by A. E. Howe
“I don’t know,” his mother said.
“He was a criminal. I’m sure that he was running from something or someone. He hurt a lot of people. Honestly, I don’t care if you ever catch the person who did this,” the daughter blurted.
“Alice!” her mother chastised her.
“Mother, he never did anything but cause you pain and grief. For God’s sake, for once see him like he was, not the way you wanted him to be.”
“He’s dead, can’t you leave him alone now?”
“Quit defending him and I’ll quit attacking him. He was a horrible person.”
This wasn’t getting us anywhere. “Are there other brothers and sisters?”
“No, he was my first and Alice is my youngest.”
“He was my half-brother,” Alice said flatly, trying to distance herself from a man she clearly despised.
“I was married to David’s father, Charles Tyler, for two years. He beat me and made threats at David, so I left.”
“And the nut didn’t fall far from the tree,” his sister said, completely missing the irony that her brother had been hung from a tree. The hatred that Alice had for David was almost a physical presence in the room. I didn’t think it could all be accounted for by his abuse of his mother’s good nature. I decided to take her aside later and ask her about it.
“When was the last time that either of you had contact with David?”
“He called me about two weeks ago. He needed money and I sent it to him.”
“Ha!” Alice huffed. “When didn’t he need money?”
“Those people at that commune fired him and didn’t give him his severance pay. I told him he should talk to them and make them pay him what they owed him.”
“He didn’t tell you why they asked him to leave?” I asked.
“The people running the place were upset that David was pointing out all the things that needed to be repaired. He didn’t like to see people being taken advantage of. He said that some of the houses didn’t even have decent plumbing.”
Boy, I thought, she really drank the Kool-Aid.
“Jeez, Mom, you don’t believe that crap, do you?”
“I know David had problems. But all of it wasn’t his fault.”
“When was the last time that you heard from your brother?” I said, trying to redirect Alice.
“Ten years ago. Maybe longer.”
“Do either of you know of someone who might have done this to David?”
“No. He got in arguments and had problems with people, but I can’t imagine anyone doing something like this,” Tammy choked out.
I caught Alice’s eye. She looked like she had plenty more to say on the subject, but she seemed to realize that this wasn’t the time to pile more on her mom.
“That’s enough for now. Let me walk you all back to your car.”
It had stopped raining by the time we got outside. The wind was beginning to shift from the north, bringing a bitter bite to the damp air. When we reached their car, I held the door open for Tammy. Once she was inside I turned to Alice, who was standing by the driver’s door. “I’d like to talk to you alone.” I handed her my card.
“It would be my pleasure,” she said with a nod. “Let me take Mom for lunch and get her settled back in the hotel. We’re staying the night.”
“Call me, anytime this afternoon will work. Do you mind driving over to Adams County?”
“Actually, an excuse to get away from Mom for a little while would be great.”
I watched her get in and drive off. One bad child can do so much harm to a family.
A text from Dad arrived on my phone as I got in my car. He wanted to see me in his office. Wondering what he wanted, I replied I’d be there in an hour. Had he found out about Henry? Did he know I was treating a suspect more like a victim? I doubted it. Who else knew? I hadn’t even filled Pete in on all the developments. I felt a little guilty about leaving them out in the wind, but until I had an alternative to Henry, I wanted to keep things close.
As soon as I entered Dad’s office, I knew that I was screwed. He looked up and smiled at me. Usually he just sat behind his Texas-sized desk and puttered with the computer or case files while he mumbled at me. A smile meant he wanted something.
He was tall from the waist up so he looked bigger than his 5’10” when he was seated. His ball cap with Sheriff written in large orange letters sat on the edge of his desk. His hair was thinning, white and often a bit unruly, but he seemed to like showing it off, taking his cap off every chance he got.
“Son, have a seat.”
I sat down, knowing full well that I was falling into a trap. “What do you want?” I asked bluntly.
“Come on, now. Would a little small talk between a father and son be such a bad thing?”
Oh, my God. It must be really bad. “I guess not,” I answered, waiting for the trap to snap closed.
“How’s that case coming? The guy found hanging?” He sounded engaged and interested. I tried to remember how often that had happened.
“Pretty good. I think I understand it. Someone wanted something from our victim. I don’t think it’s drug related. We found some recreational drugs in his apartment, but nothing much, and he was broke for all practical purposes. Might be a gambling debt. Something like that.” Of course I left off the whole part about the killer trying to frame my girlsomething’s father.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll get a handle on it. Got that paperwork done on the Kemper case?”
I had to put together a pile of reports and evidence receipts for the prosecutor on the case that almost got me killed. “I’ll have it to him by Tuesday of next week.”
“Excellent. I never have to worry about you doing your paperwork. Next week. That reminds me, I have that sheriff’s conference to go to.”
Oh, Lord, now I knew where this was going.
“But I have a little bit of trouble with my babysitter. He has to go out of town. I’ve got a neighbor looking after the horses, but you know Mauser can’t be left with just anyone. So I’ll need you to watch him for a few days.”
Mauser was Dad’s one-hundred-and-ninety-pound, black-and-white monster of a Great Dane. He was going on two years old with no manners whatsoever. Dad was the world’s worst dog trainer. He was inconsistent, failed to set boundaries, failed to reward good behavior and, last but not least, seemed to find Mauser’s destructive and dangerous behavior hilarious.
“How long?”
“Not long, just Thursday through Sunday.”
“That is an eternity with that dog.”
“Come on now. He’s just a puppy,” he said. I bit down hard on my tongue rather than get into the usual argument about Dad’s non-existent training techniques.
“You know, I have a job too. What am I going to do with him during the day Thursday and Friday?”
“I give you permission to bring him to work. Everyone here loves the big goof.”
Dad obviously hadn’t heard what some of the people in the office had to say about the canine menace. True, there were about half a dozen folks who were as smitten with the oaf as Dad was, but there was at least one guy who preferred to take personal days off rather than be in the same building with Mauser.
“And I’m on call Saturday night.” We split the night shift between a few investigators and supervisors.
“Not anymore.” He made a note. “I’ll call Lt. Johnson as soon as we’re done. You can take your shift on Wednesday night.”
There was nothing I could say. Dad had put me in this position before and I still hadn’t found a way to get out of it. Putting my foot down was an option, and honestly Dad wouldn’t give me that much grief about it. However, he was a master at passive resistance and he’d find a dozen ways to make me feel like crap if I refused. It simply wasn’t worth it. I couldn’t even use Ivy as an excuse since the darn cat was one of Mauser’s biggest fans. I think she liked the fact that he always found ways of getting food and spreading it around the house. What
ever. I was alone in this battle and I always lost.
“Make my shift on Tuesday night. If I’m going to get Mauser on Thursday, I’ll need a good night’s sleep Wednesday.”
“Done. Good man.” He made a note about the shift. “Come by Thursday morning about nine. And keep me informed on the murder.” And that was it. He waved me off. Dazed at the turn of events, I walked out of the office.
Chapter Five
Back at my desk I tried not to dwell on the nightmare I faced next week. It was Friday and I wanted to clear up a few more things before I left.
I closed out the two domestics. I’d talked to the victims in each case, and they both agreed to press charges, so the files could be turned over to the prosecutor’s office. It was about three when I looked up from my computer to see Alice Page standing there.
“I thought I’d just come by,” she said.
I stood up. “Great, glad you did.” I led her to the small conference room outside of Dad’s office and we sat down across from each other.
“I was getting the impression you had a little more to say about your brother than you wanted to in front of your mother,” I prodded her.
“Half-brother,” she repeated, then fell silent as if gathering strength to say something. I waited. “He was evil. The worst human being I ever knew,” she said sincerely.
“Why do you say that?” That seemed a little strong. I’d seen a lot of creeps and his record didn’t look as bad as a lot of them.
“He raped me.” She choked back tears. “I am sooo glad that he is dead. I’ve wanted to see him punished for all the nasty, vile things he did to me and others for twenty years. But he said he’d hurt me if I told anyone.” She was almost hyperventilating. “My only regret is that I didn’t do it. At the very least, I wish I could have seen him dangling from that rope.”
I almost offered to go get the crime scene photos for her. “When did he rape you?”
“Started when I was thirteen.”
“I’m sorry. Have you told your mother?”
“I’ve tried to several times. I was twenty the first time I tried to explain why I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with David. But she didn’t hear me. It was like her mind refused to even take it in, let alone process it.”
“That must have been awful for you.” I couldn’t imagine what she must have endured.
“Those events shaped my entire life. I’m a psychologist. I lived with all that pain and now I try to help others. What’s sad is how often I fail. Too many people are damaged so badly that they can’t be healed.”
“You sound like you’ve been able to create a life apart from what David inflicted on you.”
“You have to try, right?”
“You realize that no matter how terrible your half-brother was, I still have to do my best to find his killer?”
“I realize that someone who takes the law into his own hands is wrong. I know that’s true, but there is a big part of me that would like to shake the hand of the murderer. I don’t know why he did it and I understand it was wrong. But I think I would have killed him myself years ago if I’d had the guts. Whoever hung David up by the neck did me a great service. The moment that Mom told me he was dead, I felt like a giant cross had been lifted off my shoulders.”
“Is there any point in me asking if you know of anyone who might have done this to David?”
“I don’t know. Would I tell you if I did? Luckily that’s not a decision I have to make.”
“Anything you could tell me about David’s recent past would be a help.”
“I’ve tried to avoid even hearing his name during the last decade. I have no idea who he was involved with. There were girls when I was growing up that I think he did things to, but I couldn’t say for sure. I can tell you, both as a psychologist and as a person who knew David, he hadn’t changed. I don’t think he could have changed. That means that there are other women and girls that he harassed and probably raped.”
I wanted to ask her why she didn’t try harder to get him put away. But she had suffered enough and I could see in her eyes that she hated the fact she hadn’t been able to stop him.
“Thank you for coming and talking to me,” I said sympathetically.
“I didn’t do it for you or for David. I did it for me.” She got up and walked out.
I finished up some more paperwork and when I looked up it was after five. Matt Greene was the only other investigator still in the office. He glanced at me as I stood up and put on my coat. Matt had the personality of a badger, which as a colleague made him hard to deal with, but also made him a tough and tenacious investigator. We had never gotten along. He resented my family ties with the sheriff and I didn’t like the fact that he was an ass. However, after being forced to work together on the Kemper case, we’d come to something approaching mutual respect.
“Got another murder?” He managed to say it with only a hint of envy.
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure that I wanted to engage him in conversation.
“Heard they found the victim hanging from a tree on the south side. At least it wasn’t racial.” Hearing him echo my first thoughts made me feel a little of the thin blue line’s kinship with him.
“Yeah, it would have been a whole different animal. But it looks like he was killed by a colleague who wanted something from him.”
“Robbery?”
“The victim didn’t have anything.”
“Drugs?”
“Possibly. The guy was a nasty piece of work, but he looked to be only a recreational drug user.”
“First time try at running drugs and he tries to double-cross the buyer?”
“Maybe, but if so we haven’t found any evidence.”
“You get stuck, I’ll be glad to take a look at it. Did you get your paperwork done for the prosecutor?” He had his own set of reports to turn in on the Kemper case.
“I’ve promised them to him by Tuesday.”
“I turned mine in yesterday.” He turned back to his monitor. “Going over a couple of cold cases.” He didn’t look back at me. What did I expect? He wasn’t going to develop people skills overnight.
“Have a good weekend,” I told him and left.
When I got home I called Cara.
“Dad’s going a little crazy. He can’t stand to be away from the co-op for too long. And Mom is driving me insane. When do you think they can go back to Gainesville?”
“I’m sorry, but probably not before Tuesday. I want to get all the preliminary lab reports back and follow up on the phone call your dad got. We found a phone at the murder site, a pay-as-you-go model that had been recently activated. The number matches the one used to call your dad. The company is tracking the number and should be able to tell me where it was purchased on Monday.”
“I got Dr. Barnhill to let me work Saturday and do the dog walking on Sunday, just so I have an excuse to get out of the house. Maybe I can put Dad to work in the backyard or something.”
“I’d like to say that he can go now, but…”
“No, I understand, you have to do your job,” Cara said, trying to reassure me. I hated for her to see this as another example of my job being an issue. “You’ve been a big help. My dad wouldn’t have done well if some cop had dragged him into the station and started questioning him. I know you’ve done us a huge favor. I’d just forgotten what it’s like to live with my parents. Love them, but they can drive me nuts.”
“Hang in there. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
Ivy bumped my hand as I hung up. “I hope you’re happy. Your boyfriend is coming to visit next week. Any damage that lunk of a dog does is on your head,” I told her as she settled in my lap, ignoring my complaints.
Chapter Six
I went back to the office on Saturday to take care of the hit-and-run report. I called the victim and was told pretty much exactly what was in the report. Still, you have to follow up. Some of the deputies are great at doing most of the He-Man aspects of
law enforcement, but are a bit lacking in their basic math and English skills.
This isn’t always true. For instance, I always look forward to Deputy Mark Edwards’s reports. He themes them. Some are done as a comedy of errors while others are Gothic tragedies. We’ve actually shared his reports around the office.
Edwards was one of those people who got into law enforcement because he wanted to help people, and he’d managed to keep his sense of humor and good nature throughout all the horrors and filth that you have to deal with out on the road. People who paint officers as all one color are missing the complexities that drive people to enter the job. Every deputy and police officer has their own reasons for joining. For many, their reasons are noble—to help others, to uphold the standards of our communities, to provide for their families while protecting others.
My phone rang. Glancing at the ID I saw that it was Eddie, my first official confidential informant. I sighed and answered the call.
“Hey, Eddie.”
“You almost sound glad to hear from me.”
“Yeah, sure, if you say so. What’s up?”
“I need to meet with you.” Since hooking up with him a month ago, I’d learned that “meet up” was code for “I need money.”
“What’s it about?”
“Not on the phone.” Of course not, I can’t give you money over the phone, I thought. But I chided myself. The man had saved my life.
“Okay. The usual?” The usual was Rose Hill Cemetery.
“Yeah, in an hour?”
“I’ll see you there.”
Eddie was waiting for me when I reached the north side of the graveyard. I got out of my car and we walked over to lean against the wall. The air was frigid, but the wall provided some relief from the wind.
Rose Hill was the second oldest cemetery in Adams County. It was started in 1840 during a yellow fever outbreak. Against the north wall were the graves of Union soldiers killed during the Civil War. The joke was that it was as far north as they could bury them and still be in the cemetery. There were over a hundred of the two-foot-high, rounded white gravestones. War dead are always humbling. So many giving their lives for causes that most of them were too young to understand.