by P J Parrish
“I’m sorry to bother you this morning, Mr. Eden,” Louis said. “I didn’t know anyone would be here.”
“We don’t come much anymore,” Eden said, “just over the holidays.”
A woman’s face appeared behind him. “What is it, David?” she asked.
“Nothing, Glenda. Go back inside.”
She gave Louis a blank look and retreated. “What do you want, officer?” Eden asked.
Louis took off his sunglasses, remembering something his lieutenant back in Ann Arbor had told him, that nobody liked talking to a cop in sunglasses. He realized he disliked it when Jesse wore his.
“I would like to look around,” Louis said.
“What is this about?”
“Just a routine follow-up, sir.”
“It was five years ago,” Eden said.
“I know, sir. We’re closing the case officially. I just need to take some notes.”
“Is this really necessary? I don’t want my family upset.”
“I don’t need to come inside, Mr. Eden, or talk to anyone. This will only take a minute, I promise.”
David Eden hesitated then gave a curt nod.
“Thank you, sir.”
Louis could feel the man’s eyes on him as he went back to the Mustang. Finally he heard the door close.
Louis gathered up the raid file and stood back to look at “Little Eden.” The property was large, enough so that no other cabins were visible. The woods in front had been cleared to provide an impressive view of Loon Lake below. The cabin itself was a new prefab structure, the kind built from blueprints bought from the back of a home-decorating magazine, and it had the contrived rustic charm of a Disney World exhibit. It was secluded and private, a perfect place for a gang to hole up, even if it didn’t look like the kind of place where two kids would die.
Louis dug through the file, finding the diagram that detailed the positions of the bodies and the officers. It gave no sense of what the place really looked like. But it was always like this. The dry starkness of reports and diagrams never prepared you for the physical reality of a crime scene. That’s why he had always liked to see the places where things happened, like Pryce’s house. Maybe it was just vibrations, intuition, like Jesse had said. Whatever it was, it always helped clear his thinking.
He reached back into the car and picked up a second folder, which held the extra crime scene and autopsy photographs. Tucking both under his arm, he set off around the side of the cabin and into the backyard.
The back was cleared about sixty feet from the cabin to where the heavy woods began. There was an aluminum Sears shed off in a far corner and a large woodpile, but nothing else on the lot. Louis turned to face the cabin. He was facing due east and had to bring up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun.
The back of the cabin was plain compared to the front, with two windows on the first floor and a sliding glass door that opened onto a snow-heaped deck. There were three windows on the second floor and a large satellite dish on the roof.
Louis fished Gibralter’s report from the file. He needed to refresh his memory on the sequence of events.
Pryce had been the first on the scene, calling for backup after the kids refused his order to come out. Gibralter, Jesse, Ollie and Lovejoy had arrived soon after. Even after tear gas was fired into the cabin, the kids refused to come out. At this point Gibralter was in front with Pryce, Jesse in the back, with Lovejoy and Ollie positioned on either side of the cabin.
According to the report, Johnny Lacey ran out the back door, took off toward the woods and was tackled by Jesse about twenty yards from the cabin. “Officer Harrison’s shotgun discharged, hitting suspect in the left front facial area. Suspect died at the scene.”
Louis turned and looked at the woods. He could almost picture the way it went down. He could see Johnny Lacey bolting out the back. He could see Jesse chasing him, the way he had chased Duane Lacey in the snowy field outside Jo-Jo’s. He could see Jesse losing it, the way he had with the hippie. He could see Jesse going into a rage and bludgeoning Johnny’s head.
What had happened after that? Was it Ollie or Lovejoy who had pulled Jesse off Johnny Lacey? And who had been the one to pick up the shotgun and blast off Johnny’s face to cover up the beating?
Louis let out a deep breath. Jesse, Gibralter, Lovejoy, Ollie…he tried to picture them standing over the body. He tried to imagine one of them pulling the trigger of the shotgun. He could almost hear the echo of the shot in the trees and smell the powder burn in the clean air. But he couldn’t see who had done it.
He lowered his head. He didn’t want to see any of this.
When he looked up, his eyes picked up a flash in an upstairs window. He brought his hand up to shield his eyes. Someone was standing there. He pulled out his sunglasses and slipped them on.
It was a teenage girl, about fourteen. She was wearing a red sweatshirt and a bunch of silver bangle bracelets that she twisted nervously as she watched him. He guessed she was the Edens’s kid and wondered briefly if she knew about the deaths at her vacation home.
Louis stared at her. Angela and Cole. Had they seen what happened in the backyard?
He went back to Gibralter’s report. Cole had been found hiding in an upstairs closet, armed with a shotgun. He could have seen something and then hid. But Angela had appeared at the back door after Johnny was killed.
At this time, suspect #3 exited the premises through the rear door, armed with a small-caliber handgun. She positioned herself on the deck and announced she intended to shoot the officers unless they allowed her to leave the scene. Officers Wickshaw and Lovejoy ordered the suspect to drop her weapon. Suspect refused. Suspect then raised her weapon and fired at officers. Officer Wickshaw discharged his weapon, fatally wounding suspect in chest.
Louis shook his head. It didn’t make sense. Angela Lacey had no prior record involving guns; none of the kids was on drugs, according to toxicology reports. Why did she overreact? Why didn’t she just surrender?
He knew there was no point in reading the other reports, they were duplicates of Gibralter’s. But maybe there was something different in Pryce’s. He fished it out, scanning it:
I heard Officer Harrison request assistance in a foot pursuit. I heard a female screaming and a shotgun discharged. I offered assistance, but was directed to remain in my position. At exactly 16:35, I heard a handgun discharged. Exactly five seconds later, I heard a second shot.
Because Pryce had been ordered to stay out front, his perspective was limited, but he had heard Angela scream. Louis looked back at the Eden girl in the window upstairs. He couldn’t prove it but he was certain now that Gibralter had lied about Angela in his report. She had been standing at the door when her brother was killed and she had fired that gun because she was afraid they would kill her too.
Why had they let her get out of the cabin in the first place? And why hadn’t they shot to wound not kill? He stared at the sliding glass door, trying to imagine Angela standing there, pointing the gun. He tried to imagine what was running through her head.
Nothing. No feelings, no vibrations. It had been five years, and the trail was cold. It wasn’t like the Pryce house. No one spoke to him here. No one was alive.
Reluctantly, he opened the raid file again, looking for something, anything, that would trigger his brain. He stopped on the photograph of Angela’s body. He held it up, comparing it to the cabin itself. The photo showed Angela slumped near the right side of the sliding glass door. He could tell her exact position because part of an electrical box was visible in the upper corner of the photograph. Nothing…
He pulled out a second photograph, this one the close-up of Angela’s hand. He stared at the odd, scythe-shaped bruise across the back of her hand. What the hell had caused it?
Something made him look up.
It was the girl at the window. She was still standing there, watching him, twisting her silver bracelets.
Bracelets…
His hand cre
pt back under his parka to the small of his back. He pulled out his handcuffs.
He stared at them for a moment then his eyes went back to the cabin, scanning the back and finally finding what he was looking for. The conduit snaked up, out of the electrical box, just a few feet from the sliding glass door.
They had handcuffed her. She could not have fired the gun. They had handcuffed her to the conduit.
Something in his memory stirred and he quickly pulled out Pryce’s report. It hadn’t registered a moment ago but he knew the way Pryce’s mercurial mind worked, knew the kind of details it recorded. He drew in a breath. There it was.
At exactly 16:35, I heard a handgun discharged. Exactly five seconds later, I heard a second shot.
Pryce heard two shots in five seconds. Not one shot and what should have been the instantaneous return fire of an officer acting in self-defense. But five full seconds. That was the way Pryce’s mind worked, not in “approximately” or “about” but “exactly.” If Thomas Pryce said five seconds, it was the truth.
Five seconds…
Nothing in the normal duration of everyday life. But it was everything in the split-second time span of a crime.
Five seconds…
Just long enough for someone to react, to plan, to create a new reality.
Louis stared at the electrical conduit, seeing Angela Lacey, seeing everything, with a horrible clarity. Closing the folder, he went up onto the deck. There was a gap between the cabin and the conduit large enough to slip a cuff through.
Angela was about five feet tall, which meant they had to raise her arm over her head to cuff her. The bruise on her wrist, he knew now, would not have been made from the cuff alone. It was caused by an extreme restriction of blood flow.
Louis stared at the conduit. He could see her now. He could see her, hanging there by one arm, the weight of her body pulling her down, constricting her wrist against the metal cuff. Weight…dead weight.
Angela Lacey had appeared at the back door, just as the reports said. She saw Jesse beat her brother and saw them blow off his face. They used the cuffs to control her while they dealt with Jesse’s mess. She never had a gun.
Someone, one of the four, shot her. It was Ollie, if the report was to be believed. She fell, still chained to the conduit. Five seconds later, a second gun was fired. It was a “throw-down,” one of the oldest tricks in the book. They had fired it into the air to simulate returned fire then they planted it in Angela’s hand to make it look as though she shot first.
They had erased her, just as they had erased the evidence of her brother’s bludgeoned face.
Louis pulled in a deep breath. There was no way to prove any of it. It was still just a theory, and he could be wrong, his imagination running wild. Ollie and Lovejoy couldn’t talk; they were dead. Gibralter would never admit to anything. And Jesse…
Louis felt his stomach turn. Ollie and Lovejoy were conspirators, each guilty in his own way. But Jesse was the catalyst, the reason it happened. He had let his rage take over and then had let Gibralter cover it up.
Clutching the folders, Louis stepped off the deck. He looked up at the window. The girl was gone.
As he stared at the cabin, a wave of sadness came over him, surprising him as it flowed in to mix with the other emotions. He was angry at them; he felt betrayed by them. They were cops and they were monsters.
But now what? What could he do about it? Go to Steele and tell what he knew? No, what he suspected? All he really had were pieces and gut instinct. He couldn’t go to Steele with that.
He went quickly back to the Mustang, got in and started the car. He needed some hard evidence. He needed to get the throw-down.
CHAPTER 34
Louis scanned the shelves beyond the grating. Somewhere in the evidence room was the throw-down but there was no way he was going to get it without Dale’s key.
He turned to face the chaos of the station. Ringing phones, anxious radio voices, the muted bark of dogs outside. Cords snaking over the floors, maps hanging on the walls. Suits, lots of suits. The smell of sweat, cigarettes and burnt coffee.
It was worse outside, the lot filled with state sedans and television vans, two from Detroit and one from Chicago. That morning, Louis had to fight his way through the knot of shivering reporters and cameramen. No one bothered to stick a mike in his face; they knew every Loon Lake cop was under a gag order. And they were waiting for Steele anyway.
Louis surveyed the room. No sign of him.
“Louis,” Edna called out.
He looked over to see her holding out the phone. “It’s the Lansing State Journal. She wants a quote.”
As Louis pointed to one of Steele’s aids, he saw Dale hurry in the front door. He was wearing his police parka, his face red from the cold. He spotted Louis as he pushed through the crowd to the locker room and quickly looked away. But not before Louis saw the distress in his eyes. The kid never even frowned; something was up. Louis followed him.
Dale was sitting on a bench, still in his coat, head in his hands.
“Dale?”
His head jerked up. He looked like he was going to be sick.
“What’s wrong?” Louis asked.
Dale ran a shaky hand over his face. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to stop him.”
“Who?”
When Dale didn’t answer, Louis sat down next to him. “Who?” he pressed.
“Jess,” Dale said. “Jess…he…I didn’t know how to stop him.”
Louis felt his stomach knot. “What happened? Where’s Jesse?”
“I don’t know where he is,” Dale said. “We went to Red Oak. The chief sent us, told us to do whatever we had to do to make Cole talk.” Dale drew in a breath. “I knew Jess would get rough, but I didn’t think — ”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know. It happened so fast!”
“Dale, calm down, tell me.”
“Jesse slammed him around a little, you know, knocked him out of the chair. Cole just got madder and madder and started yelling at Jess, telling him he was next, that he was going to die special.”
“What else? What else happened?”
“Jesse kept shouting at him to tell us where his old man was, and Cole starting calling him stupid and…and…”
Louis heard a door open. Voices bounced off the tile. He leaned closer.
“Jess lost it, Louis,” Dale whispered. “He took his baton and swung it at Cole’s head like it was a baseball. Caught him in the mouth, I think.” Dale wiped his sweating face with his sleeve. “I saw blood, Cole spit out blood, and he fell over. Jess hit him in the ribs and his balls.” Dale took a breath. “I couldn’t watch after that.”
“What happened then?” Louis asked.
Dale looked at him. “He stopped. He just stopped and looked at me, like, with this look on his face, like, why the hell didn’t I stop him? Jesus, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t stop him!”
Louis pulled back. “Where is he?” he asked tightly.
Dale shook his head. “I don’t know. We got out of there quick. Cole was laying there, holding his balls. We got out of there quick.”
Dale’s voice caught and he looked as though he was going to cry. Louis went to the sink, wet some paper towels and brought them back.
Dale covered his face with the towels then looked up at Louis. “I should’ve done something,” he said.
“Jesse’s sick, Dale.”
“It’s my fault, I — ”
Louis cut him off. “It’s not your fault, damn it. It’s Gibralter’s fault.”
“The chief didn’t say to — ”
“He sent you and Jesse out there knowing exactly what would happen,” Louis said. “He knew what Jesse would do and he knew you couldn’t stop him.”
Dale was staring at him. Louis began to pace, shaking his head. “Chess,” he said. “It’s a fucking chess game to him and he used you and Jesse.”
The locker room door banged
open again, letting in the voices and telephones. Two cops eyed Louis and Dale then moved to a different part of the locker room.
“I’m sweating like a pig,” Dale said softly, peeling off his parka. His uniform was pitted with stains and he rose, taking off his shirt.
“You going to be all right?” Louis asked.
Dale nodded, pulling a knit shirt from his locker and putting it on.
“Louis?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” Dale changed into jeans and picked up his coat. “Well, I better get home.”
“Dale, hold on a minute.”
Louis waited until the voices at the other bank of lockers died and the door slammed shut again.
“I need a favor,” Louis said. “I need to get in the evidence room.”
“What for?” Dale asked.
“Can you just trust me on this one?”
Dale reached into his pocket and handed Louis the keys. “It’s the small silver one with the red mark.”
“Thanks,” Louis said. “Dale, there will probably be some fallout from this Cole thing. You know that, don’t you?”
Dale nodded.
“Just tell the truth. You’ll be okay.” Louis put a hand on Dale’s shoulder. “And stay away from Jesse.”
Dale nodded again.
Louis went back out to the office, making his way through the crowd to his desk. He drew up short. There were two German shepherds sitting obediently by the desk. They eyed Louis as he carefully reached between them to open a drawer and pull out a folder. Stepping back, he headed to the evidence room.
Unlocking the padlock, he slipped inside. He yanked on the light and turned to look at Edna. She was deep into her book and Milanos.
He scanned the shelves, looking for the evidence from the raid, finally spotting the box marked LACEY, JOHNNY/ANGELA. He hoisted it down to the floor and using a pair of nail clippers, cut the sealing tape.
The evidence log was on top. Putting on his glasses, he scanned it for the gun. It was listed, a 9-mm Beretta, but there was no serial number. Setting the log aside, he turned to the box’s contents. There was a sweatshirt, a brown-stained bullet hole visible through the plastic bag. He came across a small baggie holding a shotgun shell and a misshapen bullet that he guessed was the one taken from Angela’s chest. Finally, his hand touched something hard and he pulled out the Beretta.
