by Joe Clifford
At the mention of Biscoglio’s name, Keith Mortenson darted and grabbed the first weapon he could find, in this case a long power drill used to tap trees. I had a screwdriver in my back pocket. His firearm was unplugged. If this were headed toward a shootout, it would go down as the saddest in history.
“Relax. I’m not working for Biscoglio. Or anyone else. I just have a few questions.”
That didn’t set Mortenson at ease. The slender accountant’s hand shook bad, limp wrist overpowered, like an old lady confronting an intruder with her dead husband’s Colt 45.
I moved toward them. Keith Mortenson tucked Phillip Crowder behind him, jabbing the hand drill at me, unplugged cord smacking off the floor. “Stay back!”
Stashing my flathead, I showed my hands. Mortenson was terrified. I only had to get him to understand we were on the same side.
Looking into Phillip’s eyes, I saw he knew about his mother. There’s a spark that goes out when a boy loses his mom. It doesn’t come back. I didn’t want to make this situation any worse.
“Leave us alone, Mr. Porter,” Mortenson said. “I’m honoring Joanne’s wishes.”
“Like overseeing that furniture sale on Thanksgiving? Giving me that coat?”
“Joanne was a good woman. I loved her. I love Phillip. Ethan is the one you should be worried about. I have to keep Phillip safe. They are coming for him. Like they came for her.” Mortenson started groveling. “Let us go. Please. Let us go.”
I looked down at my flashlight. “I’m not holding a gun on you, man.”
The barn door swung open and shut with the gusting winds and vacuum effect. We were shouting at one another from fifteen feet away. “Tell me what you know. Maybe I can help—”
“You want to help? Help us get out of here, get a head start.”
I remembered the empty parking lot. “A head start to where? In what?”
“My car is parked down the access road.” Keith Mortenson froze. “You didn’t park in the lot, did you? Oh, Christ. Are you stupid? They’ll be here any—”
I heard the door kick open behind me, and I whipped around to find a very drunk Richard Rodgers staggering toward me, unsteady rifle aimed over my shoulder, vacillating between electric bellies and roof beams.
“Fucking cocksucker,” he slurred.
I assumed he meant me, but he was looking at a push broom when he said it. I didn’t know what he’d been drinking, but whatever it was, the liquor had packed a helluva punch. He could barely stand, let alone shoot straight. Not that I wanted to tempt fortunes or challenge theories about broken clocks. Caught in the crossfire, I was stuck between a man with a gun and another with an unplugged hand drill. Common sense dictated I move toward the latter, but I didn’t want to give Richard Rodgers a bigger target, or put Phillip in the line of fire.
I held out my hand, opting to reason with Richard. Whatever his faults, the man wasn’t a killer. “Why don’t you put down the gun?” I gestured at the boy, who looked ready to piss himself. Keith Mortenson didn’t seem to be holding up much better. “Come on, man. You’re scaring the boy. Put the gun down. Let’s talk about this.”
Richard Rogers hoisted the forestock to his shoulder. Odds were against him hitting the broad side of this place. The question was: How itchy was that trigger finger—and how lucky did I feel?
The barn door kept opening and shutting with the violent swirls, a jarring sound that makes jittery people jumpy. The metal stoppers scraped across the concrete floor. Then a hard wind sucked shut the door, slamming it with a thunderous clap, sealing us all inside.
A motor roared to life. The room filled with steam, a wall of smoke, and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. As the engines thrummed, jacks began working double time, pistons chugging in sync. The smoke granted cover and the opportunity to make a run for it. I heard bodies shuffling but I had lost track of everyone—Richard, Keith, Phillip. Turned around in the steam and smoke, I stumbled past casters and valves opening and closing, searching for something to hold onto that wouldn’t burn my hands. Running footsteps scuttled over the whirring candymakers. Someone screamed. Then I heard the blast. I ducked and dove in the direction of where I’d last seen Richard Rodgers. I crashed into him and he crumpled like a CPR practice dummy, damn near already passed out. I crawled around, feeling for the rifle that flew out of his hands. Richard lay in place, mumbling, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
My hands found the cold barrel, and I pulled the rifle to my chest, safe from enemy hands. I staggered to my feet, the loud report still ringing in my ears. Feeling around in the darkness, I located the switch to turn off the evaporator, then pushed open the doors to clear the room. The ferocious storm sucked the steam from the barn in seconds. The first thing I saw was Phillip Crowder standing shell-shocked, staring at the spot on the floor where Keith Mortenson lay, facedown, pool of blood seeping out the giant hole in the side of his head.
After securing Richard Rodgers—it hadn’t taken much effort to restrain the guy, I’d barely touched him before he curled up, drooling and sputtering, which made me wonder how, in his inebriated state, he’d been able to get off such a precise shot—I brought the kid outside to get him some air. Phillip didn’t need to see any more death. I heard sirens wailing in the distance. We had a few minutes. This was what I’d been after for the past week, my moment. And I had no idea what to say.
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
The boy shirked off my condolence. With his fair skin and light hair, he looked much more like his father than he did his mother. His expression betrayed nothing. Like father like son. How could I blame him? I still remembered the feeling when my folks died, like a rusty spoon had been used to excavate chunks of my soul. I hadn’t been much younger than Phillip.
By now other inmates huddled inside the doorway. Six beds. I counted three boys. Maybe the other two were heavy sleepers. Squad cars raced up the drive, screeching to a stop. I knew it would still take them several minutes to reach the sugarhouse and barn. Intersecting shafts of light raked the forest, cut up by jagged, crooked branches, hillsides slapped with strips of blues and reds. Against all that white snow, the moment felt pretty damned patriotic.
“We’re almost out of time. I have some questions.”
The skinny seventeen-year-old boy peered up at me. He was shivering. I draped my winter coat over his shoulders.
“Why did your mother send you here?”
“She thought I was partying too hard.”
“Were you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you want to come?”
“At first? No. But no one asked me.”
“But you stayed?”
“I like it here. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.” He nodded at the other boys huddled together in the dormitory doorway. “They’re like family.”
Boots crunched crusted snow, snapping kindling. Flashlight streams fanned up the forest floor; next came the shouts for everyone to stay where they are, don’t move. Usual cop bullshit.
“Do you want to go back to your father?”
“No.”
The police were almost on us now.
“Is there anything you can tell me, Phillip? Anything that will help me keep you from him? Anything at all?”
He shrugged.
A cop ordered us to put our hands in the air where he could see them.
“Do you know Maria Morales?”
Phillip panned over.
That was it. The cops crashed the party, spinning me around, patting me down, and relieving me of my two dangerous weapons. The EMTs threw a blanket over Phillip’s shoulders. As he was being led away, he glanced back, a haunting gaze that resurrected ghosts.
The police conducted their inquiry, determining I was one of the good guys, or at least a victim this time. I watched as officers placed a very drunk Richard Rodgers in the back of a squad car. Practically had to carry him there, dead weight gouging trails in the snow. Medics wheeled away the lifeless bo
dy of Keith Mortenson, covered, like the rest of the countryside, in a sheet of white.
After my statement, which took a while—they had to suss out the exact nature of my relationship to the deceased and what I was doing there in the first place—they said I was free to leave. I got back in my truck and returned home.
Picking up my mail at midnight, I saw the large FedEx envelope from Wyoming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dear Jay,
I hope this letter finds you well, whoever you are. Maria said if anyone called this number to pass along this information, no questions asked. Though I have plenty, I will honor my friend’s request. Knowing the sort of man Ethan is, what he is capable of, I could not avoid a rudimentary background check. You seem like the kind of man Maria would trust. I realize this, you, might be a ploy on Ethan’s part. I suppose I have to take that chance. Then again my ex-husband was never that smart, not in the cunning, scheming sense. I didn’t need more than two days married to the son of a bitch to see that. Ethan was a petty, nasty little man who won the genetic lottery of being born a Crowder. Coddled and indulged as a child, Ethan grew up to be a temperamental, petulant adult, given to fits of violence, with the means to get away with murder. And that’s what he did, and that’s what this is, a confession. Or as close to one as you are going to get.
I know you have a lot of questions, and I wish I could take the chance of meeting face to face, or at least risk talking on the phone, explaining more, like how I met Ethan in a club when I was very young, the things he did to gain the trust of a scared, confused girl. The money his family paid to make a problem like me go away. If only scars disappeared so easily. The part you need to know is that Joanne Crowder did not die last week as reported by your hometown paper. Joanne Crowder died June 17, 2000. I did not know her.
How I came to know Maria Morales is a far less interesting story. It started with a phone call from a scared new bride who’d found my name buried among the clutter of a new life. My mother relayed the message, I returned the call, and Maria and I struck up a friendship, a bond built around mutual pain and abuse, which lasted for years. Early on, I advised her to run, leave, get away by whatever means necessary. Of course Maria couldn’t run. Since she was now Joanne, and not just in name. She loved that boy.
They say tigers don’t change stripes, and I imagine the same goes for monsters. But I think Ethan was scared of Maria. I’m sure he thought he’d found another gullible girl—Ethan liked them young—but in the end Maria proved far stronger than I ever could, and she fought like hell. Maybe it was her love for the boy, a mission to protect the child from a man like Ethan that gave her such strength. I don’t know what excuse Ethan used to get her aboard his private jet in 2000, to convince her to color her hair and answer to another name. But I know she did so willingly. Maria grew up one of several children in Coicoyan de las Flores, one of the most impoverished parts of Mexico. I don’t think Ethan needed more than the promise of a better life. Believe it or not, once upon a time, my ex-husband could be charming. This was a chance for Maria to provide for her family, an opportunity to send home money and keep her brothers and sisters alive. Maria knew what she was doing, and more importantly she knew what Ethan had done. Any harm to her would expose his secret too.
Why everything fell apart now, I don’t know. Maria and I had not spoken in a long time. My guess is Ethan grew sick of being under someone else’s thumb. The humiliation of her leaving, forced to surrender custody of his possession, the tipping point. No matter what the papers say, I doubt Maria took her own life. Though seventeen years with that man could erode anyone’s resolve.
As for definitive proof that Ethan killed his second wife, I can’t give you that either. I can only tell you what Maria told me. While on vacation in Ixtapa, June 2000, Ethan, in a drunken rage, strangled the mother of his son. He dragged her body from his villa to the rough, choppy seas, and let the riptide carry his sins to a watery grave. Getting away with murder was the easy part. Ethan had the family jet, the resources to bribe corrupt officials and circumvent protocol. Back home, Phillip was an infant, left to the rotating care of nannies and assistants. If anyone noticed the new Mrs. Crowder looked or acted differently, no one brought it up. Joanne and Ethan had not been married long. Ethan traded in women like leases on cars, and the Crowders were notoriously reclusive. I am sure Dorothy and Victor, Ethan’s parents, knew what their only son had done. They’d paid to cover up his transgressions before. They’d do so again.
I’ve enclosed the pictures. You will see the marked difference between the two versions, even with the bottled blonde hair. I am also including the names and numbers of her surviving family in Mexico. I don’t know how you can convince authorities to look into this further or what the specific statutes are, but her family can provide all the proof you need that Maria Morales did not die in that car crash. You only have to get the American consultant to see that.
This is the information Ethan did not want to get out. Be careful. He has killed to keep his secrets before. He will surely do so again.
I’m sorry I didn’t come forward earlier but this is what Maria wanted. She loved Phillip as her own. Everything Maria did was to make sure Phillip survived his eighteenth birthday, at which point he could hopefully be emancipated from that bastard and claim the inheritance that is rightfully his.
It looks like she almost made it to the finish line.
Maybe you can carry this home the rest of the way.
Warmly,
Isabelle
PS Do not try to contact me again. By the time you get this letter, I will be gone.
The sort of man Maria would trust? I never met Maria. Or Joanne. I tried the number again. Of course it was out of service.
Tom hadn’t been cleared for work, and wouldn’t be for a while. He and I had spoken first thing in the morning, because it was business as usual for me. Which began with shoveling Hank Miller’s filling station. The latest sky dump had me wading knee deep in the fluffy white stuff. The plan was to head over to the warehouse, finish what I’d been doing yesterday, load up a U-Haul, and move the rest of our merchandise down to Everything Under the Sun. Then Tom wanted me to get started on clearing the old house on Worthington Ridge. At some point I knew I’d have to call Alison. As much as I enjoyed the sound of her voice, I wasn’t looking forward to having that conversation. Even though her husband had fired the gun, in many ways I’d pulled the trigger.
I was filling up my gas-guzzler when Fisher pulled in the lot. I’d called him last night after I finished reading the letter.
“Don’t you ever answer your phone, Porter?”
“I’ve been shoveling this shit for the past hour.”
“The Crowder boy back with Dad?”
“I guess.” I nodded at his car, which he’d left running, backseat packed with cardboard boxes, computer innards, and cord balls. “Going somewhere?”
“I’ve wasted enough time in this shitburg. I have to get home. Make sure to check in on Charlie. You haven’t seen him since he’s been released.”
“Gee. I’ve been a little busy.”
“I’m not busting your balls. Just saying you’re his best friend, and if I’m not around, someone needs to check in on him.”
“I thought you said he was doing well?” I pulled out the nozzle. “All gung-ho AA?”
“He is. He’s at a meeting right now. Met a couple guys in the program. They pick him up, bring him home. He’s a little insufferable with the sobriety stuff. The Big Book this. The Big Book that. He quotes verses like it’s the Bible. But it’s good for him. He’s sober.”
Fisher glanced around, hugging himself in the chill wind.
“What did you find out?”
Fisher pulled his phone, reading digital notes.
“Seventeen and a half years ago, Ethan and Joanne Crowder flew to Mexico. Phillip was two weeks old. He stayed home with the nanny.”
“That’s . . . of absolutely no help.”
“I imagine there’s a lot of Maria Moraleses down there.”
“Same one. At least according to the information on the death certificate.”
“How do you even verify this?”
“Everything is on the web, man. If you dig deep enough.”
“So it’s possible she’s telling the truth?”
“The dates match up. June 2000. Ethan and Joanne flew back to the States a couple days later. On Crowder’s private jet.”
“I have to admit, Fisher. I’m almost impressed.”
“That paper of mine you were making fun of?”
“The Razor Something.”
“Occam’s Razor. We have a lot of readers, from all over the globe, with various specialized fields, areas of interests. We are able to tap into the truths behind the lies.”
“Great. A conspiracy paper sponsored by conspiracy nuts found evidence of a conspiracy.”
“After 9/11, it’s a different world. It was easier before.”
“To do what? Kill somebody?”
“Get in and out of Mexico. You ever hear of ghosting?”
“Ghosting? Isn’t that what kids call leaving a party without saying goodbye?”
“Ghosting is where you steal a dead person’s identity. You read about the abuse allegations, the dismissed charges? Joanne was his second wife. His family paid a lot of cash to keep scandals out of the press. They’d only been married a few months before the trip to Mexico, during which time I uncovered documentation, hospital and police reports, of Joanne ‘falling’ down the stairs. While pregnant. Couldn’t bury that lede. Is murder really that far-fetched?”
Neither of us answered the rhetorical. Instead we watched miniature snow tornadoes twirl across the permafrost in our own personal ballet.
“You send the information to Boston?”
“Not yet.”