Chapter Four

I caught up with Darrell outside Gordon Brink’s house.

He was bent over at the waist, his hands on his thighs. Around others, he kept a poker face at the sight of blood, but I knew him better. We dealt with a lot of blood. Together, we’d witnessed severed limbs from mine accidents, shotgun suicides, and shredded faces that had gone through car windshields. None of that compared with the horrors Darrell had seen as a marine in Korea, too. He remained stoic through all of it, but I knew how deeply he felt things, and blood in particular seemed to give him flashbacks of his days in the service.

Given how much my own dad was away, I’d grown up thinking of Darrell as almost a second father to me. He was the most solid, serious man I knew. Religious. Faithful. Humble. He’d told me once that life was a relay race, where you take the baton from your parents and pass it along to your children, and in between, you try to run around the track with as much strength and grace as you can. I liked that philosophy.

You wouldn’t really have been impressed to look at him. He wasn’t tall, and he’d never been a pretty boy like Ajax. Even in his sixties, he kept his hair military short, jet black, not a gray strand to be found anywhere. His nose had a drooping hook, and his ears looked big and wide under his buzz cut. His cheek had a long scar where a North Korean bullet had sliced him. It would have killed him if it had been another inch to the left. That kind of good fortune made him conscious of the choices he made in living his life, and he was determined to make the right ones.

If there was one quality about Darrell that sometimes made me bite my tongue, it was that he had a black-and-white outlook on the world. Things were good, or things were bad. Things were right, or things were wrong. His own moral compass always pointed due north, so he was quick to pass judgment on people. Even at my young age, I’d figured out that the world was a lot more complicated than that.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca,” Darrell said when I joined him. He was still bent over, breathing hard.

“For what?”

“For telling Ajax to keep his hands off you. I know you hate that.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I noticed the pale cast of his face. “Are you okay? That was an ugly scene back there.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve seen worse.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets and glanced across the white field of snow. “I know that, but you don’t have to pretend with me.”

Darrell straightened up, wiping away a little sweat that had gathered on his brow even on a cold night. “Thanks.”

“So what do you think?” I asked, because I was very curious to know if Darrell had come to any conclusions yet. “This must be a copycat, right?”

He put on his stolid deputy’s face again. “I don’t know. Maybe. If it’s the same killer, where has he been for six years? And why come back now? The only thing I do know is that none of these crimes were committed by a mythical beast.”

I could have given him a different take on that, but I didn’t tell him what I was thinking.

Inside the house, we found Gordon Brink’s son, Jay, in a bedroom on the top floor. This was three stories above the main floor master suite that Gordon and Erica shared. The huge house felt oddly empty and quiet—so much space for only three people—and I thought it had to be strange for a boy from the city to be stuck here in the middle of nowhere. The bedroom was large, but clean and uncluttered, which surprised me from a teenager. I assumed that Jay shared his father’s organized legal mind. On the other hand, the posters on the log walls—all neatly hung and absolutely level—revealed a rebellious spirit and a bookish intelligence. I saw punk bands like the Flesh Eaters and Dead Kennedys, alongside portraits of Oscar Wilde and D. H. Lawrence. He had half a dozen bookshelves crammed with classics like Moby Dick and Leaves of Grass that would have put other seventeen-year-old boys to sleep.

Jay lay on top of the carefully made king-size bed when we arrived. He had his hands behind his head and was staring at the ceiling, and he was dressed in a flannel shirt and corduroys, with bare feet. He didn’t acknowledge us, although he obviously knew who we were and why we were there. He was a handsome kid, thick reddish-brown hair, a prominent nose and close-shaved face, with intense dark eyes. He was tall but not particularly muscular or athletic. He’d just lost his father, but I didn’t see any indication on his face that he’d been crying.

Darrell went to the large bedroom windows, stared outside for a while, and then turned back to Gordon Brink’s son. “Jay, I’m Deputy Darrell Curtis. This is Deputy Rebecca Todd. We’re very sorry about your father.”

The teenager didn’t look away from the ceiling. “Thanks.”

“You and I met last week,” I reminded him. “I came over here when your stepmother called about the bucket of blood.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Jay replied. “Do you think whoever did that also killed Gordon?”

“It’s too early to know.”

Darrell was still by the window, and he nodded at me to continue the interview. I pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down. “I know this is a difficult time, but you might be able to help us figure out who did this to your father.”

Jay still showed no reaction on his face, and his voice had a flat, numb quality to it. “I have no idea.”

“Well, you might have heard or seen something that was important. A lot of times, people know more than they think.” I took out a notepad from my pocket and uncapped a pen. “I’d like to go over a little background with you first. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“Your stepmother, Erica, says she was away in Minnesota for the past several days. Is that right?”

“Yep.”

“Were you and Gordon the only ones staying here while she was gone?”

“Yep. Just him and me. The associates and paralegals stay in a motel. Gordon gets the big house. That’s how it works.”

I noticed for the second time that Jay called his father “Gordon.” Looking at Darrell, I could see that he’d noticed it, too.

“Where does your mother live?” I asked.

“Milwaukee.”

“You don’t live with her?”

“Normally, I do, but Gordon decided to bring me with him while he worked on the trial. It wasn’t up for debate.” The teenager rolled his eyes. “He said the Milwaukee schools were giving me all sorts of crazy ideas.”

“Like what?”

“Like we value money over people in this country. And lawyers are some of the worst offenders.”

“When did you get here?”

“October.”

“It must have been hard going into the high school in the middle of the semester. We’re pretty cliquish around here. Outsiders have a tough time being accepted.”

“Really? I didn’t notice.”

I heard the sarcasm laid on thick.

“Let’s talk about the last few days,” I said. “When did you last see your father?”

“Sunday morning at breakfast.”

“Have you been home since then?”

“Yep.”

“But you hadn’t seen your father for two days?”

Jay shrugged. “Gordon usually had lunch in his office. I wasn’t allowed inside. Nobody was. He wasn’t in the house for dinner on Sunday or Monday, so I had leftovers from the fridge.”

“Didn’t you think it was odd that he didn’t show up for dinner?”

“No. Sometimes he’d work all night. I figured that’s what he was doing.”

“Even on Christmas Eve?”

“It’s not like we were waiting up for Santa,” Jay replied.

“Did you hear your father in the house on Sunday or Monday? Do you know if he slept in his bedroom?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did anyone come by the house in the last few days? Did you see anyone?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure? This is very important, Jay. You didn’t see or hear anybody else around here in the last two days?”

“Nope.”

“And you were home, you were in the house, the entire time?”

Jay stuttered a little. “That’s what I said.”

Darrell noticed the teenager’s hesitation. He interrupted from where he was standing by the windows. “You didn’t go out at all?”

“No, I was here.”

“Did you look outside on Sunday night?”

“I don’t remember. If I did, I didn’t see anything.”

“Your bedroom windows look out on the front yard,” Darrell went on, gesturing through the glass. “If somebody drove in here on Sunday, there would have been headlights.”

“I didn’t see any lights, and I didn’t hear anybody outside.”

“Were you in your bedroom all evening?”

“No. Not the whole time. I watched some TV. The den’s on the other side of the house. Maybe somebody came by while I was doing that. I don’t know.”

“What did you watch on TV?” Darrell asked.

More hesitation. “I don’t remember.”

Darrell frowned. I knew he didn’t believe what Jay was telling us. I leaned forward and put a hand lightly on the boy’s wrist.

“Jay, do you have any idea who killed your father?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea why someone would want to harm him?”

“I assume it’s because of the lawsuit.”

“Why do you assume that?”

“That’s why we’re here. What else could it be?”

“Did your father talk about getting threats? Did you hear threats directed at him in town or at school?”

Jay finally turned his head and looked at me. “I can’t remember a day when there haven’t been threats. Nobody wants us here. They’ve made that very clear. I’ve had shit smeared on my locker half a dozen times. People broke our windows and slashed our tires. You saw what happened with Erica.”

“Do you know who was involved in any of these incidents?”

“No.”

“Was your father worried about them?”

“He said it was the usual harassment that comes with big lawsuits.”

I let the silence between us linger while I studied Jay’s eyes. He was a smart kid, but with stormy waters underneath the calm. Maybe it was the usual teenage angst, but I got the feeling there was more to it than that.

“Erica says your relationship with your father was difficult,” I said quietly.

“You could say that. He didn’t like me. I didn’t like him.”

“Why is that?”

“Mostly, I think he hated the fact that I knew who he really was.”

“Oh, yes?” I asked. “Who was he?”

Jay turned away and stared at the ceiling again. “You’ll figure it out sooner or later. Gordon was a monster.”

*

When Darrell and I were back outside, I lit a cigarette. I didn’t like smoking in front of him, because his wife was dealing with lung cancer and he blamed it on her lifelong habit. He’d given it up himself years earlier. Most of the other deputies smoked, and Darrell never said a word to me when I did it, but I felt guilty anyway. Even so, I was exhausted, and my nerves were shattered. The cigarette relaxed me.

“What’s your take on Jay?” Darrell asked.

“I think teenage boys hate the idea of growing up like their fathers, and fathers want their teenage boys to grow up just like them.”

Darrell responded with a low chuckle. “True enough. On the other hand, calling Gordon a monster? That’s an interesting choice of words, given what was on the wall. Almost like he’d seen it for himself.”

I shivered in the cold, my fingers trembling as I held my cigarette. The word rattled around in my head. Monster.

The snow had stopped, but the wind had come up in its wake, throwing silvery clouds around us. We stood near the dark trees that grew in a ring around the clearing. It was winter, and it still wasn’t dawn yet. I did what I always did, what I’d done hundreds of times hiking in the woods since I was ten years old. I listened for the hufffffff that told me the Ursulina was close by.

“You don’t really think Jay killed him, do you?” I asked.

Darrell took a while to reply. “No, I don’t. Then again, what’s my philosophy of life?”

“You never know.”

“Exactly. You never know. Here’s a kid who obviously had a terrible relationship with his father. He was at the house the whole time, so he had plenty of opportunity and no alibi.”

“Bad relationship or not, I can’t see a child doing that to a parent.”

Darrell shrugged. “Lizzie Borden took an ax.”

“So what’s next?”

“Next we talk to Sandra Thoreau. The lawsuit is still the likeliest motive for murdering Brink. We need to find out if anyone on her team has been making noises about going after him. It’s mostly been mischief up to now, but that kind of thing can get out of control fast.”

“Okay.”

I wasn’t done with my cigarette, but I threw it in the snow and stamped it down. I stared into the trees, still expecting a rustling in the branches and the noise of heavy breathing. My mind was awhirl. Everything was catching up to me—the night, the sleeplessness, the cold, the blood. Darrell called my name, but I was distracted and didn’t answer. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder.

“Are you all right?”

I managed a weak smile. “I’m just tired. And I’m fighting a cold. My head’s all congested.”

He hesitated before saying more. “I heard you and Ricky had a fight.”

“Money problems. We’ll get through it.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

Darrell didn’t push. Not right away. He studied the expression on my face, and I felt like one of his daughters again, under the watchful eye of their father. I didn’t like lying to him, and I was pretty sure he’d heard the rest of the gossip.

“Listen, it’s early,” he told me. “We don’t need to spoil Sandra’s Christmas morning at the crack of dawn. I want to go back to the office and pull the files on Kip and Racer anyway. Why don’t you go home and sleep for a couple of hours? I don’t need you with me. We can meet up later.”

Normally, I would have protested special treatment, but I was glad for an opportunity to get away and clear my head. “Sure. Okay. I’ll take a shower and then head back to the office. I won’t be long. An hour, tops.”

“Take as much time as you need.”

I smiled at him. There were days when he felt like my only lifeline around here. “Thanks.”

I headed across the snow for my car, hoping he’d let it go, but I knew he wouldn’t. He called after me in his soft-spoken voice. “Rebecca? This is your business, not mine. You don’t need to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but I have to ask. Are you thinking of leaving Ricky?”

My voice was as quiet as his. “I don’t know. That’s the honest answer, Darrell. I really don’t.”

“Well, if that’s the choice you make, you know I’ll support you.”

“Thanks,” I said again.

He was silent for a long time, but he had a look that said he wasn’t done. “Do you mind a word of advice?”

“Go ahead.”

“I know the type of man Ricky is. I know that kind of man all too well. I saw them in the military, and I see them around here every day. They’re tigers. You can see it in their eyes. They’re always waiting for their chance.”

“What are you saying, Darrell?”

“I think you know what I’m saying,” he told me. “If you go down that road, Ricky’s not going to take it well. You need to be very careful, Rebecca. Never turn your back on a tiger.”