by Jette Harris
“Referral for what?” Thrace searched the floor under the attic panel for any suggestion it had been opened.
Byron pursed his lips. He didn’t answer until Thrace fixed him with a questioning gaze. “The FBI. I’ve always wanted to be an FBI agent… ever since I was a kid.”
A smile broke across Thrace’s face as if he were about to burst out laughing, but he shook his head instead. “I thought you wanted to be a lawyer?”
They moved into the kitchen. Byron pulled open the pantry, which was mercifully empty. “That would make my parents happy, but not me. It’s boring.” He turned as Thrace reached for the refrigerator door. “Don’t—!”
His warning came too late: Thrace opened the fridge and immediately twisted away, gagging. He slammed it shut again. The rank, murky smell of rotting food made them choke and cough.
“Any heads?” Byron joked, waving the foul stench away.
Thrace gagged again and snorted several times. “Just some poor, defenseless lettuce.”
A narrow door occupied the back corner of the kitchen. Byron pulled it open expecting a cabinet. He was met with a set of rickety wooden stairs leading down into a black abyss. They shined their flashlights into the darkness, casting beams across cinder blocks and a dirt floor.
“Would you like the pleasure?” Thrace smirked.
“Uh… thanks…”
Byron descended slowly, bending low to peer around the room. Thrace stayed close behind him.
“Looks empty,” Byron said.
And he was right. The room was a 12 x 12 cellar with a dirt floor, cinder block walls, and nothing else. No furniture, not even trash scattered about.
“That was… anti-climactic…” Byron muttered.
Thrace snickered.
“What?”
“Remember what you said before I kicked in the door?”
“What’s that?”
“I looked like I need to blow off some steam.” The beam from Thrace’s flashlight disappeared. “Wanna make it a bit more climactic?”
Byron chuckled and looked down at the flashlight in his hand. He shook his head and clicked it off.
****
Once shirts were tucked and zippers were zipped, the young man caught his arm. “Hey, man, something buggin’ you?”
Rhodes smirked. “Is that a joke?”
“No, I’m serious.” The concern in his voice was touching. “You seem…”
Sucking his bottom lip, Rhodes glanced around. He reassured himself his discomfort was related to the looming threat Steyer and Remington could be knocking on his door right now, but it wasn’t. He shook his head. “Naw, it’s like you said; I needed to blow off some steam.”
As if he hadn’t been doing plenty of that recently.
They stepped back out onto the front porch. The day was mockingly beautiful, a good day for housework. Rhodes searched the sky, then kicked a piece of debris off the porch stairs. Byron pulled the door as closed as it could get.
“Y’all just now gettin’ back to searching houses?” The drawl tasted like copper in his mouth. It was easy, but felt unnatural.
“We’ve been checking out one or two when we can, but getting permission is hard, and we’re spread thin.” He tugged at the door in a half-hearted effort to secure it. “I really appreciate your help.”
Rhodes took a deep breath. His anxiety settled, although the other feeling still lingered in his gut. He forced himself to smile. (This poor boy…) “About how many houses do you have on the list?”
“Maybe a dozen.”
“And growing, I bet.”
“No, I think we got all of ’em.”
Rhodes deflated. Byron clapped, making him jump.
“Ready for the next one?”
“I can’t.” He checked the time on his phone. “I’m about to get off and I have to fix a hole in the wall.” He needed to get a look at that map. But not now; He had been away too long. He needed to get back and fix that damn wall.
Byron’s smile faltered. “Wham-bam, thank you, ma’am?”
Rhodes snorted. He stepped close to Byron and leaned down until his lips brushed his ear. “Thank you, sir.”
He leaned back with a smile. Byron’s phone buzzed.
“It’s Tommy,” Byron said, flipping the phone open. “Byron,” he answered. Kondorf spoke quickly. “Wait… Say that again?”
“It’s Frank Witt,” Rhodes heard Kondorf repeat, slower. “He’s throwing all of Chuck’s stuff out.”
Rhodes frowned.
“We’ll be right there,” Byron said, and snapped the phone shut.
65
When the three of them arrived at the house, they found the front door open. Several boxes of various sizes were scattered on and around the porch. As they got out of their cars, Frank came to the front door, a box in his arms.
“You can take it!” he yelled at the officers, dropping the box off the side of the porch. “You can have it all—” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “—and burn the rest!”
“Now, hold on there!” Kondorf jogged across the yard. “Frank, I can see you’re upset, but you’re not thinking clearly.”
Frank disappeared back into the house. When Kondorf followed, he turned on him so suddenly, Byron’s hand flew to his gun. Thrace imitated this startled movement.
“Out!” Frank bellowed. “You can’t come in here without a warrant! I know my rights!”
Holding his hands up in surrender, Kondorf stepped back onto the porch, where Byron and Thrace joined him. Frank stomped up the stairs, out of sight.
“I called Agent Steyer right after I called you,” Kondorf whispered to Byron. “I don’t believe that man is accustomed to swearin’, but he sure sounded like he wanted to.”
The three officers leaned into the door to look around. Cathy Witt sat in the living room, sobbing into the arm of the sofa. Carly rubbed her mother’s back, looking as if she could use some comfort herself. Approaching footsteps warned them to pull their heads back out. Dean Witt descended the stairs, carrying a large, heavy-looking box in his arms. He wore a fixed expression.
“Dean,” Byron greeted him with a nod.
Dean glanced back up the stairs to make sure his father was not behind him. “Hey, Jamal.”
He lowered the box close to the ground and let it fall the last inch or so. It was loud, but there was little risk to the contents. Glancing back inside, he guided Byron to the side of the porch and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out his wallet and shoved a wad of bills into Byron’s hands.
“Get a storage unit,” he whispered. “If that’s not—”
“What’re y’all still doing here?” Frank’s voice drifted down the stairs.
Byron, who had been shaking his head throughout the transaction, stuffed the money into his pocket. Dean stowed his wallet and leaned down to rearrange boxes. This was how his father found him.
Emerging onto the porch, Frank held up a stack of magazines, then threw them down at Kondorf’s feet. “Now, even a foot-washer such as yourself would be sick if you found these behind your son’s bookshelf.”
They looked down, except for Dean, who became very interested in the flowers lining the front lawn. Kondorf shook his head and scratched his brow. Byron glanced at Thrace, but the deputy kept his eyes on the magazines. His face was red.
“Take them and burn them.” Frank turned to go back inside.
“I don’t see anything wrong,” Thrace called. Frank stopped and turned back as Thrace retrieved the magazines from the ground. The deputy straightened them and wiped some dirt off the back covers with care.
Frank enunciated as if Thrace were dim. “I imagine only a faggot wouldn’t see anything wrong with this… pornography.”
“Well, at least you got one thing right.” Thrace smiled, holding the magazines out. “But this isn’t pornography. These two are human rights magazines, and this here is a lifestyle magazine, much like your, uh, Cosmopolitan and GQ. They send me two each month; I don�
��t know why.”
Frank’s lip curled in disgust, but before he could retort, Thrace stepped closer. Frank swayed, but did not want to appear intimidated by stepping away.
“You might want to keep these, Francis Witt,” Thrace said, firm but quiet. “One day, you might look around and realize they’re all you have left of your oldest son.”
Frank stared at him in silence, the red draining from his face. Everyone stared, ready to spring forward should the two require separation. Frank’s face was deathly pale when he spoke again. “Get off my property,” he muttered. He raised his voice to say, “This investigation is over! Dean is my only son.”
Clenching his jaw, Thrace threw the magazines down and stormed back to the cars. As soon as Frank retreated inside, Dean ducked to recover his brother’s property.
“Leave it!” Frank screamed, making the boy jump.
66
“You wanna hear something weird?”
“Sure.”
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Rewind that?” Cathy Witt asked. Remington complied.
Despite Steyer’s warnings, when Frank Witt found a box in his driveway with WITT on the lid, he tore it right open. Obviously, he didn’t like what he found. Rather than including a photograph, the Phoenix had tucked a digital recorder in one of Chuck’s shoes.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” Chuck Witt repeated.
There was a long pause. One of the speakers shifted and sighed. “I can’t say anyone’s ever said that to me before.”
Steyer kept his face fixed. He recognized the voice, with an unguarded Northwestern accent, as the Phoenix.
There was a deep, shaking breath. “I can’t… go home after this,” Chuck said. “Ever. My dad will kill me.”
Cathy lowered her head to hide her face.
“Can I stay here?” He sounded so young.
There was rustling. The Phoenix was ruffling Chuck’s hair. “Sure. You’re a good pet.”
Cathy’s body shook with silent sobs. Frank’s face was bright red, twisting into a disgusted sneer. They listened as one of the speakers rolled over, one of them released a staccato gasp, then sighed. The sighs mounted until Chuck was moaning.
“Turn it off,” Frank demanded.
“No!” Cathy wailed.
“Off!”
Steyer and Remington exchanged a look. Steyer lowered his gaze to Cathy. Remington hit pause and slid the recorder across the table to his partner as he beckoned to Frank. They crossed into the living room. Steyer slid the recorder in front of Cathy. He pointed to the stop button.
“Press here if it gets to be too much,” he whispered. He positioned himself by the kitchen door, with a clear view of Frank and Remington.
“I won’t have any more of that perversion in my house!” Frank growled, rounding on the younger agent. Remington held up a hand, drawing up to his full height.
“That perversion isn’t in your house,” he pointed out. “It’s in another house. In fact, we don’t even know where they are right now.”
“He can stay there!” Frank roared.
Remington ground his teeth and nodded. “Chuck seemed pretty afraid of returning home, anyway, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well—yeah…” Frank swallowed and took a deep breath. “He is engaging in behavior that isn’t tolerated in this household.”
Remington raised his eyebrows. “It may not have sounded like it, Mr. Witt, but your son… was being raped.”
Frank’s mouth worked as he processed this and rejected it. “He sounded pretty happy to me.”
“Battered wives tend to sound pretty happy, too.”
Frank froze. “And what are you implying?”
Remington shook his head and shrugged. “I’m thinking… Your son is more willing to stay with a known rapist and murderer, a man who beat him unconscious, rather than come home. Don’t you find that a bit… curious?”
Frank’s red face paled. His lips trembled with rage. “Get—out. Get out of my house.” He stormed back into the kitchen and reached for the recorder. Cathy recoiled. Steyer swept it off the table. “Get out. Take that with you. This investigation is over.”
“Let—her—go,” Remington said.
Frank looked at him, then looked down. His fingers were wrapped around Cathy’s upper arm in a vise-like grip. He pulled the hand away, shaking.
Remington whipped his card out of his inside pocket—although they already had one—and slid it across the table, glaring at Frank. Steyer tapped his elbow. Fuming, Remington followed him out of the house.
67
There were several roads in that part of the county that rarely saw traffic, many of them secluded. That evening, one of them saw an unprecedented two cars: one red Jeep, and one patrol car, in the middle of the woods. The patrol car rocked rhythmically. One of the back doors was open, and a booted foot was hanging out. After several minutes of the squeaking suspension making the only sound, one of the occupants began to moan and mutter. His voice increased in volume until emitting a loud groan.
“Fuck, I needed that,” Rhodes panted. “Son of a bitch!” He lay across the back seat, his pants rolled up under his head. His boots, socks, radio, and duty belt were scattered across the floorboard. Byron had to maneuver around his legs in order to pull his pants back up. The wet stain on Rhodes’s shirt indicated reciprocity wasn’t necessary.
“This is probably the most uncomfortable place we could’ve picked,” he said, leaning down on the deputy’s chest.
“I’ve been in worse,” Rhodes said, lacing his fingers into the steel partition. “This could be the most unsanitary, though.”
Byron smirked and shook his head. “I can’t believe I did that…”
“Again?” Rhodes teased.
“Again,” Byron said. “Ever.”
“Com’ere,” Rhodes said, putting a hand under Byron’s chin and raising his face to his. As they kissed, Byron decided he was past caring. He laid his head on Rhodes’s chest. They were silent for some time, listening to the radio chatter.
“Hey, D?” Byron asked.
“Hm?” He had no idea why Byron had taken to calling him “D,” but he liked it; It amused him.
“When did you know, like, for sure you were gay?”
Rhodes had been expecting this one. He took a deep breath. Although he had rehearsed this ad nauseam, he felt fundamentally wrong for telling it. “I’ve always known,” he said. “I hit puberty, and when all the other guys started liking girls, I liked boys.” He shrugged as if it had been nothing, like many of the men who said such things. For them, it was most likely true.
Byron returned his head to Rhodes’s chest, where he could not see the deputy’s grim expression. The longer he brooded in silence, the louder the woman screaming in his mind became. The smack of several violent slaps sounded real, present.
“No!” a child yelled. “Stop it! Get off her!”
“Yeah?” The man on top of his mother reached out for him. “You’ll do, then.”
Rhodes flinched, a child’s scream tearing through his memory.
“What?”
“Wasp!” Rhodes shot up.
“Oh, shit!” Byron jerked his head around, backing against him.
Rhodes forced himself to laugh. “It’s gone now.” Sighing, he unrolled his pants and pulled them on.
Chuckling, Byron put a hand on Rhodes’s arm to prevent him from pulling his pants up. “Hey,” he whispered into the older man’s ear, “teach me something...” His fingers wrapped around Rhodes’s penis and he lowered his head.
68
Tech worked three days a week, assembling toy models for a hobby shop off Marietta Square. The job was only something to keep his hands busy. Rhodes, wearing Beaumont’s uniform, circled the square three times searching for the store, then spent fifteen minutes to find parking.
When he finally stepped inside, he found the old man immediately. A nook at the back was part
itioned off with velvet ropes. Beyond them, Tech sat at a large table. Rush played softly from a stereo behind him. Rhodes watched as he arranged minuscule bits of castle out by pattern, then set to work painting a dainty figure. The chemicals in the paint must have been burning his nose, because he sniffled.
“What’s this gonna to be?” Rhodes asked.
Tech peered at him over his magnifying glasses. “Ah,” he grunted, recognizing the deputy. “A castle. Late medieval. This, I suppose, is the damsel in distress.” He stared at the figure, forgetting Rhodes was there.
“What’s distressing her?” He pulled the old man back. “Is there a dragon?”
“A man, I suppose. I have an… evil wizard here somewhere.” He sifted through a box of rejected figurines, then turned back to the little girl in his hands. “There would have to be some kind of magic, of course. Otherwise, I imagine this damsel-in-distress business would get boring. Eventually, she would get tired of it and just run out the front door!” He smiled at the deputy, but his eyes were pained.
Rhodes smiled back. “He could just keep the doors locked.”
“I suppose that works just as well,” Tech shrugged. He lowered the figurine onto its back and picked up his paintbrush.
Sniffing, Rhodes skimmed the models collecting dust along the walls of Tech’s nook: airplanes, historical buildings, epic battles, scenes from books and movies. His eyes landed on a box close to him. He reached in and plucked out a toy rabbit. He held his breath as he inspected it: The rabbit was made of tan felt with a yellow felt hat, marked with Sharpie to make it look like woven straw. It wore overalls cut from denim, most likely an old pair of jeans.
“Br’er Rabbit,” Tech said, making Rhodes jerk his head up.
“Heather made this,” Rhodes said, then pursed his lips.
Missing the slip, Tech nodded. “That’s just a prototype. Lauri’s youngest has the other one. No… David… Second-youngest.”
“Can I…” Rhodes paused. He reached up to tug at the hair on the back of his head. “How much would you like for it?”
