Vengeance Road

by Rick Mofina

  “You’re talking about a lucky break,” Brent said.

  “That’s correct, if you want to make this a slam dunk.”

  41

  “Justin! Wait up!”

  Zach Miller was pedaling as fast as he could, fighting to keep up with his big brother. Justin resented how their mother kept forcing the little geek on him whenever he wanted to hang with his friends.

  “You can’t keep excluding him, Justin, it’s not fair.”

  All right, he thought, looking over his shoulder, but the little geek was going to pay a price.

  Justin signaled to his pals and they all accelerated their bigger bikes, speeding through the treacherous terrain of Clear Ridge Crossing, the new subdivision being carved out of farmland at the southern edge of Wichita, Kansas.

  “Justin!” Zach’s voice grew distant. “Wait for me!”

  “Go home if you can’t catch up, Zachary!”

  But Zach had reached the point of no return. Not yet close enough to be part of Justin’s posse, and too far from home to ride back alone. All the boys knew the psychology at work here. Zach would have to earn his right to ride with them. Prove himself worthy, or go home like a baby.

  Zach gritted his teeth, squeezed his handlebars and pumped, hell-bent on being accepted by the older boys. But they had vanished ahead of him behind the tall scrub of a downhill slope into the next valley.

  That did it.

  Zach invoked the power that ruled over him and his big brother.

  “I’m telling Mom!” he yelled.

  “Go right ahead, you little shit!” Justin yelled back.

  “I’ll tell her what you’re really going to do in the woods! I will, Justin!”

  Defeat blossomed across Justin’s face. He rolled his eyes, then locked his brakes, grinding everything to a stone-spewing, dust-churning halt.

  “Jesus, Zach!”

  Justin’s cohorts, Brody, Devin and Aaron, stopped out of duty to their leader. Like outlaws on the run, they leaned on their handlebars and caught their breath as they watched Zach bring up the rear.

  “Little guy rides pretty fast,” Brody said.

  Justin half grinned, begrudging Zach a modicum of respect for his perseverance. It grew into pride watching how he put his whole heart into a hard ride just to keep up. For deep down he loved his little brother who’d always had to battle the odds.

  One night when Zach was two, he’d stopped breathing. Mom and Dad freaked out. Mom rode in the ambulance. They got him breathing but the people at the hospital couldn’t tell them what the problem was. His parents prayed for a miracle and Zach pulled through.

  But then came all those years when Zach used to wet the bed and their family learned a couple of new words.

  Nocturnal enuresis.

  Justin would never forget Zach’s shame and anguish. Night after night Justin watched him sleep on the floor of their room and cry himself to sleep. Justin helped clean up, promising him that it would get better.

  And it did.

  Zach hadn’t had any trouble in nearly three years now.

  Except for Justin. Who gave him a hard time. Every time. To make him stronger. Out of love.

  Justin was Zach’s protector.

  The bond between him and his little brother was unbreakable. And Lord have mercy on anyone stupid enough to harm a hair on Zach’s head.

  Zach’s gasping filled the air when at last he joined the older boys.

  He was red-faced and on the brink of tears at having nearly been abandoned such a long way from home.

  Clear Ridge Crossing was new territory for him.

  As far as they could see, cookie-cutter houses were in stages of evolution. At one end, rows of finished homes lay adjacent to lines of wooden skeleton frames of homes in progress. Next to them, an expanse of open grassland was undergoing transformation into earthen lots.

  Columns of dust dimmed the sky as the racket of hammering and sawing blended with the diesel roar of battalions of graders, loaders, earthmovers and convoys of big trucks rolling in and out of the zone. It was dotted with the portable white trailers of contractors’ offices that backed onto a marshaling area where all kinds of material was stored.

  The southeastern fringe was lush with dark forests, an inviting haven for Justin and his friends.

  “So, what is it you think we’re going to do?”

  Zach pushed his glasses back up his nose, sniffed, then nodded to Brody and Aaron, who had their school packs strapped to their bikes.

  “You’re going to drink beer you took from Brody’s dad’s fridge and watch movies of girls doing sex stuff Aaron downloaded off his brother’s computer. I heard you talking back when we started. Devin’s voice is loud.”

  Justin absorbed the information then held his fist under Zach’s chin.

  “You can come but if you tell anybody about this I’ll hammer you.”

  “I won’t tell anybody.”

  Justin then led the group along a network of earth roads at the edge of the subdivision. They slipped deep into the woods where the boys had built a tree house using scrap wood they’d taken from the site.

  With the din of the work softening behind them, they dismounted at the base of a thick hardwood tree. An uneven ladder of mismatched wood ascended the trunk to a crude structure affixed and hidden among the branches twenty feet up.

  Aaron and Brody unfastened their backpacks from their bikes and slid them on. Then, like small soldiers, they climbed up the ladder with commando precision. Devin went next, then Justin, followed by Zach, who, being a first-timer, smaller and nervous, took his time.

  Zach was excited by his initiation into his big brother’s group. But just as he reached the entry, he was barred.

  “Not yet,” Justin said.

  “How come?”

  “You gotta get some wood so we can make a seat for you. Got to do your share to help build our fort.”

  “Where do I get it?”

  Justin pointed to an area in the forest thirty yards off where he and the others had hidden the discarded scraps they’d carried from housing sites.

  “Find four boards as tall as you and bring them back here. We’ll drop the rope for you to tie around them, so we can haul them up one at a time.”

  Zach climbed down, never suspecting Justin’s goal was to keep him out of the tree house. He dutifully navigated his way through the forest stepping through patches of creeper, sumac and dogwood as he searched for the cache.

  But he couldn’t find it.

  He’d lost his bearings.

  He glanced back and upward toward the tree fort, but it was obscured by the branches and leaves of other trees.

  He turned and moved on in another direction.

  After taking a few steps, he froze.

  At first he thought it was a trick of the sun, the way rounded spots of color played in light and shadow.

  Just old branches, bushes and leaves.

  Right?

  But what he was seeing, hearing and smelling was real.

  The drone of flies was as loud as his pulse thumping in his ears.

  Zach was transfixed by what he saw.

  Gooseflesh rose on his arms.

  As he slowly backed away, Zach shut his eyes but the image burned before him.

  Is that a human?

  The tiny hairs at the back of his neck stood up. All the saliva in his mouth evaporated, muting his cry for help.

  Then a familiar warm fluid ran down his legs.

  42

  A few hours after Zachary Miller made his discovery, the Wichita Police Department’s blue MD 500E thudded high over Clear Ridge Crossing.

  Detective Candace Rose squinted up at it from her car.

  The chopper was photographing the site to help determine the size, scope and boundaries of the crime scene.

  Rose, the rookie homicide detective, was the primary. Lou Cheswick, the veteran, was her partner.

  Outdoor scenes were problematic. And based on what the young M
iller boys had already described to them, and what the responding officer had told them, this one was bad.

  Real bad.

  They’d interviewed a teary Zachary Miller in one of the job-site trailers, where the boy’s shaken mother—“Dear Lord, I can’t believe this. A dead person! Are you sure it’s not an animal? Dear Lord!”—had brought her son a fresh change of clothes.

  Then Cheswick drove their Impala to a ridge that was a natural gateway to the site and waited for the assessment. As the chopper’s rotor sliced the air, Rose called her husband, an engineer at Cessna.

  “You and the kids pick up a pizza. I won’t be home for dinner tonight.”

  “You don’t sound so good. Did you catch one?”

  “I did.”

  “And are you the primary?”

  “I am.”

  “Good luck. I’ll pick up some butterscotch ripple for you. For later. I’ll wait up, if you like.”

  “No, no need to wait up. I’ll be fine with the ice cream. Thanks.”

  Rose’s walkie-talkie crackled in her hand. She held it to her ear as the spotter above guided them to the best point of entry to the scene.

  Cheswick slipped their sedan’s transmission into drive.

  As they crept along a bumpy worn path that stretched across the earthen plain, Rose looked into her side mirror and was assured by the small convoy. Some marked units from Patrol South Bureau stayed back at the ridge to establish an outer perimeter. A couple of cars followed her and Cheswick in. The uniforms would tape off and secure the scene.

  The CSI vehicle was with them, along with K-9 and some search boys if they needed to grid the area.

  The flat wide stretch took Rose back to her childhood. She’d grown up in the heartland, a farmer’s daughter, in Comanche County. Through high school Rose worked part-time in the sheriff’s office, then studied law enforcement at college before joining the Wichita PD.

  She’d worked a beat and met her future husband after giving him a traffic ticket. She hit the books and became a detective with the Sex Crimes Section. And when Homicide Section’s caseload strained, she was called in to assist with murder investigations.

  The lieutenant liked her work and suggested she apply for a vacancy that had opened up in Homicide. Rose scored high on her exams and won the job. Two weeks ago she was partnered with Lou “The Legend” Cheswick.

  “Welcome to the few, the proud, the sleep deprived. Next case that comes our way is yours,” he’d said.

  After six years as a street cop and four years as a sex crimes detective, Rose had seen enough misery to last a liftetime or two—savage abuse of children and women, the aftermaths of suicides, fires, car wrecks and murders.

  But taking the lead of her first homicide? This was nerve-racking.

  It was bad enough that it had an outdoor crime scene as big as all Kansas. But to be so grisly, and have it be a little boy who’d made the find…

  Zachary Miller’s voice was fresh in her ears.

  “Is it human? Was it really a person?”

  Rose reviewed her mental checklist: reread her statements and start her log, noting the time, weather and temperature and the relation of the scene to its surroundings.

  Now she puffed her cheeks and exhaled slowly as they neared the solitary patrol car that had responded to the initial 911 call. She parked and got out.

  “Take your time, Rose,” Cheswick said, “because you only get one chance at a first-time at the scene.”

  They opened their trunk. As they slipped into white coveralls with shoe covers, then tugged on latex gloves, Rose took in the area, absorbed the conditions, atmosphere, its isolation, until they were approached by the responding officer who had preserved the scene. His name was Smart; he’d already suited up.

  “We spoke on the phone, Detective.”

  “Yes, thanks. Did you take in or remove anything from the scene?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone else go in there besides you and your partner?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Would you take us in now.”

  “Right this way, and you should brace yourself.”

  The others held back as Kern led Rose and Cheswick into the woods using what would become the path of entry for investigators.

  Branches and shrubs slapped against them. They stepped carefully into the darkened forest whose moist, rich smells mingled with birdsong.

  It wasn’t long before a low monotonous drone rose from the darkness ahead. A breeze delivered an offensive smell as they stopped to behold the horror: a puzzle of flesh, mud and blood suspended crucifixion-style a few feet from the ground.

  A long moment passed in silence, save for the flies, the birds and the distant hum of the housing construction. All three cops stood there, reaching deep within themselves, ensuring that whatever moral substance they safeguarded in their most secret corners remained untouched as they looked upon the outrage.

  It was Cheswick who went first.

  “What a wonderful world we live in. Times like this challenge my faith in humanity.”

  “Those poor little boys,” Rose said.

  “Let’s get to work.”

  Before they allowed the CSI people, the forensic photographer and the people from the coroner’s office access to the scene to process it, Rose and Cheswick inventoried the area, took notes and digital photos, and searched the immediate scene for any sign of evidence—waste, condoms, a weapon. They searched for clothing, anything that might contain a suggestion of ID as to who the victim might be. Rose wrote down a description of the victim: white female in her twenties.

  As she stepped closer, she noticed a brief metallic flash near the victim’s right hand, which was closed into a fist.

  A fine chain hung down from the victim’s hand.

  Jewelry.

  “Lou, check this out. She’s got something in her hand.”

  Cheswick stepped up.

  “Take pictures, Candy, then see if you can pry it out.”

  She clenched her eye behind her small digital and took several photos before reaching for it with her gloved finger. She loosened the grip, allowing the item to fall into her palm.

  “A tiny locket.”

  It was inscribed.

  “Love Mom.”

  Rose opened it to a photo of a little boy.

  43

  “Mom, help me!”

  Somewhere in the night at the edge of Buffalo’s Schiller Park, the distant howl of sirens nudged Mary Peller from sleep to partial consciousness.

  Voices and images continued streaming through her mind.

  “Mom, help me find it.”

  It was Jolene. Always Jolene. At various stages of her life.

  Mary holding her in the maternity ward looking into her tiny scrunched face and meeting a pair of blazing little eyes.

  “Mommee, slow down!”

  Mary fleeing with little Jo into the street after Mary’s worthless husband began smashing furniture in a drunken rage over burned potatoes.

  Mary working full-time as a supermarket clerk. Finding an apartment.

  Jolene in a new dress Mary made for her first day of school.

  “But I don’t want to go away from you!”

  She’s so pretty. So heartbreakingly pretty.

  “Your daughter’s been in an accident!”

  A halo of blood grows around Jolene’s head after she’s fallen from the swing in the playground. Ambulance. Hospital. Antiseptic smells. Doctors being paged. Serious fracture to her head.

  “Her condition is critical, Mrs. Peller. I’m so sorry but you should brace for the possibility you could lose her.”

  Jolene skipping classes in high school. Hanging out with kids who did drugs. Arrested for shoplifting. A parade of loser boyfriends. Mary pleading.

  “Jolene, please listen, I love you. You can’t go on like this!”

  “Stay out of my life!”

  Jolene dropping out of high school. Running away. Drifting in and out of Ma
ry’s life. Making demands.

  “Do you have any money? I need a place to stay for a while.”

  Mary finding drugs hidden in her dresser.

  “Stay out my life!”

  Jolene living on the street. Living in a vermin-infested house with street people, gang members, drug dealers, prostitutes and addicts.

  Year bleeding into year.

  Then Jolene at her door.

  Pregnant.

  “Who’s the father?”

  “I don’t know. I’m raising it myself.”

  Mary holding her grandson in the maternity ward, looking into his face and meeting a pair of little diamond eyes.

  “I’m naming him Cody. He’s my lifesaver.”

  Hope, love, maturity and determination light in Jolene’s face.

  “I have to pull my life together for him. Will you help me, Mom?” Tears, so many tears. “Please, Mom, will you help me?”

  Jolene struggling in vain with her addiction. Back on the street searching, fighting to get clean until an overdose nearly kills her.

  “I’m here, Jolene.”

  Mary at her bedside in the hospital.

  “Please help me, Mom. It’s so hard. I need to get clean, for Cody.”

  Jolene and Cody moving in with Mary. Mary taking overtime shifts. Jolene in rehab and going to night school. Going to church. Working with outreach groups. Surviving. Winning.

  Getting clean.

  Getting a job in Florida. A new life in the sun.

  Mary’s gift to her.

  The locket.

  Jolene stronger. Jolene, a reborn young woman with a job waiting.

  Jolene at the door with her bag and bus ticket to Orlando—the last time Mary saw her daughter.

  “Call me every day. Promise me, Jo.”

  “I’ll call you. I promise. I love you so much, Mom.”

  Mary so proud they’d worked through it all together.

  A telephone not ringing.

  No calls. Nothing.

  “I’ll call you. I promise.

  Nothing.

  “Help me, Mom. Help me find it.”

  Jolene’s so near. She’s here. In the living room! Mary can sense her presence. Jolene is sitting on the sofa.