by Jen J. Danna
“I caught it, all right. I thought she was going to pass out for a moment and then, five seconds later, she’s cool as a cucumber. It was kind of creepy.”
“Show no weakness, I guess. But to be fair, she’s not exactly a young woman and seeing her own child on a morgue table had to be a shock.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you there. Luckily, she broke down long enough to need a tissue. And since she discarded it and it’s perfectly legal to test any sample recovered from it, I think this is our best angle right now.” He pulled a small evidence bag from his pocket, securely sealing the tissue inside before stripping off his gloves and discarding them in the garbage can. “I’m going to take this in now. I’ve already dropped off the femur DNA sample and the sample from Peter Holt, so I’ll get this added into the analysis ASAP. Are we still on for the nursing home tonight?”
“We are. It’s time to finally meet the man who started this whole case.”
CHAPTER TEN: JAKE LEG
* * *
Jake leg: a little known Prohibition-era affliction affecting the spine, causing partial paralysis and an inability to walk normally. A nationwide epidemic resulted from the use of ortho-tricresyl phosphate by drug manufacturers to denature Jamaica ginger extract, a late nineteenth-century patent medicine that was more than seventy percent ethanol by weight.
Tuesday, 7:02 p.m.
Saint Joseph’s Nursing Home
Lynn, Massachusetts
“Thank you very much for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice. Please, sit.” Leigh sat down on the loveseat in the small reception room. Matt settled beside her as members of the Kain family all found seats around a room decorated in soft pastels with rolling landscapes dotting the walls. A room meant to soothe, Leigh supposed. She scanned the array of faces staring back at her. “We appreciate so many of you being able to come out.”
“We’re happy to.” Barb McDermott, a stout woman in her mid-forties wearing a brightly patterned floral dress, had established herself as the spokesperson for the entire family from the very first handshake. “Once you told us something had come from Grandpa’s story, we were all dying to know more. He’s never really said much about his early life.”
All twelve of them were crammed into one of the nursing home’s small family rooms, a room really meant for no more than six. Younger relatives sat on couch arms or the floor, leaving the more comfortable seating for their elders. Family members ranged from their early twenties to their late sixties; a daughter, several grandchildren and their spouses, and a cluster of great-grandchildren. Three generations come to talk about a fourth.
Barb sat forward in the large wing chair she had selected to accommodate her girth, but also one conveniently adjacent to Leigh—what she no doubt saw as a place of honor. “You were a little vague on the phone. You actually found a body? He was telling the truth all this time?” Excitement tinged her voice.
Leigh imagined this was probably the most exciting thing that had happened to this family in a long time. “We did. But the story gets a little more complicated. We actually discovered the body in an abandoned speakeasy from the nineteen-twenties or -thirties.”
The family members gave collective gasps and murmurs of surprise before questions started coming at Leigh from all sides. She raised both hands for silence. “One at a time, please.”
She dealt with their questions patiently, describing the speakeasy and the body found in the storage room, but carefully leaving out the fresh body and the location of the remains behind the wall. Once the family worked through all their questions, the room finally became quiet again.
“If it’s all right, I have some questions about your grandfather before we go see him.”
“Great-Grandpa’s not in trouble because of this, is he?” Connor, one of the younger family members, spoke up from the floor. Dressed in a dark polo shirt and neat khakis, he sat with his back against the pale, mint-green wall.
“It’s honestly hard to say at this point,” Leigh said, trying to balance the truth with reassurance so the family would remain open to her questions. “All we have right now is the story about a body in a building and those remains. We have absolutely no evidence of who committed the crime.”
“You are sure it’s a crime?” Barb asked. “There’s no way it was an accident?”
“None.” Matt had stayed quiet up to this point, letting Leigh handle the questions and steer the conversation to suit her needs, but now he stepped in. “That’s my part of the investigation, and it’s very clear the victim was murdered.”
“Are you like one of those CSIs on TV?” This question came from Heidi, another one of the younger family members. She smiled widely at Matt, her gaze slipping boldly down to run over him.
“Yes, but we do it in better lighting and with realistic time frames,” Matt said dryly.
“Do you get to carry a gun? Is it really as cool and exciting as—”
“Let’s stay on topic.” Leigh cut the young woman off, telling herself it wasn’t from irritation that the girl was openly flirting with Matt, but rather to keep the investigation on track. “We wanted to ask about the elder Mr. Kain’s life here in Lynn in the nineteen-twenties and -thirties.”
“We’re happy to tell you what we know.” Ethel, Samuel Kain’s youngest daughter and only surviving child, sat just beyond her daughter, Barb. A slender woman, she had the frail appearance characteristic of many older people; Leigh was afraid a good wind could knock her down. A tremor shook the wrinkled, arthritic hands in her lap as they clasped and unclasped. “But, as Barb said, Dad wasn’t ever very willing to talk about his past. He had a hard life and didn’t like to dwell on it. Bad memories and all. And now we may never hear about it. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about ten years ago.”
“Actually, he’s done rather well,” Matt said. “Most Alzheimer’s patients survive only about seven or eight years after diagnosis.”
Sadness tugged at the edges of Ethel’s lips and reflected in blue eyes cloudy with glaucoma. “I lost my best friend to it in less than that. But I think Dad’s time with us is coming to an end.”
“Is he aware of his surroundings?” Leigh asked. “If we wanted to ask him some questions, would he be able to answer them?”
“Like most patients here, he has good days and bad days,” Barb said. “So it will depend on what kind of day he’s having. Most of the time, you only get his attention for a short time, so don’t beat around the bush. It will also depend on what your questions are. If you want to know what he had for lunch last week, you’re out of luck. But if you want to know about his years on the front lines during World War Two, he might be able to remember that. Often the old memories are clearer than the recent ones.”
“And some days it’s all gone,” said David, Barb’s husband. “It’s kind of a crapshoot.”
“Fair enough,” said Leigh. “I guess we’ll find out shortly. Can you give me some family history? Your father identified that specific building, but was he living in Lynn at the time?”
“Minus his time overseas or with the Civilian Conservation Corps, Dad lived all his life in Lynn,” said Ethel.
“The Civilian Conservation Corps? What’s that?”
Leigh turned toward the voice. Even in this overcrowded room, the young man in the corner seemed a solitary figure. He certainly appeared to be the square peg in the round hole—his ripped fatigue pants and unkempt hair brushing the collar of his ratty T-shirt were a stark contrast to the rest of the neatly dressed and involved family. She’d noticed that when the barrage of questions had come earlier, he’d been the only one to remain silent, a watchful sneer on his face. He’d been introduced as “Eric” by his father, but had offered neither a smile nor a handshake during the greetings.
“Didn’t you ever pay attention to anything Great-Grandpa said?” Connor’s derisive tone only highlighted the irritated glance he threw at his cousin. “Considering your obsession with the Army, I would have thought you’d
have at least paid attention to that. It was a government program during the Depression to train and employ manual laborers. They built state and national parks, planted trees to increase the country’s forestlands, built bridges, buildings, roads, and airports.”
“Did they build your precious astronomy tower?” The snide comment was accompanied by a curled lip.
“Aren’t you paying attention now? I said during the Depression. High Rock was built in nineteen-oh-four, decades before.” His eyes drifted to the window. High above them on a hill in the center of town, spotlights lit the tall, square Romanesque Revival tower. “And you should never make fun of gainful employment. At least I’m contributing to society, which is more than you can say.”
“Not now, boys,” snapped Craig, Eric’s father, speaking to both young men, but only sending a searing glare toward his own son.
Eric returned a poisonous look while Connor dipped his head in apology.
Noting the family dynamics and filing it away for later reference, Leigh glanced sideways, meeting Matt’s gaze and holding it. She didn’t need his words to know they both focused on the same point. Built bridges and buildings.
Leigh turned back to Ethel. “Do you know what he did with the Corps?”
“I don’t know what specific projects he did, but I do know that’s where he trained to be a master bricklayer.”
Beside her, Matt’s body went very still. She shifted slightly, hiding the press of her hand against his thigh as she pulled out her notepad. Play it cool.
“They trained him during the Depression,” Ethel continued, “and then in the late thirties and early forties, when the economy picked up again and construction jobs became more plentiful, he started working for a local contractor. He did one tour of duty overseas with the infantry in World War Two after Pearl Harbor, but came back to bricklaying when he returned. He married Mom when he was back stateside and they started a family. That was how he supported the family in the boom years following the war. They couldn’t build fast enough. In later years, when the lifting and carrying got to be too much for him, he became a construction foreman.”
“You mentioned he married,” Leigh said. “Is your mother still alive?”
The room went deadly silent, so much so that the hair on Leigh’s arms stood up as if the electrical charge in the room had suddenly shifted.
It was Barb who finally broke the silence. “I guess you don’t know.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I did,” said Leigh. “What don’t I know?”
“Grandmother was murdered in nineteen-seventy-five. It was a home robbery gone wrong and the man responsible was convicted several years later. We don’t like to talk about it,” Barb finished stiffly.
“My condolences.” Leigh made a mental note to look into Mrs. Kain’s death since clearly no more information would be forthcoming. “Let’s go back to the Depression. Mr. Kain helped to support the family with his position in the Corps?”
“No, he was on his own by then,” said Ethel. “He’s never spoken of his father, so we’ve always assumed his mother was never married. We do know she raised him on her own and died when he was fifteen. That was nineteen-thirty-one, at the height of the Great Depression.”
“Do you know how she died?”
“All he would say was she was sick. Medical care was pretty much unavailable for many back then.”
“Did he go into the system?”
“At fifteen?” Ethel shook her head sadly. “Back then, the public system couldn’t afford to feed infants and toddlers, so they wouldn’t even look at a teenage boy who was considered a grown man back then. No, he was on his own, and out on the streets.”
“Is that when he joined the Civilian Corps?” Matt asked. “Would they take them as young as fifteen?”
“You had to be eighteen to join the Corps. Besides, they didn’t start the program that early. He was on the street for three years before joining the Corps, but he won’t talk about those years. It must have been a horrible time for him.”
“Back then, in those circumstances, I’m sure survival was his only goal,” Matt said.
“One more question before we go talk to him. Is there anything else you can add to the report you filed with the Lynn Police Department? Any details that you might have remembered since then?”
“It took us a long time to file that report,” Barb said. “Honestly, we thought it was just nonsense because so much of it is—like his latest story about Heidi. He said someone had kidnapped her, tied her to the top of a moving train, and then they went through a low tunnel and she got scraped off.” She patted her daughter’s knee where she perched on the arm of her chair. “As you can see, Heidi is alive and well. Since this is what we hear from him on a regular basis, we tend not to put much stock in his stories.”
“But the one about the body kept coming up again and again,” David said. “I finally convinced them all it wasn’t our call to make. If the story was real, the police would make that determination. And you did. But when we filed the report, everyone added any details they could remember.”
“Then I think we’re ready.” Leigh stood, Matt rising to his feet to join her. “Let’s go see Mr. Kain.”
Tuesday, 7:24 p.m.
Saint Joseph’s Nursing Home
Lynn, Massachusetts
The old man in the bed was a frail shell of the bricklayer he’d once been. Weighing at most one hundred pounds, his body was reduced to papery thin skin, ropy veins, and protruding bones. A nasal cannula delivered oxygen and an IV snaked over the bed, the needle piercing the near-translucent skin on the back of one gnarled hand. His chest barely rose and fell, but the wheeze coming from his parted lips reassured Leigh he still lived.
Leigh paused just inside the door, Matt at her back. The private room was small and bare bones, but the family had brought in personal items to make it more comfortable: family photos crowded the bedside table, a child’s bright painting was taped to the wall beyond the foot of his bed, a homemade throw was draped over his feet, and a goldfinch feeder was suction-cupped to his small window, its perches empty in the dark. A pencil sketch of High Rock Tower stood propped against a short stack of books, a faithful representation of the glowing tower visible from the bed through the window.
They’d left most of the family downstairs with the promise of full details upon their return; now it was only Ethel and Barb who accompanied them. Connor and David had stubbornly lobbied to come along, but Barb held firm, concerned the nursing staff would ask them all to leave if too many people tried to crowd into this small room.
Ethel crossed to the bed, laying her hand on her father’s shoulder and bending low toward him. “Dad? Dad, it’s Ethel. Barb and I are here and we have some people who’d like to see you.”
After a few moments of silence, Leigh let out the disappointed breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as the steady wheezing continued without change. “Is he asleep?”
“Not so much asleep as just out of it,” Barb murmured to her. Raising her voice, she said, “Let me try.” She circled the bed to stand on the other side. “Grandpa, are you awake? A police officer is here and wants to talk to you. Remember your story about the body hidden away in Lynn? Well, she found it.”
The old man gave a low groan and his eyelids fluttered open. He blearily focused on Barb.
“I thought that might do it,” Barb said. She waved Leigh over before raising her voice again. “Grandpa, this is Trooper Abbott of the Massachusetts State Police.” She stepped back so Leigh could move closer.
“Mr. Kain, I’d like to ask you some questions.” Leigh spoke slowly and clearly, not sure how much the old man could understand. He blinked at her slowly, which she took as a good sign. “Your family reported what you told them about a body hidden in the Adytum building. I went and checked out the location. I found what’s left of an old speakeasy.”
“Connor …” The word came out as a rasp, rough bark over sandpaper.
&nbs
p; Leigh glanced back at Barb, who stepped forward and leaned over the bed. “Connor’s not here now, Grandpa. Maybe he’ll come in later.” She tipped her head toward Leigh. “He loves Connor,” she said in an undertone. “He’s always been a favorite. Grandpa used to take him to ball games and he taught him to work with his hands. Connor’s love of astronomy came from Grandpa. They have a special connection.” Barb gave her a gentle push toward the bed. “Try again.”
“Leigh, you may not have his attention for long.” Matt spoke up from the other side of the bed, his eyes not on Leigh, but critically evaluating the old man. “Cut to the chase.”
She leaned low, staring intently into his face. “Mr. Kain, what can you tell me about the man in the basement? About the man behind the brick wall.” There was a flicker of recognition and shock in the watery brown eyes, so she pushed harder. “How did you know about the man behind the wall, Mr. Kain? What is his name and how did he get there? What do you know about the speakeasy?”
The old man’s mouth moved, his lips trying to form words, but all that came out was a wheeze. Leigh bent down, her ear to his lips, trying desperately to catch the slightest thread of sound.
Blue ruin.
Not sure she’d heard correctly, she started to pull away to question him, but a gnarled hand snaked out, closing with surprising force around her wrist, his fingers ice-cold on her skin. The shadows cleared from his eyes and Leigh recognized for that brief moment that Samuel Kain was with her.
“Deserved to die.” A harsh cough rattled in his chest, breaking through the hoarse whisper. “Too many gone … his fault.”
“Who deserved to die?” she pressed. “By whose hand?”
“Justicccccce …” The word stretched out like a snake’s hiss, venom dripping from the tone.