Monument Road

by Michael Wiley

  ‘I won’t,’ he said, backing away again. ‘I won’t.’

  I picked up the pistol and stuck it in my belt. ‘I’m sorry,’ I told him again, and I left him to his humiliation.

  I drove north toward the Georgia border. The pistol – a nine-millimeter – lay on the passenger seat. I went up past the Okefenokee Swamp, where a happier man might float on the tangled flood until the heat sucked him dry. In Waycross, I cut over to I-75, then hit the gas and sped alongside semis and cars.

  Five hours after leaving Callahan, I slowed with the late-evening Atlanta traffic. An hour later, with the sun lowering in the west, I turned from Memorial Drive on to the broken asphalt of Berean Avenue.

  The houses on the street were wood, single story, and small, and most of the yards were rough with weeds and long grass. But the address on the yellow sheet took me to a place with a new coat of green paint and a freshly cut lawn. A white pickup truck with a Florida license plate was parked in the driveway.

  I pulled past and drove back out of the neighborhood. I hung out in my car until the sky became dark, and I drove to Home Depot, where I bought two rolls of duct tape and a plastic-wrapped coil of pre-stretched nylon rope. I drove back to the house where Randall Haussen was staying and parked at the curb.

  For a long time, lights stayed on inside, and, when they went off, the blue flicker of a television still showed through the front windows. Then the flicker stopped and the house was dark.

  I got out of my car, stuck the barrel of the pistol back into the top of my pants, and went to the front door. I stood, listening. In one of the neighboring houses, a woman laughed. Somewhere, on a farther street, a car horn honked. I considered the front door. Like the house, it was freshly painted but in a darker shade of green. A wreath of summer flowers hung on a nail at chest height. The doorbell glowed. I could knock, or I could ring the doorbell. But I’d learned a few lessons since getting out of prison. I raised my foot and kicked.

  The door ripped from the frame, and I pushed it aside and stepped into a living room.

  A light went on, and Randall Haussen sat up on a couch, where he’d stretched out to sleep. He wore underwear and a white T-shirt. He started to speak, but I yanked the pistol from my belt and said, ‘Time to go home.’

  A bedroom door opened, and a woman in a nightgown peeked out. She had the same strong chin as Haussen, but she also had bruises around her mouth.

  I pointed the pistol at her and said, ‘Go back to bed.’

  But she stared, wordless, as I went to Haussen and made him get up. He reached for a pair of pants, but I prodded him toward the front door with the gun. ‘We need to talk,’ I said. ‘Outside.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what happened to your wife. And about what happened to a couple of crackheads twenty-five years ago.’

  The woman at the bedroom door said, ‘You bastard.’ I turned to her, wondering if she meant Haussen or me. It seemed either of us would do.

  I gestured at her bruised mouth. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘Not a word,’ Haussen said to her.

  She glared at him, glared at me, and then ducked behind the bedroom door and closed it.

  So I turned back to Haussen and said, ‘Go.’

  I took him to my car, and I bound his wrists and ankles with duct tape and tied him with the nylon rope. ‘Trunk or backseat?’ I said.

  ‘Whatever you think I’ll tell you, you’re wrong.’

  ‘The trunk it is,’ I said.

  At four the next morning, I drove through the dark streets of downtown Jacksonville and parked outside the JNI office. When I popped the trunk, Haussen’s underwear had pulled halfway off, and he’d worked his bare feet free of the rope and duct tape, but his wrists remained bound. He looked ready to fight.

  ‘Am I wrong about your wife and the crackheads?’ I said.

  ‘You’re dead,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve heard that before,’ I said.

  ‘Never from me.’

  ‘So you killed them?’

  He spat at me.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ I said.

  ‘LaFlora dies in three days,’ he said. ‘Kim’s in the ground. Do you think anyone cares? They’ve got their answers.’

  ‘I care,’ I said.

  ‘But you don’t matter, do you?’

  I pointed the pistol at his head. ‘Get out. I’ll introduce you to a couple of other people who care.’

  He swung his legs out of the trunk, and I yanked the rope around his wrists so that he could sit. He said, ‘If I don’t kill you – and I will – you’ll go back to jail. I see it on you. Guys like me, we’re born to stay out of jail. Guys like you, you’re born to die there.’

  I touched the pistol barrel to his head. ‘Let’s go.’

  I unlocked the street door and took him upstairs to the office. Outside the window, a streetlight glowed orange in the dark. Inside, the desks, chairs, and file cabinets threw shadows on the floor and walls. I left the office lights off, made Haussen go to Hank’s desk chair, and bound him with more duct tape and rope.

  At four thirty, I sat on the floor next to my computer cart. I rested the pistol on my belly, draped my hand over it, and closed my eyes. I stayed awake, though, and when I heard Haussen shifting on Hank’s chair, I opened my eyes and stared at him staring at me, until he turned away and settled down.

  At seven thirty, with the morning sun brightening and warming, another key turned in the lock downstairs, and Hank came up into the office. He looked at Haussen strapped to the desk chair. He looked at me lying on the floor with the pistol beside me. He said, ‘What the hell?’

  ‘It’s as bad as it looks,’ I said. ‘But he admitted killing Kim Jenkins and the crackheads – or all but.’

  Hank repeated himself. ‘What the hell!’

  ‘You and Jane seemed to have given up on LaFlora,’ I said. ‘Thelma told me something the other day, though. She said the two of you would fight alongside me, but if I was done, you would be done too. Yesterday you told me you were done with me. And you seemed to be done with LaFlora. But, you see, I’m not done with you. And I’m still fighting.’

  More footsteps came up the stairs.

  I said, ‘I’ve been telling you for weeks that Haussen’s the answer. So last night, I got him.’

  Jane stepped into the office behind Hank. She looked at me, looked at Haussen, and also said, ‘What the hell?’

  I said, ‘The first time I saw him, he was digging his fingers into his wife. Last night, I saw his sister. She took a beating too.’

  Jane shook her head and said, ‘Jesus Christ, Franky, no.’ She went to Haussen. ‘No, no, no.’ She sounded like she would cry. She pulled at the duct tape and said, ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Haussen. It wasn’t our intent.’ She started to untie the rope around his chest and arms.

  I clicked off the pistol safety and said, ‘Don’t do that.’

  She stared at me, unafraid, and said, ‘You’re going back to prison. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ I said. ‘But leave the rope. Leave the tape. Listen to what he has to say.’ I said to him, ‘Tell them what you told me about no one caring how your wife died – or the crackheads twenty-five years ago. Tell them what happened.’

  He just said to Jane, ‘Do me a favor. Call the police.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course.’ She went to her desk and picked up the phone.

  I pointed the pistol at him. ‘Tell them what you did.’

  He stared at Hank. ‘I loved my wife. I love everyone. I would never hurt another person.’

  That seemed to be too much for Jane. She stopped dialing and looked at him. ‘How about the drug dealer you went to prison for shooting? Would he agree?’

  ‘He never testified against me,’ Haussen said.

  ‘But you took a plea agreement. Seven years. That’s a big commitment for a man you would never hurt.’

  ‘Maybe he had it coming to him.’
<
br />   Jane set down the phone. ‘How about your wife?’ she asked. ‘Did Kim also have it coming to her?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t know. I was at work when she died. Two of my employees have told the police.’

  ‘Good to have friends,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ he said.

  Jane eyed me as if to tell me to shut up, then asked Haussen, ‘Did any customers see you at work that afternoon? Anyone off your payroll?’

  ‘A slow day,’ he said. ‘July and August get that way.’

  ‘And did the crackheads have it coming to them twenty-five years ago?’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure they did,’ he said. ‘Why else would Thomas LaFlora shoot them? You can count on crackheads to mess up. They smoke a rock and forget to pay their bill. They break into your house and steal your stash. For brain-dead people, they’re very determined.’

  Jane glanced at Hank, uncertain. She glanced at me. Then she asked Haussen, ‘Did you—’ but she caught herself. She said to him, ‘I’ve decided not to call the police. If you want to call them and bring attention to yourself, you can do so. We keep some pants and shirts here in case our clients have court hearings and need to change out of their prison uniforms. You may borrow some clothes. In fact, you may keep them.’ Then she glanced at me. ‘And now Mr Dast will untie and release you. What happens after that is up to you.’

  Haussen shook his head. ‘He’s another boy that’s got it coming to him.’

  Jane nodded at me. ‘Franky?’

  I stayed where I was. ‘He did it, and you know it.’

  Jane asked him, ‘Are you admitting you had anything to do with your wife’s death or the deaths twenty-five years ago?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ he said.

  I pointed the pistol at him. ‘I could shoot you now.’

  Jane said, ‘But you won’t.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ he said. ‘Because you aren’t a killer. I see that too. You’re just a boy who goes to jail.’

  ‘Enough,’ Jane said, and then to me, ‘We can’t hold him. We can’t make him say anything he’s unwilling to say. That’s not who we are. It’s not who you are.’

  I aimed the gun at his forehead. ‘If we let him go, Thomas LaFlora dies.’

  ‘We’ll get a subpoena,’ she said. ‘We’ll try. We have three days.’

  ‘It’s too little, and you know it,’ I said.

  ‘Let him go,’ Jane said.

  ‘LaFlora will die.’

  ‘Let him go,’ she said again.

  Hank spoke now. ‘It’s the only way.’

  When I untied the ropes and ripped the duct tape from his skin, Haussen kept his hands to himself. He put on the pants and shirt Jane brought him. He folded the cab money she gave him and stuffed it in a pocket. He sat back in Hank’s chair and slipped on a pair of socks and tied a pair of dress shoes.

  Then Jane offered him her telephone and said, ‘Do you want to call the police?’

  He looked at me, then Hank, then her. ‘I’m going to think on that a while.’ Then he looked at me again and winked. ‘Be seeing you.’ He went down the stairs and out the door.

  I looked at Hank and Jane. They were sweating, and I was too. I said, ‘He did it. You heard that, didn’t you?’

  Jane walked to her desk. Slowly. As if the floorboards had come unglued. ‘Get out,’ she said.

  I stared at her.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Get out.’

  ‘You’re going to subpoena him?’

  Hank stepped toward me. ‘She said to leave.’

  I looked at the gun in my hand. I could do anything with it. I said, ‘I brought Haussen here. I did my part. You let him go. That’s on you.’

  ‘Go,’ Jane said. She looked exhausted.

  I went to the stairs, but turned back. I wanted to shake them. I wanted to make them rush out to the street and drag Haussen back into the office. I wanted them to throw him against a wall and say, You did it.

  I said, ‘You can’t let him—’

  ‘Leave the gun here,’ Hank said. ‘Nothing good can come of it.’

  I wanted to shoot at the ceiling and rattle them out of their stupor. But I stuck the pistol barrel into the top of my pants and went downstairs and out to the street.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I drove to the Sheriff’s Office, parked my car at a meter, and stuffed the pistol under the front seat. Last time, when I told the information desk attendant that I needed to talk to Deborah Holt, he told me to wait outside the security checkpoint. This time, he made a call and then handed me a pass with directions to the Homicide Room.

  Eight years ago, after spending thirty-six hours in that room, I left in handcuffs – the first step on my path to death row. Now I felt a tremor in my belly as I pushed through the door.

  Holt leaned against a reception desk, waiting for me.

  She looked me over. ‘I thought they had you in the hospital.’

  ‘They kicked me out.’

  ‘When they took you in, they said maybe this time you’d gone down for good.’

  ‘Apparently not even close.’

  ‘You look OK now,’ she said. ‘Tired.’

  ‘A long night,’ I said.

  ‘Come on, then.’ She led me back through the room to a double cubicle she shared with Bill Higby. She sat at one of the desks and gestured at the other. ‘Have a seat.’ I took Higby’s chair. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

  I said, ‘A man is scheduled to die at Raiford in three days. Thomas LaFlora.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, as if she knew.

  ‘You’ve got to help me stop it. I’m pretty sure someone else did the killings.’

  The glimmer of a sad smile showed on her lips. ‘You’re pretty sure, huh?’

  ‘Another guy who was dealing cocaine back then. His name’s Randall Haussen. Kim Jenkins’s husband.’

  ‘Kim Jenkins, the suicide?’

  ‘I think he killed her too,’ I said.

  Again, the sad smile. ‘What makes you think so?’

  I couldn’t tell her about pulling Haussen out of his sister’s house. ‘I talked to him. He’s hiding it, but he teases with what he knows.’

  ‘Did he tell you he’s responsible for any of the deaths?’

  ‘Basically.’

  ‘Explicitly?’

  ‘He didn’t need to.’

  ‘Do you have proof?’ When I said nothing, she said, ‘I know you’ve had bad breaks, Franky. But LaFlora will die because he killed two people. Witnesses saw him kill them. You can’t undo that.’

  ‘Haussen went to jail for shooting another dealer,’ I said. ‘Thomas LaFlora had a drug record but that’s all. Nothing violent until this.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Kim Jenkins OD’ed a couple of times on over-the-counter drugs,’ I said. ‘She never used a gun.’

  ‘I wish I could help you,’ Holt said. ‘What do your friends at the JNI say? They’re the ones who know how to do this.’

  I stood up. ‘The JNI can’t do anything. I can’t do anything. You at least could pull in Haussen and talk to him.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But once we break the rules, bad things happen. Detective Higby broke the rules with you. You know how that turned out.’

  ‘Bad things happen with the rules or without them,’ I said, and I started to leave. But first, I said, ‘Why was Higby at Rick Melsyn and Darrell Nesbit’s apartment?’

  She looked at me as if I was missing the obvious. ‘He’s a homicide investigator—’

  ‘On leave.’

  ‘The higher-ups called him back for this one.’

  ‘Because the killings look like the ones he railroaded me on?’

  ‘Among other reasons.’

  ‘And also like the killings of the boys up the St Johns River?’

  ‘In some respects.’

  ‘What respects?’

  She pointed at Higby’s chair again, and I sat. She spoke quietly. ‘There was no s
exual assault this time.’

  ‘Rick Melsyn and Darrell Nesbit weren’t as pretty as the boys.’

  ‘And the wounds on the upper torso are new,’ she said.

  ‘The ripped-up chests.’

  ‘Yes. We might have a different killer. Or the same killer might have changed his behavior. Either way, we’ve learned things we didn’t learn from the earlier killings.’

  ‘Like what?’

  She frowned. ‘I’m telling you this for only two reasons. First, as I said at your motel, you deserve to know. You’re a victim too. Second, you’ve worked on this harder than anyone else, and while we all still thought you killed the Bronson boys, you were out ahead of us. I want to hear your thinking.’

  ‘So what have you learned?’

  She sighed. ‘Telling you any of this could get me fired.’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Except for the man who supposedly threatened the Bronson boys and Lynn Melsyn – a man Detective Higby thought and still thinks was a fiction – the earlier killings, including the Bronsons, seemed to be crimes of opportunity – kids who crossed random paths with a predator. But the deaths of Melsyn and Nesbit, which link directly to the deaths of the Bronson brothers, turn the murders into motivated crimes. The killer is a sexual deviant, but he also had another reason to kill Rick Melsyn and Darrell Nesbit. Maybe they knew something about him. Maybe they angered him. Whatever the reason, the killer chose to kill these particular men. So maybe he also targeted the Bronson brothers and the other boys. Maybe they also knew something about him or angered him.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘You’d already figured that out?’ she said. ‘What else do you know?’

  I thought about the file she brought me at the Cardinal Motel. The runaway Jeremy Ballat and the Mexican kid Luis Gonzalez were last seen alive on the same stretch of the St Johns River but had little in common otherwise, and less in common with Steven and Duane Bronson.

  ‘Almost nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Tell me.’

  I said, ‘The Bronson brothers and one of the other kids – the runaway – were thieves. They had juvenile records for breaking into neighbors’ houses. Small-scale stuff, though Felicia Bronson thinks the man who was threatening her sons was one of the robbery victims.’