Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  “I’m very thorough.”

  Dodge Terrio got a mean look. “I understand your Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating how things were handled with the Tyson Wheeler shooting.” He blushed, like it embarrassed him to act tough.

  “That’s standard for an officer-involved shooting,” Reed said. He flipped open the Kasey Stevens file on the table. “Got any tattoos, Logan?”

  “A couple, yeah.”

  “What have you got?”

  Dodge didn’t like it – his face went a shade redder – but Logan rolled up his sleeve, showed off the Eye of Ra.

  “Hey,” Reed said. “Just like your buddy Aaron. You guys are into the Egyptians, huh? And what’s that one? The bird-man there.”

  Logan had raised his shirt to reveal the ink on his chest. “That’s, ah… It’s the Anunnaki.”

  “The Anno-what?”

  Logan dropped his shirt. It was his turn to feel the face-heat. “It’s just… they’re like mythology.”

  “Okay.” Reed made a note. Asked Logan how to spell it, and Logan did. Reed then flipped to a photo in the file and pushed it at Logan. “That mean anything to you?”

  The kid leaned forward. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Jesus,” he whispered. “That’s her…?”

  “Her stomach, yeah. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “That shape? That, um…”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know,” Logan said. “What is it?”

  “Good question.”

  Logan just looked another minute, like he was more fascinated with the idea of seeing a morgue photo than anything else. Reed put the picture back. “I need you to answer my question. If it’s all right with your lawyer. Would you sometimes see Kasey Stevens at Daryl Snow’s place while you were working?”

  This time Logan only looked at Reed. “Just sometimes. Not much. I said hi to her once when she was coming in with Daryl. He kind of gave me a look, like people weren’t supposed to know she was there.”

  “Ever hang out with her?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Not even at the same place at the same time?”

  “Nuh-uh. No sir. She’s way younger. I wouldn’t have–”

  Dodge must’ve kicked Logan under the table because he stopped abruptly. Then he studied the marked-up table a moment before he said, “Aaron knows her, though.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Logan nodded, eyes downcast. “Yeah. She babysat for them.”

  Reed cocked his head in confusion. “Babysat? Aaron’s older than she is.”

  Logan’s eyes came up at last. “For his little brother and sister. She just did it a couple of times.”

  “So when he wasn’t around?”

  “I mean, maybe. I don’t know.”

  Reed let it all settle. Logan’s discomfort was palpable. His father had coached him well, ruthlessly. Throw Aaron Mosier under the bus, son. Kick to get him under there if you have to.

  Didn’t mean Aaron was innocent, though.

  “Aaron ever talk about her?”

  Dodge Terrio looked relieved that the focus was shifting away from his son.

  Logan said, “Not really, no. Just when she died.”

  “He wanted to see her room. That’s what you said, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Reed looked at the kid for a long moment, and the kid looked back.

  They talked for another ten minutes, but it was going over the same things, and Reed had already made certain decisions. When Logan and his father left the interview room, he stood there a moment, rubbed his thigh, then cracked his knuckles when he made fists.

  Logan Terrio wasn’t a killer. He might’ve lied about being the one who wanted to see the burned-down house and the girl’s bedroom – a tourist of the macabre, you saw it in plenty of people – but he didn’t give off even a slight murderer vibe. For one thing, he’d expressed zero recognition when shown the symbol.

  But someone had to light up when they saw that thing. Unless the only person – or people – who knew what it meant were dead.

  Or maybe Aaron Mosier would. Perhaps he was their man.

  But first, a phone call.

  Reed looked at the picture of the woman and son on Pyle’s desk: Pyle’s wife, Trudy, and their eleven-year-old boy. He thought about Mike for a moment, and fathers and sons. About the way Dodge Terrio acted with his son. Then he dialed the Mosier funeral home.

  A woman answered.

  “Hi,” Reed said cheerily. “Jeremiah Mosier, please? This is Reed Raleigh with the New York State Police.”

  Seconds later, Jeremiah Mosier was on the line, and Reed said, “Just letting you know that we have Aaron down here to answer a few questions, help us clear up a few things. It’s a workday, I figured you’d be at the funeral home, not at your house. So I wanted to let you know.”

  Mosier was silent a moment. “I was called a little while ago by a concerned neighbor. Was it really necessary to send state police to my house, to drag him out like that?”

  “I didn’t hear about any dragging, but I’ll check into it. Sir, given that he lives at home – any idea where he was last night?”

  “He was with us last night,” Mosier said curtly. “Family dinner. We’d already planned it – we have friends in town. Even with what happened, we… What happened to her little girl is just horrible… And then what her boyfriend did… He must’ve been overwrought with guilt.”

  “How about after that? Unless you’re saying Aaron was with you the whole night?”

  Mosier’s voice dropped in pitch, became flat-toned. “No. After dinner he went off to hang out with his friends.”

  “You know which friends?”

  “I don’t.”

  Reed made a noise, sucking at his teeth. “Must be tough, that whole situation. I have a son. He’s a few years younger, but I know how hard it can be.”

  Jeremiah Mosier sighed over the phone. “Just because you have a son, sir, doesn’t mean you understand mine.”

  “You’re right. How about you tell me?”

  More hesitation from Mosier, as if he was deciding how to proceed. Then: “Aaron has been going to college at Brown University. Okay? About three months into his junior year, this past year, we were getting calls about him.”

  “You and your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “From the school?”

  “Saying that Aaron was depressed. He was high-anxiety. And he’d made threats about hurting himself.”

  That last bit jogged something in Reed, another memory about Bahrain.

  Mosier went on, “So? What is a parent going to do? The semester was already bought and paid for – there’s no money back, but that didn’t matter. We had him come home.”

  Kruse quietly opened the door and stepped in.

  Reed said to Jeremiah Mosier, “Do you usually see Aaron on a daily basis? Does he often leave his phone unanswered?”

  Another sigh. “That’s the way it goes. He knows he can’t be off skylarking for long or he’ll hear about it from me. The deal was, he stays home. Okay, the pressure is off with school for a little while, but he has to contribute. So he does his tattooing…” Mosier said the word with the expected disdain, but then, a little flip of the script: “He’s actually not terrible at it.”

  Reed said, “I’d be interested in seeing his shop, actually.”

  “You can see most of his work online. He takes pictures, has a website and everything.”

  “I’ve seen his Instagram. Could you give me the name of the website?” Reed pulled out his Moleskine and jotted it down when Mosier relayed it. “So he’s home, he’s doing the tattoo work – does he keep pretty regular hours?”

  “You mean work hours?”

  “Yeah, is he, like, open nine to five, or does he see people by appointment?”

  “Oh, I… I really don’t know. Probably by appointment.”

  “Maybe he has a logbook?”

  Mosier laughed in a ki
nd of snorty way. “Logbook? The only instruments that touch my son’s hands are his tattooing needles. Whatever they are. Everything else is all done on iPads and wireless and everything else.”

  “The modern world.”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, okay.”

  “Is that everything, Officer?”

  Reed glanced at Kruse, then said to Mosier, “I understand Kasey Stevens babysat for you?”

  The silence on Mosier’s end was long and cold. His voice was barely audible. “Who told you that?”

  “Is that true, sir?”

  “We had her sit for the kids a couple of times, yes. When Aaron was still home, he would watch his brother and sister. Then when he left for college…”

  “About how many times?”

  “Ah, I’d say three. Four tops. My wife would know better.”

  “Any of those times since Aaron has been back home?”

  A pause, then the flat voice again: “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “How about a time when Aaron was, say, home for the holidays?”

  After almost five full seconds. “Again, I’ll have to ask my wife.”

  “That would be great, Mr. Mosier. See what she says and please get back to me, let me know all the times Kasey Stevens babysat for you, just so we can have that nice clear picture of her life. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I understand.”

  Reed winked at Kruse. Then, “Mr. Mosier, thanks so much for your time. I’ll be in touch.”

  Mosier started to say more, but Reed hung up.

  Kruse said, “Sounded like a nice conversation.”

  “Father of the year,” said Reed.

  The first thing you noticed about Aaron Mosier was his pitch-black hair, blacker than Reed’s. He’d shaved the sides, kept it kind of messy and spiked on top. He wore a black T-shirt with rips in the side, dark jeans and work boots. His arms were covered in tattoos; his eyes had bright blue rims around large black pupils.

  The picture of rebellion.

  “Hi, Aaron,” Reed said. He dropped a file on the table, same as before. Kruse folded his arms and leaned against the door, and Reed pulled up a chair. He stretched out his hand. “You can call me Reed.”

  Aaron’s grip was light and quick. “Okay.”

  Reed gave a short nod. “So we got your buddy here, too. Logan. And Logan has admitted you and he were up in Keeseville last night, around eleven, at Daryl Snow’s place.”

  Reed looked into Aaron Mosier’s eyes, and Aaron just looked right back for a good couple of seconds. Then he looked at Kruse. Like maybe he was hoping Kruse would be the nurturing one.

  Reed patted the table, refocusing Aaron’s attention. “You’ve probably seen enough cop shows by now to know how this all works.” He clicked his pen. “Let’s start with the basics. Full name?”

  “Aaron Samuel Mosier.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “April 9, 1999.”

  Reed whistled. “It bothers me that someone could be born that year and be a grown man. Where did you grow up, Aaron?”

  “Here, in Elliston.”

  “About how tall are you?”

  “How tall… ah, six feet. And I’m a hundred and fifty-five pounds or so.”

  Reed made notes on the measurements. He could easily get this information in other ways, but he asked because of what else it told him about Aaron Mosier – the way he talked, composed himself; his general vibe. The kid was trying for nonchalance while sweating along the edge of his dark hair. And his pupils were too big, that was the thing.

  “All right, Aaron. Now we get to it – can you tell me where you were last night?”

  “I had a dinner thing with my family.”

  “After that?

  “I hung out with Logan.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Um, Logan picked me up. We drove around for a bit, and then we went down to see Tyson Wheeler’s house.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, we just wanted to see it. It’s all roped off, though, so we just parked on the street nearby and walked over and had a look.”

  “Then what?”

  “Not much. We drove down to the falls–”

  “The falls?”

  “Split Rock Falls. It’s a couple of miles past there. Past Wheeler’s house.”

  “What did you do at Split Rock Falls?”

  “Nothing. Just got out and stood around and talked.”

  “Any drinking?”

  Aaron made no reply.

  “Or how about anything else?” Reed asked. “Your eyes are telling me a little story.”

  “It’s not in my interest to incriminate myself,” Aaron said after a moment’s thought.

  “No, it’s not.” Reed put down his pen and folded his hands on the table. Aaron was smart. Smarter, anyway, than some of the people Reed had come across lately. “Your father says you didn’t come home last night.”

  Aaron shrugged.

  “That’s a lot of talking, you and Logan. What were you talking about all night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you go up to Daryl Snow’s place?”

  “I don’t have to answer.”

  Reed stared at Aaron, waiting. “No, you’re right. You don’t. I just want to know why. I’m really curious. Because Daryl Snow has completed a suicide. Did you hear about that?”

  “‘Completed’?”

  Reed explained: “A while ago I learned that saying ‘committed’ is not the preferred term. It makes it sound like the person did something wrong, like ‘committed a crime.’”

  Aaron lowered his eyes a minute, brought his hand up to his mouth and nibbled the ball of his thumb. “I heard about Daryl Snow. I think everybody has.”

  “What do you think about it?”

  “I don’t really think anything. I didn’t know him.”

  “Okay. Fair enough. What did you and Logan talk about all night? Come on. I’m curious.”

  “We talked about the plan.”

  Reed paused. He glanced over at Kruse, then focused on the kid again. “The plan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What plan?”

  Aaron pulled his thumb away and took a deep breath, almost a sigh. “The plan is survival. Basically.”

  “Of what? Or from what?”

  The kid shifted in his seat. “Well, put it this way – about two hundred people right now are in control of fifty trillion dollars in the global economy.”

  Reed leaned back and gave Kruse another look. Kruse raised his eyebrows: How about that?

  Aaron said, “These people are controlling global investment. We’re talking about transnational investment teams. They own transnational corporations, which own smaller companies below that, and so on…”

  Kruse broke into a wide smile and stepped away from the door. “You study economics?”

  Aaron gave him a sideways look. “They have huge PR firms that give the corporate media their talking points for each day. It’s a sideshow.”

  The kid’s eyes slid back to Reed. “What’s really going on is that eighty percent of the world lives on ten dollars a day or less. Above them, like nineteen percent, that’s the middle class. That’s you and me.” Aaron held his hand in the air, palm down. He raised it a few more inches. “And then you’ve got the one percent. But over them?” He raised a finger. “That’s the point-one percent. The eight families that own and control ninety-three percent of the wealth in the world.”

  “This is what you and, ah, Logan Terrio talked about last night?”

  Aaron shrugged. He went back to biting his thumb.

  “Eight families?” Reed asked.

  He spit something out. “Yeah.”

  “You know the names?”

  “Not off the top of my head.”

  Reed nodded. “I hear what you’re saying, though. That eighty percent, that vast underclass – I bet that’s true. And there�
��s definitely some rich, rich people out there.”

  Kruse was giving Reed a look, like, Come on, get serious. But Aaron had perked right up. “They’re constantly investing,” he said. “But they’re running out of things to invest in. So everything is going to be privatized eventually – roads, mountains, water. People are worried about this one-world government, like, people around here – conservative people? What’s funny to me is how the modern conservative hates government and loves private business, but private business has become the real government. We just don’t get to control it anymore.” The kid smiled and shook his head. Not only was Aaron intelligent, Reed thought, he was a bit of a conspiracy theorist. And in a case with an odd symbol carved into the victim, that might be relevant.

  Kruse’s cynical expression, on the other hand, suggested that the Mosier kid was just another product of a liberal education. Whether he’d dropped out his junior year or not.

  Then Reed’s phone buzzed against his hip and he checked it.

  “Hold on, guys,” he said. “I’ve got to step out for just a second.”

  He put his phone to his ear and answered. Terri Shepard said, “I thought you’d want to hear this right away.”

  “I do.”

  Once Reed had slipped back into the BCI office, she went on: “I can’t tell you what her last meal was, precisely, but I can tell you it was from the morning before she was killed – I don’t think she ate all day after that.”

  “Really.”

  “Not uncommon for a young woman to go for a while without food,” Shepard said. “Not like you men, needing to eat every two hours.”

  Reed slowly lowered the donut he’d just picked out of Kruse’s supply. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “But when I say she didn’t eat all day, that’s not technically true. She just didn’t eat a meal. There’s some evidence to indicate she did put something else in her stomach.”

  He waited.

  “And here’s why there might be another reason for the gap in eating – preliminary toxicology is looking like psilocybin in her blood.”

  Reed wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Mushrooms?”

  “With the toxicology, yes, it looks like mushrooms. Magic mushrooms, or whatever they call it. I was seeing signs of something, actually, both in the urinalysis and in some muscular…”