by Roger Hayden
“Good night, fellas,” he said with a wave to the officers at the front desk as he walked through the lobby with Sterling. They exited the building and continued under the pavilion leading to the parking lot, the air still and quiet.
“Where’d you park?” Dobson asked.
She pointed to the far corner of the lot. “Over there. The dirty Jeep Cherokee.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m the equally dirty silver Chevy Impala in the same row.”
“It’s not easy,” he said, gaining her attention. “The first couple of days, that is.”
He noticed a slight smile as she said, “Thanks for being so patient with me. I know my presence was unexpected, and I apologize.”
“No need to,” he said with a shrug. “Not your fault.”
She thanked him again as they split off in opposite directions to their cars. As he clicked the button on his key chain, unlocking his doors, he detected a restlessness in her tone, coupled with a tenseness in her body language. She’d been put to the test on her first day and had dived in without hesitating. He wondered how she would sleep that evening, if at all.
Dobson sat at the dinner table as Rachel sliced the freshly-baked lasagna and placed a fragrant rectangle on each plate. Penny sat next to him, ready to eat. She was dressed in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, her brown hair hanging just past her shoulders. A tube ran to each of her nostrils, connected to an oxygen canister on the floor. She was always a skinny girl, but Dobson couldn’t believe how much weight she had lost over the past few months. She looked frail—nearly skin and bones. Rachel placed a big helping onto Penny’s plate and Dobson was happy to see her dig in.
A hanging lamp illuminated the kitchen table, enclosing them in a warm circle of light. The kitchen smelled of baked garlic bread and lasagna and everything seemed at peace. Dobson’s shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, his collar open and tie removed.
Rachel hummed as she placed the last helping onto her plate. She looked upbeat in her long T-shirt and jogging shorts, her hair tied in a bun with straying wisps framing her face. As much as he enjoyed dinner with his family, he couldn’t help but feel a little more distant. Rachel asked him about his day and the case, which he explained with little detail.
“Training a rookie today,” he said, changing the subject. “Just stuck me with her with no warning.” He then took a quick bite of his food, only to burn his tongue, and had to gulp down a nearby glass of water in a panic.
Penny laughed as she blew on her food. “Careful, Dad. It’s still hot.”
From the end of the small table across from Dobson, Rachel shook her head, smiling. “Don’t worry, dear. Your father never learns. He has the patience of a child sometimes.”
Dobson wiped his mouth with a napkin and pointed at her with an arched brow. “Sounds like fighting words to me.” He then winked at Penny, who beamed back at him.
“So, this rookie,” Rachel began, shifting back to the conversation, “How old is she?”
“Funny you should ask. She looks to be about Penny’s age,” he said, scooping another bite.
“Really?” Penny said, intrigued. He then noticed a certain sadness as her smile faded. He wanted to kick himself for being so insensitive. He hoped she hadn’t taken it as he feared she had. Penny was twenty-six and could barely leave the house, let alone hold down a job. Her unused college degree in education was a constant reminder of how her condition had hindered her goals.
“She could be older,” he said quickly. “Who knows? Smart kid though. I think she’ll be fine.”
“Penny and I worked on the quilt today. She’s really coming along with it,” It was an awkward and obvious attempt to brush away the comparisons they were all making. Rachel took a piece of garlic bread from the nearby basket and held it up for the others, but nobody reached for more.
“That’s wonderful,” Dobson said, patting Penny’s hand. “I’m so proud of you.”
Penny laughed and then held a fist to her mouth as she coughed. “Nothing to it, Dad.”
Dobson looked around the kitchen, scanning it, bothered by something. With so many windows in the house, he had never realized how easy it would be for someone to simply bust their way in. The last thing he wanted to do was bring up the case again, but his concern outweighed the desire to avoid unpleasant thoughts. “Everything go okay today? Did you hear or see anything suspicious?”
Rachel fixed him with her greenish-blue eyes, refusing to go down that road. “Nothing at all,” she said sharply. “It was a nice, quiet day.” She took a quick bite as Penny looked at her, curious, and then turned to her father. “What about that woman who was killed? Are you guys investigating that?”
Dobson remained quiet as Rachel’s stare offered a stern warning. “Yes, we’re looking into it, honey. A lot of unanswered questions. Whoever it was is probably on the run right now. I just hope that we can catch him.”
“Well, if there’s a murderer out there, everyone has a right to know,” Penny said. She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Don’t you think so, Mom?”
“Of course, dear,” Rachel said. “But with your father on the case, I’m sure we don’t have much to worry about. He’ll simply bore the killer out of hiding.”
Penny covered her mouth with a gasp of laughter.
Dobson wagged his finger at her. “We could always put you on the case. Poor bastard wouldn’t know what hit him.”
Rachel seemed amused enough as they continued eating. He and Rachel tolerated each other, maybe even still loved each other, but Penny’s condition remained a chilling reminder that she might be the one thing keeping them together.
Finished with his plate, Dobson got up from the table and washed it in the sink as Rachel and Penny talked about what they wanted to watch on TV that night. “I’ll do the dishes,” he said, turning on the faucet.
Rachel nodded and continued her playful discussion with Penny. They spoke of reality shows, celebrity gossip, and other things that he couldn’t mentally touch with a ten-foot pole. There was no doubt that he was an outsider. Part of him wondered what they thought of him. Did his presence even matter? He glanced out the kitchen window into the darkness, thinking about the case. Maybe he should have worked through the night. Betsy Wade deserved that much.
Dobson woke the next morning, disoriented and with a sore neck. The room was dark and Rachel’s spot next to him was empty. The time glowed from his alarm clock on the night stand. It was a little past seven. The rotating ceiling fan squeaked above but all the rest of the house seemed quiet. Curious of Rachel’s whereabouts, he rose from the bed, stretching, and placed one foot on the carpet, pushing himself out of bed. He limped out of the bedroom in a pair of boxers and white T-shirt and continued down the hall and past the kitchen, where morning light radiated from behind thin curtains. For a moment, he couldn’t remember the day, but then it came to him. He found Rachel on the living room couch, lying on her side with the remote in hand and the TV playing at a low volume.
Dressed in her nightgown, she appeared to be sleeping. Dobson stood over her for a moment and watched her breathing. She would sometimes venture to the living room during particularly restless nights and watch TV until she fell asleep. Dobson grabbed a blanket folded over the back of the couch and gently covered her with it. She made a slight movement and dug her face further into the pillow as he left her to sleep peacefully for the time being.
He walked to the kitchen and went directly to the coffee maker, filling the pot with water out of the faucet. He placed the pot back onto the base and prepared the rest by replacing the filter and adding the coffee. He started the coffee and then walked back to his room, where a hot shower was next on the list. His cell phone suddenly vibrated from the night stand where it lay charging. At first, he thought it was his alarm, but the number on the screen told him no such luck. Another morning call from Detective Harris. What was it this time?
“This is Dobson,” he said into the phone in a dry, scratchy voice
.
“Hey there, buddy. Did I wake you?” Harris asked in an irritatingly lively tone.
“Not this time. Another homicide?”
“Well, we’re not sure, but I wanted to call you first anyway.”
Dobson began to pace his room, already on alert. “What is it then?”
“You know this guy named Gordon McDonnel?”
Dobson stopped in his tracks. “Yeah… What about him?”
“I saw in your notes from yesterday that you and that rookie talked to him.” He then paused with a sigh. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Make of what? Where are you?” Dobson demanded.
“We’re in his apartment.”
As the squeaky gears shifted in Dobson’s waking mind, a feeling of dread washed over him. Had Gordon done something terrible, or had there been something been done to him? “What happened?”
“We’ve got a pattern going here, and it’s bad,” Harris began. “Someone made another anonymous call to the station in the early hours of the morning. They told us that Mr. McDonnel was in great danger and to check on him immediately. I recognized the name from the brief you sent to my inbox, and we went straight to his apartment.”
Dobson envisioned Gordon lying mutilated on the floor of his living room, despite no mention yet of murder. He felt remorse for him but wasn’t sure what they could have done to protect him. He hadn’t even been cleared as a suspect yet. “Just tell me this,” he said. “Is he dead?”
“We’re not sure,” Harris said. “Door was unlocked, but no one was here. His car is gone too.”
Dobson rubbed his forehead, feeling a small sense of relief, his mind swirling with an overload of thoughts. “Maybe he’s at work.”
“Called the Burger Shack. No one has seen him,” Harris said. “Landlord downstairs says she hadn’t seen or heard from him since yesterday.”
It seemed unlikely that Gordon had simply disappeared. An abundance of possibilities came to mind, and an already complicated case had grown more so, with Harris’s latest bombshell.
“I don’t see any signs of a struggle so far, but we could use a second look. I think you better get here as fast as you can.”
Dobson glanced at the clock again. Just perfect. He hadn’t even broken the surface on the Betsy Wade murder and already a person of interest had gone missing. “I’m getting ready now. Don’t go anywhere.”
“How about picking up some coffee on your way over here?” Harris asked. “That’d be one heck of an incentive for me to stick around.”
“Just stay there,” Dobson said, reaching for his white dress shirt that was hanging over a chair. “And please… keep things quiet.”
He hung up his cell and set it back on the night stand while scrambling to get ready. It all felt surreal. Another anonymous call and now a missing suspect. Dobson wouldn’t put it past Gordon to stage the entire thing, but something told him that wasn’t the case. He wondered what Sterling, the rookie, would make of it. That was, if her first day on the job hadn’t proved too much for her to handle.
He rushed to the bathroom with his mind racing, turned on the shower, and quickly undressed. It looked as though his week was going to be full of surprises without slowing down, and as the warm, refreshing water hit his face, his mind flowed to random thoughts. Were the chain letters related in any way to the murders, and if so, what did the sender’s address mean? Was the abandoned factory address being used as a front, or was there no real meaning to it? Somehow, Dobson believed, an on-site visit would offer some answers.
Another anonymous phone to the station meant that either Gordon had engineered his own disappearance or that he had been the next victim. Whatever the answer, he intended to find out.
Having left home in a hurry, Dobson arrived at Gordon’s residence a little after eight, frazzled. He checked himself out in the rearview mirror and parked on the side of the road just outside the chain-link fence as before. One police cruiser was parked on the other side, in the dirt path to the parking lot, where he spotted Harris’s black four-door Chevy Capri. The landlord stood outside her door, speaking with one of the police officers. Upstairs, Gordon’s door was open and Dobson could see faint movement inside.
Just yesterday, he was at the residence. What had happened between then and now? He exited the car and scanned the area for anyone watching from the surrounding homes or anywhere else. Someone might be enjoying themselves at the department’s expense and as far as he was concerned, the most casual glance in their direction was suspicious. He walked through the grass and through the fence opening where the gates had been pushed to both sides. He examined the tire tracks and footprints in the dirt, wondering if there was anything to find in a place where people so often came and went. It was worth looking, though. You never knew.
“You again!” Faye said as he approached. This time she didn’t have the terrier with her on a leash, but she seemed to be wearing the same flowered gown. “What’d you say to Mr. Gordon that got him so spooked?”
“Not sure I understand, ma’am,” he said, walking closer. He stopped beside the police officer who he knew as Sergeant Calloway, a tall, skinny man with a big chin who spoke with a Southern accent. He held his clipboard and pen, in the process of filling out a report. He nodded at Dobson as Faye continued.
“I said that you were just here yesterday. Now they’re saying that my tenant has disappeared. What happened?” she said.
“That’s what we hope to find out,” Dobson said. He paused, looked up at the second floor and then to Sergeant Calloway. “Is Detective Harris up there?”
“He sure is, Detective. He’s expecting you.”
Dobson thanked him and walked past them toward the side stairwell. He climbed the steps and carefully examined each one. Reaching the top, he heard Harris talking from inside.
“I don’t know where he is, I just need you to do a run of his plates and put the county on notice. This man may be tied to the murder of a woman yesterday.”
Dobson entered the familiar, cigarette-smelling apartment and saw Harris circling the living room with a cell phone held against his ear. Everything inside looked about the same to Dobson. Gordon could have skipped town or might not be missing at all. Perhaps they were being over-zealous. As he walked through the dimly lit living room and into the adjacent kitchen, however, Dobson felt a disquieting premonition. Things weren’t as they seemed on the surface. Something was wrong. He could feel it.
“’Bout time you showed up,” Harris said, hanging up his phone.
Dobson shook his head. “Nothing gets me going like the prospect of seeing your ugly mug first thing in the morning.”
“No coffee?”
“Sorry.” Dobson then walked over to the yellow couch where Gordon had been sitting the day before. An ashtray sat on an end table, filled to the brim. He looked around for a pack of cigarettes or lighter but didn’t see any.
“Did you find his keys or wallet?” he asked.
Harris glanced down. “Nope. Nada. If you ask me, you probably spooked him.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and casually moved toward the kitchen, carefully scanning the countertop. “Now what is this I read in your report about some chain letter?”
Dobson swung his head to the side, recalling Gordon crumbling and tossing the paper across the room, right past his television. He knelt, looking under the TV stand, but didn’t see anything. “Not sure yet,” he answered, rising from the floor. “But both Ms. Wade and Mr. McDonnel received the same letter, addressed from the same sender, the plastics factory on Old Industrial Way.”
“That is strange,” Harris said.
“And I’m pretty sure this woman in Maine, Victoria Owens, was a part of this too. There was nothing random about her murder. Nothing random about any of this.”
Harris stepped forward past the kitchen and beckoned Dobson toward the small hallway where there looked to be two more rooms. “Speaking of strange, have you seen his bedroom?”
“
No. Not yet,” Dobson said.
“Well, I think you should,” Harris said, continuing down the hall. They passed a bathroom to their left and then Gordon’s bedroom at the end. Besides smelling of cheap, stale beer, there was something else unsettling about the room. Newspaper clippings and photos filled the wall near the unmade bed, taped or pinned in a scattered collage.
Dobson came forward, taking it all in. There were high school photos of Betsy Wade and Gordon together, smiling, and a dozen other pictures of a young Gordon posing with other students. A series of more recent pictures followed that looked far less innocent. There were photos of Betsy Wade outside her house and some looking in through her window. Others were of another woman, who Dobson believed to be Victoria Owens.
“It’s the two victims,” he said as he scanned the wall. “Looks like he was spying on them. Or at least having someone do it for him.”
Harris re-examined the pictures and then pulled his police radio from his pocket. “The hell with this.” He said, pushing the side button with his thumb. “Bravo Six, this is Harris at the residence of one Gordon McDonnel. We received an anonymous call this morning, pertaining to his involvement in the murder of two women. Currently at his house and requesting immediate forensics support.”
“That’s a good copy, Detective,” the dispatcher told him, talking so loudly that Dobson could hear it too.
“Release an APB. Suspect is considered armed and dangerous,” Harris said. “He should be driving a red, four-door 2009, license plate forty-two eight Romeo Sierra.”
He lowered his radio and placed it in his pocket, seemingly satisfied with himself. “You see, Mike. You should have brought this guy in yesterday. Now he’s on the run.”