Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  Reed: “I’ll rephrase. Why would a tattoo artist need a tool like that? You’re a tattoo artist, right? Not a surgeon.”

  Aaron answered, “Sometimes you got a mole or something to work around.”

  Terrio made a guttural noise, like a gruff sighing. “Mr. Mosier…”

  “And if they ask me,” Aaron said. “I just cut it off.”

  “Is that legal?” Kruse asked, eyebrows going up.

  “I think so. But you would know,” Aaron said.

  Terrio said, “That’s enough, Aaron.”

  Reed felt déjà vu. Logan Terrio had yapped, too, but that was different – he was mounting a case against Aaron. Beneath his bravado, Aaron seemed scared.

  Reed held up the phone again, swiped back to the close-up of the lancet.

  “Do you know what model this is?”

  “Investigators,” Terrio said, “habeas corpus requires that my client see a judge. He needs to be brought before a court, or you need to let him go. He’s been perfectly cooperative, and he’s been here far too long. This is inhumane.”

  “What model?” Reed asked.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Where might you get something like this?”

  Aaron’s throat bobbed with a swallow. “Amazon.”

  Reed made a note to see about Aaron ordering surgical tools from Amazon. He’d already made notes on the type of instrument the medical examiner had determined was used on the victim – a number 10 lancet with a rounded tip and a 3 Long handle. He’d been able to make the rounded tip with his own two eyes, but the other stuff would be decided at the lab. He was waiting for that.

  Reed said, “So you don’t really know what model it is. I mean, if you’re acquiring this tool to cut moles off people, you might’ve researched it for–”

  “I’m not saying that, sir. I’m not admitting that it’s mine. But anyway, even if it is, I lost my key.”

  Bingo. Reed was quick, having expected it might go this way: “You don’t always keep your place locked?”

  “Usually. But not always.”

  Kruse made a face like he tasted something bad. “Usually? What’s that mean exactly?”

  “Means anyone could’ve stolen that scalpel, if it’s even mine. And I’m not saying it is.”

  Kruse almost growled. “You know, for a kid sitting where you are, I’d be a little more helpful.”

  “I’m trying.”

  Reed moved in on him. “Why do you think Tyson Wheeler burned his house down, Aaron?”

  Terrio: “Don’t answer that.”

  Aaron’s eyes switched to Reed. “I didn’t really know him. So I don’t know.”

  “I think that’s a lie, bud. I think you know something.”

  Aaron just swallowed again. He held Reed’s eye.

  Kruse: “What were you doing two nights ago, with Logan Terrio?”

  “Just driving around. Nothing.”

  “Another lie,” Reed said. “You were up at Daryl Snow’s sawmill. Pick up a paycheck? What?”

  Terrio: “My client is finished here, gentlemen.”

  Reed again: “You’ve got some interesting books in your shop, Aaron. Pretty smart stuff. The school you dropped out of? A hard one to get into. But your dad says you were really struggling emotionally.”

  Aaron avoided eye contact. “My dad’s an asshole,” he said.

  Reed could sense Kruse wanting to correct the kid’s lack of respect again – he held out his hand to Kruse as he focused tight on Aaron. “Yeah, I get that,” Reed said. “I bet it’s hard for you being back home.”

  Aaron looked at Reed now, guard still up, but a little opening in there.

  “You’re under a lot of pressure, a guy your age. A lot of expectations.”

  Aaron’s knee was bouncing now. A single tear slipped down his cheek.

  “You’re under all this pressure to be somebody. My son is smart like you. And I can tell he feels he owes it to everybody to make good on what they expect. What I expect. And that can drive a kid away. Make him do things.” After a moment, Reed continued, “I want to know what happened to this teenaged girl, Aaron. That’s why I’m here. I’m here for her. Your dad talks a lot about death. So think of me like the angel that’s come down on her behalf.”

  Aaron dropped his head forward, maybe cried a little, then sniffed and raised his head. His eyes had gone pink, shining. “Look, I didn’t do it.”

  “The evidence is not in your favor,” Reed said softly. “An instrument just like the one used to mark the victim’s body was found in your shop. Gloves that were probably worn by the person who strangled her, also found in your shop. And you know the victim. She babysat for your family on multiple occasions, including at least one time you were home from college. Finally, you have no alibi for the night of her murder.”

  Dodge Terrio stared into space, looking temporarily defeated. Perhaps calculating the money he’d make going to trial.

  “Aaron,” Kruse said, “we’re going to charge you with Kasey’s murder. We’re this close.” He made a small space between his thumb and forefinger.

  Aaron’s head stayed down, not looking.

  “You just need to talk to Minnie,” Aaron said finally, his face buried in his arms. “That’s all. Just talk to Minnie.”

  Kruse cleared his throat. “Minnie?”

  “That’s what people call him.”

  Reed jumped back in. “For what? For stealing your scalpel? For killing Kasey? What?”

  Aaron didn’t answer.

  Reed nevertheless got an impression – God, it was almost like telepathy – of a man’s face. A man on a bicycle.

  Aaron said, “His name is Lloyd Cox. He’s the one who does that website. And he knows Kasey. He used to follow her around on his bike.”

  19

  In the buff

  They were back in the van, and Kruse was pulling on a bulletproof vest, and Reed started getting déjà vu again. The last time they’d sped toward a suspect, someone got shot. A house had burned to the ground. “I want to keep this cool,” Reed said.

  “Yeah, we’ll be cool,” Kruse answered.

  Lloyd Cox.

  He could remember the guy’s face – there had been a lot of faces that day, a lot of names. This guy, though. On a bicycle.

  Lloyd Cox.

  Shit.

  “Take a shortcut up here,” Kruse said. “This will put us over to 9N.”

  Reed’s heart had built to a nice hard rhythm as he took the side road, did a little fishtail in the dirt. An unimproved road; they shot up a steep incline. The low sun blinked in and out of the evergreens blurring past. The trees opened briefly on a gorgeous view of rolling hills; then they were careening down the other side. Reed shot a look in the mirrors – MacKinnon was behind him in a troop car. That should be enough.

  Something he’d read once years before came to him: Life is not a straight line, but a spiral; we return to the same places with new insights.

  Hey, they were just going to talk.

  The dirt road ended at a blacktop road – 9N. Directly across was Cox’s place. Small, just a cabin, lots of junk strewn around, but a gorgeous view from the back. Reed rolled across 9N and came to a stop in the driveway. He checked his weapon as Kruse did the same, then holstered it while keeping his eyes on the place. He got out.

  Rushing water burbled somewhere near, but out of sight. Like a waterfall. Cox’s place sat just down from a bridge; perhaps the river wound behind the house. It was spring, when water was high and fast.

  Cox rode a bicycle, so there was no car around to indicate whether he was home. But no bicycle either, for that matter. Before heading out, Reed had quickly run Cox through the system and came back with little: a few minor violations for vagrancy and petty theft – stealing cigarettes – from years ago. The only drug arrest was for marijuana, and a New York court had thrown it out. If Cox had lost his license due to drinking or recklessness, that might’ve been something, but he’d never obtained one
to begin with. Cox was a drifter, occasionally settling down somewhere for a short time – he was tied to two dozen residences over his lifetime.

  And he had a social media page, for so-called professionals, naming himself as a website designer. How about that.

  MacKinnon rolled up in her troop car, got out, and the three of them met between the vehicles. Reed was already thinking it: if Cox was home, he’d have appeared in the doorway by now, or a window. Unless he was hiding.

  “You want the back?” Reed asked MacKinnon.

  “Sure. I’ll take that route right through those bushes.”

  Kruse said, “I’ll pop around the other way. Meet you.”

  “Hey.” Reed gave them each a look. “Be careful.”

  MacKinnon nodded and moved off toward the sound of rushing water. Kruse looked into Reed’s eyes a second, like he was thinking about Pyle, reliving what had happened. Then he headed for the other side of Cox’s place, quick but not hurrying.

  The small house was in decent shape, recently re-sided in what looked like pine, with red metal roofing. Wooden crates and a few rickety chairs surrounded a small firepit in front of the house. A juniper hedgerow, half-eaten by deer at the base, blocked the road.

  Reed opened the screen door on the small porch. “Hello? Reed Raleigh, New York State Police! Anyone home? Lloyd Cox? You here?”

  A dog started up. Low, old-dog type of barks. Reed eased up onto the porch, staying to the side of the front door, then risked a look in the window. Dark in there, but maybe a light on in the back, and something moved. The dog kept barking. Definitely didn’t sound like the vicious, rip-your-balls-off kind, unlike Roy Hollander’s beast. Reed knocked and announced himself again. “Lloyd Cox! You home?”

  The dog was close on the other side of the door, but maybe keeping a little distance. Its hoarse barks intensified.

  Reed reminded himself: they held a court order. A prime suspect in an investigation had just accused Lloyd Cox, aka Minnie, of having information about the crime. That didn’t mean Cox was a murderer, but he’d most certainly lied. After Aaron had named Cox, Terrio had insisted he refuse to say another word. It seemed the lawyer’s strategy was to have his clients pass the buck. Terrio would probably represent Cox next. He was making hay while the sun shone.

  “All right!” Reed grasped the doorknob. “I’m coming in! Cox, if you’re in there, I’m coming in.”

  The door gave. Didn’t anybody lock up around here? The dog was there, but more scared than aggressive, a blind-looking thing, like a beagle-Lab mix, with a little red handkerchief tied around its neck.

  “Hey there, good dog…” Reed said, and then he heard MacKinnon yelling.

  “What?” Reed could hardly hear anything from out there over the white noise of the waterfall. He didn’t want to back out of the place yet either. He picked up his radio when it squawked.

  “Reed,” Mackinnon said on the radio, “Cox is here. Outside. He’s… oh boy… you’d better get out here.”

  Reed backed out of the house, shutting the door on the dog. He hurried from the porch down the steps and around the building. MacKinnon was on the edge of the woods over by the waterfall, Kruse now just reaching her.

  Coming out of the woods was Lloyd Cox, wearing a big friendly smile.

  And nothing else.

  Once they’d gotten a towel around him and sat him in a chair by the firepit, Cox told them how much he loved early dips in the river, frigid cold as it was.

  “Cold, yeah – your skin is blue,” MacKinnon said. She, in turn, was a little red in the face.

  “You understand we can’t let you go inside the house right now,” Kruse said. “We’ve got to search it.”

  “For what?” Cox looked perplexed. Maybe because his website was public, nothing to hide. Or, Reed theorized, maybe because he was playing dumb about Aaron Mosier’s key, or the bloody gloves he’d kept as a souvenir, or a felony bag of magic mushrooms tucked away in a coffee can. You never knew.

  MacKinnon offered, “If you want to tell me where your clothes are, I can go in and get something for you.”

  Cox told her, and she glanced at Reed. Who needed a court order? The subject just gave the police permission to go inside his home. MacKinnon started in, and Cox called after her, “Don’t worry about Shaney. She’s an old girl – she won’t do nothing but give you a sniff. She’s mostly blind.”

  “I like dogs,” MacKinnon said, stepping in.

  Reed took one of the stumps. Kruse took a seat in one of the awkward chairs – old dining room furniture sitting outside; it had a funny look. Kruse spread his feet wide so as not to tip over. “So, Lloyd, know why we’re here?”

  “Well, I imagine it has to do with the girl’s murder. The Stevens girl.”

  Kruse used a well-worn line. “What makes you think so?”

  “Well, sir, that I knew her, I guess. I was at the scene of the crime two mornings ago. And probably because I’m the author of a website about Melanie Hollander.”

  Reed and Kruse relayed looks. Reed let Kruse keep going. So far, so good.

  Kruse asked, “So what prompted you to do a website about Melanie Hollander?”

  “Well, sir. For one thing, I’ve always been good at that sort of thing. I know I might not look it, but I’ve got a head for technology. I started doing digital photography, using Photoshop and whatnot, back before hardly anybody knew what it was. And I taught myself to do websites. I only know the basics, but it’s enough.”

  “Okay,” Kruse said, “but why her?”

  “Because it was a big thing, that girl getting raped and killed, and no one ever caught for it. Small town like Hume – it was a big thing. And I work for the Hollanders, time to time.”

  “You work for them?” Reed asked.

  “Seasonally. And not always.”

  Reed wrote it down, to bring up when he spoke to Roy Hollander again. “Doing what?”

  They talked about Cox helping with planting and harvesting and how he’d come to know the family by answering an ad pinned to a bulletin board in a convenience store. And how, once he’d figured out who they were and the ordeal with Melanie, he’d put together the website.

  “Mr. Hollander doesn’t know anything about it,” Cox admitted. “Least I don’t think so. I don’t believe the man has ever even been on the internet.”

  Reed asked Cox if he had a theory about Melanie Hollander.

  As if he’d been waiting for an opportunity to express his opinion, Cox seemed to savor the moment, taking in a loud breath through his nose, letting it out slow. “Well, sir. I think she got in with the wrong people, is what.”

  “And who are those people?” Reed asked.

  “Oh, they’re everywhere.” A light came into his eyes. “There’s more than you think, too.”

  “What do you mean? Can you be specific?”

  And Cox said, “No. Don’t know that I can. I mean, it all goes back to the same devil, whether they think it or not. Takes on different names, different faces. But it’s the same.”

  Another look from Kruse to Reed and back. Where the heck was MacKinnon? As soon as Reed thought it, he heard her, and she stepped out of the house and came down off the porch with a bundle of clothes. “Had a hard time finding where you kept these.”

  Cox smiled graciously and took the pile and looked at the officers, waiting for the go-ahead to put them on. MacKinnon also expressed herself wordlessly: her eyes said there was something going on in the house. “All right, Lloyd,” Reed said. “Go ahead and get dressed.”

  “Here?”

  MacKinnon said, “I’ll turn around.”

  Reed stood and nodded at Kruse, who rolled his eyes and stood, too. “We’ll give you a little privacy.”

  Moments later, looking out at the road through the deer-eaten junipers, the sound of the waterfall a white noise in the background, Reed stood beside MacKinnon and Kruse.

  “Laptop in the house,” she said quietly. “I just touched the space bar, and i
t opened on the Hollander murder website.”

  “How about a police scanner?”

  MacKinnon leaned back to look at him. “How’d you know?”

  “I talked to the guy. The morning at the park.”

  “Well,” MacKinnon said, “I didn’t see much else. He doesn’t have two pennies to rub.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You bet.”

  Reed raised his voice. “Lloyd? You can turn around.”

  An idea had formed in Reed’s mind. Something to try out. He would’ve liked to run it by Kruse and MacKinnon, but Cox was right there. And anyway, it was no big thing. “Mr. Cox,” Reed asked, walking back, “do you know that some people call you Minnie?”

  “Oh sure. Been my nickname for years.”

  “Why’s that?”

  They all got seated again, and Cox said, “When I used to work roofing, there was a guy looked like me, big guy, though. I was light and fast, could scramble up and down the ladder with a heap of shingles on my shoulder. John was a lot slower. Turned out that guy had a heart condition. Might’ve been his size.” Cox was chatty, had a jumpy energy about him. “But we looked a little bit alike, so the guys would call me ‘Mini John.’ And then it just became Minnie. Must be that some of them would say that to me out in public; other people caught on. I didn’t mind it.”

  Reed thought that while Cox had long struck him as a bulb shy of the full Christmas tree, he seemed genuinely more pleased he had a nickname and friends than no nickname or friends at all. Which was, when you thought about it, wise.

  “You’re a real Renaissance man,” Reed said.

  “You need me, I can do it. Plumbing, electric, tech stuff, farming, retail – I’m good for it.”

  “Lloyd, let me ask you – why do you think someone would bring up your name, connected to all this mess?”

  “Connect me to it? Because of the website?”

  “Well, maybe. But also other stuff.” He felt Kruse’s gaze. He asked Cox, “You ever follow Kasey around on your bicycle?”

  The man’s face seemed to darken. “Now who would say something like that? No. I’ve never ‘followed’ her on my bicycle. I made sure she was safe one night when she left the Mosiers’, that’s it.”