Dead Air

by Michael Bradley

  “I spent the better part of four years in therapy. But you never really get over it, do you?”

  “No, I doubt it.”

  “For a long time, I avoided relationships like the plague,” Kaitlyn said. “Brad was the first person I’d been serious with since Jesse’s death. That’s what makes this so much harder.” Her voice cracked as she fought to keep her emotions under control. “Just as I dip my foot back into the pool of love . . .”

  She fell into silence. He didn’t follow up with any questions, which came to her as a relief. She’d opened up far more than she’d expected. He now knew the truth, at least as much as she was willing tell. The rest, she decided, must remain locked away. Kaitlyn wasn’t prepared to revisit the whole truth. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But maybe Rodney could find Brad’s murderer without the whole truth.

  While Rodney slowed to pass through the EZ-Pass lane of the bridge’s toll booth, she kept her eyes fixed on an unseen point somewhere ahead, oblivious to scenes passing on either side. Without the distraction of conversation, Kaitlyn’s mind was free to drift, and found its way into the past. Closing her eyes, she saw his face—a mix of rage and terror—as it sank beneath the murky surface of the Shallows. The water inched over his lips, filling his mouth. The gurgling had been so loud that she could hear it over the clamor of his thrashing arms. Snapping her eyes open again, she realized that the silence had become unbearable. “Tell me about your daughter,” she said.

  The question seemed to take him by surprise. “Huh?”

  “Your daughter. You said I reminded you of her.”

  He hesitated with his answer. She’d put him on the spot with a seemingly unwelcome question. She’d only been trying to occupy her mind, but Kaitlyn wondered if she’d overstepped some unspoken boundary between cop and victim. His hands shifted on the steering wheel. He was uncomfortable, she could tell. “Sorry,” she said. “Getting too personal.”

  “No. It’s not that. Just not accustomed to talking about myself.” He drifted the car to the right onto the onramp for I-95 North. “Carol was a good kid. That’s how I like to remember her. She was smart, pretty, and had a bright future ahead of her. She made me and her mother proud with everything she did.”

  “You speak as if she’s dead.”

  He shook his head. “She’d probably have been better off if she was. Her senior year of high school, she fell in with some bad influences. A month after her eighteenth birthday, she got mixed up in a hit-and-run that killed a mother and her young daughter. Carol had been driving home from a friend’s house. She’d been drinking.” It was his voice that cracked this time. “I found the damage on her car the next morning.”

  “You turned in your own daughter?”

  He was slow to answer. “What choice did I have?”

  He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. How agonizing the decision must have been for him? She wondered if the fatherly instinct had hesitated his hand even for a moment before turning his daughter over to the police. “Must have been tough.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “My wife begged me to hide the evidence. There’d been nothing to connect my daughter to the accident except the damage on her car. But . . .”

  His hands gripped the steering wheel, tight enough to turn his knuckles white. Although she wanted to know more, Kaitlyn decided that, like her, he had a past that was best left alone. She turned away from him and stared out the window. The mile markers along the side of the interstate flew past, white lettering on the green background was nothing more than a blur.

  His voice broke the silence. “She killed them both. She hit them and left the scene of the accident. I’ve spent the past three years wondering where I’d failed as a parent.” He sped up an onramp and merged with traffic. “She’s serving two five-year sentences in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.”

  “I’m sorry. It must have been rough, going through that as a cop.”

  Rodney let out a quiet laugh. “Yeah. Some of my co-workers didn’t make it easy.”

  With that, the detective fell silent once again. Kaitlyn studied his profile. The chiseled jaw oscillated beneath the tightly locked lips, as if he were grinding his teeth. His eyes focused on the road ahead, and he didn’t seem to notice her cursory inspection. She turned away and allowed herself to find some solace in the passing scenery.

  “How well do you know Kevin O’Neill?”

  She was surprised by the question. It came abruptly, as if he was desperate to change the subject. “I’ve worked with him for a couple years. Why?”

  “How about when you were growing up? Any chance you might have met him?”

  Kaitlyn was confused. Why would Rodney ask her a question like that? “What’s this all about?”

  “Kevin is the same age as you. He spent his teenage years in Penns Grove. I thought you might have run into him when you were young.”

  She thought hard for a moment. She never knew that Kevin was from New Jersey. There were two Kevins that she could remember from her childhood, but neither were from Penns Grove. “Don’t think so. I’m sure I’d have remembered. Does it matter?”

  Rodney shook his head. “Probably not. Just curious.”

  Kaitlyn felt a sense of relief when she saw her house in the distance. The silence that had ensued during the latter part of their journey back from New Jersey had become unbearable. It left her feeling almost claustrophobic with an overwhelming urge to bolt from the car the moment it stopped. All she wanted was to forget. Forget the previous couple weeks. Forget the Shallows. Forget the past.

  Rodney drew the Dodge into the driveway, and her hand was quick to reach for the door handle. She’d opened the door halfway before his hand clutched her forearm, stopping Kaitlyn from getting out of the car.

  “Stay here.”

  She followed his concerned gaze, saw the envelope stuck to the center of the garage door, and drew in a quick breath. It was just like all of the others. Her name was scrawled in large block letters across the front. Rodney reached in the car’s glove box and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. As he climbed from the car, he slipped the gloves over his hands and walked toward the garage.

  Rodney peeled the envelope from the door and carefully opened the flap. He slipped the folded paper from within. Kaitlyn caught the narrowing of his eyes as he held the paper before him. The grave frown that crossed his lips conveyed all that she needed to know.

  She climbed from the car and met him by the garage door. “It’s from him, isn’t it? What does it say?”

  He said nothing at first, glancing around the surrounding neighborhood with intense scrutiny. Then he turned the letter around for her to read. Cut from magazines, the letters formed a simple question:

  Did you have fun at the Shallows?

  32

  Kaitlyn carried two mugs to the kitchen table, setting one down before Rodney and taking a sip from the other. Although the tea was warm and soothing, it would take more than a little sweet honey to comfort her. She set the mug on the table and opened one of the nearby cabinets. She returned to the table with a bottle of Jack Daniels and took a seat across from Rodney. He’d been on the phone for ten minutes with Julie Lewis. It had started out calmly enough, but she could hear the frustration in his voice and see it in his furrowed brow and tightened jaw.

  “No, I didn’t intentionally leave you out of it,” he said, shaking his head. “It was spur of the moment.”

  Kaitlyn cracked open the bottle of whiskey and poured some into her mug. Then she raised it toward Rodney as if to ask him if he wanted some. He nodded. She poured a little in his mug, then set the bottle down on the table between them. As Rodney’s conversation continued, Kaitlyn listened quietly, sipped her tea and tried not to laugh. It seemed like the detective had spent nine minutes out of the ten defending his decision to take her to New Jersey earlier that day.

  “Julie, I’m trying to explain—”

  Resting her mug on the table, Kaitlyn glanced toward the win
dow over the kitchen sink. Shadows were falling outside as the sun set. She couldn’t believe that the day was almost over. Between the incident with the homeless man and the trip to the Shallows, the day felt like a whirlwind. As her thoughts returned to the most recent letter, her blood ran cold. How could anyone know they had gone to the Shallows? As Rodney had just said to Julie, the trip was entirely spur of the moment. Someone must have followed them to New Jersey. Was this person always watching her? Was every moment of her life under scrutiny? Her gaze remained on the window. Could someone be watching now?

  Rodney had taken her keys, told her to stay in the locked car, and searched the house from top to bottom. He had placed the letter in an evidence bag and dropped it in the trunk. Then, he’d escorted her into the house.

  “My god, that woman is frustrating.” Rodney sighed as he dropped his mobile phone onto the table.

  Kaitlyn turned her eyes back to him and smiled. “You two sound like an old married couple.”

  He laughed, then reached for his mug. “We do, don’t we? Julie’s a good detective, just a bit too high-strung for my tastes. She’ll be here shortly.”

  He sipped at his tea. “What is this?”

  “Apple and cinnamon tea with a dash of honey and . . .” She gestured to the bottle on the table.

  He swallowed another mouthful, then said, “I’m more of a coffee drinker myself, but this isn’t bad. The JD helps make it palatable.”

  She recalled a quote that seemed poignant and smiled. “You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

  Rodney looked across the table at her, puzzled. “Tolkien?”

  Kaitlyn shook her head. “C. S. Lewis.”

  “Hmmm, I’ve not read much of his stuff.”

  “You seem more like a student of philosophy.”

  He smiled. “How did you know?”

  “If thou gaze into an abyss . . .” She giggled. “I know enough to recognize Nietzsche when he’s quoted.”

  “At least someone appreciates it,” he said. “It goes right over Julie’s head.”

  They finished their tea and moved into the living room. Kaitlyn went straight to the wide bow window. She squinted past her own reflection into the darkness beyond. Reflected in the glass, she saw Rodney pass behind her and move to the bookshelf along the nearby wall. Anyone lurking outside could observe their every move, and they’d never know. The thought sent a chill through her. Kaitlyn yanked the curtains closed with a quick jerk before taking a seat on the sofa.

  Rodney drew a book from the living room bookshelf and gazed down at the cover. “I remember having to read The Tell-tale Heart in high school, but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything else from Poe.” He turned and held up the book for her to see the title. “Are his other works any good?”

  Kaitlyn nodded. “Yeah, but you have to be in the right mood.”

  She sank into the deep sofa cushions as he opened the book and flipped through the pages. He scanned the text. Then he read aloud.

  The skies they were ashen and sober;

  The leaves they were crisped and sere—

  The leaves they were withering and sere;

  It was night in the lonesome October

  Kaitlyn gave him a smile. “Ulalume.”

  “Do you have these memorized?”

  “No. You just happened to find one of my favorites.”

  He closed the book and placed it back onto the shelf. “I see what you mean about having to be in the mood for Poe.” He continued to scan the titles. “You’ve got an eccentric taste in books. Stoker, Austen, and Plato. And then Doyle, Wells, and Dickens. You’ve got a veritable who’s who of classic literature.” He frowned and pulled a thick paperback from between two leather bound volumes. “And this? You disappoint me. Fifty Shades of Gray?”

  Her face reddened, and she turned her gaze away from him. “My guilty pleasure.”

  He laughed and returned the book to its place on the shelf, then sat on the loveseat across from her. Rodney looked as if he were about to ask her a question. She knew he was only doing his job, but Kaitlyn wanted nothing more than to forget about the whole ordeal that had brought them together.

  Suddenly a gunshot echoed through the house, followed by the crash of glass and a loud whoosh. Startled, Kaitlyn leapt from the sofa. Rodney was on his feet as well, reaching for the leather holster resting on his hip.

  “What the hell—?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” she replied. “It came from the kitchen.”

  Kaitlyn followed him from the room and down the hall toward the back of the house. The smoke stung her eyes even before she caught sight of the bright orange flickering ahead. The kitchen table and chairs, as well as the curtains, were ablaze. The fire was young and nimble, just beginning to take hold of the objects it engulfed. Rodney charged into the room, yanking down the curtains around the shattered sliding-glass door. The fabric, which had just ignited, fell into a pile and he stomped at the burning threads.

  “Water,” he yelled.

  Kaitlyn rushed to the pantry and flung open the door to grab the fire extinguisher. She ran across the kitchen and tugged at the orange safety pin free, then let loose a stream of white foam onto the flames. The fire shrank away in protest.

  Rodney dropped to one knee and pulled up his pant leg. Strapped around his ankle, Kaitlyn saw a black holster holding a small revolver. He drew the weapon and handed it to her. Resting the extinguisher on the floor by her feet, she took the small silver gun in her hand. It was surprisingly lighter than she expected. The metal was cold against her palm.

  “You know how to use that?”

  She nodded, and allowed her fingers to curl around the pistol grip.

  “Stay away from the windows if you can. Don’t leave the house.” He drew his own gun from the holster on his hip, stepped through the frame of the shattered sliding-glass door and halted. “And don’t shoot me.” Then he disappeared into the darkness.

  She remained still for a few minutes, staring out of the darkened opening. A cool breeze blew in, fanning the smoke and smoldering embers. Kaitlyn slipped the revolver into her waistband and used the extinguisher to stifle some rogue flames. Clouds of caustic vapor rose from the charred remains of her table, causing her to cough and back up against the far wall. She dropped the now-empty extinguisher to the floor with a dull thud. Pulling the handgun out of her waistband, she held it within a tight grip. It had been more years than she could remember since she’d fired a gun. Jesse had taught her to shoot the autumn before he died.

  Kaitlyn recalled the row of soda cans resting atop the trunk of the fallen pine tree out along the edge of the farm. An October wind whipped at the wilted cornstalks in the fields. Jesse stood behind her, his body pressed against hers. His arms reached around and steadied Kaitlyn’s arms as she gazed down the barrel of the Smith & Wesson.

  “Just relax,” he’d said. “Take a deep breath. When you’re ready, pull the—”

  Her arm jerked upward as the explosive concussion echoed across the field. The shot reverberated up her arms. A sharp odor cut into her nostrils. It was an acrid but strangely sweet smell.

  She looked at the row of soda cans. None had moved. “Damn.”

  “It’s your first time,” Jesse said. “Were you expecting to be a marksman your first time out?”

  She turned and smiled. “Of course.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her. It was deep and passionate. Her arms went limp at her sides, so much so that she almost dropped the gun.

  She pulled away from him. “Is it such a good idea to kiss me while I’m holding a gun?”

  He reached for the firearm, slipping it from between her fingers. “I’m not worried. You’d never hurt me.”

  A sudden noise outside the darkened door startled Kaitlyn back to the present. With a steady hand, she brought the small revolver up and aimed at the center of the opening. She heard footsteps approach and drew a tight grip on the gun, her finger rest
ing on the trigger guard just as Jesse had taught her.

  Rodney stepped through the door, then stumbled back when she pointed the gun at him.

  “It’s me. Put the gun down.”

  Kaitlyn released the breath that she’d been holding and brought her arm down to her side. Rodney crossed the room and took the gun from her and placed it on the kitchen counter. Behind him was Julie Lewis, her hair disheveled, and her clothes rumpled and stained with dirt.

  Kaitlyn asked, “What happened?”

  “Julie had a run in with our arsonist.”

  “You saw him?”

  Julie shook her head. “Not well enough to identify him.” She tried to brush the dirt from her pants. “I arrived in time to see someone creeping toward the back of the house. I followed, but not before he shot out your porch door and pitched that Molotov Cocktail through. We scuffled, but he got away across the cemetery.”

  Rodney gestured at Julie. “I almost tripped over her in the dark.”

  33

  Kaitlyn stood in the doorway of the kitchen, surveying the damage. The table was blackened but intact and the curtains lay in a smoldering heap nearby. A chilled wind blew in through the shattered remains of the sliding-glass door. The overhead light in the kitchen made the blackness beyond the opening appear even darker, almost impenetrable. Smoke still lingered in the air like a haunting reminder of the danger she was in. She shuddered and wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

  Rodney, wearing gloves, picked his way around the scorched rubble, careful not to disturb anything. He hovered over some shards of broken glass, then pointed to the floor. “Looks like a wine bottle.”

  Kaitlyn followed his gaze. The short bottle neck was intact, but everything below it was gone. The jagged glass edge had been blackened by the fire.

  Julie, who stood near the refrigerator, came toward Kaitlyn and pointed to the nearby wall. “There’s a bullet hole over here.”