Dark Web

by T. J. Brearton

  “When are you going to tell your parents?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t know. When we . . . when we know more. I just . . . I can’t. Not right now. My mom would only . . . oh God, it would be a mess. And my dad would be on me every second, trying to call the shots.”

  Her tone was final. But they were going to need help, Mike thought. They had few friends here, if any. Really just co-workers of Callie’s. There was Frannie, who’d brokered the house, but she was a whirling dervish. Mike’s only real friends were back in the city. He hadn’t kept in touch with anyone he’d worked with upstate. Moving south all those years ago had been a clean break. He’d never intended coming back.

  “They’re going to come at me,” Mike said in the stillness of the bedroom.

  Callie sat up a little. “What? What’re you talking about?”

  “The 529 for Braxton. Jack put almost a hundred thousand dollars in that account.”

  “So?”

  “So, we’re broke. I’ve been using a credit card to pay for things.”

  “What? I thought you said . . .”

  “I know what I said. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  He could feel her hackles rising. Emotions would run high now, and he had to watch his step, for both of their sakes. He knew how she felt about keeping things from one another, and this had to be said.

  “How much?”

  “How much on the card?”

  “Yes, how much on the card.”

  “A little under four thousand. Not too much. The plane tickets, some of the shipping, and setting up the utilities when we got here. His last session with Dr. Driscoll.”

  He looked at her carefully, prepared for her to react to this. Much as Callie lamented her mother’s outlandish ways, she was a closet New Ager herself. Callie had never wanted Braxton to be treated traditionally. Driscoll was an acupuncturist. It was a way for her to deal with Braxton’s condition without having to name it.

  “Everything else I had went into the closing costs on the house.”

  Callie rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “Mike . . .”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I thought we’d be okay. I’ve been putting together my bids, and there were a couple of jobs materializing, plus more coming down the pipeline. I figured I would make the payments, and with your income, we’d be okay. And we would have.”

  “And you think they’re going to . . . to what? Think you had something to do with Braxton’s death in order to collect on the frigging 529? Jesus, Mike. That’s like—”

  “The detective, Swift, he gives me these looks . . .”

  “He’s a cop. He’s suspicious of everyone. That’s his job.” She propped herself up again on her side and he could see her eyes shining in the gloom. “And so what if he does think something? There’s nothing for him to find out.”

  It wasn’t actually a question, but her ensuing silence was meant to pull more out of him.

  “No, there’s nothing for them to find. But they’re just going to look at me. I would if I were them. Like you said, they’re cops.”

  “You would if you were them?”

  “Well, I’m the stepfather and—”

  “Oh Mike. Don’t start. Please. Are you kidding me? Mike, his biological father just blew up a meth lab in his house, nearly killing a police officer. You think they’re worried about you?”

  They could hear Hannah suddenly start to wail in the next room. She often woke up in the night, but usually later, in the early hours of the morning.

  “Shit,” Callie said. She spilled out of the bed and padded quickly out of their bedroom.

  The bit of poison from their last conversation hung in the air round Mike like putrid smoke. He didn’t want to argue with Callie. Now, especially, they needed to stay solid and together. But it felt like something was trying to pull them apart.

  The cops would look at him, of that he was certain. And they would surely look at Tori McAfferty for Braxton’s death, if they caught him. And when they did, he would lie, or he would say whatever they wanted him to say in order to get his sentence reduced.

  Mike couldn’t stand the idea of Tori McAfferty in the hands of a wheeling, dealing justice system.

  He couldn’t stand the gnawing guilt. He was guilty of intervening between Braxton and his biological father, and threatening him. What if he had caused Braxton’s death? It was the ugliest, most terrible, heavy thought he’d ever had, and it squatted there like a demon.

  There was another scenario — what if they did look at Mike, and concluded that he stood to benefit financially from Braxton’s death? The account was in Mike’s name — Jack had never wanted to deal with the paperwork. What if they thought he’d done something to Tori — pushed the buttons of a mentally unstable, estranged father — something that had set him off with the idea that an outcome such as Braxton’s death was not only possible, but positive?

  There was a manhunt for Tori McAfferty. Cohen’s critical injuries, the meth lab explosion, and the hunt for Tori McAfferty would be making waves all over the media. The trooper said he’d convinced the press to leave, that they’d shown some compassion, and Mike figured this was possibly true, but more likely they’d been drawn to the incident in South Plattsburgh. They’d be distracted by the meth lab explosion for a while, but then they would be back.

  Mike got out of bed and retrieved his laptop. He brought it back into the bed. In the other room, Hannah had quieted. Callie was with her girls, and Mike thought it was for the best.

  He opened the computer and waited a few minutes for it to rouse itself out of hibernation. Then he opened the browser and did a search for the latest breaking news about the hunt for McAfferty. After a few minutes, and once he was sure Callie and the girls were sound asleep, he put on his shoes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Swift and Mathis talked into the night.

  “Mike Simpkins is the owner of a 529 account. Know what that is?”

  “It’s a tax deferred account for higher education.”

  “Know how much is in it?”

  “I’m dying to.”

  “A little under a hundred K.” Swift looked over the top of his laptop at Mathis. “Jack Simpkins, that’s the grandfather, lives in Florida, near Jacksonville. Funny. Jack in Jacksonville. Anyway, he was an MTA worker. Not big money, but he worked his way up and was one of the highest paid in New York City by the end of his career. And he was a miser. Stuck everything away for his retirement, played the stock market and made investments. I put in a call to him and he was willing to talk to me.”

  “Even though it could implicate his son?”

  “Even though.” Swift looked away for a moment, recalling the tone of Jack Simpkins’ voice when they had spoken an hour ago. “Seems like he doesn’t hold his son in the highest regard. His ‘life choices,’ he said, something to that effect. Marrying some neo-hippie artist chick who had a kid and a deadbeat ex. Always struggling with work. Those were his words.”

  “Nice. Supportive.”

  Swift went on. “Mike was getting laid off from a company where he’d worked for a few years, and was trying to get back into freelancing, start his own business, something along those lines. They moved up here not just because of the wife’s job op, but because Mike was no longer bringing home any bread. The father said he’d tried to get Mike into the business, as a tradesman for the MTA, good honest work, but Mike left home at seventeen, narrowly avoiding some trouble which would’ve sunk him.”

  Mathis raised his eyebrows. “Such as?”

  Swift raised his hand and moved it from side to side. “This is where the father was vague. But, Mike got in with some guys, you know how it is, kids of other MTA workers, teenagers, kind of like our boys here.” Swift jerked his head, indicating Darring and the others. “The father just said they got up to no good. He mentioned one name, a guy named Bull Camoine. Old childhood friend of Mike Simpkins’. I pulled the sheet on both Mike and his buddy. Mikes�
��s pretty clean; Camoine’s is a mile long.”

  “Interesting,” said Mathis.

  Swift got back on track. “Anyway, Mike left home, wanted to get into TV and movies and all that. Wanted to be a filmmaker, ended up being a cameraman for Golf and NASCAR, nothing solid until he got in with a mid-sized company that traveled him around as a fiber tech manager. Basically a guy who runs all the cables. For a few years they did alright, but Mike didn’t save anything. So when he got laid off, all he had was the house, worth more in Pompano than a comparable home up here. So, they traded down, essentially. Anyway, Jack Simpkins tells me this stuff and tells me that his way of contributing was to open up this 529 for the grandson, Braxton.”

  Mathis absorbed the rest of the backstory with a look of growing excitement. “This is something.”

  “It is. So you can see why, even given Cohen, and McAfferty, and the whole thing, I’m not just leaping off in another direction. I’ve got a murder to solve.”

  “And Mike Simpkins can cash out the 529 account now?”

  “He can. He’s the owner — Jack put everything in Mike’s name. I mean, theoretically, he could have accessed it at any time. It’s not like it’s locked until the kid goes to school. But with the kid dead . . . you know, the money’s not going to just sit there.”

  Mathis was staring off into space. “Penance,” he said.

  “How’s that?” Swift regarded him closely for a moment. He could have sworn he glimpsed something human in the young, hotshot ADA’s face. As if Mathis wrestled with his own daddy issues. It reminded Swift of something he’d read not long ago, online somewhere — Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

  “Guilt about how he treated his son Mike. Guilt about not supporting him through his life, or something. Something he did, maybe. Some part of Jack Simpkins felt guilty, and the education fund was his way of making atonement.” Then the moment was gone. Mathis was a hungry prosecutor again, scenting a kill. “How much again?”

  “After the hit it’s going to take with the taxes — you only get the full amount if it’s used for education — it’s probably going to be about sixty, sixty-five thousand. Which is still no chump change.”

  Mathis was clearly chewing this over in his mind. “Enough to solve Mike’s financial troubles, maybe. Enough to start a small business, get himself going. But, shit, if that’s not a stretch — when it comes to killing your kid that’s a meager payday. A year's middle class salary. Lot of risk for a relatively small reward.”

  “Unless there’s emotional motive, too,” Swift said.

  “Get back at the father for the sins of his past, resentment towards the favoritism shown to the grandson.”

  The two men fell silent. It was a long shot, but honestly, Swift thought, it happened every day. People killed each other for far less. And it was different when it wasn’t your own flesh and blood, wasn’t it? Sure some, maybe most step-parents loved their kids as much or more than the bio parents, but there were a few bad apples out there weren’t there? Men such as his own Highway Patrolman stepfather, who liked to teach a lesson with his fists. In situations like that, a relatively modest payday was perhaps plausible. Plus, once you started to follow the dollar, the angels of empathy and compassion often disappeared from the scene. Cohen himself had been sniffing around that very idea — it was what had given shape to Swift’s own suspicions. He credited Cohen with the insight. People did the most heinous things for money. There was jealousy, anger, sometimes pure psychopathy, but crime related to money reigned supreme.

  Mathis spoke in a low voice. The two of them were practically whispering at this point. “So . . . let me throw this and see if it sticks — Mike Simpkins hires these three we got cooling their heels?”

  Swift had already considered it. “Maybe, but how does he find them? How does he know them? They’ve already all admitted they knew the victim through the online game. There doesn’t seem to be a connection.”

  “Unless that’s their story. That’s what they were coached by Mike Simpkins to say. That they knew the kid from playing some innocent game online and became friends. That was to be their story in the event they got caught.”

  “In the event? They had an hour to get away, and yet we still picked them up at exit 30, before they even got on the Northway. The troopers were sitting there for ten minutes, and the kids drove right up.”

  “Because they’re paid to be the fall guys?”

  Swift shrugged. “Doubtful. Now we’re talking even less money for Simpkins if he gives them just a small fee.”

  Mathis drummed his fingers softly on the desk. Swift could see the prosecutor’s mind working. They had all of these pieces, the drug-dealing emotionally disturbed biological father, the sizeable savings account which could now become cash in the step-father’s pocket, and three kids from three different states who all said they knew the victim from an online game — and at least one of the three seemed out-there enough to Swift to actually be a plausible killer. It was how these components went together, if they did at all, which was eluding Swift and the prosecutor. It felt like some game of its own, something played out with real people instead of characters on a screen.

  “We need that autopsy,” Mathis said, thinking aloud.

  “We’ll get it.”

  Mathis glanced up at Swift, and his eyes shone with worry. “We need it an hour ago, Swift.”

  Swift sensed there was one more skeleton in their midst. “What is it?”

  “The two in there, the younger ones, both their lawyers have filed a writ of habeas corpus. Their parents are enraged that we’re detaining them and haven’t booked them yet. One set of parents is actually on their way north as we speak.”

  “Oh Jesus.” Swift pushed back from the desk and ran a hand across his jaw, grazing the stubble there.

  “I’ve got to charge them and put them in county or kick them loose. And I’ve got to do it now.”

  Mathis continued to stare at Swift, and the detective got the sense that his assistant district attorney was actually looking to him for advice. Swift took a deep breath, and sat up straight.

  “Kick the minors loose. We keep Darring, and we book him tonight with suspicion of murder.”

  Mathis was nodding. When he spoke, it was to himself. “I’m not bound by the initial charges. Can change them once more evidence is obtained . . .”

  “We’ll be able to drive it home with the autopsy, or we’ll do whatever else we have to do. We’ll go full forensics on the vehicle, too, when we charge Darring. He’s got no counsel, and so far his interviews suggest there’s more than a simple friendship going on. At least something rotten in the state of Denmark. You can show a judge the interview tapes if need be.”

  Mathis was nodding emphatically, sitting up straighter too. Then his gaze connected with Swift, and to the detective’s surprise, the prosecutor stuck out his hand.

  Swift shook it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Swift stroked Kady’s fur and stared into the fire burning in his woodstove. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. He’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours. It was time to get some rest, otherwise things would start to go to shit, become messier than they already were. The young bucks out there would find McAfferty. The old geezers needed to rest their eyes and their addled brains. No matter what was going on — aliens landing or complete economic collapse, a serial killer tearing through town or a mass murderer at large — people still needed to eat, pee, sleep. Soldiers passed out on watch. Prison guards caught secret naps in the broom closet. Even the President of the United States occasionally rested his bones on one of the Oval Office couches.

  Only human. Only flesh and blood.

  Still, he had one more call to make.

  Sheriff Dunleavy sounded older on the phone, more tired than Swift had ever known him.

  “I appreciate it, John,” Dunleavy said after listening to Swift’s few well-chosen words. “But it was my call. I was the
one who asked for you to keep Cohen around. We’re both big boys, we can handle it. The only person who is at fault here is the son of a bitch who did this.”

  Swift felt a pain in his heart, but also the release of his culpability for Cohen’s death. He hated that he felt this relief, yet there was no denying it was there. Why else had he called the Sheriff this late?

  “And we’re going to catch him,” said Dunleavy, with a little enthusiasm coming back into his voice — as if prompted by vengeance. “Your whole State Police force and my Department are all out looking for him right now. We’ll catch him.”

  “That’s right,” said Swift. There didn’t seem to be much more to say. They had already gone over all of the details and each had exhausted their stores of useful information. There was certainly a connection between the Braxton Simpkins murder and the man, Tori McAfferty, who had struck a match to his meth operation — biology for one — but the anything else was an outside guess. And both Dunleavy and Swift were too long in the tooth to waste much time on wild guesses.

  “If this cold and snow keep going on like this, I’m going to break into the sacramental wine,” Swift said.

  Dunleavy laughed, but it was thin. They lapsed into silence again.

  “Alright,” said Swift.

  “Alright,” Dunleavy echoed.

  Swift hung up his phone and dropped it on the couch beside him. Kady’s ears perked up, she looked at the phone, licked her chops, and then set her head down on his knee. Swift stroked her behind the ears. His eyelids were growing heavy, but his mind still buzzed. It was tough to shut it all out. Hard to put the images away in a box somewhere, but he’d gotten better at it over the years. The religious said you gave it over to God; you lay your burdens at His feet. Swift didn’t know about God, not in a world like this, not in a place where teenage boys dropped dead in the middle of the night and their bodies turned to lumps in the snow. And as he drifted off to sleep, he couldn’t help but think about the victim’s family, and what a thing it was to have children, something he’d never had. That boy had wandered off into the night, the dark trees surrounding him, the snowflakes melting on his warm body, and he had drifted into the road, somehow, yet there had been no footsteps, and he felt sure that when they tossed it they’d find no evidence that the boy had ever been inside that car with the three others.