The Short Drop

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  “There doesn’t need to be anything else missing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He owns me. That’s what I’m talking about. I couldn’t figure why he took Tate’s body instead of sticking it with us. But now I get it.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Oh, shit is right. I’ve fired that gun a thousand times. I handloaded those mags. I cleaned those guns. My prints are on every moving piece, on every shell casing.”

  “And he didn’t leave any shell casings…”

  “No. Not one. I double-checked. He picked them all up. Which means he can dump the body, plant the gun, and ring me up for murder any time he wants. So like I said, he owns me.”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever it was. Gibson. WR8TH. Does it even matter?”

  Hendricks looked at her expectantly like a child who just wanted a comforting word. She didn’t know that she had any. They thought they’d been two steps ahead, when in actual fact they’d been well behind. She wondered what George would do in this situation. These kinds of blind-alley crises were his forte, but he was nowhere to be found. So the question really was, what would she do?

  “That boy and I have a chat coming,” he said.

  “It’s not Gibson.”

  “Convince me.”

  “This?” Jenn gestured at the blood still in Tate’s unit. “This isn’t him.”

  “Then why isn’t he home where he belongs? Why did he lie? That bullshit about keeping the car a few extra days? He’s been here the whole time,” he said. “And that stunt at the McKeoghs’ house with the computer. That doesn’t sound like something he’d pull?”

  “So you’re saying Gibson tripped the virus to draw us away, circled back to have a one-on-one with Tate. In plain view of the camera, mind you. Then, came back an hour and a half later to kill Tate, this time making sure to stay out of view. And for good measure, takes the body and steals one of our guns. Does that sound likely to you?”

  “Maybe not, but I surely intend to find out.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  WR8TH sat down across from Gibson. The world’s most-wanted pedophile, in the flesh.

  Up close, WR8TH looked even younger. He could easily pass for a college student. He had a boyish energy and trouble sitting still. His deep-set brown eyes twinkled with a mischievous intelligence. But around his eyes were deeply etched worry lines, and one tuft of his hair had turned an incongruous gray. WR8TH fiddled uneasily with his glasses but let Gibson stare. He took out a pack of cigarettes, slid one halfway out of the pack, and pushed it back in.

  “Better not,” he said. “Mrs. M. will have me arrested. That would be funny.”

  “Mrs. M.?”

  “Mrs. Miller.” WR8TH hooked a thumb toward the library. “Friendly neighborhood librarian. Drinks her face off in her office, but God forbid I smoke a cigarette out here.”

  “Oh, Christ, you’re her network guy,” Gibson said.

  “Guilty.”

  “Man, I knew the gear was a little too good for a little public library. You work for the county?”

  “Yeah, it was hard not to overdo it.”

  “No, you did a good job. Fooled me.”

  “Thanks.” WR8TH seemed genuinely pleased by the compliment. “Billy Casper,” he said by way of introduction.

  Gibson shook his hand mechanically, the guy’s name ringing a faint bell. “How is that possible? How can you be WR8TH? I mean, you were what? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

  “I was sixteen and five months.”

  “And five months?”

  “Yeah, I’d just gotten my driver’s license.”

  “And you’re telling me, straight up, that you’re the one everyone’s been looking for all these years?”

  “Believe me, I waited for the FBI to huff and puff and blow my world in. The first two years I was paranoid like a mother. Thought our phones were tapped. I was the most stressed-out high-school junior ever. Parents made me go to a shrink. Thought I was schizophrenic or something. I mean, WR8TH? Wraith? Casper? How hard is that to figure out? But they never did. Guess they weren’t looking for an actual sixteen-year-old.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I. Don’t. Know.”

  “If you’re lying to me…”

  “What? You’ll kill me?”

  “Yeah,” Gibson said, surprised by the certainty of it.

  Billy smiled. “Good. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  “You really took her?”

  “Jeez, man, I didn’t ‘take’ her. It wasn’t like that. It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Care to uncomplicate it?”

  “Yeah, I do. Care to take a drive?”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll show you. I’m not going to tell you, so don’t ask. Can’t have you telling your partners where I am.”

  “I thought you trusted me, and anyway, they’re not my partners anymore.”

  “Screw you. I told you my name. Where I work. Maybe that’s all you get right now.” Billy flashed angry. “Maybe you show me a little reciprocity, huh? You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

  “Yeah, actually, I do.”

  “No, actually, you don’t,” Billy said.

  Gibson drove them north out of Somerset. Billy seemed to relax as soon as they were away from the library.

  “I have a gun. I guess I should tell you that,” Billy said.

  Gibson gave him a sidelong glance.

  “Look, I’m not going to use it or anything. Not unless you cross me. Deal?”

  “Just don’t point it at me otherwise. Deal?”

  “You got one? In your bag or somewhere?”

  “I don’t. Don’t really like guns.”

  “What? You were in the Marines, man.”

  “Not by choice.”

  “Truth,” Billy said simply. He looked out the window and smiled.

  Gibson glanced over at him again. “What are you grinning about?”

  “Just a relief, you know? You don’t know what it’s like to have to carry this kind of secret around for ten years. It eats at you. There are days you just want to bust. You don’t know how many times I thought about posting her photo to Reddit. Sit back and watch everyone lose their shit.” Billy pointed off to the right. “Turn here at the light.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Why didn’t I what?”

  “Post it. Come forward anonymously.”

  “Because of Mr. Musgrove.”

  “Who the hell is Mr. Musgrove?”

  “My neighbor growing up.”

  Gibson waited for him to elaborate, but Billy withdrew under a dark cloud of brooding.

  They drove north in silence. Gibson kept prodding him, but Billy said he’d rather just show him. Billy asked if he could smoke. Gibson said it wasn’t his car, but Billy cracked a window anyway and carefully blew his smoke away from him.

  Whatever else Billy Casper might be—kidnapper, compulsive liar, schizophrenic—he seemed like a decent kid. Gibson could see why Bear trusted Billy enough to meet him in Breezewood. Enough to get into his car. Gibson liked Billy Casper. But that wouldn’t save him if he’d done something to Bear.

  They drove north for several hours. As they got close to their destination, Billy became agitated again. Gibson heard him groaning quietly under his breath, as if tectonic plates were shifting inside him, grinding against each other. Billy didn’t seem aware he was doing it.

  “I hate coming back here,” Billy said.

  They turned onto a narrow, shoulderless road that ran parallel to Lake Erie. It was wooded on both sides, but, through the trees and down long dirt roads, he could see expensive beachfront homes and the sun
sparkling off the lake. It was a beautiful, peaceful part of the world—rustic but intentionally so. It amazed him that such a place existed less than an hour from Kirby Tate’s house.

  Most of the properties didn’t have mailboxes and weren’t otherwise marked. It would have been easy to get lost, but Billy knew exactly where they were.

  “Okay, it’s your next left. No, not this one, the next.”

  “What’s on the left? Whose place is this?” Gibson asked.

  “Mr. Musgrove’s. I mean, not anymore, but it was before. It’s his sister’s now. She lives in Saint Louis. She was here for two weeks in June. Probably won’t see her again until next year.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I’m her caretaker.”

  “How many jobs do you have?”

  Gibson slowed and turned off onto a bumpy, poorly maintained dirt road. Like many of the properties, it had a chain between two wooden posts blocking the way. Billy hopped out and unlocked the chain and threw it off the road before getting back in the car. Trees rose up steeply on both sides, and there was barely enough room for the car to pass.

  “You want to go easy here. There’s kind of a big rock in the road.” Billy pointed to a spot up ahead.

  After a quarter mile they cleared the tree line and came upon a large two-story wood-framed house. A wide, appealing porch supported by white columns encircled the house. The dirt road gave way to a circular white stone driveway. An elm rose in the center of the loop. Short trimmed grass ran down both sides of the house and sloped away toward the water’s edge. To the left were parking spots, but Gibson pulled up in front of the stairs leading up to the porch.

  “Why are we here, Billy?”

  “This is where I hid Suzanne. I think I got Mr. Musgrove killed for it.”

  Anguish swept over Billy Casper’s face. He got out of the car and walked, head down, toward the lake. Gibson watched his shoulders buck uncontrollably; Billy was crying, sobbing, really. Gibson let him go, giving him a little space, then followed.

  Billy sat on a wood pylon at the end of the dock. Gibson sat opposite him. Twice, Billy seemed to get a handle on himself, but then his mind would overturn some long-repressed memory and the tears would come again.

  “I’m not actually a crier,” Billy said, half laughing, half crying. He rubbed his hands over his face. “Impressive, huh?”

  “It’s not easy saying some things the first time.”

  Billy looked up at him gratefully and nodded.

  “Who is Mr. Musgrove?”

  “Aw, man, he was the nicest guy. You would have liked him. Talked to everyone like an equal, even kids. We used to talk about video-game design, computer science. Stuff like that. But like a grown-up, you know? He just knew a little bit about everything. Everything interested him. We were a couple of doors down from them. My parents were good friends with them. My mom jogged with Mrs. Musgrove a couple times a week. Ginny and my sister were like this.” Billy crossed two fingers tightly. “I mean, before the accident.”

  Billy pointed out to the lake and told Gibson about how a boat had hit Ginny Musgrove, and how her mom had drowned trying to save her. How it had wrecked Terrance Musgrove—the drinking and anger that followed. A family destroyed in a matter of minutes.

  “He only ever came out here one time afterward. Right after it happened, with the police. After that it was like the place didn’t exist.”

  “Why didn’t he sell it?”

  “Dunno. Probably just easier to keep paying the mortgage than actually deal with it, I guess. He was such a mess afterward. But he shut it down. Cut off the phone, electricity. Everything but gas and water.”

  “And he hired you to take care of it for him?”

  “Yeah, he had a guy at first, but it didn’t work out. Threw a party down here or some shit—Mr. Musgrove fired him. So after I got my driver’s license, Mr. Musgrove hired me. I wasn’t really the party-throwing type, you know? He paid me to drive out once a month and make sure everything was good. Said he just couldn’t do it. That’s why I figured it was a good place for Suzanne to hole up. No one ever came out here but me.”

  “And you’re still the caretaker?”

  “Yeah, after he died, it was just easier for his sister to keep me on.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Committed suicide. Like your dad.”

  The mention of his father stung. Billy had brought it up so naturally, so unexpectedly. The way only an old friend would. It reinforced his sense that Billy Casper believed they were connected in all this through Suzanne.

  “I don’t want to talk about my father.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. But if Mr. Musgrove committed suicide, why do you say you got him killed?”

  “’Cause I don’t think he did.”

  They walked back up to the house. Billy unlocked the back door and let them into the kitchen. It was a large, bright room the color of cantaloupe rind. There was a small island with a double sink and a dishwasher. Billy gestured toward a wooden kitchen table by the window.

  “Recognize it?”

  Gibson looked at the table. The picture of Bear had washed it out, but it was the same table.

  “That’s it?” he asked.

  “That’s it. It was against that wall back then. Suze was sitting right there. That chair,” Billy said. “That exact chair. I took the picture the night we got here. She didn’t want me to. She was so tired, man. But relieved too, you know? She hadn’t been eating real well the last few weeks. She was so thin I couldn’t believe it. Considering. But she was still so beautiful. I was just happy she was here, you know? We were together at last.”

  Gibson heard the ache in Billy’s voice and tried to reconstruct the moment in his head. Bear sitting there. Exhausted. Billy excited, like a puppy dog, snapping her picture. He tested the image to see if he believed it. Had sixteen-year-old Billy Casper engineered one of the most famous disappearances in American history? Was it as simple as a couple of kids hiding out at a lake house?

  “How long was she here?”

  “Six months, two weeks, and a day,” Billy said. “We played a lot of Settlers of Catan.”

  “Settlers of what?”

  “Catan, man. You’ve never played Settlers? It’s a board game. It’s awesome. She loved it. She was so much better than me, though. Always kicked my butt.”

  It defied belief. Two kids hiding out, playing board games, while the FBI tore the country apart looking for them. But then law enforcement had made all the wrong assumptions and gone looking in all the wrong places. One thing was for certain: if Billy’s story weren’t true, then he was either a world-class liar or a world-class lunatic. But try as he might, Gibson couldn’t pick up on a single false note.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Mr. Musgrove’s sister repainted,” Billy said, “but that’s about it. She packed all Mr. Musgrove’s personal stuff, all the family things, and stored it up in the attic. That’s why it’s so creepy coming here. I mean, it’s the same furniture and everything, just other people’s pictures. Like their lives were just a coat of dust, and someone took a cloth and wiped it away. But that’s how life is, right? You think a place belongs to you, but it doesn’t. You’re just biding time. And time comes someone will box up your stuff too, like you were never here. Man, I hate coming out here.”

  “So why do you? You could quit.”

  “I have to,” Billy shrugged. “This is where I lost her.”

  That made a lot of sense to Gibson. They stood in the kitchen while Billy told a story he’d waited ten years to tell. He’d been dancing around the subject since they’d met at the library, but now it came tumbling out.

  Billy Casper, a.k.a. WR8TH, had met Suzanne in a chat room. That much was true. Except he really was sixteen, and not some middle-aged pedophil
e as the FBI hypothesized. They’d become friends and confidants. According to Billy, they talked every night for hours. Some nights, he would fall asleep in front of the computer. Suzanne had been coy about who she was and would only say that her father was important and that if Billy helped her, it would be risky.

  “Didn’t even know her last name until she got here. Swear.”

  “Would you have helped her anyway?”

  “No doubt,” Billy said without hesitation. After a second to think about it, he nodded his head emphatically, agreeing with himself. “No doubt.”

  Once they decided to go ahead with it, they’d spent weeks plotting a route that would avoid high-security areas with a lot of cameras and watchful eyes. He’d coached her on how to avoid being noticed by the police. What to say if someone got curious as to why a fourteen-year-old was traveling alone.

  “And she was almost fifteen,” Billy said defensively. “I was fifteen when we started talking. We were only a year apart. So it wasn’t weird, you know? We never had sex or anything. We kissed a couple times, but that was it. She was my friend.”

  “She was my friend too.”

  “I know,” Billy said. “That’s why you’re here.”

  “So what was up with the Exxon station?”

  “Right? Getting caught on camera? What was that?”

  “You didn’t know she was going to do it?”

  “Are you kidding? Hell no. Not until it popped up on the news.”

  “Did you ask her about it?”

  “Ask her? We had our only fight about it. She said it was an accident, but that was such utter bullshit. She knew what she was doing.”

  “Which was what?”

  “Sending a message, man.”

  “To?”

  “Don’t ask me. All I know is it wasn’t friendly. Did you see her eyes? She looked right at the camera and all but gave it the finger. I just wish she hadn’t waited until she was in my backyard to do it. She put Pennsylvania on the feds’ radar. After they released the security tape, I was so sure that the couple at the pump had seen my car. Every time there was a knock at the door, I figured it was the feds come to raid my house. Put my whole family in handcuffs. Can you imagine?”