Deadly Connections

by Renee Pawlish

  I rested my elbows on my knees. “Logan likes comics, right?”

  He nodded. “Like Batman and Spiderman. They’re okay, I guess. But Logan pretends to be them.”

  Just like a child, blunt, no filter.

  “I read some comics,” I said. “A long time ago. And I liked to read mystery novels and pretend to be the heroes in those stories.” I loved trying to figure out the whodunit.

  “You read comics?”

  “Some, and I like sports, football especially.”

  “Cool.”

  “You played baseball with Logan too?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Did you play baseball with Logan last Saturday?”

  “We were playing football out back.”

  Latoya nodded her agreement.

  “And then what happened?” I went on.

  Terrell thought for a second. “His dad called him and said he was going to be there in a little while, so Logan said he should go. His dad would get mad if Logan wasn’t waiting for him.”

  I nodded knowingly. “Did Logan talk much about his mom and dad?”

  He gave a halfhearted shrug.

  “You can tell her what you think,” Latoya said. “It’s okay.”

  “Mrs. Pickett’s nice,” Terrell said.

  “Logan thought his mom was cool?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What about his dad?”

  Terrell pinched up his face. “He’s not very nice. I didn’t want to make him mad.”

  I similarly wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, it’s hard when your parents get mad.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Did Logan ever make his dad mad?”

  Another shrug. “His dad likes comics too. Logan said his dad wouldn’t let him touch his comics, though. He’d get mad. Maybe some other times too. Logan just said his dad would yell at him, or stuff, but he didn’t always say why.”

  I nodded. “Did Logan like going to his dad’s house?”

  “I guess. Logan didn’t have anyone to play with over there, and he’d get bored and call me.”

  Not a strong endorsement of Logan’s visits to his dad.

  “You’re doing great.” That received a tiny smile. “I’ll bet you were bummed when Logan had to leave last Saturday.” A nod. “When he left your house, what did you do?”

  “Um. I threw the ball around, and then I went inside and played video games.”

  “You didn’t see Logan walk to his house?”

  He shook his head. “He went through the gate, and I stayed in the backyard.”

  “Okay, good.” I nodded encouragingly. “Did you hear anything?”

  His brow furrowed. “I heard a loud bang.”

  “From what? Do you know?”

  “I don’t know. Like a car.”

  “A car’s engine, a rumbling really loud?”

  He shrugged. “It was more like a bang,” he repeated.

  “Like a car backfiring?” I explained what that meant.

  “Maybe.”

  I didn’t know if that was significant or not, but I filed the information away.

  “Did you hear anything else?”

  “Uh, no. I didn’t know anything had happened to Logan until my mom asked me later about it.” He glanced at his mom, and she gave him another encouraging nod. “I was in my room, and she came in and asked if Logan told me he was going home or somewhere else. I told her he went home. Through the gate, like I told you.”

  “I see. And Logan hasn’t called you since then?”

  “No.”

  “Did you play outside last night?”

  “No, I was at football practice, and when I got home, I had dinner. Then I took a shower and did my homework.” Disappointment in his voice, how his evening was ruined by a shower and schoolwork.

  “Have any of your friends heard from Logan since last Saturday?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did Logan ever talk about running away?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Was he sad?”

  Another head shake. “We had fun.”

  “Okay, good. One more thing. Did you two see any strange people around your houses lately?”

  “No.” He twisted up his lips. “We’re careful.” He glanced at his mom. “We just go between our houses.”

  That probably wasn’t true, but he wasn’t going to admit anything in front of Latoya.

  “You never saw anyone that made you scared, or feel weird?”

  “Nope.” He scratched his arm and looked at Latoya again. He was nervous, and likely didn’t have anymore to share.

  “Thanks for talking to me,” I said. “You really helped me.”

  Terrell stared at me with big eyes. “I’m not in trouble?”

  “Not at all.” I reached out and lightly patted his knee. “You did good.”

  “She’s going to find out what happened to Logan,” Latoya said.

  “Okay.” Terrell slipped off the couch. “Can I go back to class?”

  “Will you be okay?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I guess so.”

  Latoya stood up and held out her hand, but he didn’t take it. Too old for that, especially in front of a stranger.

  She dropped her hand. “Let me walk you back to your class,” she said. Then, turning to me, “Do you need anything else?”

  I stood up as well. “Not right now. I’ll call or drop by if I have any more questions.”

  She didn’t say anything else, but went out the door, Terrell close behind her.

  I waited a moment, then exited the office and went out the front door. Some kids were in the playground, climbing on the jungle gym, going down the slide. Then I saw a girl on a swing. I stopped just a moment and watched her.

  Then, just the flash of a memory.

  I’m eight years old, on a playground swing at the school down the street. It’s hot, but as I pump my legs, the swing goes higher, the air soothing cool on my face. I close my eyes, picturing my Uncle Brad. I love him, but Mom says he’s not here anymore. Mom said he had a heart attack. I don’t know what that really means, just that he’s dead and never coming back.

  I pump my legs harder. Maybe I can get to heaven and see Uncle Brad. Tears stream down my cheeks. I can never talk to him again.

  I hear a voice and open my eyes. Diane is there. She grabs the swing, yells at me that I have to come home, that I was stupid to run away. The swing twists around wildly, and I fall to the ground and scrape my knees on the gravel. Diane doesn’t care. She thinks because she’s four years older, she can tell me what to do. She storms off, hollering that I better get home or I’ll get in trouble, that Mom and Dad are looking for me. I rub my eyes and stalk after her. My knees and elbows are burning and I’m trying to wipe the blood off my legs. On the way home, I look up, looking for Uncle Brad. How can he be gone?

  I shook my head at the memory. I’d just wanted a few minutes alone, a few minutes to mourn Uncle Brad. He and I had been close, and I’d adored him. He knew me, knew my little-kid struggles, knew that Diane didn’t treat me very well. I could talk to him, and he understood me in a way no one else did. Diane hadn’t understood that. I never liked swings after that.

  I stared at the girl for a moment longer, then realized that I was rooted in place. I stretched my neck and hurried to my car. I got in and closed out the sounds of the children playing, and my childhood memory.

  Chapter Six

  Scrubbing the wall, the soapy water cascading to the concrete floor, the sponge shredding into little bits with each stroke.

  Why did the boy have to try to escape? He would’ve been just fine. I would have taken care of him, I would have given him everything. Didn’t he know that? It’s over, all the plans are ruined.

  Scrub, scrub, scrub. Rinse the sponge. Scrub the walls. Scrub the floor.

  There was so much blood. The blood, the blood. Like Lady Macbeth’s damned spot of blood that couldn’t be erased.

  All traces of th
e boy had to disappear. That meant more cleaning, more scrubbing. No one could ever know what happened in here. No one could know about the boy.

  Scrub, scrub, scrub.

  No matter how much scouring, though, it couldn’t erase the pain.

  Scrub, scrub.

  The water in the bucket had turned sudsy red. So much blood.

  When the boy’s wrist had been slit, he had suffered, but it couldn’t be stopped. It was too deep a cut, too hard to stop the bleeding. Anger welled up. If the boy had only done as he was told! If he’d only been good, none of this would have happened.

  The water was dumped into a sink, then another bucket of clean soapy water prepared.

  Back into the room, more cleaning. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

  Scrub, scrub, scrub.

  A final search around the room, under the bed, everywhere. One Batman toy snatched from under the bed. Now the room was clean, no traces of the boy.

  But the pain remained.

  Chapter Seven

  I sat down at my desk at the Denver Police Administration Building and looked across at Spats. He was typing on the computer, his tie still neatly in place, everything about him flawless. In another room, someone was on the phone, but otherwise it was quiet.

  I was still thinking about my sister and that playground swing when Spats looked up.

  “You okay?” he asking, bringing me back to the present.

  “Yeah. What have you got so far?” I asked. A large notebook was sitting on my desk. Other detectives had been researching persons of interest, and this was what they’d compiled so far.

  “I’m just typing some stuff up,” he said. “Ernie is working on the search warrant for Gary’s laptop now. Glad you gave that footwork to him. I don’t want to be dealing with the magistrate today.”

  “No?”

  He rubbed his temples. “I have a world class headache. Not enough sleep. My kid kept me up half the night. And that’s on top of the sleepless nights with this job.”

  Spats has an eleven-year-old girl from a previous marriage, and a newborn boy with his girlfriend. He’s trying to make this new relationship work, but it isn’t easy with his erratic hours and the stress of the job.

  I pointed at him. “Don’t keep me in suspense. Fill me in on what you’ve learned.”

  He stopped typing and leaned back in his chair. “Whoever dumped that little boy in the dumpster knew to come in the middle of the night,” he said drily. “With the exception of two people, nobody saw or heard a thing. And what they did see or hear isn’t much to go on.” He stopped, his words caught in his throat. “Geez, the boy wasn’t much younger than my kid.”

  “I know,” I murmured.

  He cleared his throat. “What’d you learn so far?”

  “I don’t have a whole lot, either,” I said. “I’ve got tension between the mother and father, sounds like a contentious divorce, but so far nothing beyond that. Except that the boy’s father, Gary, is a bit of a hothead.”

  He nodded. “I talked to the old lady, Karen Pacheco. She was up in the middle of the night. I got a long story about her sleeping troubles.” He said this with no animosity. I knew he’d handle Pacheco well. “She was dozing in front of the TV, which she does a lot of nights. She thought she heard a noise out back, a loud thump or something.”

  “Logan’s friend, Terrell, heard something,” I interrupted. “He didn’t say exactly what it was, but I’m wondering if it could be a car backfiring.”

  “No, it wasn’t that. I asked. She’s a curious sort–I’d say nosy–with the goings on in the neighborhood, so she went to look. She didn’t see anybody, but she saw taillights going down the alley. I pressed her a little, and she’s pretty sure the car was an SUV. It was dark, though, and she was too far away to really see anything else. She also has no idea if it was a neighbor’s vehicle, or a stranger in the area.”

  “So obviously no license plate?”

  He shook his head. “No, we’re not that lucky.”

  “What time did she think she saw the car?”

  “She wasn’t sure, just that she was watching an old Cannon episode. You remember him?” I had nothing for him but a blank stare. He smirked. “I had to look it up. It’s an old show with William Conrad, a heavyset actor with a mustache. He plays a private eye.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Mrs. Pacheco likes it. She says Conrad was ‘ruggedly handsome.’ I don’t know about that, I just remember him from that show Jake and the Fatman. My mom liked that show.” I gave him a look for him to move it on. “I looked it up, and Cannon is on at two a.m.”

  “What else?”

  “Mrs. Pacheco doesn’t know Audra, and she didn’t know the kid. Or the dad. She was as shocked as anybody about all this, pretty upset to hear about the little boy’s murder. She’s got a grandson about his age, she couldn’t imagine anything happening to him.”

  “So basically, she had very little for us,” I said.

  He straightened his already straight tie. “That’s about right. Now, there’s a gentleman named Larry Blankenship. He’s on the other side of the alley. Ernie talked to him. Blankenship heard a loud sound, an engine revving.” He held up a hand. “Not a car backfiring. He got up to go to the bathroom around two, and he saw headlights in the alley. It might’ve been an SUV, but he doesn’t know what color, just that it was a darker vehicle. And he didn’t think to look for a license plate number. Not that he could see one, he wants us to know.” He held up a finger. “Mrs. Pacheco and Blankenship were up about the same time, so it’s possible they saw the same car.”

  I sat back. “That’s not very helpful. Did anyone hear a car backfire?”

  “No.”

  “Do any of the neighbors have cameras outside, or camera doorbells?”

  He nodded. “A couple of people did, but none showed a clear view of the alley. CSI is going through all the video. They’ll have a report for us later.” Now he pointed at me. “What did you find out? Details, please.”

  I rested my elbows on the desk and looked at him. “I talked to the parents. My gut says the mom–Audra–didn’t do anything, but I do think she might’ve been a little careless and wasn’t watching Logan last Saturday, even though she doesn’t want to admit it. The dad, Gary …” my voice trailed off.

  He tipped his head to the side. “What?”

  I mulled that over for a long moment. “There’s something about him. I can’t put my finger on it. Something doesn’t seem right to me. I won’t go so far as to say he’s a suspect, yet. I will say that he doesn’t seem to have a lot of love for his son. Maybe it’s all my previous work with kids, but I just didn’t like how he came across.”

  “Listen to your gut.”

  I nodded. “I always do. I got Audra’s laptop, no problem. I dropped it off with Tara, and she’s going to give it an initial run right away, but it’ll take a while to scan the whole thing.” Tara Dahl is another detective who is a tech specialist in the department, and she was doing me a favor by moving her analysis of Audra’s laptop to the front of her list. “Gary, on the other hand, didn’t want to surrender his laptop.”

  “Yeah, Ernie called me about that earlier.”

  “Oh right.” I stifled a yawn. “Speaking of warrants, did you get one for Audra and Gary’s phones? They both use Verizon, and Logan, had one, too.”

  “I’ve been waiting on the judge. Let me call over there.” He picked up his phone and dialed.

  “And that warrant includes pinging the phone for locations so we can find out where Audra and Gary have been recently?”

  “Like Saturday night and last night? Of course.”

  While Spats called the judge’s office, I pulled the notebook toward me. I smiled ruefully as I opened the notebook, thinking about all the work the detectives had done to gather the information. People assume the police department has access to numerous databases with information on suspects, or that a detective can just call the FBI. Unfortunat
ely, unless a crime has occurred across state lines, the FBI is not a resource for us. And the reality is that unless a person has a criminal record, it’s just as easy to go to the internet. There is so much information available online about most people, and many sites will provide thorough background checks for a fee. I opened the notebook and scanned pages. I saw the makes and models for Audra and Gary’s vehicles, their license plate information, marriage and divorce records, birth information, and job information. Gary had been in the Marines, and it showed where he’d served. It also showed his honorable discharge record. Audra and Gary both had Facebook pages. I glanced at the information about Audra. She posted lots of information about herself and Logan: Pictures of him at his school, around the house, or in his baseball uniform. She was a proud mother. Gary’s Facebook account had some activity, him posting pictures and making comments, but he wasn’t active on other social media sites. He also hadn’t purchased any kind of insurance policy on Logan. I kept reading. Audra didn’t have a criminal record. Gary, on the other hand, had an arrest for disturbing the peace, a bar fight where he beat up another man.

  Interesting, I thought. When I’d asked Gary whether he’d had any trouble with the law, he’d said no.

  “Why did he lie to me?” I muttered under my breath. “What’s he hiding?”

  I turned a page. There was a list of Audra’s Facebook friends. I’d have to follow up with them to see if Audra was hiding anything from me.

  I felt eyes on me and looked up. Spats was staring at me. “What?” I said.

  “The judge signed the warrant for the phones,” he said. “I need to go pick it up.”

  “Good. Once you get it, don’t take any crap from Verizon. Put some pressure on them to expedite the request. I want those phone records as soon as possible.” Phone companies ran a lot of searches, and I didn’t want my request to get delayed.

  “Sure thing.” He narrowed his eyes. “What were you muttering about?”

  I tapped the notebook. “Gary has an arrest for disturbing the peace.” I paused. “Some of the people we’ve heard from say he’s not a nice guy, that he was at minimum verbally abusive to Audra. Does that mean he might have had something to do with Logan’s death?”