”

  Burr leaned so close that Earl smelled the Camels on his breath.

  “Then again,” Burr said, “that Miranda fella isn’t exactly here, now is he?”

  “Not that I can see,” Rogan said.

  Burr put his elbow on the pulpiest bullet hole. Earl blanched white as Glue-All. His narrow eyes watered, and his flat nose ran.

  “You’re gonna sing like a canary,” Rogan said, twisting Earl’s ear like a windup clock. “You’re gonna tell us where you got those hand grenades, and why you threw ‘em at our friends. Or you’re gonna hurt so bad you’ll wish you had died at that motel.”

  “I miss him, Kit. I miss Andy so damn much,” Wayne Covington whispered.

  “I know, honey, I know,” Katherine Covington cooed, stroking her husband’s broad, bent back. “We all do. Your brother was a wonderful man. A treasure.”

  “He was everything good in this world. Everything holy. He didn’t deserve to die,” Wayne said, squeezing his pocket comb till the tines drew blood. “Not burned to death in a parking lot.”

  “No,” she said, shuddering. “No.”

  “Ma’s a wreck. She won’t eat. She can’t sleep. Pop can’t even talk about it. Keeps saying Andy’ll be over for breakfast Tuesday so he’d better pick more raspberries.”

  “That poor man,” Kit said. “I’ll go over today, Wayne. See if I can help.”

  “Earl Monroe blew my brother into snot,” Wayne said, breaking down. “I watched him do it, and I’ll see him burn for it. I will, Kit. I promise I will.”

  “God bless you, darling,” Kit said, weeping openly herself. “God bless you for that.”

  Earl screwed his eyes shut as the elbows ground into his wounds. It felt like that napalm they were dropping over in Vietnam. Those golden drips of fire that melted children’s eyes.

  He concentrated on his brother’s face. If he was going to die here and now, at least their secret would die with him.

  “We’ve got you cold, so you might as well talk,” Rogan said, expertly working Earl’s nerve endings. “Covington will testify that you, and nobody else, killed those cops and witness.”

  “I . . . didn’t . . .”

  “Covington wouldn’t lie. He’s Mister Clean,” Burr said. “Eagle Scout. Valedictorian. Varsity quarterback, married to the head cheerleader. Straight-As in law school. Secretary of the Junior Rotary. One of the sharpest young prosecutors this county’s ever produced. He comes from an old-line Naperville family that everybody adores. He’s made the front page of the paper more times than you’ve scratched your butt. He’s a somebody.”

  “And what are you?” Rogan said. “A gangster who caters to degenerate gamblers. A miserable nobody with a dead gangster pa. Making you second-generation miserable nobody.”

  Burr flicked Earl’s cheek with a fingernail. Earl flinched.

  “Even Danny quit you,” Burr said. “Your own brother wants nothing to do with you anymore. Know why?” Flick. “‘Cause he’s smart.” Flick. “He knows to stay away. He knows if he hangs around you, he gets the contamination.” Flick. “Becomes a Frankenstein like you.”

  “Didn’t . . . kill . . . anyone . . .”

  “Go ahead, stick with that story. It’s working great for you,” Rogan jeered, lifting his fedora to blot his shiny brow. “Only two people survived that explosion. You and Covington. Who you think the jury’s going to believe? Worm Dung Earl, or Eagle Scout Wayne?”

  “Face it, pally, it’s over for you but the frying,” Burr said. “You got nothing to lose by confessing. Save us the time and effort, and you a bunch of pain. Whaddaya say?”

  Earl gathered his strength, sucked in a breath.

  “If Covington’s got me so tight,” he wheezed. “Then why you two assholes wasting my time?”

  Both detectives smiled.

  “‘Cause we can,” Burr said.

  Danny’s belly burned as he stared at the Chicago Daily News. It was official now - mass murder the crime, electrocution the punishment.

  “It wasn’t him they saw, Mom,” he said. “It’s a case of, uh, mistaken identity.”

  “Oh, Danny,” Verna Monroe said, eyes filling. “You’re so smart, thinking up things like that. But you can’t help your brother anymore. None of us can. Not with thirteen dead.”

  She untied her apron and smoothed her rayon dress. “I’m going to the hospital. I’ll tell Earl you love him and wanted to visit, but I made you stay away.” She hugged him so hard she thought he’d break. “If your father was alive, he’d tell you the same thing. So would Earl. You know it. You know exactly what they’d say.”

  Danny stare
d, torn between spilling his guts and promising Earl he wouldn’t.

  “Go back to Purdue,” Verna said. “That’s what they’d say. Return to that university life you love so much, that you’re so brilliant at. Leave today. Now!”

  She clapped her hands, still unable to believe her bouncing baby was a college man, one year away from a master’s degree in electrical engineering. She was so proud.

  “Once you have that sheepskin, the sky’s the limit,” she said, reaching for her keys. “You can join AT&T. Westinghouse. Lyndon Johnson’s space program. Go anywhere, do anything!”

  “What’s the point?” Danny said.

  Verna folded her arms around herself at the misery in his voice. She was desperate to keep the good son away from the doomed. Danny had always resisted the siren that lured the rest of her men into the rocks. It was her job to make sure he steered clear.

  “You have a glorious life ahead of you, Danny,” she choked. “A house with a white picket fence. A wife. Adorable babies. Everything. Don’t let Earl’s choices make yours - I’ll be there for him no matter what. You have to walk away. Walk away from your brother. Walk away.”

  * * *

  “What on earth are you two doing?”

  Rogan and Burr straightened to see a grim-faced young doctor stride into the room, stethoscope tucked neatly in his white coat.

  “Questioning our prisoner,” Rogan said.

  “Like Torquemada.”

  “Who?” Burr asked.

  The doctor wrapped his hand around Earl’s wrist. Weaker pulse than an hour ago. Chalkier face, sheets more rent with sweat. Bandages dented and spongy with red.

  He increased the morphine drip.

  “Prisoner or not,” the doctor said, “this man has the right not to be abused.”

  Burr, forehead vein ticcing, shoved his face in close. “Tell that to the widows and kids,” he snarled. “If you got the stones.”

  “This man is my patient, Detective,” the doctor said, refusing to back down. “He has any rights I care to give him. So get out of here, both of you.”

  They didn’t move.

  “Out!”

  “Earl, Earl,” Verna sobbed, burying her face in her elbows. She’d driven as far as the sleepy, one-horse downtown before her vision swam so bad she had to pull over. “I don’t want you to die! Not in that awful electric chair!”