Silent Son

by Gallatin Warfield

  Deputy Sheriff Amy Falcon drove her white county car down the shadowy corridor of evergreens. She had drawn the duty at roll call to serve summonses in this sector of town. It had taken her most of the afternoon to catch up with the names on her list, and now, as evening approached, there was one final name to cross out.

  Purvis Bowers’s house lay at the bottom of a dead end in the Cedars section of town. The structure, like the other relics on the shaded avenue, was Gothic and austere. Most of the homeowners were shut-ins or recluses, and along the secluded street the voices of children were never heard. It was sterile and deserted most of the time. And that was just the way the neighbors liked it.

  The deputy maneuvered her car through the curve at the end of the cul-de-sac, and backed up so that the rear of her vehicle was perpendicular to Bowers’s driveway. A small sedan was parked beside the house, so Deputy Falcon ran a tag check on her mobile computer console, and confirmed that it belonged to Purvis Bowers. He was at home.

  She walked up the winding brick pathway and stepped onto the wide wooden porch. The shades and curtains were drawn on every window, and the door was shut. She rang the bell and waited, rocking back and forth nervously in her black brogans, wishing that Bowers would hurry up so she could drop the papers on him and leave. The place was giving her the shivers.

  There was no answer, so she tried the bell again.

  Again, nothing moved.

  “Mr. Bowers?” Her voice rattled the glass in the front door.

  Again, nothing.

  The deputy walked to the end of the porch and looked around the corner. There was a screen door to the rear of the house that seemed to be lagging off its hinges. Something was wrong. Not only was the door hanging, it had a large jagged hole cut in the middle of the screen.

  Falcon ran over to it and shuddered to a stop.

  “Four-two-five to dispatch!” she screamed into the radio strapped to her epaulet. “Dispatch!” Her voice sounded like a siren.

  “Dispatch here. What’s your problem 425?”

  The deputy had drawn her sidearm and pushed the screen door aside. “Got a man down!” she yelled breathlessly, scanning the area for any sign of movement.

  “State your 20,” the voice on the radio said calmly.

  Deputy Falcon looked into the kitchen. She could see a man on his back, just inside the door, a hole in his midsection. “Four-two-six Cedar Road,” she whispered into the mike. “Bowers residence.”

  “Do you need medical assistance?” the voice asked.

  Falcon walked to the body, and bent down. The tile floor was visible beneath the area where his chest used to be, and there was very little flesh connecting the top half of his torso to the bottom.

  Falcon gagged, and ran outside.

  “I say again,” the voice repeated. “Do you require medical assistance?”

  The deputy choked back a burst of bile in her throat. “Yeah,” she said weakly. “You’d better send someone for me.”

  eight

  Nancy Meyers led Granville into the playroom and shut the door. “How are you feeling today?” she asked.

  “Fine,” the boy replied.

  “Want to pick out a toy or two?” The therapist nonchalantly waved her hand toward the shelf on the far wall. The stuffed rabbit had been placed on the bottom level, all the way at the end.

  Granville glanced over, as he usually did before declining the offer. Then he did a double take.

  Meyers watched as he focused on the new addition to the toy collection. “See anything you like?” she asked softly.

  Granville’s eyes were locked on the rabbit, but he didn’t move.

  “Want me to get it for you?”

  The boy shook his head no.

  For several moments, it stayed that way. Granville eyeing the bunny, and Meyers silently observing. Finally the therapist spoke. “Do you want to tell me anything, Granville? Like how you’re feeling right now?”

  The boy turned away from the shelf and shook his head no again.

  “Well, what can we do?” Meyers said merrily. No sense pushing it.

  Granville tentatively raised his head. “Drawing,” he said.

  “Okay.” Meyers produced the pad and pencils and handed them to the boy.

  Granville shifted his body away from the toy shelf, and leaned his elbow against the floor. Then he began to draw.

  Meyers watched attentively from the side. His strokes were slower, and more deliberate than before, but the shape was the same. A criss-cross of ellipses, with no apparent design.

  Word spread rapidly that there’d been another murder, and soon the quiet street where Purvis Bowers had lived was backed up with emergency vehicles all the way out to the main highway. Jennifer had been phoned at the State’s Attorney’s office, and she’d notified Gardner in a terse call to the town house. It did not take them long to converge on the scene, and as the shadows deepened, Jennifer, Gardner, and Brownie gathered on the porch of the old house to discuss the significance of the bloody event.

  “Shotgun?” Gardner asked Brownie after nodding a cool hello to Jennifer. He was still in casual attire.

  “One blast of double-ought buckshot,” Brownie said somberly. “Right through the screen as he opened the inner door.”

  Gardner shook his head and winced. “When?”

  “Within the last five hours,” Brownie continued. “Shot cut him clean in two.”

  This time Jennifer paled. “Still think there’s no connection between Purvis and Addie’s and Henry’s murders?” she said to Gardner.

  Gardner did not respond.

  They walked to the end of the porch in time to see the black plastic body bag being wheeled from the kitchen.

  “Who knew about the Grand Jury summons?” Brownie said suddenly.

  Gardner and Jennifer were both staring absently in the direction of the black bag. There were two bulky lumps. One at each end, and very little in the middle.

  “Huh?” Jennifer seemed to be mesmerized by the bizarre configuration of the body.

  “Who did you tell about the summons?” Gardner repeated Brownie’s question.

  “Nobody.” Jennifer looked flustered, afraid that she might be blamed for what happened. “We wanted to catch him by surprise, so he wouldn’t try to run.”

  “King knew about it,” Gardner said, looking at Jennifer.

  Jennifer arched her brows above her glasses. “I never said a thing to him.”

  Gardner leaned against a porch column and crossed his arms. “Well, somebody told him. He was pissed as hell…”

  Jennifer looked at Gardner in silence. This was not helpful. “Gardner, I swear, I kept the lid on…”

  Gardner walked over and put his arm around her shoulder. It was their first real contact for days. “It’s okay, Jen,” Gardner said gently. “I’m sure King didn’t hear it from you.”

  Brownie interrupted. “How do you think he found out?”

  The question was directed at Gardner. It was clear to all that the State’s Attorney was back at the helm.

  “Same way he’s been scooping us for years,” Gardner said solemnly. “There’s a leak in the courthouse.”

  King’s uncanny ability to know what was going on behind the doors of the State’s Attorney’s office had been a sore spot with Gardner for a long time. The prosecutor even had unsuccessfully swept the office for electronic listening devices.

  “The old bugaboo,” Brownie said with a shake of his head. “You still on that dusty trail?”

  “You have a better explanation?” Gardner was certain that King’s intelligence machine was as sophisticated as the CIA’s.

  “Sheriff serves the summons,” Brownie answered. “That means a lot of hands on it between your place and the field. A lot of people in the loop.”

  “King knew this morning,” Gardner answered. “Early this morning. What time did the summons go out?” He looked at Jennifer.

  “Ten thirty, eleven o’clock,” Jennifer replied.r />
  Gardner looked at Brownie. The information had reached King long before that.

  “So what are we really saying here?” Brownie asked. “Are we accusing King of something?”

  Gardner rubbed his foot on the peeling porch floor and flecked off a curl of gray paint. “King may have tipped off the killer…”

  “Intentionally?” Brownie asked.

  “Could be,” Gardner said. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “So you want me to follow up that theory?” Brownie said.

  “Discreetly,” Gardner replied.

  “Discreetly,” Brownie repeated.

  Just then there was a commotion at the end of the porch. The sound of running feet and an excited voice. “Sergeant Brown! Sergeant Brown!”

  The trio turned and were greeted by a breathless young patrol officer who had been dispatched earlier to search for evidence in the yard.

  “Got something!” he shouted.

  Gardner, Jennifer, and Brownie gathered in a semicircle around the officer, who was fumbling with a plastic bag in his hand.

  “Found this in the bush, ten feet to the right of the back door.”

  He opened the bag, and everyone looked inside.

  “Now that looks familiar!” Brownie said, poking the object with the butt of his pen.

  “Out of a pump-action, or automatic,” Gardner said.

  “Like the kind that Henry sold at the store,” Brownie replied. “But look at this.” Brownie squeezed the shotgun shell by the plastic and pushed it out of its enclosure. “This one’s identical to the three I got off Roscoe Miller.”

  Brownie dropped the shell into the bag and signed an evidence form accepting custody. Then he thanked the patrolman and sent him back into the bushes. “I’m gonna run this thing through the laser,” Brownie told the prosecutors. “Can’t load it without touching it. There’s got to be a print!”

  Brownie prepared to leave, when Jennifer grabbed his arm. “But don’t you touch it!” she said with a smile.

  Carole maneuvered her blue station wagon around the sharp curves of Watson Road, en route to the house. Granville sat silently beside her, gazing out the window at the passing greenery. The sky was bright, and there was little traffic on this section of the road.

  Carole slowed for a turn, and checked Granville’s seatbelt. It was secure. “You okay?” she asked, patting his knee. He had been more relaxed when they left the therapist’s, but they’d run across a streaking convoy of police cars on the way to some emergency, and his demeanor had changed. Carole had tried to talk to him after that, but he’d only spoken in monosyllables, and had no questions or comments of his own.

  They were approaching the intersection with Mountain Road, the spot where the traffic changed direction for the high country. It was also the turnoff for Bowers Corner. Carole slowed again as they came toward the stop sign at the junction. She glanced at the road ahead, saw nothing, and hit the accelerator. Their momentum carried them into the intersection. She glanced at Granville again.

  “Mom!” His scream was so sudden and unexpected that it almost stopped her heart. She instinctively jammed on the brake, and whipped her head forward in time to see a giant mass of metal hurtling toward the front of her car. A vehicle was running the stop sign on the other side, slashing across her path into Mountain Road.

  “Uh!” Carole grunted as the seatbelts took hold, and jammed them both back into their seats. She had added her right hand as a backup, to keep Granville from hitting the dashboard, but it wasn’t necessary. They were both all right.

  In an instant, it was over. The other car had accelerated off around a curve. Carole never got a good look at who, or what, almost hit them. All she had seen was a big red blur.

  “My baby,” Carole said gently. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m not a baby, Mom,” Granville answered firmly.

  “You saved us,” Carole said. They’d pulled through the intersection and parked on the shoulder to catch their breath. “You know that? You saved our lives.”

  Granville smiled.

  “I didn’t see him…” Carole unstrapped and moved over on the seat so she could put her arms around her son. She was comforting him, but at the same time, in the aftermath of the close call, he was making her feel better too.

  After five minutes, Carole felt calm enough to resume driving. She reentered the road and headed for home, steering with one hand and holding Granville’s slim fingers with the other.

  Soon the tree-lined lane came into view, and then the silver mailbox. Carole eased up next to it so she could pick up the day’s mail. They’d been out all day, and this was the first chance to collect it.

  Carole popped the metal door and reached in, seizing a packet of letters and folded catalogues, secured with a thick rubber band.

  “Here, Granny,” she said, handing the bundle to her son for safekeeping.

  The boy put the bundle on his lap and began to remove the band. Meanwhile, Carole was closing the door to the box when she noticed a white object lying against the back wall.

  She reached in, and pulled out a small rectangular envelope. There was no stamp, and no address. All it said on the outside, in crude ink lettering, was: GRANVILLE

  Carole’s heart began racing again, as it had back at the intersection. A bulge in the sealed letter signified there was something inside.

  She tore open the paper, and a hard object dropped into her hand. Except for that, there was nothing else there. When she saw it, she almost screamed. Her heart pounded, and her breath came in gasps.

  Granville looked up. “What is it, Mom?” he asked.

  Carole began to answer, but she couldn’t form any words. Her thoughts were focused on the object she was desperately trying to conceal in her hand: a loaded 12 gauge shotgun shell.

  Carole finally reached Gardner by phone at 8:15 P.M. The earlier calls to the town house had triggered the answering machine, but she’d left no message. What she had to say to her ex-husband could not be entrusted to a tape. He had to hear it live.

  “What?” Gardner exploded. “Got a what?”

  “Some kind of big bullet,” Carole repeated. Her voice was trembling.

  Gardner scraped his forehead with his left hand. “Oh, God…” This was his nightmare come true. The killer had finally realized that Granville posed a threat, and he was issuing a warning. Or a prediction! “Carole, is the patrol car there?” he said suddenly. Gardner had arranged for hourly drive-bys after Granville came home from the hospital.

  “Yes. I’ve asked them to stay. They’re parked out front.”

  “Who are the officers?”

  Carole fumbled with the phone. “Who? Uh, I don’t know. A man and a woman…”

  “Let me talk to one of them…” The concern in Gardner’s voice was unmistakable.

  “Gardner, what is going on? Why are they doing this?” Carole was matching his tone with a few hysterical notes of her own.

  “Uh…” Gardner didn’t want to spell it out completely. “A sick joke, Carole,” he finally said. “Somebody is playing a sick joke.”

  Carole asked the driver of the police car to come into the house and take the call.

  “Hello?” The young patrolman’s crackly voice did not inspire much confidence.

  “This is State’s Attorney lawson,” Gardner said in his official voice. “Who am I talking to?”

  “Officer Reynolds, Pete Reynolds.”

  Two years on the force, Gardner thought. Not much experience. “And who do you have with you tonight?” Maybe the partner was longer in the tooth.

  “Officer Petra, Karen Petra.”

  A damn rookie! Three months out of the academy. That meant there were two police toddlers to guard his son! “Did Mrs. Lawson tell you what happened?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did she show it to you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What does it look like?” Gardner had not clearly pictured the “bullet” from Ca
role’s description.

  “Twelve gauge shell. Double-ought load—”

  Gardner gasped. Purvis Bowers had been bisected by a blast of the same shot. “Uh, you got it secured?”

  “Yes, sir. Sealed and tagged.”

  “Good,” Gardner said. “Send it down to the lab immediately. Call the station and have someone pick it up.” Maybe Brownie could lift a print.

  “Right away, Mr. Lawson.”

  “Officer Reynolds?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Take care of my family.” Gardner found himself slipping an obsolete word into the sentence. “Family” didn’t apply anymore. It no longer existed. Take care of my “son” was what he had wanted to say, but it came out “family” instead. Strange.

  Carole came back on the phone. “I’m scared,” she said, “really scared.”

  “Take it easy, Carole. You’ve got protection,” Gardner said, trying to comfort her.

  “And what am I supposed to do?” she whined. “Sit here and wait for a knock on the door?”

  Gardner fell silent. This was not going to do. “Carole,” he said suddenly, “I need to see Granville.”

  The switched subject caught her off guard. “What?”

  “I’m coming out to the house, and I want you to have Granville ready in about twenty minutes.”

  Her silence signaled her puzzlement. “What’s going on?”

  Gardner took a breath. “I need to see him, and we don’t have much time.”

  “What’s this really about?” Carole asked.

  “Granville knows something,” Gardner answered. “He’s trying to communicate. I’m certain of it.”

  Carole picked up on what he was saying. “The drawings.”

  “Right. I think he’s drawing a picture, but it’s not clear—”

  “But he already had his session,” Carole interrupted.

  “He’s got to have another one,” Gardner said. “Tonight.”

  “No!” That was the old Carole talking. Intransigent to the max.

  “Damnit, Carole!” Gardner exploded. “Don’t you understand what’s going on here?”

  “No I don’t! Why don’t you tell me!”

  “The person who killed Addie and Henry just killed their nephew! With a shotgun!”