Torn

by Chris Jordan

  The young trooper is running through a gear checklist for his squad-an inventory of assault weapons, various surveillance devices-and pointedly lets Shane know they’ll have to cut it short if the unit is dispatched. “You know how it is,” he says, offering a polite but unenthusiastic shake of the hand.

  The young trooper-it’s hard for Shane not to think of him as a kid-is lean and long of limb. Hair closely cropped and thin, pink-tinged ears that jut out from a boney, high-cheeked skull. He’s nowhere near as tall as Shane, but there’s enough physical similarity that he’s reminded of himself at that age. Similar dedication and intensity of purpose. Similar skepticism, too. The trooper’s attitude is not exactly filial. More like, show me why I shouldn’t hold you in contempt.

  Shane has an inkling where the ‘tude’ comes from and realizes he must deal with it if he expects to get anything from Tommy Petruchio.

  “You mind if an old man takes a seat?” he asks.

  The trooper snorts derisively. “You’re not exactly an old man, sir.”

  “Old enough,” says Shane, who often chooses to sit down so he doesn’t tower over interviewees. “No ‘sir’ necessary. That really does make me feel old.”

  “Yeah? So how is Haley doing?” the trooper asks pointedly. “Is she hanging in there?”

  “Seems to be,” says Shane. “I understand you know her through a family connection?”

  “Yeah, my aunt Helen. They’re book crazy, both of them.”

  “You’re aware that Mrs. Corbin believes her boy wasn’t killed in the blast?”

  Tommy Petruchio nods slowly, thoughtfully, obviously distrustful of the former agent’s motives. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m aware.”

  “Mrs. Corbin is out in the car. I asked that she not attend this interview because I wanted you to be able to speak freely.”

  “I’d never lie to the lady. Sir,” he adds pointedly.

  “No, but you’d spare her feelings,” says Shane. “Anybody would. You don’t have to worry about sparing my feelings.”

  Tommy grunts. “You got that right.”

  Shane nods to himself, smiling his little smile. “Okay, Trooper, I get it. I do. You think I’m wasting my time, investigating what has already been thoroughly investigated?”

  “I do, yeah. Among other things. Sir.”

  “Call me Shane, please.”

  “They got a positive match from the DNA. Sir. Sorry, force of habit.”

  “No problem. You’re probably right about this being a waste of time, but I’ve agreed to look into this for Mrs. Corbin. To satisfy her mind. She’s adamant that it be done. If not me, I’m afraid it might be an unscrupulous person, one who might be interested in draining her of money instead of clarifying things. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Tommy’s expression is devoid of sympathy. “You’re not interested in her money? Really? That’s kind of odd, sir, because I heard she cut you a big check.”

  Shane sits up straight, looks him in the eye, holding steady. “I’m not interested in money, Trooper, other than how it may be useful in finding and recovering a missing child. Your sources are correct. Mrs. Corbin offered me a generous retainer, but I haven’t yet taken it.”

  “Oh yeah? And why is that?” asks Tommy, still deeply skeptical.

  “Because it wouldn’t be right. Not unless I can determine that her son is somehow alive. Satisfied?”

  He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. If you say so.”

  Shane opens his wallet, hands Tommy a card. “Check me out. Your concern is appreciated-the lady does need someone looking out for her best interests. But right now I’d appreciate your full cooperation, despite any reservations you may have about me personally.”

  Tommy thinks about it, shrugs. “What do you want to know?”

  “Mrs. Corbin tells me you knew the perpetrator. Let’s start with your impressions of him.”

  Tommy grimaces at the recollection. “Roland Penny was a loser. Not a nice loser-a sneaky, lying, mean-ass loser. He was that way in first grade and he was that way when he murdered poor Leo Gannett and scared the pee out of a bunch of children.”

  “So you knew him for most of his life.”

  “Yeah. Except not so much the last few years. Roland dropped out in tenth grade, soon as he turned sixteen. Small town you’re always aware of everybody your own age, but he was into drugs. I was into football. Different worlds. Plus I never liked him anyhow. Fifth grade he got suspended for torturing Billy Beribe. Billy’s got Down syndrome.”

  “Torture?”

  “Roland locked Billy in a dark broom closet, shoved his hands in a bucket of cold deer guts. Literally scared the shit out of poor little Billy.”

  “He had a history of violent behavior?”

  “I guess. He had a lot of grievances. Whatever he screwed up, it was always somebody else’s fault. Thought he should be somebody important, somebody successful, even though he never did much of anything. You know the type-not very smart himself but he assumes everybody else is stupid? That’s Roland.”

  “He was smart enough to make a bomb,” Shane points out.

  “Probably found plans on the Net.”

  “Your impression is that he was organized? Capable of planning?”

  Tommy shrugs. “Nah, not Roland. That wasn’t my assumption. My assumption was the dude couldn’t have planned a one-car funeral procession. But obviously I was mistaken.”

  Shane makes a few notes in a small reporter’s notebook he carries for just such occasions. “I understand you managed to get a surveillance camera on-site.”

  The young trooper brightens when the subject turns to equipment. “Yeah, we got a tactical fiber optic with a sixty-inch reach. Got a real good look at old Roland, strutting around and waving his gun. You know what that sick son of a bitch was doing? He was singing! At the top of his lungs! Like this was some kind of karaoke deal he had going. Ozzie-can you believe it?”

  “Ozzie?”

  “Ozzie Osbourne. Black Sabbath. Roland was singing along to Black Sabbath. ‘Paranoid.’”

  “He was paranoid?” Shane asks, writing it down.

  Tommy chuckles. “Man you really are old. ‘Paranoid’ is a song. A famous song written way before I was born. Like the most famous metal song ever recorded.”

  “Sorry. I was more into Dire Straits.”

  “‘Sultans of Swing.’ Ugh.”

  “Hey, I was clueless. My other favorite was Supertramp.”

  Trooper Tommy Petruchio laughs so hard he spits drool. “Dude!”

  “Is Ozzie Osborne the one who ate bats for breakfast?”

  “Yeah,” says Tommy, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “On his freakin’ Cheerios.”

  “So Roland Penny was a heavy-metal fan.”

  “I guess. Must have had it on his iPod.”

  Shane stops with his pen above the page. “The perp was wearing a personal listening device?”

  “Yeah,” says Tommy. “And he had it cranked. I could tell he had it cranked. I remember thinking, you little weasel, you’ll never hear the shot when it comes. You’ll never know we’re busting in until you’re already dead.”

  “So the iPod was like what, a soundtrack to his suicide?”

  “That’s the theory. Not that anybody really cares.”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Not about Roland. He’s dead. What difference does it make what songs he had playing in his sick mind?”

  Shane makes a note. “Okay, you had audio and visual on the guy until what, the smoke started?”

  “Yeah, that was weird.”

  “How so?”

  “Why bring a smoke bomb to the party when you’ve got a real bomb set to blow a few minutes later? What was the point? And when the smoke started coming out of that cart, Roland looked like he was freaking.”

  “So he didn’t ignite the smoke generator?”

  Tommy shrugs. “I guess he must have. Or maybe it went off earlier than he planned. Whatever, onc
e the smoke started we no longer had visual contact. We forced entry, concentrated on getting the kids out of the building.”

  “You lost sight of Roland.”

  “Man, it was thick smoke! Like you wouldn’t believe. No viz at all. We were grabbing little kids just by reaching down, feeling around.”

  “Any indication Roland was equipped with a gas mask or any sort of smoke protector?”

  “Not that I saw. But it happened so quick.”

  “So you surmise that he remained in the center of the gym while you and your men evacuated the building?”

  “That’s the theory.”

  “Were shots fired, once the building was breached?”

  Tommy shakes his head. “Nope. The only shot he fired was to the back of Leo Gannett’s head, and that happened first, before we got there.”

  “So he never reacted?”

  “No.”

  “He never attempted to flee the scene?”

  “He was within a yard of the C-4 when it detonated,” Tommy says, folding his arms resolutely, confident of his opinions. “That’s what they determined. We found pieces of Roland all around the gym, consistent with him being that close. We figure he activated the bomb by hand.”

  “How so?”

  “Because the remote control he was waving around, threatening all those poor kids with how he’d turn ’em into jelly beans-that was just a regular Sony TV remote. Totally harmless.”

  Shane pauses. “I hadn’t heard about the dummy remote.”

  “I don’t guess it matters how he triggered the detonator. We know he triggered it somehow because it blew him and Leo to pieces.”

  “And little Noah Corbin,” Shane reminds him.

  “Yeah, poor little guy.”

  “Any theories on the smoke? Why he was packing a smoke generator, what he hoped to accomplish?”

  Tommy shrugs. “He was nuts, obviously.”

  “It occurs to me,” Shane says carefully, “that smoke is a pretty good diversion, as well as a cover.”

  “Yeah, but for what? Roland wasn’t trying to escape. He blew himself up.”

  “Or somebody else did, using another remote detonator.”

  Tommy snorts. “Yeah, that was a theory for about five minutes. Trouble is, there’s no physical evidence indicating he had an accomplice. Nothing. Nada.”

  “But that smoke, the smoke bothers me. It’s a tactical strategy. It’s what you deploy if you want to confuse the situation. If the whole crazy scene with Roland was somehow staged, or he was put up to it. The smoke confuses Roland. It confuses everybody. So maybe the smoke was for a reason.”

  “Oh, you mean the kid. Could somebody have snatched him.”

  “Could they?”

  “Doubtful. I mean, who? It was just us in there. My unit and the teachers and the kids.”

  Shane looks quizzical. “I understood some of the firefighters helped out.”

  “Yeah,” he allows. “They were grabbing kids, too.”

  “And Roland waited until all of you were safely out of the building before he detonated the bomb.”

  “Yeah,” says Tommy. “That was lucky.”

  “Except for the kid.”

  “Except for the kid.”

  Shane pauses. They share the quiet for a while. Trooper Tommy Petruchio scratches his nose and finally breaks the silence. “You know what bothers me?”

  Shane waits.

  “The Escalade.”

  “Escalade?” asks Shane, genuinely puzzled.

  “A week before it all went down Roland Penny put three grand, cash, down on a new Escalade. We found the receipt in the glove box of his old van. He never paid the balance, never took delivery, but still. I told you Roland was a loser. He was also unemployed and without any obvious source of funds. So where did he get the money for the down payment?”

  “Any theories?”

  “The detectives in charge figured maybe he was dealing.”

  “And was he?”

  “No hard evidence either way. And if he did get the money from dealing, why’d he spend it on a car when he was planning to blow himself up in a few days? Answer me that, Batman.”

  9. What The Moon Is Made Of

  The last time I was in a diner it was probably a Johnny Rockets at a mall somewhere. In other words, a nostalgic substitute, not the real thing. No cracked linoleum counters, no worn vinyl booths lovingly polished by generations of ample bottoms. No heady perfume of sugared doughnuts and sizzling bacon. No short-order cook who looks to be in the final stages of alcoholism, eyes peering out from a ruined face as he chops peppers and onions for an omelet that never ends.

  Shane has found us a prime example of a real working diner, or so he says, located just north of the Finger Lakes. This is my first visit to the city of Auburn. Shane calls it a ‘nice little burg’ and I see no reason to disagree, even if the burg’s main claim to fame is that Abner Doubleday took up residence for a time, and no doubt dreamed of baseball. Oh yeah, and according to the helpful historical notes included on the menu, the first-ever execution by electric chair took place at the local prison in 1890. So the place has a lot going for it if you happen to be a fan of baseball or capital punishment.

  As to diners and lunch counters, I can taken ’em or leave ’em, whereas Shane is clearly smitten.

  “This is a Jerry O’Mahony,” he says, looking around. “Early 1950s. They were well into the stainless steel period by then. O’Mahony was one of the major manufacturers, out of Elizabeth, New Jersey. They helped make stainless diners fashionable in the 1940s. Before that it was barrel tops.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  He’s waiting for a slice of pie and a glass of milk. I’m not hungry.

  “Barrel top was the original style. First it was horse-drawn carts with rounded tops, to give them more headroom. Then I guess what happened is, the lunch carts started parking in one place. Maybe put a little foundation under the cart, add on a wing for more room. So the folks building the carts got bigger, too. Voilà, the American diner is born. People think they’re all shiny and stainless, but the early versions were more like old boxcars with a rounded top.”

  “So this is your hobby?” I ask. “Not bowling or fishing or golf?”

  “Just an area of interest,” he says with a small, tight smile.

  “Sorry.”

  “No. You’re right. Who cares about diners? Boring.”

  “Now you’re pissed.”

  He chuckles, shakes his head. “No, no, absolutely not. Here I am, rattling on, when what you want to know is what happens next. Where we go from here.”

  “The down payment for the new car,” I say eagerly. “It’s proof, right? That somebody paid Roland Penny to do what he did?”

  The pie and milk arrive. As she sets down the glass and plate, the uniformed waitress checks him out with hungry eyes.

  “Getcha anything else?” she asks, all innocence, hovering so he can get a shot of her ample ta-tas if he cares to look.

  “I’m good,” he says, oblivious.

  After she slinks away I whisper, “She wants to jump your bones.”

  Shane makes a face, clearly thinks I’m being ridiculous. Not a clue. He digs into the pie. He’s a neat, methodical eater, has it in four bites. Dusts his hands with a napkin, then drinks half a glass of milk in one swallow. “Sorry,” he says, setting down the glass and for some reason looking guilty.

  “Proof,” I remind him. “Somebody paid Roland and he thought there was more to come, enough to buy an Escalade. Plus the smoke. That never made sense, save to give them cover to snatch Noah.”

  “Them?” He pats his lips with the napkin, makes sure his beard is crumb-free. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves, Mrs. Corbin. The down payment is interesting, given what we know about the perpetrator, but it proves only that he came into a little money somehow. Not who gave it to him or why. Maybe Tommy’s wrong and he made it dealing. Maybe a rich uncle died.”

  “And maybe the moon is
made of lemon meringue pie.”

  He smiles. “Sure you don’t want a slice?”

  “You don’t want to give me false hope, is that it?”

  Shane stares at me with pale blue eyes that have seen a whole lot of sadness. “That’s it exactly. Tommy the Trooper already assumes I’m scheming after your money. He won’t be the only one. And they have a reason to be concerned.”

  “But you wouldn’t take the check.”

  “Others might. There are private investigators out there who specialize in bleeding parents dry. They come up with tantalizing little clues, some new slant, persuade the frantic mom and dad to sell the house, empty their bank accounts. And they walk away when the money runs out.”

  “You wouldn’t do a thing like that,” I say.

  “No.”

  Just a word, a simple word, but I believe him. For no other reason than instinct and gut feeling, the same kind that makes me believe my son is still alive in the world.

  “So what next? Where do we go from here?”

  Shane flips open his laptop, scrolls through a few screens. This isn’t exactly Wi-Fi territory, so he’s not cruising the Net but his own research files. “The Humble Police Department,” he says. “Serving your rural community with competence, courage, and integrity. Not a bad motto.”

  “They’ve been very nice. The investigation was run by the State Police, but the local cops are good folks, even if they don’t know much about what went down.”

  “I’ll bet they knew Roland,” Shane says.

  10. Follow The Money

  The day Noah’s school exploded, I really did lose my mind for a while. It felt like my brain was spinning like a mad gyroscope and I had to spin with it or lose my mind altogether. Mostly I remember running. Running around in circles in the parking lot, trying to scream but nothing coming out. Running past the distracted firefighters and cops and somehow finding my way into the ruined gym. It was smoky, of course, and the lights had been blown out, but part of one cinder-block wall had collapsed and a beam of sunlight poured through the hole. At first I thought the air was alive with butterflies, some miracle of light and goodness that would guide me through the wreckage to Noah. But it was thousands of tiny bits of paper fluttering in the utter stillness that followed the detonation. Homework, lesson plans. The smell was awful but at the same time strangely intoxicating, like a whiff of ammonia when you’ve fainted, and for a time it slowed the spin in my head.