Random Road

by Thomas Kies

  For a moment, what Ruth said had taken me back to the first day I’d ever met Kevin. That day in the schoolyard when Danny Allan had used Kevin’s face for a punching bag. Just as Mr. Wordin was leading the two boys back to the office, I walked along side Kevin for a couple of steps.

  Neither of us knew the other’s name, but I asked him if he was all right.

  Even though his lips were swollen, one eye was almost closed shut and there was blood dripping from his nose, he managed to say, “I’m okay.”

  “You should have your mom take you to a doctor,” I’d told him.

  He tried to smile at me. Then he said, “Nah, I’ll just walk it off.”

  ***

  When they finally let us in to see him, Kevin was in a tiny cubicle defined by white curtains hanging from roll-away aluminum supports. He was lying in a twin-sized bed, wearing one of those humiliating hospital gowns and covered by a single sheet. No wires were hooked up to his chest or miniature hoses running into his nose or arms.

  I thought that was a good sign.

  They must have given him some strong meds because his eyes were at half-mast and he had a difficult time focusing. “Genie,” he said a little drunkenly. “You came to see me.”

  I kissed his forehead. “You okay?”

  He frowned, “I shouldn’t be here.”

  Caroline got up close and hugged him. “You okay, Daddy?”

  He hugged her back and kissed her on her cheek. “I’m fine, honey.”

  “I’m sorry I called 911.” Her voice was a little shaky. “I didn’t know what else to do.

  He waved his hand in the air. “Shows you love me. Awful scary for you, huh?”

  “I don’t want you to be sick, Daddy.” She sounded like she might start crying again.

  “I hear that this has been going on for a long time,” I accused. “How the hell come you haven’t gotten it checked out? And if you tell me that real men walk it off, I’m going to kill you.”

  He shrugged.

  Ruth stepped up. “What did the doctor say? And bear in mind that I’m going out to check everything you tell me with the nurses.”

  Kevin shrugged a second time. “They want me to stay overnight and do some tests.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “The usual…blood work, MRI…”

  “Does the doctor have any idea what’s causing this?” I asked.

  “If he does, he isn’t sharing it with me. Personally, I think it’s an ulcer.”

  Ruth grunted with impatience. “I’m finding the doctor,” she snapped and turned on her heels, walking out of the cubicle.

  After she swept out, we suffered through an embarrassing silence. Finally, Kevin broke it. “I think she’d be much mellower if the nurses gave her a couple of the same pills that they gave me.”

  I reached down and took his hand. “No pain?”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re feeling pretty good?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Screw Aunt Ruth,” I said. “See if you can score some for me.”

  ***

  I stayed with Kevin for a little while longer, wishing that we could be alone for a few minutes. I wanted to apologize again for what had happened with Frank.

  I couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that somehow I’d caused this.

  Was his condition, whatever it was, exacerbated by the discovery of my adulterous disloyalty? All I wanted to do was drape myself over his chest and say that I was so very, very sorry.

  Guilt sucks.

  Caroline and I were quickly revisited by Ruth, who was now thoroughly annoyed. She’d been dismissed angrily by Kevin’s doctor. Apparently, when she’d charged into a cubicle to grill him about Kevin’s condition, he was sewing up a head laceration. The ER physician, on the tail end of a thirteen-hour shift, was in no mood for Ruth.

  I’m not the only one she pisses off.

  She did manage to talk to a nurse who confirmed what Kevin had told us.

  They didn’t know what was wrong with him and they were keeping him for observation and a round of tests.

  I made certain that Caroline wouldn’t be alone that night. She said that she was going to stay with Aunt Ruth. If I’d been Caroline, the last place I’d want to be is with Ruth, but I couldn’t offer her an alternative without starting an argument.

  So I kissed Kevin on the lips, jokingly told him to study hard for his tests, and said goodnight to everyone.

  I went home and walked Tucker. After nuking some Lean Cuisine, I poured myself a vodka and ice and sat out on the porch. While heat lightning played hide and seek in the clouds on the horizon, I listened to the crickets and thought about the events of the day.

  How Kevin and I had eaten a wonderful breakfast at Flap Jack’s, seeing Kevin’s bedroom, talking to the guard out on Connor’s Landing, meeting the Elroys, and then running into that rat-bastard Frank near their pool.

  Interviewing the Brenner brothers in that dark house and being thoroughly terrified.

  Seeing Kevin in the hospital.

  That was the scariest part of the day.

  I looked at my watch. It was only nine-thirty, but I was exhausted.

  When I finished my drink, I went back into my apartment, and remembering my visit with the Brenners, made certain the door was locked. I picked up a book I’ve been wading through for six months about war journalists. Then I grabbed the bottle of vodka out of the cupboard, took it and my book into the bedroom and drank myself to sleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I woke up with Tucker licking my face and a fierce hangover pushing hard against the back of my retinas. Painfully crawling out of bed and stumbling into the bathroom, I discovered a woman with witchy, bed-head hair and frighteningly red eyes staring back at me from the mirror. Sadly, she looked much older and more tired than the day before. Like I do every morning, I swore off drinking, fully intending to fulfill that promise yet knowing that I wouldn’t.

  I managed my way into a pair of shorts, a tee, and my Red Sox cap and then took Tucker down to the docks for his walk. After two aspirin, a hot shower, a half pot of Folgers, and part of a day-old muffin, I was feeling a little more human. I called the hospital.

  A nurse told me that they’d already taken Kevin in for the first of his tests. I sighed and replaced the phone in its cradle and looked at the front page of Monday’s newspaper. It’s one of the only editions that I see objectively because I’m off the day before and none of the stories are mine.

  Objectively I can say that it was dull as Minnesota dirt.

  I shoved another stale clump of blueberry muffin into my mouth and silently wondered if I should ask Casper for a raise.

  My phone rang.

  “Yeah?” I was talking into the receiver with crumbs dropping from my lips.

  “It’s Mike Dillon. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  It was nice of him to ask, since it was well after ten. The deputy chief of police knows that my shift doesn’t officially start until two in the afternoon and there’s no real reason for me to be up this early.

  “I’m up,” I answered succinctly. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t called Mike to tell him about what I knew about the Brenners. I’d gotten sidetracked when I’d heard that Kevin had been rushed to the hospital.

  “Got time for coffee?” He was still being nice.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Got some information about the Home Alone gang. We’re holding a press briefing later this afternoon. You might want to get a jump on everyone else.”

  Now this wasn’t a huge help to me because my deadline was the same as the other newspapers, and the TV guys were going to have it for their six o’clock broadcasts. But it would give me some exclusive face time with Mike and I had questions I wanted to ask without other
news crews listening in.

  I suggested, “East Side Diner in about a half hour?”

  ***

  It wasn’t quite lunchtime yet so the place was nearly empty. When I arrived, Mike was already sitting in a booth with a glass of iced tea and a copy of The Sheffield Post in front of him.

  “Hey, Mike.” I leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Hey, Genie.” He smiled at me as I sat down. “How ya’ feeling? You took a hell of a jolt when that clown slammed his Hummer into the side of my Jeep.” He gestured toward the bandage on my forehead.

  It was my turn smile. “Should I sue him or the city for that?”

  He held his hands up in mock defense. “Oh, Genie, don’t even kid about that. I shouldn’t have had you in my car in the first place.”

  “Yeah, I hope the newspapers don’t get wind of that.” I replied sarcastically. I motioned for the waitress. After I ordered a cup of coffee, I asked Mike, “So what’s going on at the press briefing this afternoon?”

  He pulled a tiny notebook out of his shirt pocket, flipped it open, and eyed his notes. “Early this morning, Lawrence Rhett, age thirty-seven, admitted to being the leader of the Home Alone gang and confessed to planning and executing thirteen home burglaries in Fairfield and Westchester Counties.”

  “Lawrence Rhett, he was the guy we arrested?”

  Mike nodded.

  “Thirteen robberies?”

  He nodded again

  “We reported that there were fifteen.”

  Mike sipped his tea and watched the waitress place a cup of coffee on the table. “There were fifteen. It appears that we’re still looking for the perpetrators of two of them.”

  “Copycat burglars.”

  He nodded again.

  By this time, I had my own notebook out and was scribbling away. “Any thoughts on who they might be?”

  “Not at this time, but we’re vigorously pursuing every possible lead,” Mike stated in his official voice. He knew that this was all on the record and he’s a pro.

  “Any chance that this Lawrence Rhett is being less than honest and his gang did all fifteen?”

  “No reason not to admit to all fifteen. The deal was to plead guilty and to give us the names of his gang. The end game is the same if there were thirteen, fifteen, or a hundred and fifteen.”

  “Plea bargain? Is he going to do any time?”

  He gently scratched at his eyebrow. “You’ll have to wait until the judge hands down the sentence. But, yeah, he’ll do time.”

  “Just not as much time as he should.”

  Mike shrugged.

  “So you got the names of the rest of the gang.”

  “Yeah, I’ll make sure that you get a list of who they are. There’re four of them out there and we’ve issued warrants for their arrest.”

  I tapped my pen against the tabletop. “Warrants but no actual arrests?”

  “They’re professionals. Once we picked up Rhett, they blew town.”

  “Where were they staying?”

  “They were renting a house, 115 Canal Street.”

  I picked up my coffee cup. “That’s right around the corner from me. I’ve walked my dog past there.”

  He took a swallow of his iced tea. “It’s a nice quiet area. It’s safe. Not a lot of crime.”

  I thought of my next set of questions. “So now you’re sure there are copycat burglars out there.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Any chance that they committed the Connor’s Landing murders?”

  He considered how he would frame his answer. “We’re not discounting anything.”

  “So it’s possible.”

  Mike’s eyebrows shot up and he shrugged. “I doubt it. Look, what happened out there was a crime of rage, rage to the point of insanity. And we’re pretty sure there were at least two killers.”

  “Pretty sure?”

  “You can’t have that much blood without some physical evidence.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  “A lot of smears, nothing we can use,” he said. “But what we do have are bloody footprints, two sets. We know there were at least two people out there that night. We know that they were most likely male, we know their shoe size and we know their approximate weight and their probable height.”

  Two people, two killers.

  That was when the guilt struck home hard. I had to talk to Mike about Jim and Aaron Brenner. “You still interviewing family and friends of the victims?”

  He flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “Yeah, and we’ve already searched the victims’ homes.”

  “Find anything interesting?”

  Mike studied my face carefully. “I know when you’re tap dancing. Why don’t you just tell me what you know, Genie.”

  I sighed and decided to ask another question. “Have you discovered how the victims all knew each other?”

  He turned his head and looked out the window onto the busy street, deciding how much information he wanted to offer in trade for what I might have.

  Rubbing his chin, he looked back at me. “We’ve only just started looking at the hard drives on their home computers, but it appears that the single common thread is that all three couples were extraordinarily interested in pornography.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That means they have something in common with almost every man in the world that has access to the Internet.”

  He pointed his finger in my direction. “And a very large population of women as well, Miss Chase.”

  “Pretty weak,” I said. “There must be something else that ties them all together.”

  He smiled crookedly. “Well, in addition to an appreciation of erotica, all three couples apparently had an interest in swinging.”

  I leaned back against the backrest in the booth. It was my turn to carefully consider my words.

  “Now tell me what you know, Genie.”

  “Have you talked with Lynette Chadwick’s ex-husband, Jim Brenner?”

  His eyes studied mine. “Two of my detectives interviewed him yesterday. Why?”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “Right now, everyone’s a suspect. But Jim Brenner claims to have been home with his brother on the night of the murders. His brother confirms his alibi, for what that’s worth.”

  “A brother who happens to be an ordained minister. Theoretically adding credibility to his alibi?”

  He massaged his eyebrow again, clearly annoyed. “Are you going to tell me what you know or am I going to have to take you down to the station and sweat it out of you? I swear, Genie, I love you, but sometimes you just drive me nuts.”

  “A couple more questions, Mike. Is that what those victims were doing out on Connor’s Landing. Having sex? Swinging?”

  He eyed me carefully. “Possibly.”

  “I’d say most likely. Is it possible they were killed in a jealous rage?”

  “Talk to me, Genie.”

  I glanced around the diner. “I talked with a source two nights ago who said he saw Lynette Chadwick’s ex-husband, Jim Brenner, go bat-shit crazy on her and her husband.”

  Mike’s expression turned serious. “You waited two days to tell me this? Who’s your source?”

  “I can’t, ethically, and I can’t even if I wanted to…because I don’t know who he is.”

  “You don’t know who he is?” He sounded doubtful.

  “When I suggested he talk to you, he ran out into the night like I tried to set him on fire. He never told me his name.” At least not his last name.

  Mike was writing in his notebook. “Where did he say Brenner accosted the Chadwicks?”

  “Sex club…swingers club.” I wasn’t sure what to call it.

  “Where?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. Just that it was in town.
”

  That wasn’t honest. I’d found it on the web. If you wanted the address, you had to call a number listed on the site. The club was called Temptation House and it was located in the Matthews Hill section of town. There was a photo on their website. It was an old Victorian home tucked away and surrounded by trees and lush landscaping. It looked more like the house where a spinster aunt might live.”

  “Was your source there when it happened?”

  “He said he was. He said that all the victims were there.”

  “Did he describe the scene?”

  “He said that Jim Brenner snuck into the club, he looked drunk, and he started name-calling and he physically accosted George Chadwick. A couple of guys at the club escorted him out. After that, the Chadwicks invited the Singewalds and the Websters back to their place.”

  “Is your source a swinger?”

  I drank my coffee and ignored his question.

  “Genie, if you’re withholding evidence, I swear I’m going to come down on you like a ton of bricks,” he growled.

  “Mike, I just gave you a big freaking clue here, so don’t be giving me an attitude,” I argued back.

  He stewed silently for a moment and looked out through the window at the cars going by on the street. Finally he nodded and looked back at me, the anger apparently behind him. “Okay, look, you just did me a favor, I’m going to do you a favor.” He still had a light edge clinging to his voice. “Want a human interest story?”

  “Sure.”

  “Check the police reports from last night. There’s one in there for an attempted robbery over on Briar Street at around nine. The perpetrator broke into a ground floor condo without realizing that someone was home at the time. The resident confronted the burglar and chased him away.”

  I blinked and shrugged. “Okay, a story with a happy ending. Not like this doesn’t happen with some regularity.”

  Mike smiled. “The reason that the erstwhile robber thought it was safe to break and enter was that the condo was dark and he thought the owner was away.”