Silent Son

by Gallatin Warfield

  “Yeah,” the gravel voice responded. “Did you get our answer?”

  “Just came in,” Brownie replied. “Got one question, though.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What address did Miller give you at intake?”

  “Hold on a minute,” the lieutenant replied.

  Brownie grabbed his pen and arranged his note pad.

  In a second, the trooper was back. “Here it is,” he said.

  Brownie poised his pen.

  “Four twenty-six Cedar Road—”

  “Huh!” Brownie thought he’d heard it wrong.

  “Four twenty-six Cedar Road,” Avis repeated, “in your hometown.”

  Brownie wrote it down and underlined it with a hard stroke of his pen. “Jesus,” he said under his breath.

  “What’s wrong?” the lieutenant asked.

  “You’re sure he gave you that address?”

  Avis hesitated, then replied, “Positive!”

  Brownie shook his head and looked at the note. The address provided by Roscoe was the home of Purvis Bowers!

  Roscoe Miller slouched in the leather chair opposite Kent King’s desk. He was dressed in his usual ensemble of jeans, T-shirt, and boots. He was tempted to put his feet up on the desk, but knew better. King would probably bust his kneecap if he did.

  The lawyer was wearing his trademark double-breasted pinstripe. Unlike Gardner Lawson, he looked relaxed and rested. “Are you gonna thank me?” he asked Miller sarcastically.

  Roscoe fluffed his hair. “For what?”

  “It’s customary to show appreciation to the person who arranges bail,” King said.

  “Oh,” said Miller. “I get it. Thanks a lot, Mr. King.”

  The lawyer smiled. “You can really thank the other guy. Starke. He put up the cash.”

  “He did?”

  “Uh-huh,” King replied. “Pretty generous, don’t you think?”

  Miller nodded blankly.

  “Seems like he wants to pay you back for something,” King said. “Care to tell me about it?”

  Miller’s face was impassive. He began to fiddle with the black shiny plastic tightly encircling his wrist.

  “He don’t owe me nuthin’,” he said.

  King stared across the desk with a disapproving glare. “No?”

  Miller shook his head. “Nuthin’,” he repeated.

  “Well why would he want to put up fifty thousand dollars of his own money, then?”

  “Maybe he’s got nuthin’ better to do with it,” Roscoe answered.

  “What the hell happened out there, Roscoe?” King asked.

  Roscoe tried to turn the monitor around on his wrist, but it wouldn’t budge. “Nuthin’,” Roscoe repeated. “Nobody done nuthin’.”

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  “I’m not afraid!” Roscoe snapped.

  King leaned forward. “He’s gonna try to burn you…”

  Roscoe looked up.

  “Why else would he want you out on the street?” King went on. “He’s got something planned, and you’re part of it.”

  Roscoe squirmed and rubbed the monitor again. “What if this thing quit working?” he said suddenly. “And the county shits couldn’t track me?”

  King crossed his arms. His client was changing the subject. “We’re not talking about that, Roscoe! We’re talking about Starke.”

  “What would they do if the signal quit?” Miller persisted. His mind was fixated on the monitor.

  King gave up trying to hold him to the discussion. “They’d probably come after you,” he said.

  Miller smiled and let go of the bracelet. “But they wouldn’t know where to find me.”

  King nodded condescendingly. “Right.”

  “Would it be a violation of my release conditions?”

  King glanced at the monitor. “If it quit working?”

  “Yeah,” Roscoe said.

  King shook his head. “No. I’d say not. It’s their damn equipment. If it goes bad, they can’t really blame you.”

  Roscoe smiled again, but he did not say a word.

  “Can we get back to some case prep now?” King asked. He was irritated at the diversion.

  Roscoe sat up. “Whatever you say.”

  The town’s main post office was located on Court Avenue in the downtown section. It was a granite building, hewn from the quarry stone of the mountains, and assembled a hundred years ago. Although there were several small branches scattered across the remote rural sections, the main post office was the hub of all mail operations in the county. Every letter entered and exited at that point.

  At 11:45 A.M. Brownie pushed his way through the revolving door and into the central hall. Its vaulted ceiling echoed with the voices of the mail handlers behind a wooden partition that ran the length of the room. Purvis Bowers’s address turning up on Roscoe Miller’s arrest report was an unexpected jolt, as strange as Henry calling IV Starke on the phone. It had to be checked out.

  Brownie entered the postmaster’s office and asked to see Mr. Jim. If there was a certified character in all of the county, eighty-year-old James “Mr. Jim” Johnson certainly qualified. He had worked for the post office for over sixty years, and “never missed a day on the job,” so the legend went. He was well past retirement age, but his mind still had the snap of a teenager’s. He’d been able to obtain a waiver that kept him employed, but his real claim to fame was his hobby. He was an amateur genealogist, and it was said that he could recite the ancestry of every man, woman, and child in the county.

  He greeted Brownie warmly. “Sergeant Joseph Brown. Son of Althea and Joseph senior. Grandson of Robert and Emma-line…”

  Brownie smiled. “Hello, Mr. Jim. How are you?” The man was a trip. Wizened and skinny, his clothes hung on him like a scarecrow. But he had a thick head of silver hair and bright, attentive eyes.

  “Doing all right for a man my age,” the postmaster replied with a grin that showed all his natural teeth still in place. “What brings you to my humble place of employment?” He motioned Brownie into an antique chair beside his rolltop desk.

  Brownie sat down and handed Mr. Jim a piece of notepaper. The names ROSCOE MILLER and PURVIS BOWERS were written above the address 426 CEDAR ROAD. The postmaster’s genealogical genius was not his only talent. He had a photographic memory to boot.

  “Recognize these names?” Brownie asked.

  Mr. Jim skipped Roscoe and went to Purvis. “Purvis R. Bowers, son of Burton and Rosalind,” he said. “Nephew of Henry and Addie…” His voice dropped an octave when the last two names came out. “Lived at 426 Cedar Road. That’s where he lived…” He emphasized the past tense.

  “Ever seen the other name sent through to that address?” Brownie said, prodding the postmaster out of the reverie he’d slipped into.

  “Miller,” Mr. Jim said, “Roscoe Miller, 426 Cedar Road.” He was trying it on for size.

  Brownie waited while the ancient computer in the postmaster’s skull did its thing.

  “Roscoe Miller, 426 Cedar Road,” the old man repeated. “Roscoe Miller…” He was searching his memory banks for the ancestry.

  Brownie leaned forward and rested his thick arms on his knees.

  “Roscoe Miller, son of…” It was starting to focus.

  Brownie took a deep breath.

  “Son of Cletus and Anna Miller!” he exclaimed loudly, his eyes flashing with triumph. Suddenly, the excitement dampened. “Addie Bowers,” he said absently.

  “Huh?” Brownie didn’t follow the name shift.

  “Addie Bowers,” Mr. Jim repeated. “Daughter of Andrew and Sarah Miller.”

  Brownie’s chin jerked up.

  “Aunt of Purvis Bowers,” he continued, “aunt of Cletus Miller…”

  “Great-aunt of Roscoe Miller!” Brownie burst out. Another connection! And this one was more bizarre than the last. “Roscoe Miller and Addie Bowers were related,” Brownie said.

  “Sure were,” Mr. Jim said. “Didn’t think o
f it at first, but when you trace it out, it comes clear.”

  “So Purvis Bowers was related to Roscoe too. He was Roscoe’s…” Brownie was groping for the correct genealogical term.

  “First cousin once removed,” the postmaster said sadly.“Never made the connection till now. That Miller boy was related to the Bowers clan!”

  Gardner and Jennifer sat at the table in the conference room at the State’s Attorney’s office. The evidence outline that Gardner had drawn earlier was still there, below a DO NOT ERASF sign. Nothing had been added since the schematic had gone up.

  With Granville in Gardner’s private office, plied with books and games, they were conferencing the grand jury presentation on State v. Miller and State v. Starke. Both defendants were on the loose, so there was no way the boy could be left at home.

  “Got to convene the Grand Jury Friday,” Gardner said. His face looked like it had been in a wine press. “Got to try to get another bond after indictment.” He scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. “Maybe we can get a new judge. One who’ll up the ante.”

  The release of both prisoners had been a shock, but once the Grand Jury issued formal charges, another bond would be set by the court.

  “Rumor has it that Carla Hanks is going all the way on this one,” Jennifer said.

  Gardner looked up. “Rumor?”

  “Betty in the clerk’s office said that Danforth got a call from Annapolis. She was told to put Hanks in on all motions.”

  Gardner shook his head. “Judge shoppers,” he muttered. It had to be the Jacobs-Biddington connection again. Inexperienced and unfamiliar with criminal law, Hanks was sure to wreak havoc with the rules of evidence. And that could only help Miller and Starke.

  “Let’s get to it.” Gardner said solemnly. “We’ve got to put this indictment together.”

  “But what about the evidence?” Jennifer asked, waving her fingers at the blackboard. “Do we have enough to indict?”

  Gardner walked to the board. “What we offer to the Grand Jury does not have to meet in-court standards of admissibility,” he said, circling the PARTIAL PRINT notation under ROS-COE MILLER’S name. “We do not have to tell the Grand Jury that it’s only a partial. We can say we have Roscoe’s print.”

  Jennifer frowned. “Withhold information?”

  “No,” Gardner replied. “We say here’s a print with X number of comparisons to the print of Roscoe Miller.”

  “But we don’t say it’s only a partial,” Jennifer replied.

  “Right. If anyone in the Grand Jury asks, of course, we tell the whole story, and admit it’s only a partial…”

  “But we don’t tell them up front,” Jennifer said.

  “Right. We have no obligation to impeach our own evidence. We’re going to offer that fingerprint in court. That’s our plan…”

  Jennifer ruffled the smooth line of her dark hair. “But that’s intellectually dishonest. You know that the print won’t be admitted in court.”

  “I do not,” Gardner replied. “We’re going to submit the print as part of our case. It might get in…”

  Jennifer went silent. Gardner was back to square one with his attitude. He’d been restless at night, unreasonable by day. And now that Granville was here, he was getting worse.

  Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

  “Yeah?” Gardner had left orders not to the disturbed unless Granville needed something.

  “Deputy Pike,” a voice from the other side replied.

  Gardner flipped the latch and opened the door.

  “Perry,” Gardner said. “What’s up?”

  The giant deputy entered. “I’m sorry,” he said haltingly, as he fingered a paper in his hands. “I was the only one at the station when this came in. They made me do it. I didn’t want to…”

  Gardner was puzzled as Pike handed him the elongated sheet.

  “Christ!” he sputtered suddenly. “Jesus Christ!” He threw the paper on the table and ran his hand through his hair.

  “I’m sorry…” Deputy Pike mumbled.

  Jennifer grabbed the paper and began to read:

  SUMMONS, it said. EMERGENCY CUSTODY HEARING RE: THE PARENTAL RIGHTS OF GARDNER LAWSON TO THE MINOR GRANVILLE ALCOTT LAWSON…

  Jennifer shuddered. Carole had counterattacked. She had hired an attorney and filed a civil custody suit. Jennifer looked at the date the hearing was set: this coming Friday. Grand Jury day.

  At 8:30 that night Gardner sat by Granville’s bed and tried to read him to sleep. They were in Granville’s “weekend” room, decorated with baseball player wallpaper and cowboy prints.

  Gardner tried to concentrate on the words he was reading from Treasure Island, one of his own favorite books as a boy.” ‘From the side of the hill,’” he read,” ‘which was here steep and stony, a spout of gravel was dislodged, and fell rattling and bounding through the trees…’”

  Granville stirred, and opened his eyes.

  Gardner stopped.

  “What’s ‘bounding,’ Dad?” the boy asked. He’d finally calmed down from this morning. Unresponsive and almost hostile at first, he was now softening.

  “Bounding,” Gardner said. “Uh, that’s like bouncing. The stone went bouncing through the trees.”

  “Oh,” Granville said.

  ” ‘My eyes turned instinctively in that direction,’” Gardner continued reading,” ‘and I saw a figure leap with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine. What it was, whether bear or monkey, I could in no wise tell. It seemed dark and shaggy; more I knew not. But the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand.’”

  Gardner stopped reading as his mind visualized the scene. A young boy on a lonely isle, pursued and terrorized by criminals. When he was a child, the words had been fantasy. An adventure that made him want to be at the boy’s side as he ran from the pirates. But now the adventure had lost its appeal. Real children were being pursued by real criminals in jungles of asphalt and steel.

  Gardner looked at Granville. His eyes were closed and had not opened since Gardner stopped reading. Maybe he’d finally fallen asleep.

  Suddenly the boy’s eyes popped open. “Dad?”

  Gardner looked back at the book to pick up his place.

  “When am I gonna see Mom?”

  Gardner’s neck warmed at the sound of the word mom. “Soon, Gran,” he said as calmly as he could. “You’ll see her real soon.”

  “Is she still gonna be mad?” the boy asked.

  “Probably,” Gardner answered.

  Granville rolled to his side and looked at his dad. “Do you want me to ask her to stop?” Innocence shone in his eyes. There was nothing the boy wanted more than tranquillity between his parents.

  Gardner smiled. “You could tell her that Dad’s not such a bad guy,” he said as his mind flew ahead to the custody hearing. Gardner had used the criminal code to seize his son. Carole had countered with civil domestic law. A prosecutor had a right to free access with a key witness. And a mother had a right to custody of her son. There was no predicting where Solomon’s knife would come down.

  “I’ll tell her,” Granville said, his eyes aglow.

  “Go to sleep now, son,” Gardner said, kissing his cheek. “We have a big day tomorrow.”

  Granville didn’t answer. His breathing had turned heavy, and his face was serene. He’d finally drifted off.

  At 11:45 P.M. the pretrial release monitor section of the sheriff’s office was manned by only two people. Deputy Peter Smawley was ending his shift, and Deputy Sam Ellen was about to begin his. After midnight, there would only be one deputy on duty for the rest of the night.

  The unit had been made possible by a federal grant that the county had received in the late 1980s. With prison overcrowding an issue nationwide, the lawmakers had determined that the most cost-effective way to deal with the situation was to release as many prisoners as they could. The result was the development of the arm monitor and the base-station tracking equipment that went with it.
Letting prisoners roam free on an electronic tether seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Deputy Ellen sat at the console and began arranging for the start of his shift. He was another member of the sheriff’s beef trust, heavyset and muscular. He picked up the clipboard and began to run down the list of the monitorees, checking the names against the numbers displayed on his screen.

  He was scanning the screen when suddenly he stopped. “Hey Pete,” he yelled. “Come here a minute.”

  Deputy Smawley was a contradiction to his name. He too was gigantic. Ellen had caught him just as he was about to hit the door. “What’s the matter?” he asked, leaning his head over the other deputy’s shoulder.

  “How many sheep did you count last?”

  Smawley grabbed the clipboard and scanned to the last line.

  “Twelve. That’s what they gave me. Twelve.”

  Ellen turned to look at his cohort. “Twelve? I can only find ten.”

  Smawley pushed closer to get a better look at the screen, counting out loud as he went. “… Eight, nine, ten. Shit!”

  “Looks like we got two sheep unaccounted for,” Ellen said gravely.

  They quickly matched up the numbers with the names.

  “Miller,” Smawley said. “Roscoe Miller’s one.”

  Ellen had to go to the bottom of the alphabetical list before he found the other. “And Starke,” he said. “Mr. Wellington Starke the fourth.”

  Ellen looked at Smawley. “What do we do?” He was new to this duty and had not encountered such a situation.

  Smawley shrugged. “Nothing to do. They were both on the screen five minutes ago, so we know they didn’t skip. Equipment malfunction most likely…”

  “On two codefendants at the same time?” It was too much of a coincidence for Deputy Ellen.

  Smawley shrugged again. “It happens. Make a note and report it when the morning shift get’s here. I gotta get goin’.”

  After the other deputy left, Ellen wrote down the names and penned a reminder to make the report in the morning. Two monitors down. At the same time. On two defendants charged with multiple murder. Ellen shuddered at the thought, and prayed nothing happened before they got the monitors repaired.