How It Happened

by Michael Koryta

  “I have a son of my own,” Johansson said. “He even looks a little like Ian Kelly. Younger, but same kind of build, same goofball smile. Always laughing. I’d go talk to George, and I’d come home and look at David, and I would think…I would think that what he was asking for made some sense.”

  “You took the money, though,” Barrett said. “You could have avoided all this, but you took the money.”

  “I kept it, actually. He transferred the money into an account he’d set up for me. Online bank account, funded with a wire transfer from overseas. I just let it sit for a while, and time went by, and I thought, Nobody noticed, and nobody cares. I wanted out of this place. Wanted my family out of here. I needed…” He took a ragged breath. “I needed a new start.”

  “Don,” Barrett said slowly, “whatever your reasons were? You killed the wrong man.”

  Johansson turned from him and walked into the kitchen. When he reached for a drawer, Barrett reached for his gun.

  “Easy,” Johansson called. “I’m not getting a piece, Barrett. If I use one today, the barrel will be in my mouth, not yours.”

  “You’re not using a gun today. On anybody.”

  “We’ll see. But first I think we ought to take a ride.”

  He came back from the kitchen with car keys in his hand. Barrett didn’t like the look in his eyes or the way the thin sheen of sweat was beginning to turn to thick beads that found creases where his fleshy face had hollowed out.

  “Where’re we riding, Don?”

  “George’s house.”

  “Why?”

  “Because George is there.”

  Barrett cocked his head. “I thought George and Amy decided to sell their place here.”

  “George came back.”

  “When?”

  “The day you hit town.” Johansson jingled the keys, walked to the front door, pulled it open, and said, “You want to call it in instead and have my own people come out here and cuff me, that’s your choice. I wouldn’t ask you to hear me out, but I will ask you to hear him out. That man’s no different than your buddy Howard Pelletier.”

  “He’s plenty different.”

  “Not so much,” Johansson said. “One has money. The other’s got a gun.” He nodded at the Taurus. “Howard bought that one two months ago. No one around here had any illusions about who he meant it for.”

  Barrett didn’t say anything, torn between wanting to deny it and not wanting to lie, and Johansson saw his struggle and laughed.

  “You see what I mean, Barrett? You want us all to be so different. We aren’t. Howard and George, you and me? We aren’t so different.”

  We will bury him, Barrett had told Howard Pelletier, and walk away clean.

  “Talk to the man,” Johansson said. “Look him in the eye the way you look Howard Pelletier in the eye and listen to him, and then you make your decision.”

  49

  To access the long ribbon of blacktop that led to the Kelly house, you had to pass through a gate. Johansson keyed in an entry code, the gate parted, and they drove in and followed the winding lane through the tall pines until the immaculately landscaped lawn came into view, resplendent with large, artfully placed boulders and flower beds. An old sailboat mast converted to a flagpole stood in the center of the yard, the flags snapping in a strong sea breeze, chased by tendrils of inbound fog that moved as fast as smoke.

  They went around one more curve and then the North Atlantic came into sight, the bold open ocean as it could rarely be seen, even in Maine. The Kelly family truly had a million-dollar view. More like five million, Barrett guessed.

  There was a carriage-house-style garage with guest quarters above that connected to the main house through a glassed-in breezeway. The main house was an imposing structure with a chimney on each end and cedar siding stained to a grayish blue. George Kelly opened the door and stood at the threshold with no trace of surprise.

  Barrett had spoken to the man countless times on the phone and in videoconferences, but he’d met him in person only once, in the conversation that left Barrett with the sense that he hadn’t so much updated them on the investigation as auditioned for a role in it.

  Maybe it had felt a lot like that to Johansson too.

  Barrett got out of Johansson’s truck with the nine-millimeter held openly. Johansson looked at him and said nothing, just shrugged and led the way up the curving front steps to where George Kelly waited. He, too, was looking at the gun, but he didn’t comment on it either.

  Don Johansson had lost too much weight since the investigation, and Barrett’s skull looked as if it had been redecorated by a horror-movie makeup artist, but George Kelly was remarkably unchanged. He was wearing a crisp white polo shirt and gray chinos that seemed an exact match for the house’s siding. His hair was as white as his shirt, but there was plenty of it, combed straight back. He seemed to stand perfectly straight at all times, as if military posture were a natural, comfortable thing.

  George Kelly’s eyes followed the gun. “Hello, Agent Barrett. Come on in.”

  They followed him into a sunlit expanse of house that was designed to funnel all attention to the banks of windows and sliding-glass doors that fronted the bay. It was an astonishing view of a gorgeous but intimidating stretch of ocean. You could see some of the islands and a few lighthouses, but while it was waterfront property, there was no water access. The home had been positioned above towering and jagged granite cliffs, built like a monument to dominance over nature.

  If the ocean was impressed, it didn’t show it. The swells threw spray up at the deck before retreating with the unique bass timbre of deep water. That high, fast-running fog was blowing in as if it were late for an appointment.

  “How often do you have to replace the shingles?” Barrett asked.

  George Kelly blinked at him. “You want to talk about shingles?”

  “I’m curious.”

  Kelly apparently decided to consider this an interesting opening salvo. He said, “A few every year. It’s a well-built home, but that wind?” He nodded toward the sea. “It gets cruel in the winter. It takes its toll on the place.”

  Barrett was oddly glad to hear that.

  “If you’re here, then Don has told you about his financial incentive,” George said in a calm, clipped voice. “He suspects you won’t be interested in the same sort of terms.”

  “He suspects correctly.”

  “Then you intend to alert your few remaining friends in law enforcement to the situation. Roxanne Donovan, perhaps.”

  There was something troubling about his use of her name, as if he already had a list of potential adversaries and plans to deal with them.

  “I don’t think it’s quite that simple,” Barrett said.

  “No? It seems very cut-and-dried to me. Either you stay silent or you don’t.”

  “I’m more concerned with getting it right first.”

  George looked at him strangely. His eyes were red-rimmed, like he’d been crying not long before their arrival.

  “Getting it right,” he echoed, as if the words made no sense.

  “Yes. As in finding out who killed your son, and why. Are you no longer interested in that, George? Or do you already know?”

  George stared into the distance for a few moments. Then he said, “This doesn’t help anyone, don’t you see that? They are dead. They will remain dead. They are also beloved. They will not remain beloved if you tell this story.”

  “I didn’t write this story,” Barrett said. “You two did.”

  “But you came back to help, theoretically. You believe the truth will help someone.”

  “I do, yes.”

  “Who? Don’s family? Mine? Jackie Pelletier’s?”

  “Jeffrey Girard’s, for one,” Barrett said.

  “How does it help them? Financially, I suppose. They could sue me. They could sue the state. But their son is still dead, and their son is still complicit in a murder.”

  “Complicit. That’s an intere
sting term. He’s not guilty, then?”

  “Not solely, no.”

  Barrett was astonished by how matter-of-factly he said that.

  “How did it happen, George?”

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  “But you know it didn’t happen the way everyone thinks.”

  “If it did, that was only the surface. If Girard was involved, he was certainly not a lone actor. And I have trouble believing he was involved at all now. The more I learn about him, the less he fits.”

  “So what’s beneath the surface?”

  “I would like to show you something before you make any decisions. I think it’s important that you see it.”

  “What am I going to see?”

  “A confession,” George Kelly told him, and then he turned on his heel and walked out of the room and down a hall.

  Barrett looked at Johansson.

  “Have you seen this?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” Barrett waved the gun at the hallway. “Then let’s go see what he’s talking about.”

  50

  George Kelly was at a desk, a modern affair of glass and stainless steel that didn’t suit him nearly as well as his polished mahogany one in Virginia. When they entered the room, he glanced back at them just once, to make sure they were watching, and then returned his attention to the computer. He opened the downloads folder and went to a video file named Badtimes1. When he double-clicked on it, the monitor filled with an image of a deck overlooking dark pines and granite cliffs. You could hear the water, but you couldn’t see it. The image seemed to be from a high-resolution security camera, and there was a time and date stamp in the corner: 1:43 p.m. on August 9, 2016. The deck looked familiar to Barrett but he couldn’t place it immediately. He was about to ask about it when Ian Kelly walked into the frame like a conjured ghost.

  Barrett knew the place then. It was directly above him. The house had an expansive main deck and then a small private deck off the master bedroom. Ian was up on the high deck, where you could see for miles across the bay.

  Watching him move was surreal and sad. He looked exactly like what he’d been—an intelligent, attractive kid with the confident, natural smile that suggested he knew he had the whole world ahead of him and he couldn’t wait to experience all of it.

  “Listen,” George said, and he turned the volume up. On the monitor, Ian was reacting to a phone ringing, the smile fading as he withdrew his cell phone and looked at the screen, then put the phone to his ear.

  “He’s dead?” Ian Kelly said, his voice surprisingly clear. Barrett leaned forward, staring at the video, and Johansson watched intently, but George was half turned from the screen, as if he’d watched it too many times or didn’t want to face it directly. Or both.

  “You’re sure?” Ian said, and then he leaned on the balcony railing and covered his handsome young face with his left hand, crumpled and defeated. “Oh, shit,” he said, and now he sounded less like a young man and more like a hurt boy. “Oh no, oh, shit. Do you have any idea what happens if they trace that back to me?” There was a pause as the caller on the other end of the line spoke, and then Ian straightened and shook his head. “No way. This isn’t something my dad can fix. Are you kidding? You think my daddy should be called?”

  Barrett glanced at George Kelly. He had closed his eyes.

  “Wait it out?” Ian said, his tone of voice suggesting he was repeating what he’d just been told. “What if it’s still on the street? I’ve got to communicate with somebody, right? Somehow?” Another long pause, then: “You’re sure of that? Man, you need to be positive of that. I might not have invented that stuff, but I shared it, didn’t I?”

  Ian Kelly was now standing with the phone to his ear and his left arm lifted high above his head, as if trying to signal for help from somewhere out at sea.

  “You’ve got to be sure,” he said. “I mean, if you’re positive…” Pause, followed by: “Of course I don’t want to go to prison!”

  This time the pause went on longer, and Ian lowered his hand and started to pace. Whoever was on the line was putting forth a strong argument.

  “Okay,” Ian said after the caller finished. “If it’s off the streets, what’s done is done. I’ll find a way to live with myself.” He said that doubtfully, and then his voice rose, heated, in response to the next comment. “No, I haven’t told Jackie! You know what this would do to her? That would be the end. She’s not going to be understanding about something like this. She’s not that type of person.” Then, softer: “She’s a lot better than me.”

  Barrett felt some relief hearing this. He’d wanted to believe that their love was authentic, that it hadn’t been romanticized after they’d gone missing. He’d had to consider all the other scenarios—affairs and fights and arguments—but he’d always hoped that the one true thing of that sunrise in the graveyard was that two people had set out to meet each other because they were in love.

  Ian muttered something unintelligible, ended the call, and put the phone back in his pocket. He reached out and gripped the balcony rail in both hands as if he needed help to hold himself upright, and then his shoulders began to shake, and you didn’t need to see his face to know that he was crying.

  George Kelly didn’t open his eyes again until the screen had gone black. Barrett guessed he’d probably watched it enough to know the timing. George said, “How much do you understand about that?”

  “They were talking about heroin. Devil cat, if you’re familiar with the term.”

  George nodded. “I’m familiar.”

  Barrett eased into a chair. He suddenly felt very tired. He looked at the gun in his hand and then set it down on the desk beside him.

  “Ian brought it up from Virginia?”

  “From school, yes. One of his undergraduate roommates was the original source, I believe. A really pleasant young man from Dayton who died at his parents’ home that summer.” He paused. “Ian wasn’t a user, but he enjoyed hosting. He enjoyed throwing a party and giving people something special.” George gave a disturbing smile. “This certainly was special, wasn’t it?”

  “He never talked to you about it?”

  George shook his head. “Daddy couldn’t fix things like that,” he said, and his voice broke faintly.

  “When did you get that video?”

  “About two weeks after Ian’s body was found.”

  Barrett didn’t like that answer, and not just because of the obvious withholding from police. He thought a man like George Kelly would be certain of the date that video arrived. He wouldn’t need to generalize or guess.

  “That would have been an asset to investigators, don’t you think?”

  “At that point, I thought it was worth any amount of money to protect my family, actually.”

  “Hang on—you bought that video to keep it from the police?”

  “Police were never really threatened,” George said. “There was a list of media contacts. That’s how it was going to start. And more videos. You’ve only got a taste. Want another?”

  George swiveled his chair back to the computer, opened another file, and typed in a password, and the screen filled with an image from the lower deck. The time and date stamp was 7:03 p.m., August 24, 2016.

  This time, Ian was not alone. Jackie Pelletier was with him.

  George turned his back to the screen and closed his eyes. Johansson leaned forward, and there was fresh sweat on his forehead and above his upper lip, his complexion waxen and gray as a dirty, melting snowdrift.

  For what felt like a very long time but was only forty-five seconds according to the clock at the bottom of the screen, Ian and Jackie just stood at the deck railing, looking out at the sea. His arms were around her, and his chin rested on the top of her head. They were both smiling. Every trace of the tension and fear Ian had shown in the video from August 9 was gone.

  “Two weeks?” Jackie said, her voice so low and muffled by the wind that it was scarcely audible.

&nb
sp; “Yeah. I’ll take Monday off.”

  “We have time,” Jackie Pelletier said. “There’s no need to rush.”

  “I think there is,” Ian told her. “Get family involved early. It’ll be better that way. If I drive straight up that Friday, the ninth, we’ll have a full weekend.”

  “You won’t get in until Saturday.”

  “I’ll get in early. Hey—” His voice rose with sudden enthusiasm and he took her by the shoulders and turned her. “We’ll meet at the Orchard Cemetery. Sunrise.”

  When the smile lit her face, Barrett’s breath caught in his throat.

  “You’re serious?” Jackie Pelletier said.

  “Yeah. Why not? It’s the right place to start.”

  She stretched up and kissed him, and Barrett wanted to look away, feeling voyeuristic and horrified as they planned their last day alive with such enthusiasm.

  “Then to my father first?” Jackie Pelletier said, pulling back from him.

  Ian’s smile wavered, but he nodded. “That’s the right way. I don’t know if he’s going to like me much when he hears the truth, though.”

  “My father understands real life. He’s had some trouble of his own.”

  “Sorry. I’m thinking of my own parents. They’ve had less trouble. The problem will be keeping them from wanting to…manage it all. My father is a fixer. Always, in everything. So I just need to make it clear that he’s not going to be wanted in this. I’ll make him understand that. Just know that he’ll blame me, right? He’ll say terrible things. You’ll have to let him say those things about me.”

  George Kelly sat in his chair, motionless, eyes still closed. On the screen behind him, his son was staring out at the sea, his good humor gone. Ian’s face was almost hostile when he began to speak again, but Jackie Pelletier silenced him with a finger to his lips.

  “It’s cold out here,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”

  She took him by the hand and guided him out of the frame and into the house.

  It was August 24 at 7:07 p.m. and Ian Kelly and Jackie Pelletier had seventeen days left to live.