Unforgiving Shadows (A Brad Frame Mystery Book 1)

by Ray Flynt

  “Sharon is worried—justifiably so, based on what I’ve seen—that you’ve reached the breaking point. And we’d like to bring you back before you hurt yourself or jeopardize your hard-earned reputation.”

  Westminster chimes tolled the half-hour. As much as he resented hearing Nick’s words, Brad thought the silence worse.

  “You’re the most even-keeled man I know,” Sharon said, in a husky whisper. “But you've had more moods in the last five days than I've seen in three years. Usually you're so focused…” Sharon’s voice cracked, and she fought back tears. “But when you get like this...”

  Brad tried to stop her. “You don’t have to...” Brad ached, partly for himself but mostly for Sharon. They shared a common bond of family tragedy. When she was in fifth grade her younger brother died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Her mother died of pancreatic cancer when Sharon was in high school. And then three years ago, her father, a decorated Philadelphia police officer, had committed suicide. That’s when Nick first approached Brad and told him about Sharon. Would Brad take her on as an assistant, Nick had asked. They had talked about her family quite a few times during the past three years, and each time Brad played the role of consoler. How many times had he handed her his handkerchief to dry her eyes?

  “We love you, Brad.” Sharon said through her tears. “And we want to see you get past this.”

  “But I don’t need ...” Brad started the sentence without knowing where it ended. What didn’t he need? People who cared for him? Of course, he did. What couldn’t he express? Brad raised both hands to the top of his head.

  “We’re here today to offer our support,” Nick said. “Whatever you need, we want to help.”

  Sharon added, “You don't have to bear the burden alone. That's why we're here. That's why I got Nick involved.”

  Brad shifted uneasily in his seat, and he coughed.

  Sharon left the room returning moments later with a glass of water. She placed it on the table next to Brad. He nodded to her in thanks and took a gulp, hoping it would clear the lump from his throat.

  “I’m sorry I encouraged you to go to the execution,” Sharon said. “I honestly hoped something good might come of the experience. I never intended to open up old wounds.”

  The silence grew as they let him mull his thoughts.

  Nick leaned forward. “Look, Brad, I know what you’re going through. I was there eleven years ago. I had to pull you back from the edge then, too. Remember?”

  Brad nodded. He knew exactly what Nick meant—it had been a turning point that could have propelled his life into a completely different orbit.

  “In my line of work I deal with tragedy all the time. Two weeks ago I had to pay a visit to the wife of one of my officers and tell her that she was a widow. A scumbag, high on crack, opened fire on her husband with an assault rifle. And you know what he was doing? Sitting in his patrol car eating his lunch. The toughest part of that assignment was seeing her two little boys—maybe three and four years old. They’ve got their whole lives ahead of them, but that family is gonna face the same kind of choices as you. They can let the bitterness infect them for the rest of their days, or they can move on. Ten years ago you were able to get past your hostility, and I’d regret seeing you stung again. You may need professional help to get through this. But we’re not going to let you travel this emotional valley by yourself.”

  Brad buried his head in his hands. Their voices fell silent and Brad could only hear the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the front hall. He realized he had a choice of confronting his fears or letting them dominate him. Thinking back to the night of the execution, he wondered what was it about the experience that had brought him to this confrontation with mentor and colleague? He had witnessed far worse in his life. Pick it apart, he thought. Images of Wilkie, Paula Thompson, and Ron Allessi formed in his mind.

  Emotional release started slowly. Brad looked up, first at Nick, then Sharon. His face flushed, and he gasped for air, his entire body heaving. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and he moaned, wailing, “Oh… oh.”

  Sharon sprang from her chair, but Nick’s arm shot out, preventing her from crossing the room. She sat back down.

  The quiet Brad had craved an hour earlier—in the sanctuary of the library—now seemed like torment. He knew he had to express his concerns and allay their fears, and he considered what he would say.

  The grandfather clock chimed the hour.

  Brad reached into his back pocket and retrieved a handkerchief. He blew his nose. He took a deep breath, cleared his throat and spoke. “This past week has dredged up so many bad memories. Dad has taken a turn for the worse, and I don’t know how much time he has left. I’ve struggled with all the garbage that Wilkie’s execution stirred up—all the conflicting emotions. But I didn’t realize until this afternoon how it affected my work, or how the people I care about see me.” He looked at Sharon through moist eyes, and noticed the tears welling in hers. “I’m sorry, Sharon.”

  “What bothers me most,” Brad continued, “are the questions I can’t answer: What was Wilkie trying to tell me? How can I stop an ambitious lawyer hell-bent on publishing a book that can only defame my family? And what gives with a reporter whose life now seems devoted to tarnishing mine? I don’t know where to start.”

  “Oh, Brad.” Sharon rushed over and threw her arms around him as he sat in the chair.

  Sharon squeezed him hard. “I think you could cut back to two days a week with your fitness trainer,” Brad quipped. If anything, Sharon seemed to tighten her grip.

  When Sharon finally unclenched, Nick said, “If a client came to you with these same questions, you’d develop a game plan, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Brad nodded.

  “The most important thing is to stay focused,” Nick said. “You can’t answer all these questions immediately, and you can't do it all yourself. Remember the saying about a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client. The same is true for private detectives.”

  Brad smiled. He felt his equilibrium returning. “When did you make that up?”

  “Just now,” Nick replied, not missing a beat. “You're too wrapped up in this mystery, and you know it. You can stay involved, but let us help. What's the first thing we need to do?”

  Brad glanced at Sharon. “Get the list of Bible verses,” she said, “so we can figure out what Wilkie wanted Brad to know.”

  “Did Dolewski say who asked him not to send you a copy?” Nick inquired.

  “No,” Brad explained, “He said that he had been requested not to forward the list.”

  Nick scribbled notes in a small black notebook. “Okay, I have a few connections in the Corrections’ Department.” He winked at Brad. “Let me contact them and see what I can find out.”

  Chapter Twelve

  After midnight Brad retreated to the attic of his Bryn Mawr estate. He stood on an elevated platform in the middle of the room. Several electrical transformers hummed in front of him and he eagerly fingered the controls on two of them. Brad adjusted the engineer’s cap on his head, before turning the rheostat to launch a model vintage steam engine along a section of track wending its way through miniature recreations of the suburban villages on the Main Line. In the farthest corner of the attic stood a reproduction of 30th Street Station before a backdrop skyline of Philadelphia. He heard Sharon’s muffled voice calling him from below.

  “I’m up here,” Brad shouted, his baritone voice echoing down the wooden stairwell.

  Brad heard clomping feet, then silence and a long pause before a white handkerchief tied to a long-handled barbecue fork was thrust into the room. Brad laughed.

  “Truce?” Sharon asked sheepishly, lowering her flag and peeking over the top of the wooden planks that formed the platform.

  “Sure,” Brad said. “C’mon in.”

  “I figured I better find out if you were still speaking with me. You know, after this afternoon,” Sharon said.

  “I needed a go
od kick in the ass.” Brad dimmed the overhead lights, and with the push of another button transformed the scene from dusk into nightfall, as thousands of tiny lights illuminated the display.

  “You wanna beer?” Brad offered.

  Sharon nodded.

  “Help yourself. There's a mini-fridge under the platform.” Brad pointed. “I don’t have any glasses though.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve survived a few frat parties without a glass.” Sharon laughed as she grabbed a can of Michelob from the refrigerator and popped the metal tab.

  “I tried to call you earlier this evening,” Brad said, as he maneuvered the steam engine onto an abandoned siding. On a different circuit he connected a two-engine tandem to a string of freight cars for a trip into the hills of his layout.

  “Mark and I went out to dinner and a movie, and didn’t get back until late. When I walked Mark to his car I saw the lights on in the dormers and figured you were playing.” Sharon took a swig of her beer and stood at the edge of the train platform. “You’ve added quite a few new displays. I don’t remember the cable car.”

  “I keep tinkering. Check this out.” Brad flipped a switch that animated a circus display set in a field of fall foliage.

  “Cool.” Sharon sipped her beer. “You said you tried to call me. What did you want?”

  “I wanted to thank you for contacting Nick, even if I did seem pissed off when I saw the two of you standing at the front door.”

  “That’s my job,” Sharon said, beaming and giving him thumbs up.

  Brad eased onto a stool in front of the control panel.

  “What is it about guys and trains?” Sharon asked, as she circled the layout. “I remember my older brother had a Lionel train, 027 gauge I think, when he was in high school. It wasn't much, only an engine, two cars and caboose, but he was so proud—you would have thought he owned Amtrak.”

  If he’s a taxpayer, he does.

  “I don't usually tell people about my hobby,” Brad said.

  “Why not?”

  “I guess playing with miniature trains ...” Brad paused and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Sharon asked.

  “I was going to say that playing with trains doesn’t mesh with the macho image of a detective, but I wouldn’t describe my blubbering performance with you and Nick this afternoon as macho either.”

  Sharon dismissed his explanation with a wave of her hand. “I worked for you a year before you showed them to me.”

  “I’ve been puttering with trains—off and on—for thirty years. I was ten when my parents gave us—my brother and me—the train set. I'll never forget it. For six weeks before the holidays that year, workmen were here in the attic hammering and sawing. My brother and I had strict orders not to come up. We had no idea. On Christmas morning, after we opened our stockings, my parents made us close our eyes as they led us up the stairs. When we opened our eyes, Andy and I were in shock. We spent time every day that winter playing with the trains, and my dad used to come up and help. My brother lost interest in the trains as the warm weather returned and he could play outside, but I managed a few minutes of railroading every day.

  “In my college years, I appreciated the trains more and more. It's like your parents, sometimes you don't realize how important they are until they're not around,” Brad added ruefully.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Sharon sipped her beer.

  “It was also popular with my fraternity brothers. Every weekend I came home from Princeton, I could always count on a buddy who wanted to come with me to work on the train. I’ve added to the layout, over the years, which is now three times larger than what my parents gave us.” Pointing at the bank of transformers and switches, Brad asked, “Want to try your hand at the controls?”

  “Really?” Sharon asked, stepping up onto the control platform that overlooked Brad’s miniature railroad. He pulled a second stool up to the control panel, inviting her to sit.

  “Here, try these.” Brad pointed to two transformers. The first one controlled an Amtrak replica traversing the Main Line from 30th Street Station, while the second shuttled freight alongside a loading dock.

  Sharon took the controls, preferring the Amtrak model. “What are you building over there?” she asked, pointing to a torn-up area of the display.

  “I'm gonna add a monorail on the old Chestnut Hill line.”

  Brad noticed that Sharon took to the controls of model railroading in one easy lesson.

  Turning toward him, Sharon said, “I'm sorry to hear your dad has taken a turn for the worse.”

  Brad pursed his lips, acknowledging her concern, then retrieved a beer from the mini-refrigerator. Holding a can aloft he asked, “Another?”

  Sharon shook her head. “Your dad started the family's business, right?”

  “Yes, in the 60’s. He landed a few defense-related contracts. They even did work for foreign governments, under the watchful eye of the Feds. It was his company’s expertise with computer technology that made it a multi-billion dollar industry. In more recent years the firm has diversified into satellite and Internet communications systems.” Brad returned to his stool on the control platform.

  “What was it like growing up rich?” Sharon looked embarrassed the instant the question passed her lips.

  Brad laughed. “I never realized we were rich when I was a kid. We traveled and I saw how other people lived, so I knew we were better off than most. But we never lived an extravagant lifestyle. Even my mother’s family, which came from a long line of inherited wealth, always seemed down to earth to me. I went to private schools in the area, and most of my schoolmates came from similar backgrounds. But one thing I'd never confronted as a kid was fear. I led a sheltered life, and wasn’t prepared to deal with the seamy side of society when Mom and Lucy were kidnapped.”

  “Nick told me a little bit, before I came to work for you, but you’ve never shared the details before,” Sharon said. “Wanna talk about it?”

  It struck him as odd that she’d never heard the details. For several years afterward, it seemed like he shared the details of the crime with anyone who would listen—relatives, college buddies, support groups, acquaintances, and girlfriends. Even total strangers he encountered at an airport check-in or a super market checkout line had heard the story. He knew they couldn’t care less, but he found healing in replaying every grim nuance. The details lived in his mind, like a mutating virus he couldn’t kill.

  Brad adjusted the rheostat to restore the daytime lighting conditions on the train display.

  “It was eleven years ago March 12th,” he began. “Andrew tracked me down in Miami Beach and told me that Mom and Lucy had been kidnapped. I made it to the Miami airport in thirty minutes, raced to the first ticket counter I spotted, and got a first-class seat on a direct flight to Philadelphia, arriving home four hours after Andrew’s call. My dad had just received a phone call, informing him that Mom and Lucy were safe and that he was to wait for further instructions.”

  Brad walked around the platform as he talked, and repositioned a boxcar that had jumped the track.

  “Andy and I suspected a crank call. Dad must have too, or I don't think he would have waited so long to contact the police. That was life before cell phones—at least like the phones we have today—and we were convinced Mom and Lucy might return any minute from shopping. But of course they didn’t.” Brad took a gulp of his beer.

  “The second call came at ten-thirty that night, demanding a million dollars in unmarked, non-sequential bills, none larger than $100. The kidnapper said he would call the next day with directions on where to drop the money. After the ransom demand, Dad contacted the FBI. They told him to sit tight.”

  “Did your dad recognize the kidnapper’s voice?” Sharon asked.

  Brad shook his head. “No one did. Either Andy or I listened on the other line whenever a call came through, but the voice was slow and gravely; clearly disguised.” Brad sat on the platform stool facing Sharon. “It was
four days before Dad heard from the kidnappers again. God, those were an excruciating four days. We couldn’t sleep. We worked out a schedule so one of us would be near the phone at all times, but mostly all three of us stood around waiting for it to ring.”

  “Didn't the FBI tap your phone line?”

  “They did. Not only the lines here but at Dad’s office. The kidnappers must have anticipated that. One of the secretaries at his office found an envelope marked CONFIDENTIAL for my dad. The note instructed him to go to a pay phone at five o’clock and to call a specific number. Dad never told the FBI about the note. He called—as ordered—and told the kidnapper he couldn't come up with one million, but could pay a ransom of $500,000 dollars. They told him to wait, and he would hear from them.

  “We waited an agonizing two days before we heard anything. Another note showed up at Dad’s office, providing instructions on where to deliver the money. Andy took the money to the drop spot, where he found another note telling him where we could find my mother and sister. The kidnappers sent him on a wild goose chase to a school parking lot in Lancaster County.”

  Brad’s voice cracked for an instant, and he swigged his beer before resuming his story. “Less than an hour later the police found their bodies in Fairmount Park. They were under a canvas in an old wooden rowboat tied up in the Schuylkill River. Mom's throat had been cut. Lucy's neck had been broken, and ...”

  Brad realized anew how long it had been since he had told the story. Years earlier, in forced repetition, he’d managed to recount the gruesome details without flinching. “Lucy had been raped. The police said there were cigarette burns on their bodies, indicative of torture. When the trial came, we learned that Baker had a record of sadistic behavior. As a juvenile—at the age of eleven—he was arrested for torturing animals in his neighborhood.” He drew in a breath, pausing to compose himself. “I was thirty-two when all that happened. It was hard for me to imagine that anyone could inflict that kind of pain on another human being. The coroner said they'd been dead for at least three days.”