The Husbands Page 10

  * * *

  Broward approached Kelly as everyone else was filing out. When they were alone, he said, “That was something. I’m sorry. For what it’s worth.”

  “It’s okay.” She finished packing up and swung her bag over her shoulder. The conference had left her a little shaken. All she could think about was Nokesville, her home, escaping the hateful eyes of men like Severin, cleansing herself of the idea of a killer for whom killing didn’t seem to be enough, just a starting point.

  She looked at Broward. “I’ll level with you — I usually study cases with a clear picture of everything the perpetrator has already done, their interview tapes, their manifestos. I’m developing this profile as events unfold.”

  “Listen, you want to grab some dinner?” He focused on her with his gray eyes.

  “Thanks . . . but . . .”

  “It’s because you’ve seen me eat, isn’t it?”

  His deadpan delivery made her laugh but she still walked away. Broward caught up with her stride as she turned down the hallway and toward the front door of the police station. “Was that a chuckle? A smile? So you’re going to go back to your hotel room to order Thai food, I bet — maybe we could get some together? I like Thai food, too. That’s Chinese, right?”

  She stopped short of the exit, feeling a tug of loneliness which she instantly regretted and tried to push away. “I’ve got somewhere to be.”

  “How long you gonna be? I can wait.”

  She sighed, her hand on the door. “I really don’t know. You shouldn’t.”

  “Well, you know, I’d like to.”

  She pushed against the crash bar and stepped out into the chill of the late afternoon when the door swung open. “All right, keep your ears on! We’ll see.”

  * * *

  She took a hot shower, then dressed in jeans and a white tank-top and the new boots the marines in Quantico would’ve called “shitkickers.” No more pant suits.

  She took out Ted Archer’s phone and went through the texts and calls that had come in since it had been in police custody. His mother had left a voicemail, the funeral home, and a couple of employees asking work-related questions. Soon people were going to be stopping by Archer’s house — you couldn’t keep a widower’s suicide quiet forever, even with Starkey’s order, especially as Archer ran a business. People were going to miss him, and soon. Kelly had the weekend in front of her, buying a little time, not much. If the killer had really contacted Ted Archer, was he stupid enough, or vain enough, to do it again. If it didn’t happen in the very near future, it wasn’t going to happen at all.

  She went through the texts from the unknown caller.

  How are you feeling?

  A strange opening. Friendly, sympathetic, something people asked each other every day. Then the caller dropped the bomb.

  I killed your wife and son.

  Any normal person would be provoked by something so blunt, so direct. Even taken out of context, the two messages together could suggest a dark and calculating mind. Or maybe it was all improvised.

  Her own phone buzzed on the table. Blanchett, the FBI skip tracer, was here and checking in to the hotel. She let him know she was in her room.

  Killers were like artists. A senior agent had told her that in her early days with the BAU. Some artists were spontaneous, he’d said, some more deliberate with their work. Often, you saw an arc — a progression from the seat-of-the-pants method to something more disciplined.

  Ted Archer had responded three times:

  Who is this?

  Think U have wrong number.

  Call me.

  Right there. He’d been hooked — the caller had reached out in just the right way. Vague, but human.

  Witnesses to a crime were notoriously unreliable from a behavioral point of view — people forgot crucial details, skewed the truth, or embellished, but Archer’s notes on the call were fairly coherent. Perhaps he was used to thinking under pressure. Archer had tried to pin him down, guessing at the caller’s location, his heritage in his notes: Sounds my age or younger. No accent; maybe from around here, talks like me. If I say anything to cops, he won’t call back.

  No way to know what the caller actually said, but Archer’s notes had a shape to them: the caller wanted him to listen, wanted to be the only voice to which he paid heed. And there was bizarre stuff about inoculations and the disease of humankind having something to do with identity.

  He says he can end my pain. It’s in my mind.

  Was this planting the suicide idea? Or something else?

  The end of “blame and shame” sounded like an incitement to embrace baser instincts — be they to seek revenge, to kill.

  The words of Billy Bath, another sociopathic killer, sprang to mind: Are you truly a good person, or are you merely afraid? Maybe it’s men with heroic courage who eschew society to become outlaws while cowards follow the rules.

  Her phone rang: Laura Roth.

  “Hi, Mom. I was going to call you.”

  “I saw you on the news.”

  “Yeah . . . I’ve just been caught up.”

  “You looked tired.”

  Kelly closed her eyes. “Well, that reporter found out I was in town because some guy recognized me in Liverpool.”

  “Who?”

  “He went to West Genny with me, I think.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Somebody should say something to him. Isn’t that a — isn’t he interfering with an investigation?”

  “He knew someone I guess, maybe he’s friends with her. The reporter — Oxley.”

  “You were trying to keep it quiet.”

  “Well, we’re going to bring out the FBI involvement in a press release tomorrow. But I needed a couple of days to look around, talk to people . . . How you doing, Mom?”

  “Have you talked to your brother?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been, you know, working.”

  Silence.

  She repeated the question. “Mom? You doing okay?”

  “I’m fine, Kelly.”

  Typically laconic. Kelly paced the room, feeling fresh anxiety. Her father had been the emotional, chatty one. After his heart attack the house had felt empty. Kelly’s mother was self-possessed, never frivolous. Distant.

  “I’m going to come by the house, too, Mom. First chance I get.”

  “It would be nice to see you.”

  “Yeah. Okay, so . . .”

  “Get some rest, Kelly. You’re tired, I can tell.”

  “Yeah, you said. Will do.”

  “All right.”

  “Okay. See you soon.” Kelly hung up and lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. First Broward, then her mother. They had stirred things up. She saw Craig Danner’s face in her mind. The shapes of the other men behind him, blocking off the alley. Danner’s hot breath in her ear. His wet, wide eyes.

  * * *

  Pete Blanchett was tall and thin, dressed in black, carrying two large cases. Looked like a mortician. He’d checked into a room on the same floor as Kelly. She’d never met him before.

  “Come on in,” Kelly said.

  He put his cases down next to the small table where she’d left Archer’s mobile. “This it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Blanchett picked up the phone and examined it like an ancient artifact. He opened his cases.

  Kelly thought how weird FBI people were, herself included. “Can I get you anything? There’s some water in the fridge.”

  “Uh?”

  “Would you like a water?”

  “No.” He pulled a mysterious-looking piece of equipment out of one of the cases and set it on the table. Then he took out a monitor, set it on the table and connected it to the equipment.

  “This will monitor any further contact?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you should be able to get a location if and when he contacts . . .”

  “That depends. First we need a phone n
umber.”

  “The calls came in ID-blocked.”

  “I’m going to outfit the phone so it unblocks and we can track down and remotely turn on any cell phone if we know the number, even use it as a microphone if we want. Plus I can watch the towers from here and note any pings from prepaids.”

  “Good.”

  Blanchett kept talking. “If there’s a new text or a call, we’ll correlate tower data so that the reference points will uniquely identify the phone location. And we’ll know the exact duration of the call from our end, when it begins, when it ends. Then we can look at all the data from the towers and narrow it down to corresponding times.”

  “Because the likelihood of other calls originating and ending at the same precise time would be low,” she said.

  “Very low. But if it’s a burner and he’s using a new one each time, that’s going to make it tougher.” Blanchett pointed to the black device. “This is capable of tracking electronic signals of all types, including encrypted cellular. At the very least, we’ll get the carrier, contact them, and confirm where the phone was purchased. Once the phone is activated, the chip inside makes it identifiable to the carrier. We’ll get one or the other — maybe both carrier and location. But if only the carrier we’ll at least get purchase location and can check retailer surveillance video. We put out the purchaser information — give the picture to local law enforcement — and we nab him.”

  “And if he calls from a hardline?”

  Blanchett plugged in a wire. “Traces are instant with the right equipment, and this is the right equipment. You can’t hide from Big Brother.”

  Her gaze fell on Archer’s phone. “You said you’re able to forward calls?”

  “I am.”

  “So if I leave, and the unsub calls, you can forward it to me.”

  “Correct.”

  “And at the same time you can be running your trace?”

  “Yes.” His eyes connected with hers. “Where are you going?”

  “I won’t be long.”

  * * *

  Kelly watched from across the street in her rental car, parked in the shadows. It was her brother, no mistaking it.

  The pickup truck pulled into the driveway and the light above the garage came on automatically. Rick got out then turned back as if he’d forgotten something. He leaned into the cab, stuck something in his pocket and crossed the driveway towards his house. He was in khaki pants and a dark blue button-down shirt. He looked up.

  Kelly sucked in a breath. She got out and called over, “Hey bro.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  She crossed the street. They sized each other up.

  “How you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay. You?”

  “Good.” A smile flickered across his face. “Where’d you get that coat?”

  “Herb Philipson’s.”

  He nodded. “Can you come in?”

  “Yeah. Totally.”

  She followed him into the house. His gait seemed slower, like he’d gotten old. Hard to believe so much time had passed.

  Inside was cozy and smelled a bit like pancakes. As he kicked off his shoes, she said, “You’re a shoes-off kind of place, huh?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah.”

  She remembered the way he’d been — hunched at the bar, wearing his favorite jean jacket, watching a Syracuse game, drinking Molson Canadian and shots of Cutty.

  The living room was dominated by a big flat screen TV and two couches facing each other. Toys were piled in the corner. A child’s kitchen set — including stove and sink — sat beside an overloaded grocery cart. Dolls from the movie Frozen were buried within the plastic foodstuffs, like stiffened bodies bobbing to the surface.

  “This is more the kids’ room than the living room. Well, it’s my room too if there’s a game on. Know what I mean? You want a drink, or something to eat or anything?”

  They went through a doorway into the kitchen.

  “I’ll take something, yeah. You got a Coke?”

  “Sure.” He opened the fridge. “You don’t want a beer?” He poked his head out and looked her over. “Are you on duty all the time or what?”

  She leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. “Pretty much.”

  “I didn’t even see you on TV. But Uschi did.”

  “So did Mom.”

  “Oh.” His crooked grin came back. He elbowed the door shut with a Coke in one hand and beer in the other. “So you got the Mom-call?”

  Kelly took the soda from him and popped the lid. “I did.”

  “We heard about it, you know, when it happened — Danica Payton, right? Everybody was talking about it for two or three days and then it got kind of quiet. But there’s more, yeah? That’s what the reporter was asking you. They call this guy the Park Killer or something. It’s fucking wild. I don’t remember anything like this since I was a kid. Remember Billy Bath?” He twisted off the top of his beer and leaned against the stove opposite her. “Of course you probably remember. Who am I talking to?”

  “I remember.”

  He took a pull of beer. “So you talked to Mom, huh?”

  Kelly kept her gaze on him. “I was going to call you, Rick.”

  He looked down. “Yeah . . . No, I know.”

  “I just had to hit the ground running. I’ve slept four hours since I got here.”

  “No shit.”

  She knew where this was headed and changed the subject. “I like your place.”

  “Yeah? Shit. I should give you the tour — Uschi would go nuts if she knew you were here. She’d want to scrub the bathroom. She’d want to scrub everything, top to bottom. You know Uschi. Well, I mean, she hasn’t changed much.”

  “It looks nice. Clean. I mean with three kids, I guess. How is everybody? How is Uschi?”

  He took another swig. “The kids are good. Mackie loses about a tooth a week right now. Benji is walking, talking. That stuff in there, the kid’s kitchen stuff — that was Olivia’s old stuff. Ben plays with it now. Loves it.” Rick shrugged. “We’re modern people, you know? What do they call it? ‘Gender-fluid.’”

  She just raised her eyebrows.

  “Well, shit, you know, I try to get him to watch the game with me and he will, but he’ll sit there cooking up a plastic chicken in the oven. Got two older sisters — what are you gonna do?” When he smiled fully, she saw how handsome he still was. The dark smudges under his eyes seemed to fade, laugh lines creased the skin around his mouth and eyes. “I mean I guess there’s nothing un-masculine about that anyway. Men cook. Right? I cook. Dad cooked.”

  “Yeah. Dad cooked.”

  He took another drink, looked out the window. At the end of the yard were some woods. There was either a clothesline or dog line hanging in the air. He turned his attention back to her. “But Uschi is good, really good. Likes her job. She’s at Baldwinsville High School doing guidance counseling.”

  “Is she really? That’s great.”

  He put his empty beer bottle in the sink. “You, ah, you gonna stick around or . . . ? Hey, how did you know I was going to be home? You never texted back.”

  “I didn’t know what to say.”

  “Well you just say what’s up. I’m in town, I’m busy, whatever.”

  “I didn’t want to make any promises. So I called the store and they said you’d just left. I said I was your sister and they said you had an early shift. What time did you start?”

  “I get up at four. Get there at five. So this is like, evening to me. Beer o’clock. You still smoke?”

  “No.”

  “Mind if I have one?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He got another beer out of the fridge. “Mackie and Ben stay at school and come home with Uschi in about an hour. Sometimes sooner. Depends on if she’s seeing anyone in her office. Olivia gets a ride with friends after basketball practice. You should see her. Kid’s got a wicked jump shot just like her old man.”

  He opened the bac
k door. “Should be pretty dry out here. You can go back for your shoes if you want.”

  “Go ahead and puff. I’ll just look around. If that’s all right?”

  “Yeah, sure. Make yourself at home.” He flashed her a little smile.

  She explored the house. Kelly had last seen Mackenzie when she was a baby. Now she was six and they called her Mackie. God.

  She had a fish tank in her room, two little goldfish. The walls were decorated with decals of various birds flitting about. The other half of the room was Olivia’s, with a poster of Tamika Catchings, an Olympic basketball star, hanging above her bed.

  Benji’s room was neater. She’d never even met him.

  She went back into the kitchen, looked at her brother on the back deck. Thirty-five years old now. Rick was thirty-frickin-five.

  The furniture in the house was decent, everything fairly new-looking. Her big brother was doing all right.

  Rick came back in. Half the second beer was gone.

  “I don’t want to interfere,” Kelly said. “Don’t want to mess up your routine.”

  “You’re not interfering with anything. I was just gonna get changed. Got a couple things I was gonna do around here before everybody gets home. It’s fine.” His eyes finally found her. “It’s good to see you. You look good.”

  “I suddenly feel like we’re in some TV moment.”

  He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. I guess . . . ah . . .”

  “I just . . . I haven’t wanted to be back. You know what I mean? But that’s not because of you, or Mom. It’s just been my life. My work.”

  He coughed and looked away. “Yeah, I know.”

  “You talk to Raquel?”

  “Little bit. She was just down here a couple months ago. She stays at Mom’s sometimes, you know? She stays here. The kids love her. She’s doing pretty good. Do you talk to her?”

  “We text. Sometimes email. I think we talked on the phone . . . I don’t know when it was.”

  He pulled out a chair and sat down and started to pick at the skin around his thumb. She sat down too and took a drink of her Coke.

  The silence lasted until her phone buzzed in her pocket. She checked it, hoping it was a forwarded call or text from Blanchett. Are we on for a late dinner? She ignored Broward’s inquiry and put the phone away.