HUNTER

by Jessie Cooke

  With Claire on his mind and the other, darker things happening in life pushed to the back burner for the time being, Hunter followed Levi off the exit toward Storrow Drive. They went west until they got to the Back Bay/Copley Square exit and on the streets Levi stopped at the red light. When Hunter stopped next to him he asked, “What’s the name of this bar?”

  “Harry’s.” Jon said it was an “alley bar” and a place that Robert or Richard, or whatever his name was, frequented.

  When the light changed, Hunter took the lead. Levi knew his way into Boston, but since he wasn’t local, he didn’t know downtown or Boston Common well. Hunter followed the bustling, narrow streets to an alleyway behind one of the busiest streets in downtown Boston. It was only a few steps away from the Freedom Trail, which Hunter had walked hundreds of times as a kid. Strangely enough, even as an adult who liked his beer and his pubs, he’d never heard of this one. It was like someone was trying hard to hide it there. In a tourist-packed place like Boston, he wouldn’t blame the locals for wanting a place of their own. The two men parked their bikes in the limited space and Levi looked up at the sign. The H was burned out and one of the Rs. The green neon flashed out “ar y’s.”

  “Hmm, this is nice,” Levi said. Hunter chuckled and pushed open the double wooden doors. The place was as “nice” on the inside as it was on the outside. The lighting was way too bright for a bar, and it accentuated the fact that the floors, counters, and old jukebox in the corner were covered with dust and harshly used. Hunter’s eyes went to a narrow staircase in the back, next to the restrooms. He almost shuddered as he thought about Jon and Robert or Richard, or whoever the fuck the man was, “sharing a skank.”

  The bar was far from full, and the people sitting in the booths and at the tables were older, and mostly couples. There were a few single men and a group of men in one corner. Hunter and Levi went up to the counter, where a young guy was pouring drinks. He was about twenty-two or -three with dark hair, a stud in his nose, one in his upper lip, and plugs so large that they stretched his earlobes down to his shoulders. His arms were both covered with tattoos and they ran all the way up his neck. “What can I get you, man?”

  “I’m looking for some information,” Hunter said. “Have you ever seen this man?” Hunter had Robert Potter’s mug shot. It wasn’t a great picture, but he’d edited it so that the name and date didn’t show at the bottom.

  The young bartender looked at the photo and squinted his own eyes. “Nah, I don’t think so. I’m new here, though. You might want to ask some of those guys over there.” He motioned at the booth in the corner. “They’re regulars.”

  “Thanks.” Levi and Hunter approached the table full of men. There were five of them in the booth, older men that looked like union men or blue-collar workers or both. The fact that it was only eleven a.m. and they were sitting in a bar probably meant they weren’t working much that day. “Hi, guys, my name is Hunter Donovan and this is Levi. We’re looking for this man. Have any of you ever seen him in here?” The men looked at Hunter and then Levi suspiciously. Hunter had tried to tone down his quirky look slightly, but he couldn’t ride without his cowboy boots and he needed his vest to cover up his holster and gun. Levi was wearing his kutte and his hair was back in a ponytail so the tattoo on his neck was visible. The older men all had bald heads or combovers, and they were looking at the doe-eyed kid like they didn’t approve.

  A couple of the men glanced at the photo and then one of them said, “What are you looking for him for?”

  “My brother was an Army Ranger. He was killed recently. This man was a good friend of his, an old instructor from Ranger School. My brother left something for him in his will, but we can’t find him. The man’s name is Robert or Richard Potter…”

  “Well, which one you looking for?” another man asked. Before Hunter could answer, another guy looked over his friend’s shoulder and said, “That looks like a mug shot. If it is, that’s gotta be Robert. He always was the bad seed.”

  Hunter looked at Levi. He was confused. “The bad seed?”

  “Yeah, them boys grew up around here. Robert used to love that game where he pretended to be his brother and freaked people out, even when they were grown. Sometimes he even got his brother in trouble. Richard was pissed off at him, a lot.”

  “Richard joined up with the army,” another of the men put in. “Last time he was in here, he was talking about being a Green Beret or something. I don’t blame him for wanting to get away from that crazy brother and mother of his.”

  “They’re twins?” That didn’t make sense. According to his birth certificate, Robert Potter was a twin…but he had a sister, not a brother. Her name was Roberta and her birth certificate was the last document they’d been able to find on her. He and Brett had tracked down the mother. She was in a psychiatric hospital. She was schizophrenic and barely coherent, and couldn’t tell them anything about either one of her kids. The F.B.I. agents that built the original case against Robert had the same information. Nowhere was there a brother mentioned.

  “Well, yeah,” one of the guys said, like “Duh.” “They’re identical. I never could tell them apart by looks…but Richard, he was always real polite and quiet and Robert, he was a little fucker, that one.”

  “Have you seen them recently? Either one of them?” Could a birth certificate be wrong? Hunter didn’t think so. He knew it said “twins” and not “triplets,” but these guys seemed convinced.

  “Can’t you get Richard’s information from the army?” one of the men asked. Now that Hunter knew he really existed, and Jon hadn’t made him up, maybe he could. He’d like to hear what people who actually knew him had to say first.

  “Robert said that he had some security clearance or something where they couldn’t even get in touch with him anymore,” the guy that had called Robert a “little fucker” said. “The last time he showed up here was maybe two, three years ago.”

  “Robert?”

  “No, Richard. He was home on leave or something and he came in with an army buddy of his. Real big ugly guy.”

  “Oh, yeah,” another man said. “Guy reminded me of Lurch from The Addams Family.” The men all laughed. Hunter had to agree, if it was Jon he was talking about. “Have you seen the other one recently? Robert?”

  “Nah,” one guy said as the rest of them shook their heads. “He ain’t been around here since before the last time his brother was home. Come to think of it, he told me he was fixing to leave town and when Richard showed up a week later, I thought it was him, back already.”

  “But it was Richard, for sure?”

  The old man shrugged. “He had on a uniform. Robert ain’t never been in the military. Like I said, that’s the only way I can tell them apart.”

  “You have seen them together, though?”

  The old men were looking at him like he was crazy. “Of course,” one of them said. “They ran the streets from sunup till sundown when they were kids, wreaking all kinds of havoc.”

  Hunter sighed. “So, did any of you know their mother?”

  The men all fell silent and looked at each other and then the most talkative one said, “Yeah, she used to live in a home over on Charles Street… nuttier than Grandma’s fruitcake. I heard she was locked up somewhere now. Haven’t seen her in years.”

  “When you say nutty…?”

  “Walked around talking to herself sometimes. Other times she’d sit on the stoop and scream at people that walked by for no reason. Her neighbors all called the cops on her more than once for walking around naked in the streets, or making them boys sleep outside when they were just little bitty kids because she had a man in the house. She was skinny as a rail and looked like she never took a shower, don’t know why them men would have wanted her, but she gave it away for free and to anyone.” That sounded like the woman he and Brett had met.

  “And the sister, what happened to her?”

  “Sister?”

  “There was a sister, named Roberta…
”

  The old man laughed. “No, that’s what Robert called his brother. Little fucker was always messing around. He introduced them as Robert and Roberta. It used to piss Richard off. Pretty much everything that little shit did pissed his brother off, though; they were always fighting.”

  Hunter looked at Levi, who raised an eyebrow. This got weirder and weirder. “What about their father?” Hunter asked. The F.B.I. had a death certificate on him in the file, but so far today, it wasn’t looking like that file was all that accurate.

  “Those boys’ father died real young, car accident, I think. Unfortunately for them it was him and not her. He left them a lot of money and a big old house. She let the house go to shit and I doubt those boys got any of that money. They lost the house right after she got locked up.” Robert was nineteen when his mother got locked up, according to Hunter’s information. But according to the F.B.I. records and tax records they had on him, he didn’t have any money to speak of.

  “Where did his money come from?”

  “Family money,” one of the old guys said. “Family owns a logging company up in East Foulmouth. Matter of fact, I think that’s where Robert said he was going when he left town.”

  Levi spoke for the first time as Hunter was trying to figure out why the F.B.I. hadn’t noted that. “Foulmouth?” The look on his face was hilarious.

  “Yep. That’s the name of it. It’s a tiny little logging town, about six thousand people or so.”

  “How far is that from here?” Hunter had heard of it, but he’d never been there.

  “About 70 or 80 miles up Route 28,” the old guy said.

  Hunter was wondering if it would be worth a drive up there. His mind went back to the mother and her mental illness. The F.B.I. profiler said Robert’s hatred of women started with his mother’s mental illness and abuse. “Do you know if either of the twins still keep in touch with the mother?”

  “Robert was always a mama’s boy, but that’s because he was about as crazy as her,” the man said. “Richard never said much about her or anything for that matter. He just got out of that house as soon as he could.”

  “You know, Richard said he’d just come from visiting his mommy that day he was in here with his friend,” one of the guys said.

  “Really? He called her that?” the talkative old man asked him.

  “Yeah, that’s why I remember,” the other guy said. “It was weird to hear a grown-ass man in a military uniform call his mother ‘Mommy.’”

  The old man looked at Hunter then and said, “Your boy Robert might just have been the last one here. Maybe playing one of his stupid games. Richard always called her ‘Mother’ if he ever talked about her at all. Robert was the one that said ‘Mommy.’ I remember it used to annoy his brother.”

  “One more question. What’s upstairs?”

  “There’s an apartment up there, but the new owner, Harry, said it was unlivable. The old owner used to live up there. He was a pig, so I believe it.”

  “Was the old owner friends with Robert, or Richard?”

  “Yeah, he was school buddies with them both. He was a no-account,” the old guy said. “His uncle died and left him this place and he was about bankrupt before he sold it.”

  “If one of the twins wanted to use the apartment, he would have let them?”

  “I’d imagine so,” the old man said. “Harry told me the place smelled like something had died in there.”

  34

  The owner of the bar was a middle-aged, pudgy, slightly balding man with cold, soft hands and a nervous tic. Hunter had asked the bartender about looking around upstairs and the bartender had called Harry. It only took him fifteen minutes to get there, so he must live close. After Hunter introduced himself and Levi, Harry asked, “So who are you, exactly?”

  Hunter decided to switch to the truth. Harry seemed like a no-bullshit kind of guy and Hunter doubted he’d get far if Harry sensed he was lying. “I’m a bounty hunter,” Hunter said. “I’m looking for a man who used to come in here quite often. I was told that he had a twin and that they may have used the apartment upstairs. I was hoping I could look around and see if maybe they left anything behind that might help me find them now.”

  “It was a pigsty up there,” Harry said. “I had a cleaning service come in and once it was clean, I had it sprayed for bugs. We threw out all the furniture left behind because none of it was salvageable. I’m not sure what went on up there, but it was nothing good, I assure you. The place still smells.”

  “So, there’s nothing left up there?”

  “I did keep what wasn’t obviously trash, just in case the previous owner came back for it.”

  “Where is the previous owner? Does he live in Boston?”

  “He did, when I bought the bar,” Harry said. “That was several months ago. I haven’t seen or heard from him since then.”

  “Would it be possible to see what you kept?”

  Harry sighed. “I guess it couldn’t hurt, I’m about to just throw it out anyways. I’ve got it all boxed up. Come on.” The two men followed Harry up the narrow stairwell and waited while he unlocked the door. The little suite may have been trashed before, but it was immaculate now. The walls were white and almost blindingly clean and the wood floors were shiny enough to see your reflection. There was a slight smell, but Hunter had to inhale deeply to detect it. It did smell a little like rotting flesh.

  There was a little kitchenette with apartment-sized stainless-steel appliances, but otherwise there was no furniture. A few boxes in the corner were all that was left in the living area. “They’re right there,” Harry told them, indicating the boxes. “I’m gonna go down and check on things in the bar. Just let me know when you’re finished,”

  Hunter thanked Harry and once he was gone Levi said, “Twin boys…I don’t know about you, but I’m a little confused.”

  Hunter shook his head. He’d told Levi the story of losing his brother the first night they met, after he’d had a few beers. Since then, he’d come to trust the kid and he’d confided in him a lot. Levi was the only person other than Dax and Chase that knew all the details about Brett’s killer.

  “I’m just as confused as you right now, trust me.” Hunter sat down on the floor then and pulled one of the boxes toward him. Levi did the same. They sat silently, going through what mostly looked like old photos and some cheap jewelry. Hunter finished one box and pulled the other over toward him. On top of that box was a photo of three men. The one in the middle had dark hair and green eyes. He was average-looking and there was nothing much that stood out about him. But the men on either side of him made the photo more interesting. It was Robert and Richard, he assumed. He knew for sure that one of them was the man that had been arrested on suspicion of murder and had later killed Hunter’s brother. The men downstairs were right; these two men were identical. He shook his head and laid the photo aside. As he continued through, he found a velvet box about three by three inches. It looked like the kind of box an expensive belt-buckle might come in. Hunter opened it and as he looked down into the box, he shuddered.

  “What is it?”

  “Earrings,” Hunter said. “About ten single earrings.” He didn’t want to touch them in case they had DNA evidence on them. One of the things about the women the serial killer had strangled was that they all had pierced ears and they were all wearing only one earring. It made him nauseous to think about how they’d been collected, but at least he knew they were still on the right track.

  He sat the velvet box aside and when he looked back up, Levi said, “Look at this.” He handed him a photo. It was a family photo, yellowed with age. In the photo was a man with light hair and blue eyes, a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, and two babies. One of the babies was wrapped in a blue blanket and the other in pink. The woman looked a lot like Robert Potter’s mother, only much younger and less worn out. “Turn it over,” Levi said.

  Hunter flipped the picture over and on the back, it said “Me, Monty and the twin
s.” “Damn, a girl and a boy…where’s the other boy?”

  “Maybe there wasn’t one, but there is now,” Levi said. Hunter looked up at him and it took him a few seconds to get it.

  “Oh, fuck…Roberta is Richard?”

  “Maybe. We know the one that was arrested had to be Robert, right?”

  “Well, the sample they had was blood and skin cells. One of the women got a piece of him. I’m not sure that could be tested for gender. DNA is usually only labeled gender specific in the case of a hair or semen test…or if they specifically tested it for that in other ways. So, I guess we don’t really know. I do wonder how a biological female passed the initial physical for the Army Rangers…the one where the doctor looks at your junk.”

  “If they’re that hard to tell apart, maybe they did the old switcheroo game with the army doc?”

  “I guess that’s possible…It wouldn’t have been easy…but possible. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out how Robert could have a twin brother that we didn’t know about. If the one in the army had the same DNA and fingerprints, he would have come up when they ran Robert’s…but they didn’t, because they’re not identical twins. Damn.” Hunter’s head was still trying to process all of that as he took out his phone and pulled up Chase’s number. He’d just pressed send when the phone rang. It was Chase, calling him.