Broken English

by Gaus, P. L.

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” Branden said, studying Greyson as he poured a fresh drink for himself at the counter. Greyson had pasty gray hair, combed back tightly against a pallid scalp. His nose was of a classic Roman style, hawk-like and prominent, his lips thin. His eyes were flat gray, their near-colorless quality accentuated by the moist-pink tone of his swollen eyelids. Above one eye, in a line glancing downward toward the bridge of his nose, there were four small, regularly spaced, scar-like depressions, as if he had once been stabbed there with a dinner fork.

  Branden took a seat on a worn sofa and watched Greyson roll his dash of scotch slowly around in the bottom of a tall and narrow glass. Greyson pulled up a straight-backed kitchen chair and straddled it in front of Branden. Greyson studied the professor from his chair and took a swig of the scotch.

  His first question to the professor was broad and general. “Why don’t you tell me everything you can about the case, Mr. Branden.”

  “Actually, I don’t know that much about it,” Branden said. “I had hoped you could tell me more.”

  “Sorry. My part in the whole affair was rather brief. Heard the call on the scanner in my car and managed to grab the killer as he fled the house. If I were still a guard, it would have been ‘in the line of duty’ and nothing more. As it is, I just did what anybody else would have done. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  The slender glass of scotch precessed from the tips of Greyson’s fingers, and the ice clattered against the glass. Greyson fixed his eyes on the swirling whiskey and asked, “I assume you’ve been to the sheriff and the newspaper offices?”

  “Just came from the paper, in fact, but Marty Holcombe didn’t know much beyond . . .”

  Greyson held up his hand to stop the professor. He turned to hear the police scanner more clearly, eventually deciding it was not a call that interested him. “Sorry,” he said. “Thought I might have heard something. You were saying?”

  “Do you listen to the scanner every day?” Branden asked.

  “As I said, I’ve never quite gotten out of the habit. I feel more alive while I’m listening. Now, you had mentioned the newspapers. I don’t recall having read much about myself in the papers.”

  “They didn’t have much to go on, I take it,” Branden said.

  “I prefer it that way, Mr. Branden. I have no desire for publicity, and once this case is over, I’ll quietly move on. I was in Holmes County to see the sights, but now I’m just doing the sheriff a favor by sticking around until a court date some time next week or so.”

  As he rolled his drink, Greyson brought his cigar up to his lips and drew slowly on it. He looked at the professor slightly sideways around the cigar, eyes closed partway against the smoke, and asked a further question. “What can you tell me about Hawkins?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” Branden said, cautiously. “I’d like to find him, is all. And I’ve grown curious about him, although I’ve never met him.”

  “Why does he warrant your curiosity?” Greyson asked.

  “The sheriff is concerned about revenge.”

  “Would you blame him? After all,”—Greyson stopped swirling his scotch and drained the glass—“it was his daughter.”

  “You said you were a security guard?” Branden asked, probing.

  “I started out as an armed guard for one of the east coast casinos. But I eventually started my own company. I still own it, but I’m retired. I let the younger men walk the shifts, now, Professor.”

  “How did you know I’m a professor?” Branden asked.

  “I have a lot of time on my hands, Dr. Branden, and I often take walks around town. The college is an excellent place for a retired gentleman to take an evening stroll. And who could miss the photographs of the college’s most distinguished professor? Named a building after you, didn’t they?”

  “Just a wing of the library,” Branden said.

  “Don’t be so modest, Dr. Branden. You’re one of the nation’s leading experts on period firearms, and there’s that famous cannon of yours, fired each Fourth of July. People all over know about that. A National Geographic article, wasn’t it? Look. I’m sorry I didn’t let on that I knew who you were. But I was interested in what you had to say about Hawkins, and it just never became convenient to mention it to you. You understand, don’t you?”

  The scanner at the back of Greyson’s little one-room apartment interrupted Branden’s answer. Greyson turned to listen to the voice on the scanner and then walked over to the kitchen counter where it sat. When he had heard what he needed, Greyson pulled back the drab curtain on his little window, looked out, and motioned for Branden to come and have a look, too.

  Below on the courthouse square, Cal Troyer was walking between two deputies to the front entrance of the red brick jail.

  12

  Tuesday, June 10 11:30 A.M.

  THE figure watching at the window realized there was no need to follow Branden now, as he stepped out onto Jackson Street and crossed to the jail. More to the point, to follow now might be counterproductive. And the sheriff doesn’t understand any more than Branden does, he told himself. No point trying to learn anything, now, from either of them. Just wait for the bugs to do their job.

  But the bugs had been a miserable failure. He had planted two at the Brandens’ and they hadn’t picked up a thing. Nothing on the phone and nothing in the living room. That was crazy. Surely they were talking, but where?

  It’d be too risky to go back now to check the bugs, but he knew he’d have to chance it, sooner or later. It was either that, or go blind on the Brandens and what they knew.

  Too many things to attend to, now. Should be preparing for the day when Sands was brought out for trial.

  Cal Troyer had started it all. So, he thought, I’ll wire him up too. More to worry about. But the whole point of doing this in the first place was to get away with it. Get away with all of it. To be caught would only be stupid. So play it safe, he told himself.

  He moved away from the window and made his routine weapons check. A light, rapid touch under his left arm and he knew that the .45 was still in its place. Of all the people who might pose a threat, surely Branden posed the greatest. Back to the belt line, and there was the new Browning .22. The reporter had been too easy. A tap of the left ankle to the inside of the right ankle, and there was the little featherweight .38, somewhat under-powered, but better than a knife.

  If the reporter had been easy, the professor would be downright troublesome. But still, what could Branden learn? The problem was, if Branden learned anything at all . . .

  He remembered the reporter, and it settled him into a calmer mind. He relived the moment, standing in the narrow delivery alley between the newspaper offices and a downtown department store. Bromfield might have been suspicious, but not in time to have saved himself.

  Stop obsessing, he admonished himself. Sit tight and do the job. One last job. They’re not going to figure it out in time. It’s too complicated for a country sheriff. Too involved for a small-time professor. They may get some of it, but by then it won’t matter. They’ll never see it coming. If they do, it’ll simply be their funerals, too.

  13

  Tuesday, June 10 11:50 A.M.

  “KNOCK it off, Bruce, this is crazy.” Branden was planted solidly in the doorway to Robertson’s office. His expression was angry, and his tone was uncharacteristically harsh.

  Robertson sat coolly behind his desk, manifestly unconcerned about Branden’s anger. Cal Troyer sat in a straight chair facing the sheriff’s desk like a suspect. Deputies Wilsher and Schrauzer stood formally behind Troyer.

  Cal idly turned the thin frames of his glasses on his fingertips, looking wearily down.

  “It’s OK, Mike,” he said with resignation.

  “It’s not OK,” Branden said and stepped farther into the office.

  “You two can leave us,” Robertson said, waving offhand at his deputies.

  Branden made an obvious effort to keep his anger in che
ck until the deputies had cleared the doorway. As soon as they were out of the office he started up again. “Bruce, if Cal tells you he doesn’t know where Hawkins is, then he doesn’t know. It’s as simple as that, and you know it as well as anyone.”

  “I know nothing of the kind,” Robertson said.

  “That’s not like you, Bruce. You know Cal as well as I do, and I’m telling you, if you don’t back off now, you’re gonna wreck more than one friendship here.”

  Robertson pressed ahead. “Cal, if I find out you’re hiding . . . ”

  Branden took a step forward, but Cal cut him off, saying calmly, “Bruce, I’m not going to tell you this again. I don’t know where Hawkins is.”

  “Then help me with the bishops out there. They’re not saying a word.”

  Cal said, “I’d be disappointed if they did. Hawkins has been baptized, and they’ll protect him.”

  The sheriff waved a dismissive hand in the air and looked for an instant as if he’d have more to say.

  Branden said, “David Hawkins wouldn’t have murdered Bromfield just for printing his life story.”

  “I’ll wait for Phil Schrauzer to tell me that,” Robertson snapped.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Branden said.

  “He’s leading up my investigation of the Bromfield murder. Interviewing friends, neighbors. Retracing his steps just before he died.”

  “Now that’s more like it,” Cal said.

  “I want Hawkins,” Robertson insisted.

  Cal shook his head.

  To Branden, Robertson said, “Where’d you get that pistol?”

  “Have you got any evidence connecting it to the Bromfield murder?”

  “OK, look, you two. Even if Hawkins didn’t kill Bromfield he might still very well make an attempt on Jesse Sands.”

  “You’ve got nothing to suggest that,” Branden said.

  “He’s disappeared,” Robertson said.

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” Branden said coolly.

  “He tried to kill Sands that night at the jail.”

  “But he didn’t,” Cal said.

  “I’ve got the note he taped to Sands’s window.”

  “Can you prove that David did that?” Cal challenged.

  “Who else?” Robertson shot back.

  Branden said, “Bruce, you’re going to find that Bromfield and Sands are alike in one respect. Neither of them has anything to do with Hawkins.

  Robertson snorted.

  “All right, then,” Branden said impatiently. “All you have to do is guard Sands through his trial. Don’t give Hawkins a chance at him.”

  “I don’t intend to,” Robertson scoffed. “We’ll get Sands to trial, and then we can let the Bromfield case sort itself out. Either way, I still want to question Hawkins.”

  “You’re gonna take this too far,” Cal muttered.

  “You don’t have to take the weight like this, Cal,” Robertson said.

  “I’ve said everything I intend to,” Cal said, eyes leveled at the sheriff.

  “You’d better talk him down, Cal. You know as well as anyone that if Hawkins has intentions to murder Sands, there isn’t much anyone could do to stop him.”

  Cal said nothing.

  Robertson glowered at the pastor silently.

  Branden wondered what there’d be left of the friendship if Robertson kept it up.

  Robertson closed his desk drawer and said gruffly, “OK, Cal. You’re calling the play. Just don’t forget I warned you.” He slowly pushed his large frame up from behind his desk and joined his two deputies out in the hall, closing the door as he left.

  Inside, Branden and Troyer drew their chairs close to one another and whispered. Branden told Cal the places he intended to inquire about Hawkins, and Cal urged Branden to get out to the Raber farm. Branden told Cal what Robertson had done with the gun Abigail had produced. As if in response, Cal reached into his back jeans pocket, pulled out a single key, and gave it circumspectly to the professor. As the sheriff ambled back into the office, Cal whispered to Branden, “Hawkins’s back basement.”

  14

  Tuesday, June 10 2:15 P.M.

  CAROLINE and Michael Branden found the Hawkins residence on its narrow west-end street overlooking the wide Killbuck valley. There, the marshes stretch out toward the distant hills in a flat, misty patchwork of wetlands, running for nearly thirty miles in a swatch that starts near Wooster to the north and falls down through Wayne and Holmes Counties as far south as the little village of Killbuck itself. In the west end of Millersburg, the old houses are set close together, sometimes little more than a driveway separating one from another.

  A jumble of cars was parked along the street, some of them haphazardly pulled up onto muddy tree lawns. There were a few curbs still in place, and most had either a truck or a sedan parked beside them, sometimes with the wheels angled up onto the concrete. Only a few of the cars were late models. The rest were in varying states of repair. In front of one old house there was a restored army jeep, World War II vintage, freshly painted in camo colors of muted browns and forest greens.

  Most of the houses in the neighborhood had old front porches, some open, some screened, and some boxed in with storm windows. There were houses with white wood siding, and there were some with shingles in faded browns and yellows. One house was painted a vivid blue, with creamy white trim. Another was covered on the north side with pink insulation panels, and a stack of aluminum siding lay in disorder under a ladder. The Hawkins place was a nondescript white-sided, two-story prairie home with two attic dormers facing the street. Yellow crime scene police ribbon stretched across the front door.

  Caroline cupped her hands around her eyes and peered in through a front-porch windowpane of dirty glass. Branden unlocked the front door, using the key that Cal had given him at the jail. They stepped from the front porch into the living room and noticed a musty, lifeless odor. The tattered living room furniture was old and plain. The flocked golden wallpaper was in a style that had been popular in the fifties. The wood trim had been painted white throughout, giving the impression of never-remodeled age.

  Branden glanced briefly up the stairwell on the right, and they crossed from the living room into the dining room. In the dining room, there was an old and massive, ornate dining room table pushed to the side, and a scattering of glass in the corner by a broken china hutch. There was also a sizable brown patch of dried blood on the wooden floor and on the matted wool carpet under the table.

  Caroline asked, “Get the impression David Hawkins hasn’t spent five minutes in this house since the night his daughter was killed?”

  In the kitchen, there were a few unwashed plates and two pans crusted over with a forgotten meal. The storm door on the back porch was latched, but the outside screen door was smashed outward and hung open at an angle on its broken hinges.

  Branden turned back into the kitchen and said, “Cal said we should get to Hawkins’s back basement. He said it that way. ‘Back basement.’ Like a room.”

  In the corner of the kitchen, beside the swinging door into the dining room, they found a second door that opened to a landing at the side of the house. The landing let out onto the driveway where their car was parked, and it also led to the stairs to the basement. Caroline threw the light switch at the top of the landing, and they descended the stairs. Downstairs, they found an extraordinary half-basement room.

  There were a number of professional-grade machinist tools covered with fitted plastic dustjackets as well as several woodworking machines, spaced generously and evenly around the room. The Brandens separated and circled among the tools. There were the old-style green metal drill presses and lathes, all in immaculate condition. The professor pulled the lever on a drill press, and it arched smoothly downward, clean and oiled to perfection. The metal bench of the press shined bright like stainless steel. Caroline threw the switch on a lathe, and it whirled and spun almost noiselessly. In all of the room, there was not so much as a single meta
l shaving scrap to be found. The woodworking tools were in the same condition. A tabletop saw, swept clean of sawdust. A radial arm saw that pulled out effortlessly along its slotted glide path.

  The floor was of poured concrete, painted battleship gray. Several small drain holes each accepted a small rubber hose. The hoses were piped to three dehumidifiers that hummed quietly from their perches on rubber dampers.

  Caroline studied the ceiling and then moved to the drill press and looked up to a light above the press. The ceiling light was positioned in precisely the spot that would best illuminate the work at the press.

  “The lights were planned for the tools,” Caroline said.

  “He knew what he was doing,” Branden agreed.

  The concrete block walls on three sides of the basement room were painted ceiling white. There was neither a single crack in the walls nor a patch of crumbling mortar. The basement windows were sealed with new red brick, and would admit no light. Neither would a basement light, however bright, shine to the outside.

  The fourth wall started about where the top riser of the basement stairs hit the landing overhead. The wall was made of white plasterboard panels, with only the thinnest of seams showing between them.

  “Cal said ‘back basement,’ I’m almost certain,” Branden said.

  Caroline climbed the steps, went out onto the driveway, took a circuit around the house, and came back down.

  “There are five basement windows, Michael,” she reported. “Two here and three more in back.”

  The professor started under the stairs and Caroline started against the far wall. She worked her way around the lathe and back toward him. He worked toward her, and found nothing on the first pass.

  On a second pass under the stairs, Branden looked up to study the wall and the risers with a penlight and found a small square of wood that did not precisely match the oak of the risers. He leaned back under the steps, craned his neck to look up, and then pulled the wood block from its place. Inside the small rectangular cavity behind the block, there was a toggle switch. When he flipped the switch, they heard the whirring of small electric motors behind the wallboards.