The Husbands Page 11

  Rick was watching her. “So, you gotta go?”

  “I’d like to come back. I’ll give you some notice next time.” She gave him a wide grin. “Uschi can clean if she wants.”

  You’re a peach, Kelly-bell. Her father’s voice in the margins of her mind again. Like a coach on the sidelines. You’re my Kelly-bell, right?

  “Yeah . . . We’re, ah . . . I mean when were you thinking? We’re actually going away this weekend.”

  “No problem. I’ll—”

  “We’re gonna see Uschi’s parents, up in the Adirondacks. We couldn’t get there on Thanksgiving — the store was too busy and I had to work. But I do eight days on and four days off so I got the time this weekend, plus Monday and Tuesday, and Uschi and the kids are off.”

  “How they doing?”

  “Uschi’s parents? They’re good. Dieter is getting a bit senile, but you know, he’s still the same old Dieter.” Rick frowned. “Did you ever meet Dieter? Or Mischa? I can’t remember.”

  Kelly shook her head, feeling the remorse tighten around her. So much of her brother’s life that she’d missed. Uschi’s given name was Ursula, and her grandparents were from Germany — she remembered that much. Being here made her feel acutely mortal, like life moved too fast. That’s what happened when you came back somewhere. She hated it; it uncoiled inside of her, it itched.

  “The kids have a good time up there,” Rick said.

  She nodded, finished her Coke, and felt the remorse worsen. She stood up a little too abruptly, barking the chair legs on the linoleum floor. “How about tomorrow night?”

  He got up, more slowly, a fading hope in his eyes. “Come back tomorrow night?”

  “Would that be all right? When do the kids go to bed?”

  “Well, you know, Benji’s is usually around seven, seven thirty, and we let Mack stay up a little later. Olivia is usually in there reading with her headlamp until eleven — she wants her own room, bad. Yeah, sure, you can come back tomorrow. Of course.”

  She put on a smile and set the can on the table and made a hasty exit from the kitchen. Put her shoes on beside the front door, thinking, don’t cry.

  Rick followed her. “How are things going with this, ah, the case?”

  “Good.”

  “You being in the middle of this, you don’t have to take any more time away from it . . .”

  She struggled to lace her boots, feeling frustrated, angry with herself. “No, it’s fine. It’s good. You’re family.” When she finally got the boots on, she forced herself to look up at him and saw that his eyes were shining with tears.

  “I think about it all the time.” His lower lip trembled.

  “Don’t. You don’t have to—” She raised her hand, as if to touch him.

  “You’d think it would change with time but I still think about it almost every day. How I should have seen it coming. Or how I should’ve done something afterward.”

  “Rick. I don’t want to . . .” She felt trapped. A couple of beers in him and her brother was getting emotional. She took her coat and reached for the door.

  His eyes grew fierce. “I think about how I should have gone after Danner, went right over to his house and put his head through a wall.”

  She grasped the doorknob but didn’t turn it. She kept one hand up, palm out. “No.”

  “I still think if I ever see him I’d beat him half to death.” The tears spilled and tracked down Rick’s contorted face. “One thing. One thing like that, and it changes everything. Look how it changed you.”

  She marshaled her strength. She had to. Calmness. Put it away.

  Kelly-bell. My baby girl.

  “I like my life. I like who I am. It’s a trade-off. That’s how it works.” She paused, feeling the hard consonants in her words. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  His bony shoulders turned in and he looked at the floor and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

  She opened the door and stopped. When she turned around he was still standing there. Suddenly she collapsed into his arms, smelling the beer and thin sweat on him, traces of sawdust. She put her face against his neck and held on. He pulled her tight against him.

  His breath pushed on her hair. “I’m sorry, Kel.”

  She could hardly speak. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

  She felt a kind of pressure release inside of her. After years of dreading this, avoiding these emotions at all costs, now it was here, and she held on for as long as she could until the old self-defenses kicked in and she let go of Rick and stepped away, looking down, wiping her face.

  She gave him a quick glance and saw he was about to speak, but she turned and walked to her car and got in.

  Somewhere a dog was barking. She’d never asked Rick what kind of dog he had, or where it was.

  A vehicle was coming down the street. She watched it pass — it was Uschi. She was looking out. Kelly saw the heads of two little kids in the back. Her niece and nephew.

  Uschi turned into the driveway as Kelly keyed the Mazda’s ignition. She took off down the street without looking back. That was enough healing for one goddamn night.

  Had to keep moving forward.

  She drew hard breaths through her nose.

  In this life you have to move forward. It’s the only way.

  And she cried out and struck the steering wheel with the palm of her hand.

  Kelly-bell.

  * * *

  She didn’t even know how long she’d been sitting outside of her mother’s house, watching the place until the lights went out, when her phone rang.

  “Someone just tried to call Ted Archer,” Blanchett said.

  “Who?”

  “Wasn’t blocked. Phone is registered to a Jason Sandaker.”

  She searched her memory, sure she’d seen the name somewhere but unable to specifically place it.

  “He works at Xylem Technologies,” Blanchett said.

  With Blake Haig, Kelly thought, starting the car. To Blanchett, she said, “Send me everything you’ve got on him.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Xylem was housed in a two-story building walled in mirrored glass reflecting the parking lot street lamps and dark trees. Kelly parked the Mazda and phoned Orzo while she waited.

  “Agent Roth.” He sounded dozy. “What can I do for you?”

  “A co-worker of Blake Haig’s called Ted Archer’s phone just a little while ago — Jason Sandaker.”

  She heard Orzo moving around, perhaps the creak of bed springs. He sounded more alert when he spoke again. “No shit . . . are you — is your guy able to triangulate a location?”

  “He’s working on it. I’m at Xylem now, hoping he’s just about to get off shift. I’d like a little backup.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll put the word out right now. Sit tight. Sandaker? I don’t think he ever came up.”

  “He has now.”

  The next call was incoming, from Blanchett. “I got him,” Blanchett said. “He’s at a diner in Solvay. I’ll send you the address.”

  She switched back to Orzo and asked him to relay the new information to the patrol officers responding and then she got moving.

  Ten minutes later, she arrived at the all-night diner and parked outside. She couldn’t see Sandaker through the windows, but knew he was there — Blanchett had provided a license plate and the car was in the lot, a green Toyota Camry, rust around the wheel wells. Blanchett had also sent everything else and she scrolled through it on her phone. Sandaker’s record wasn’t earth-shattering; a few minor blemishes, traffic violations and one misdemeanor for disorderly conduct, but that was it. His picture reminded her of Rick. Narrower through the shoulders, slighter all together, but he had that Central New York thing — a youth of pool halls and street corners, nights driving up and down the strip, drinking beers at the lake.

  She watched the diner. What was this co-worker of Blake Haig’s doing calling Ted Archer? The thought was chilling: if Sandaker was the guy, if he’d been the one to call Ted Ar
cher before his suicide, then he was either the killer, or he’d been messing with Ted Archer in some sick game.

  Orzo’s patrol officers weren’t there yet so she waited. When an Auburn cruiser finally pulled in, she got out and went over.

  “Hi, thanks for coming. You mind just sitting here? Keeping an eye? I just want to get a look at him, see who he’s with if anyone, then we’ll take it from there.”

  “Sure.” The officer, young and blonde and pretty, picked up her radio and updated her status for dispatch. The one beside her, male, looking about twenty years old, just stared out.

  Kelly approached the diner. The main floor was elevated and she couldn’t see in the windows so she went inside. A waitress told her to just sit anywhere and Kelly winced at the attention, then spotted a table near the back.

  Sandaker was sitting there, but he wasn’t alone. Her heart raced as she registered the familiar faces of Blake Haig, plus Russell and Matthew Harbaugh — Danica Payton’s brothers. They were all together.

  She looked for a second longer, just to make sure, then hurried out the doors.

  “Blake Haig,” she said to Orzo once she was back in the Mazda. “He’s meeting with the brothers of another victim, and his co-worker just called the husband of one of the victim’s.”

  “So they don’t know Archer is dead.”

  “Could be.”

  “What do you think they’re doing?”

  She could go in and ask. It could be that simple. Take Orzo’s cops and walk up to the table and say hi, one of you just called a dead man’s phone. Care to explain?

  That wasn’t the smart move. Whatever they were hiding, they weren’t going to come out and admit it just because she asked. She’d have to get Auburn to take them in and hold them, and they’d clam up and ask for lawyers. Better to approach them individually — Sandaker seemed the best bet and had been the one who called Archer’s phone.

  “Tell me about this guy,” Orzo said.

  “Lives at 415 Fawn Circle. Thirty-three years old, no wants or warrants. Agent Blanchett hit everything, including employment history. He’s been with Xylem for three years. Prior to that he was up in Plattsburgh, New York, working for Georgia-Pacific.”

  “What’s that? I heard of that.”

  “Lumber. Gypsum products. They make plywood and oriented strand board. He drove a forklift, loaded and unloaded trucks, was there for six years. Now works for Xylem and he’s at Bonny’s Diner with Blake Haig and Danica Payton’s brothers. Did the brothers work up at Georgia-Pacific, too?”

  “You’d have to check with Broward but the Harbaughs have never left the area that I know of,” Orzo said. “Well, one of them did college at St. Bonaventure. Lasted one year. Russell works for a mechanic in Liverpool. Matthew — he’s got a job at a gun shop down in the city.”

  “A gun shop.”

  “Yup.”

  “All right. I’m waiting for Sandaker to break off from them and we’ll have a little chat.”

  “Keep me posted. And keep my guys with you.”

  She waited outside for a half an hour before the four men came out together and briefly huddled for conversation. Danica Payton’s brothers stuck together while Blake Haig and his Xylem co-worker Jason Sandaker went their separate ways. None of them noticed the Auburn police car parked back in the shadows, or her. She followed Sandaker’s beat-up Toyota out of the lot.

  The vehicle turned onto an entry ramp and headed east on 90, a major interstate.

  She glanced at the Auburn PD vehicle, cruising along behind her, no lights. Time to make a hard decision — taking a run at Sandaker with two Auburn cops was going to scare this guy into next week. If anything was going to jump off, seeing uniformed cops would likely trigger it. Was she ready for that? Did she think this was the Park Killer, driving around in his shitty old Toyota, some guy who operated a forklift for a living? The man she was after seemed craftier than that. Or, first appearances were misleading and something else was going on, something Sandaker might hide with local PD breathing down his neck. That meant bringing him in and a long night.

  She called Pete Blanchett who was back at the hotel and gave him an update. He was already tracking her phone and knew where she was.

  “Can you do me a favor and call Orzo? Ask him to get his PD to back off. Tell him to have them keep out of sight when I get to Fawn Circle, put them a block away.”

  “You sure?”

  “I want Sandaker to be candid, if possible.”

  Sandaker took an exit ramp and she followed him through the residential streets and watched as the Auburn police car finally faded back. When Sandaker turned into the driveway of a modest little house, they were out of sight. She pulled in behind him and he got out of the vehicle, stared into her headlights, looking curious but unalarmed. Kelly rolled down the window and prepared to identify herself but Sandaker suddenly ducked back into his vehicle.

  She scrambled for her piece as she opened the door. Shit. Using the door as a shield, she took aim. “FBI! Let me see your hands!”

  Sandaker slowly reappeared. He lifted his hands over his head and scowled in the bright wash of headlights. At the same time someone turned on a light in the dark house.

  Kelly eased out from behind the door and approached Sandaker, her grip steady. “Keep your hands up like that and take a step away from the vehicle.”

  The front door to the house opened and a woman leaned out, looking sleepy. “Jase? What’s going on?”

  “Stay right there, ma’am. FBI. Don’t move.”

  “It’s all right, honey,” Sandaker said. “Just a minute.”

  Kelly took a cautious step closer. “What were you reaching for?”

  He gulped. “I’ve got some weed with me.”

  “Marijuana?”

  “I’m sorry, it was just . . . I just thought you were someone else.”

  “Who?”

  He didn’t answer. His wife stayed in the door, wearing a bathrobe. She looked cold, and about a day away from going into labor. “Go ahead and go back inside, ma’am. I just need to talk to your husband. Everything is all right.”

  The wife didn’t move until Sandaker gave her a look and a nod. Then she slowly closed the door and moved to the window to watch.

  “I don’t care about your marijuana,” Kelly said. She got close enough that she could see into Sandaker’s vehicle. She didn’t see any baggie of weed, but she didn’t see any gun either. “That’s all you were going for?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Get it for me. Let me see. Move very slowly. I see a gun and this is going to get scary, you understand?”

  “I understand. Yes.” But he didn’t move for a moment. Finally he lowered his hands and got back into the car, leaned over and popped the glovebox. Kelly’s heart was pounding so hard it was tough to hear anything but she relaxed a little when he pulled out a rolled-up plastic bag with some dark chunks inside of it. Looking slightly embarrassed, he passed it into his left hand and raised it up for her to see.

  “Fine. Put it back. What were you going to do with it?”

  “Ah . . . smoke it.”

  “I mean when you were going for it just now.”

  “I don’t know. Chuck it into the street.” He closed the marijuana back in the glovebox.

  “Now back out. Go nice and slow, keep your hands out in front of you.”

  “What did I do?” He struggled to get to his feet without the use of his hands but finally pushed himself standing.

  “Step away from the car.”

  He did. He glanced back at the house where his wife was still a shape in the window.

  “What were you doing tonight?”

  “Tonight? Working. I work at Xylem. It’s over in—”

  “Afterward. You met with some people at Bonny’s Diner.”

  He swallowed again, but his eyes acquired a defensive look. “You were watching me?”

  “You met with Blake Haig and two other men. Where do you know the two other
men from?”

  “They’re friends of Blake’s. His wife was killed. And their sister was killed.”

  “So what were you doing with them?”

  “Blake . . . he, ah, he just asked me to come along.”

  “Why? Why’d he want you there?”

  “I don’t know.” The guy was a terrible liar. “I mean . . . I don’t know if I should . . .”

  Kelly lowered her weapon and holstered it, deciding the threat had passed. “You have kids, Mr. Sandaker?”

  “No. Well — about to.”

  “We could take this somewhere private. Get some more police involved, like the ones waiting over there just past those houses.”

  Sandaker looked in that direction as if he could spot them.

  “Or you could just talk to me, then go inside, back to your wife. She seems pretty worried.”

  He gave the house another glance and raised his shoulders, let them drop. “Ah, man. All I know is that they think the detective on their sister’s case, um . . .”

  “Detective Faber.”

  “Yeah. The one who got fired or whatever. They think he did a shitty job — sorry, crappy job — and that they let her husband go up to his place in the Adirondacks, and they’re not too happy about it.”

  “What’s that mean — they’re not too happy about it?”

  “They just, you know, they think that the cops aren’t really doing a good enough job, I guess.”

  “So they’re running their own investigation.”

  “It’s the brothers. They’re like . . . they’re passionate guys.”

  “But when did they start talking to Blake Haig? And why are you involved?”

  “Blake, he, um — he went to the funeral. For Danica Payton. And he started talking to the brothers. I’m there because, I dunno . . . Blake and I go back a ways. We started at Xylem together. I think he just likes having me around because these guys are . . . they’re a little unpredictable.”

  “He’s afraid of them?”

  “I mean, maybe. They’re intense. Blake’s kind of soft-spoken. I’m not saying he’s weak or anything. His dad worked for Xylem until he died. His mother, you know, she’s up in Utica at one of those places. Has dementia.”