FOR MY BROTHER (Det. Jason Strong(CLEAN SUSPENSE Book 3)

by John C. Dalglish

  For My Brother

  by

  John C. Dalglish

  2012

  OTHER CLEAN SUSPENSE BOOKS BY

  JOHN C. DALGLISH

  “Where’s My Son?”- Det. Jason Strong #1

  Bloodstain - Det. Jason Strong - #2

  Silent Justice - Det. Jason Strong - #4

  Tied to Murder – Det. Jason Strong - #5

  One of their Own –Det. Jason Strong - #6

  Death Still – Det. Jason Strong - #7

  Lethal Injection – Det. Jason Strong - #8

  And a new series.

  CROSSOVER–The Chaser Chronicles #1

  JOURNEY- The Chaser Chronicles #2

  DESTINY – The Chaser Chronicles #3

  Prologue

  Donnie Jarvis stepped off the school bus with his friend Tim Brown, and waved at the driver. The sixth grade boys lived just three houses apart in their South San Antonio neighborhood. The day was warm, but not uncomfortable, as the two boys turned for home.

  They cut across the corner of Mr. Lander’s perfect green lawn. The twelve-year-olds played a game almost every day with the retired man. Could they get across without him seeing? If he was outdoors, he would yell at them to get off the grass; if he was indoors, he’d pound on the large glass window overlooking the manicured lawn. Today was a win for them—he wasn’t watching.

  Tim hit Donnie lightly across the chest.

  “Hey, what’s all that about?”

  Donnie looked up to see what had caught his friend’s attention. At the end of the block, in front of Donnie’s house, was a chaotic scene. Blue and red lights lit up the fading afternoon light, reflecting off windows, signs, and cars. Yellow tape stretched across the front yard, wrapped around the big oak on the corner of the lot, and down along the side yard to the back fence. People, most in uniforms, were going in and out of his house like ants.

  “I don’t know…” Donnie’s voice trailed off as fear took hold of him.

  Instantly, he began running. His heart beat wildly in his chest, throbbing in his ears, as his feet pounded the pavement toward home. The closer he got to his house, the wilder the scene became. Donnie’s neighbors stood at the edge of the yellow tape, some crying, others in small groups, talking and pointing at the house. It seemed as if every head turned toward him as he ran up.

  Donnie stopped at the edge of the crime tape as still another police car, with lights flashing, rolled up to the scene. The passenger door swung open before the car even stopped, and Donnie’s mom flew out of the car. Rushing toward the house, tears streaming down her face, she was stopped when she got to the front door. A man in plain clothes barred her from entering.

  “Billy! Billy!” She tried to see over the man blocking her way. “Let me by!”

  Donnie watched as the man held his mother in a bear hug while he spoke into her ear. She shook her head violently back and forth, as if trying to force the words out of her head.

  “No. Nooooo!”

  She slumped against the man, and he had to hold her tightly to keep her from collapsing on the walkway.

  “Mom!”

  His mom straightened up at the sound of Donnie’s voice, searching for where his voice had come from. When she spotted him, she broke loose from the man, ran to Donnie, and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Donnie! Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. What’s going on? Why are all these policemen here?”

  His mother’s face was drawn, almost gray. Pain welled up in her eyes, and Donnie realized he had seen that look before. It was the last time their world had crashed around them, the last time tragedy had visited their home just two years ago, when his dad passed away. That connection scared him even more, and he started to cry.

  His mother brushed his tears away as she searched for words.

  “Something has happened to Billy. There’s been an accident.”

  Billy was Donnie’s seventeen-year-old brother, and Donnie worshiped him. Billy, a senior in high school, would keep an eye on Donnie after school until their mom got home from work. They would throw a football around or play video games, and Billy never complained that it took time away from his social life.

  “What happened? Is he okay?”

  “No. I’m afraid he’s not okay.”

  She paused, seemingly gathering strength for what she was about to say.

  “Billy is dead.”

  She stared at him, and Donnie could tell she was waiting. Waiting to see how he reacted, what he would say, expecting him to scream. But he didn’t react at all. Instead, life suddenly stood still for Donnie.

  The words ‘Billy is dead’ bounced around the walls of his soul, looking for, but not finding, some place to take hold. Some place that could understand, and let the truth settle inside him. But he refused to let the words be part of him, to take root.

  Tim walked up with the book-bag Donnie had dropped, and Donnie acted as if it was just another day.

  “Oh thanks, Tim. I probably won’t be at school for a few days.”

  “Okay...” His friend glanced at Donnie’s mother, then back at his friend. “See ya later.”

  *******

  Donnie sat on the grass with his mother as the house slowly cleared of personnel. He had seen the body bag containing his brother wheeled out on a stretcher, and watched as it was loaded into a coroner’s van, before being driven away. Most of the police cars had gone, one by one shutting off their lights and driving off into the early nightfall.

  The yellow crime tape, now sagging toward the ground, still flapped in the breeze. It swayed unattended, no longer needed to hold onlookers at bay. The neighbors had returned to their homes to watch the evening news and look for themselves on TV.

  The man in plain clothes who had blocked his mother’s path, was a detective. It turned out there had been four people in the room with Billy. He brought each one of the kids outside and asked them the same questions.

  Donnie sat nearby, listening intently as Billy’s friends recounted what had happened in his brother’s final moments.

  He recognized two of them. Billy’s best friend, Ed Garland, and Billy’s girlfriend, Suzanne Cooper. The other two Donnie had never seen before. They told the detective their names were Dexter Hughes and Chelsea Burt.

  Both girls were crying while the boys each wore a stunned, almost vacant look. Donnie wasn’t crying; he was listening.

  His brother’s friends described a game called ‘Russian Roulette.’ Billy had spun the chamber of the gun, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger. Donnie couldn’t understand what kind of game could involve shooting yourself. They said no one else had taken a turn; only his brother.

  Donnie was listening to the fourth account when his mom finally realized what her son was hearing. She took him into the backyard.

  They sat at the picnic table, and someone brought them each a cold soda. Donnie looked at his mother, her eyes red from crying, and it dawned on him they were alone. It was just the two of them now.

  “What are we gonna do, Momma?’

  “I don’t know, Donnie. I don’t know.”

  Chapter 1

  “Donnie, it’s time!”

  Donnie Jarvis shut down his computer and pushed back his chair.

  “Coming!”

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to take a quick look in the mirror. Brown eyes stared back at him as he ran his hand through black hair, which never seemed to lie down in the same place twice. His t-shirt was clean, as were his jeans.

  When he reached the top of the stairs, his mother was waiting for him in her wheelchair. Diabetes ha
d taken its toll on her health, her legs in particular, and walking even short distances was difficult. She gave him a sideways glance.

  “Let me look at you.”

  He posed for her as her eyes swept him up and down.

  “Well, you’re clean anyway. What are you doin’ downstairs all day?”

  “Just playing on the computer. You ready to go?”

  “Yes.”

  It was Sunday, and for the past ten years, Sunday meant a visit with Billy at the cemetery. If the weather was good, like it was today, they would spread a blanket out and sit for hours. His mother would chatter on telling Billy the latest news and who was doing what to whom in her soaps. She was always happiest when they were with Billy.

  Of course, she never heard Billy speak back to her. It was just her way of staying connected to her oldest son. Donnie on the other hand, did have a connection with his brother. They did speak, and they had a plan. He headed for the door.

  “I’ll pull the van around.”

  Donnie went out through the back door to the garage. The white, metal building had two parking bays, but they only used one. Parked inside was the blue Chevy Astro. Even though the car was old and ugly, his mother could manage getting in and out of it better than most cars. Donnie had sold his Chevy Impala when his momma couldn’t drive anymore. He just took to driving the van.

  He backed out and drove around front where his mother was waiting on the porch. Getting out, he helped her stand so she could get hold of the rail. She struggled, taking one step at a time, down from the porch to the side door of the van. When Donnie had her settled in the passenger’s seat, he returned to the porch, folded the wheelchair, and loaded it in the back of the van. One day he hoped to get her an automatic chairlift.

  Climbing back into the driver’s seat, down the farm lane. “Nice day for our visit, Momma.”

  “It is. I so enjoy our time together as a family. A day like this makes it all the nicer.”

  The driveway was a quarter-mile dirt trail leading out to the county road. Their home, an old farmhouse on seven acres, was located ten miles east of San Antonio. It’s white with a green roof and a matching garage. An old barn sat on the property, appearing to defy gravity in its effort to remain standing. It used to be white as well, but hadn’t been painted in years.

  They’d moved here right after Billy died. In fact, neither Donnie nor his mother, had gone back inside their house following his brother’s death. His mother had enlisted a real estate friend to clean up, and then sell it. They didn’t get much for it, just wanted enough to leave the memories behind. She had used some of the money to pay for the funeral, and the rest to buy the farm.

  “I made us some iced tea to enjoy while we visit.”

  Donnie hadn’t noticed the bottle in the huge sack she called her purse, but there it was along with some Styrofoam cups. “That’ll be nice.”

  The cemetery was just a few minutes from home, and they arrived just after three in the afternoon. Donnie turned the Astro onto the driveway leading into the ‘Gates of Heaven Memorial Cemetery.’

  A fifteen-minute drive on I-10, east from San Antonio, the small rural cemetery relied on donations to keep the grass mowed and the gates from falling down.

  As usual, they were the only ones there. He followed the dirt track to the rear, then around to the west, before stopping in front of several stones indicating the final resting place of the less fortunate.

  Donnie had seen some of the nice cemeteries in the city, the ones he and his mother hadn’t been able to afford. Despite the name, ‘Gates of Heaven’ was a far cry from what his brother deserved.

  He removed her wheelchair from the van and put it where she could get into it. Holding her arm to steady her, he got her seated, and pushed her over to Billy’s grave. He parked her where she could reach the headstone, and she leaned over to brush the leaves away from her son’s name. Once satisfied with her housekeeping, she laid a single red rose across the stone.

  “Hi, Billy. I missed you this week.”

  Donnie watched as his mother carried on the conversation. His mother had never heard Billy, she just pretended.

  Donnie’s relationship with his older brother was different. He could hear Billy. Not on these visits with his mother, but when he came on his own so they could make their plans.

  Today, Donnie would watch, drink tea, and enjoy his mother’s smiles as she shared with Billy. He would return alone tonight, after dark, when he could hear the voice of his brother clearly. They had further plans to make, and Donnie sensed something big was coming. He hoped Billy would tell him soon.

  Today’s visit was short; they had been there just ninety minutes when his mother turned to him.

  “I’m ready to go.”

  She looked back at the grave.

  “Bye, Billy. See you next week. Love you.”

  *******

  When they arrived home, Donnie helped Momma back into the house, parked the van, and started back to the basement.

  “Don’t you want dinner, Donnie?”

  “No. I’ll make a sandwich later.”

  Shutting the door behind him, he descended the stairs. Switching his computer on, the password request window loaded up. He typed in ‘Brothers.’ A file popped up with the names of four people listed across the top. Donnie clicked on the first name. Suzanne Cooper.

  Another screen opened with a full biography of his brother’s former girlfriend. One of the first tasks Billy had given him, in their early talks, was to start a file on each person present the day of the Russian roulette game.

  Donnie had made notes on each of them during their talks. Billy told him what to look into, what information he wanted, and how to find all four people.

  It had taken Donnie several years, but as he improved with his computer, he got better at finding information.

  Using social networks and identity searches to build each file, he now had the address, family relations, work place, and much more, for each person on his list. Billy had been proud of how well he’d done gathering the information.

  Billy had not given him his mission yet, but Donnie could already feel the time was coming when action would be necessary. He looked forward to it.

  He stared at the face of the girl on the screen. Would she be first in Billy’s plan, or would it be one of the others? Donnie was sure he would know soon.

  Chapter 2

  The sun had set by the time Donnie returned to the cemetery. His mother usually questioned him about where he was going, and he always said the same thing.

  “Just gonna hang with a friend.”

  He would be out the door before she could ask who the friend was.

  For many, a cemetery was no place to be after dark, but Donnie loved the solitude. It allowed him to hear his brother, and his brother to hear him. They were never interrupted in the cemetery at night.

  “Hi, Billy.”

  Donnie stood looking down at the rose his mother had left. The petals were bathed in waning moonlight, and he stared at it without seeing, listening intently for his brother’s voice.

  “Billy, I need to know what the next step in our plan is. I’ve got the files complete and updated, just as you asked, but I’m sure there’s more I could be doing.”

  Donnie started nodding his head up and down.

  “Okay.”

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pencil along with some scrap paper, and began to draw. In the low moonlight, his crude picture was hardly recognizable, but he felt he knew what Billy was saying.

  “I understand, Billy. I’ll begin immediately.”

  He finished the drawing and looked back from the paper toward his brother’s name on the stone.

  “No, I won’t tell Mom. It’s just between us.”

  He tucked the pencil back in his jeans and folded the sheet of paper up, sliding it into a shirt pocket.

  His face turned sad. It always did when the time came to leave his brother.

  “I go
tta go, Billy. I’ll be back in a few days. Miss you.”

  Donnie turned and walked slowly, head down, back to his car. He always looked forward to visiting his brother, but each visit tore at him, overwhelming him with sadness. It never got easier.

  He started his car and turned it toward the exit.

  *******

  “Where have you been?”

  “I told you, Momma. You know you don’t have to worry about me.”

  She was sitting in her chair watching ‘America’s Funniest Videos.’ She’d seen the same episode a dozen times, but she stilled laughed at the same clips. Donnie kissed her on the top of her head; she was not appeased.

  “You’re either off running around or hiding in the basement. I don’t know the names of any of your friends, we never talk about your outings, and you never keep your mother company anymore.”

  “Oh come on, Momma. I’m twenty-two and there’s things to do, people to see, worlds to conquer.”

  She refused to smile at his joke.

  “I never see any friends come over, and the phone doesn’t ring. Whose worlds are you conquering?”

  Donnie laughed and started for the stairs to the basement.

  “Where you goin’?”

  “Downstairs. I’ve got something I need to do before going to bed.”

  His mother made a pouty face as she turned toward the TV. Donnie smiled to himself. She couldn’t stay mad at him. He hurried down the stairs, excited by the new task.

  With his computer open, he made a new file. He typed the name ‘Containment’ in the description line. He prepared the file, so he could enter the data as each measurement was taken.

  Donnie needed to get the drawing Billy had given him onto the computer while it was still fresh in his mind.