Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  “It sounded like a car? Or a truck?”

  “I don’t know, sorry, I barely heard it. I was pissed off. I knew Kasey didn’t need to study. She’s too smart. And we don’t hang out that much. She just wanted to be in town. Closer to town, you know, than her mom’s. But I’m not mad that she used me. I just wish… You know. That I had paid closer attention.”

  He kept her from crying by asking more about the details, whether Aimee heard the vehicle outside before or after the text, things like that.

  Reed caught Julia Hetfield’s gaze. Julia said, “I was gone most of the night. The girls were there when I left around six, to go to the grocery store. When I came back home, Aimee said Kasey had left.”

  He focused on Aimee again. “Do you think Kasey was staying with Tyson?”

  “They broke up. So I don’t think so.”

  “Was it a mutual breakup? Do you know who broke it off?”

  “Tyson did, really,” Aimee said. “Broke up with her, I mean.”

  He asked Aimee, “Were Tyson and Kasey physically intimate with each other?” It had been a long time since high school. Were ninth graders having sex? His son was right around this age, but he didn’t know if the boy was experienced or not. When it came to Mike, there were a lot of things Reed didn’t know.

  Aimee nodded matter-of-factly. “Yeah. He was the first guy for her. But I don’t think she was his first. He acted like it, he said she was, but I don’t think so.”

  “Okay. So they break up – he more or less breaks it off with her – do you think he changed his mind, wanted her back?”

  Aimee shook her head, emotion fading. “Maybe. Those two were weird. Even when they were broken up, they’d sometimes be off talking together. Or doing whatever.” Her eyes widened. “But I don’t mean anything bad. They just hung out.”

  Reed asked, “So last night – you’re thinking she’s going to go meet him – did it seem like a good thing? Like they’re getting back together? Or did she seem nervous. Scared?”

  “No. Not scared. I think, if anything… she had this weird way she was acting.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like she was happy. Like she was never going to see me again.”

  “What do you mean? How so?”

  Aimee shrugged. “I dunno. Just the way she looked at me. Like she was seeing me for the last time. But I could be wrong. Maybe I just think that because she’s… because she’s dead now.”

  A silence formed in the room. Reed watched Aimee a moment, then removed his notebook and flipped to a certain page. Sitting in the van earlier, he’d drawn a rough copy of the symbol that had been covered in dried blood on Kasey’s abdomen. He showed it to Aimee and asked if it meant anything to her.

  She looked at the shapes and the lines, her forehead dented with concentration. “No, I mean – it looks like something I’ve seen before? But I don’t know.”

  At that moment, Investigator Pyle reentered the room.

  “You know where you’ve seen it?” Reed asked Aimee.

  A shake of her head. “I mean it’s just one of those things that looks like something. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Not something you’ve seen, like, on Kasey’s notebook or Tyson’s backpack or anything…?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” She gave it another look. “It’s like something from a movie.”

  Pyle had approached. He leaned down and whispered in Reed’s ear: “He’s not here.”

  Reed gave Pyle a nod, and Pyle stood up and spoke quietly to the principal. Reed smiled at Aimee. He’d gotten a sense of her, that she was telling the truth. “Listen, Aimee, thank you. Just remember – it sounds to me like you were a good friend to Kasey.”

  Aimee nodded, trying to be strong, her chin wobbling with renewed grief.

  Reed stood up. To Julia, he said, “Thanks for being here, letting us talk to her.” He moved with Pyle to the back of the classroom, and they spoke quietly by the door to the hallway. “He was at the scene,” Reed whispered.

  “I know. MacKinnon saw him leave.”

  “Driving?”

  “A green Subaru Forester.”

  “A Subaru?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tire tracks at the scene were consistent with that make of vehicle. Things were looking worse for Tyson Wheeler all the time.

  “Let’s get the BOLO out,” Reed said. “Where’s he live?”

  “With his father – that’s Dan Wheeler – down in Split Rock. Just south of Elliston.”

  “Send the troopers,” Reed said. He was out the door a second later, Pyle on his heels.

  The drive was fast, Reed’s adrenaline surging – troopers beat him to the Wheeler house anyway. He pulled onto a short dirt road that serviced several houses, and saw the Subaru in front of the odd-shaped one with the steep-pitched roof and crumbling cedar shakes. Seeing the way the troopers were parked, he went around to the back of the car and found his Kevlar vest. He was pulling it on when Pyle pulled in and got out behind him. They conferred with two of the troopers – young Tyson Wheeler was in the house, they thought: movement behind one of the windows. “We waited for you,” a trooper said. “We contacted Dan Wheeler – he’s an hour away.”

  “And the younger boy, Tyson’s brother, is at the school,” Pyle added.

  Reed hurried up to the house. He had his Glock, kept it holstered. He stepped up onto the porch, which had a cock-eyed, funhouse angle to it, and then stepped beside the door, not in front of it. He leaned over and knocked, his heart going a mile a minute. “Tyson? You in there?”

  Tyson, if he was in, made no reply. Reed twirled his finger, and the troopers split off, circling the house in opposite directions. He knocked again. “Hey, Tyson. Just want to have a talk with you, man.”

  Still nothing… then maybe the pop of a floorboard as someone moved around inside. Seconds later, the sound of metal hitting metal, faint, like cans clinking together.

  “Hey, Tyson? We’ve got probable cause to come in, so we’re coming in, all right? We have to talk about this thing with Kasey. It’s not going away.” He took a breath, glanced at Pyle, and added, “We spoke to Aimee Hetfield, Tyson. We just want to clear you out of this mess. So we can move on. Okay?”

  He gave it another few seconds. One of the troopers appeared on the far end of the porch and made finger gestures – there was one exit in back; they’d keep it covered. The trooper slipped out of sight.

  “Okay, Tyson,” Reed called. “We’re coming in.”

  Pyle maneuvered in front so he could open the door, Reed set to go in first. He started to say something as Pyle reached for the knob, but then the door blew open in a spray of splintered wood.

  “Gun!” Reed called, falling back. “Gun – he’s got a gun!”

  Reed kept going back, saw that he was in view from the windows. “Watch the windows, watch the windows!” He jumped the porch railing and landed in the yard. Before he stood up again, the glass was shattered by a second thunderous shotgun blast from the house. Pyle spun like a top and hit the floorboards, shoulder ragged and red.

  Reed crouched down, looking through the railing spindles at Pyle. Pyle gnashed his teeth and arched his back and said, “Ahhh, fuck.”

  Reed worked it out: Pyle was a few feet from the porch steps. The railing was old; a couple of the spindles were cracked. He grabbed two of them and yanked, and one snapped free in his hand. The other held, and he grabbed it with both hands, tugged hard. It came loose. Pyle was already reaching for him.

  The voice, from inside, was high-pitched and desperate: “I didn’t hurt her!”

  Reed wondered if the troopers were gaining entry; no shots yet from back there. He took Pyle’s arms and yanked, and Pyle cried out as Reed slipped him through the gap in the railing. Pyle fell on top of him in a heap and rolled off. “Stay down,” Reed said.

  He scrambled on his hands and feet, away from the porch, back to the vehicles. His van gave him cover on the passenger side, and he used his ph
one to call for backup. Probably the troopers already had, but he wasn’t on radio. Should’ve been. He opened the door, stretched across and just got his fingers on the door lock release, popped it. Went to the back and pulled the shotgun out, checked it, and then ran low to the side of the house. A chimney there, and a flower garden with no flowers yet. The windows were high, just above his head.

  I don’t want to shoot a kid. God, I don’t want to shoot a kid…

  His breath was coming hard, his pulse pounding in his temples. For a moment he felt a rise and then a drop at his feet, as if the ground were water. Just a dip in the yard. He eased along the wall to the corner of the house, risked a look around, and saw Pyle still on the ground. Reed made a noise and Pyle looked up and saw him; Reed beckoned with a hand and Pyle started crawling that way.

  Another blast, this time from the back of the house. Men yelling. The troopers were inside, and it sounded like they were encountering Tyson. Reed ran around to the rear entrance.

  The outer door was swung open, the inner door hanging by a hinge; there was a big gouge from a shotgun blast in the door frame.

  Sirens rose in the distance.

  Reed kept to the side of the door and hollered the troopers’ names. “Frechette? Mills?”

  There were low voices, then the kid: “Get out of my house! I didn’t hurt her! Get out or I’ll do it!”

  Pounding footsteps. Both troopers reemerged, jump-running down the steps and into the backyard. The one called Mills saw Reed first and said, “He’s threatening to burn the place.”

  “If we didn’t leave,” the other one said, panting.

  “Burn the place?” Reed said, stepping back and looking. “He’s gonna–”

  And there was a whoosh and flashes of flickering light from inside. “He’s doing it!” Reed yelled. “He’s doing it already!” Reed moved in through the doorway and into a dark room, a laundry or pantry, calling after the kid. “Come on, Tyson! Come to the back door! We won’t shoot!”

  Already there was smoke, just a haze of it forming straight ahead, in what looked like a living room. Reed stayed where he was in the pantry, holding the shotgun at chest height. Stupid. He shouldn’t be in here. When a figure ran through the room ahead, Reed’s finger brushed the trigger. A moment later, he saw the first flames. He dared a few steps. A short hallway. Kitchen to the left. Bathroom on the right. Pictures hanging on the wall – Tyson in a football jersey taking a knee, holding a football against the ground.

  He went upstairs.

  The couch was on fire. The place could be a freaking meth lab. Time to go. Reed yelled up the stairway to his right: “Tyson! You don’t have to do this! Come on down and get out of the house, now!”

  Footfalls across the ceiling – he tracked them with the shotgun. Outside, the sirens were louder; backup was here. His phone started vibrating in his pocket. Probably Overman, wanting an update. Perfect timing.

  The smoke was getting into his lungs, smarting his eyes, and Reed reversed direction. He moved into the pantry again, calling the kid’s name a few more times, and then he was back outside, hands on his knees, gasping for air. Someone grabbed him and pulled him further away, and a window blew out, flames licking up.

  “Call the fire department,” Reed said.

  “On it, on it,” a trooper said. “They’re coming.”

  Reed was fifty yards away now, back by the cars. The fire was visible – it was everywhere, spreading quickly. Another window blew out with a lick of flame. Reed kept watch on the upstairs, then the front door. Any second now and the kid would be opening a window and climbing on to the roof and jumping. Or he’d go out the front or the back. Was it possible there’d been another gun blast from inside, right after he’d gotten clear and was gagging on the smoke?

  “Come on, kid,” he murmured, watching the front door, the windows. “Come on, Tyson.”

  Cop cars kept pulling in. Troopers, some local guys – county deputies. The wail of a fire engine rose and fell, drawing near.

  “Come on, kid. What are you doing? Come on, kid…”

  6

  Alibis and family ties

  Hundreds of gallons were dumped onto the house. Three fire trucks doing a surround-and-drown by the end of it. When most of it was out, there was a structural integrity risk – two firefighters went in anyway.

  Reed talked to the DA on the phone, explained the situation, coughing and gagging the whole time.

  When the firefighters came out, they were holding a limp body.

  “Ah,” Reed said. “No…”

  The first ambulance took Tyson Wheeler’s corpse. The second lingered as paramedics worked on Pyle and examined Reed. He waved them off after a few minutes. “I’m fine. Get him out of here.”

  Pyle’s face was scrunched in pain. He raised his head on the stretcher and looked out of the ambulance. Reed winked at him, then the doors closed, and the ambulance rolled away, lights going, siren quiet. Pyle was going to be okay, just a messed-up shoulder and some physical therapy in his future. Maybe he’d get a new suit.

  Reed walked a ways and looked at the Subaru. Some of the porch had fallen on it, and the vehicle was covered in soot and ash, half-drowned in water. A forensics nightmare.

  His phone buzzed.

  “How bad are you hurt?” Overman asked.

  “I’m good. Just a little inhalation.”

  “Your head on straight?”

  Reed hesitated. “What are you asking?”

  “I’m asking you, a veteran with PTSD – a cop who’s just gone through an officer-involved shooting and a teenaged kid’s self-immolation – if you’re doing okay.”

  Overman was referring to more than the fire and shoot-out. Reed thought back to the morning and hit on it: “Kruse said something.”

  “About the Major Crimes investigator sitting in his van with earbuds in? Yeah. Kruse said something. But I don’t give a shit about that. I’m asking because IAB can’t get there for another hour.” He was talking about the Internal Affairs Bureau, who investigated police shootings. “And I’m asking – well, you tell me – is this thing over? Did this teenaged kid just burn himself down in a fit of guilt?”

  “Could be.”

  “Where’s his parents? Family?”

  “He’s got a little brother, fifth grade – he’s still at school, doesn’t know. Father is a lineman, he’s on his way. Mother isn’t part of the family life, I guess. Left when Tyson was still a kid.”

  Overman said nothing. Then, “All right. Listen. You mentioned the crime scene guys might’ve spotted Subaru tracks?”

  “They’re saying original equipment tires for a Subaru. But it was just an educated guess. Could’ve been anyone up by the park, anyone in the past few days – there’s been no rain,” Reed said.

  “And this friend, though. Hetfield…”

  “Yeah, Aimee Hetfield…”

  “She says that the victim was going to see him? To talk to him or something?”

  “She thought maybe,” Reed said. The last word caught in his throat, made him cough. “She suspected. It would help if we had the victim’s phone.”

  “So they head up to the park to talk. Things get heated. She’s leaving him or sleeping with someone else. He squeezes her neck…”

  “That could be the shape of it.”

  The smell of the charred, soaked, smoldering building was just about knocking him over, even though they’d moved the cars a ways back. Good thing there weren’t many other houses around, just a loose cluster, each a fair distance apart. No one home but one older woman in a peach-colored sleeveless top, arms folded, watching the goings-on. The column of smoke from the Wheeler place had to be visible for miles, though.

  Overman’s silence had a weight. “Reed, I can hear your thoughts…”

  “It’s just that the kid – Tyson – he came to the crime scene.”

  “So he was either blissing out on the mayhem he’d created, or maybe he was already feeling that pinch of guilt. Maybe he
was hoping someone would bust him for it right there.”

  Reed scratched his beard, leaned into the van, and found a half-full soda bottle, and sucked it down. This was how it went with him and Overman. It was like criminology as sport, and Overman was the coach, always pushing.

  But he kept seeing Tyson’s eyes, remembered the kid standing near Mandalay Park, the look on his face. Concern, maybe some confusion. Of course, killers came in different shapes and sizes – some of them were so good at the bullshit, the playacting, they led whole separate lives as charming pillars of the community.

  Happy high school jocks, maybe.

  I didn’t hurt her…

  “Do your paperwork,” Overman said. “Put everything in boxes and files with nice labels. Get something to eat, talk to IAB when they show up. Call me back when the, ah, smoke clears.”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right.” Reed ended the call, then stuck in his earbuds and listened to Pearl Jam belt out “Daughter” from his Spotify playlist. He watched as the fire truck continued to pour water onto the house. Just as the song ended, they stopped, and the guys got busy working the hose back in.

  The arson investigator showed up, driving a Prius. Reed watched the man get out and talk to the fire chief on scene. Reed took his own pulse. His heart rate was finally slowing.

  Sorry, kid, he thought about Tyson Wheeler. I’m so sorry.

  Earbuds removed, he keyed the number for Daryl Snow and got voicemail, left a message. When that was done, he saw Griff standing out by the main road and headed over.

  They shook hands. Reed asked, “What do you think?”

  The older man, a large belly pushing through his yellow fluorescent road vest, shook his head. “I just don’t understand it. Tyson’s dad is on his way. Was way up in Chazy today, I heard – he works all over the place – and he’s coming down, and he’s going to see his house burned to the ground.”

  Reed shouldered up with Griff and gazed at the pile of sodden ash and cinder. “Walk with me?”

  “Sure.”