Dark Web (16 page)
Swift sat at his desk in the substation, rubbing his hands together. He felt cold, even though the substation was toasty with all the heaters running. He looked away from the computer monitor for a moment and stared off into space. He was the only cop in the station except for Trooper Coates, who was in the next room, keeping the home fires burning. Everyone else was out on the manhunt for Tori McAfferty. It was going on seven in the evening, and, on top of it all, he’d missed his dinner with Brittney Silas.
The three boys from the Hyundai remained on ice, two sitting with Trooper Coates, instructed by their lawyers not to say a word to anyone, and twenty-three-year-old Darring, still with no counsel, alone in the interview room. They’d had the kids in custody for nearly fifteen hours. It was permissible, but it was dangerously close to giving defense lawyers ammo like “coerced confession.” If this thing ever went to trial.
You had to be careful. Perpetrators and suspects in custody turned into claimants against the state faster than you could say “instant action” these days. Swift knew the routine all too well. His own troopers had been mired in allegations for weeks now over a drunk driver who’d been belligerent and uncooperative and gotten pepper-sprayed as a result. Frank Duso. Lenny’s Duso’s son. Frank was now alleging permanent damage to his eyes along with a slew of other things. Captain Tuggey had, in recent weeks, backed up his troopers in a statement in which he’d simply described the first five degrees of the use of force in ascending order as: (1) presence of uniform
;
(2) verbal command
;
(3) placing hands on arrestee
;
(4) use of pepper spray
;
and (5) physical force and defensive tactics.
There was, of course, a sixth, deadly physical force, which could be resorted to only when the conditions prescribed by Penal Law § 35.30 were present. Tuggey had maintained that his troopers had done everything they could to keep the use of force at a minimum, but that the claimant had driven it up the ladder of degrees. Swift had been involved because he’d been at the substation when the troopers brought the claimant in for the breathalyzer. He’d seen the whole thing, and been asked to give testimony at the upcoming trial.
You had to be careful. You never knew who you were dealing with, or what their angle was. Mostly, you expected lies.
For a few precious moments there it had seemed like Darring was veering towards a confession. He’d continued to wax philosophical about things like “liminal trance states,” of which Swift himself had little grasp, teetering on to divulge something about Braxton Simpkins, and how he fitted into all of this techno-philosophy. But the more the interview had gone on, the more it seemed like the kid was talking gibberish, nothing like a confession. It was beginning to look like the kids were just being kids after all, stealing away to visit some other kid they gamed with on the internet. If they had lawyers and parents with hefty bankrolls behind them, the aftermath could get ugly. Uglier than it already was.
The call about Deputy Cohen had come in during Swift’s interview with Darring. The Captain and Lieutenant had rushed off, and Mathis had vanished too, indicating he’d be back. Everyone had deserted the place, but Swift couldn’t rush out, much as he wanted to be part of the hunt for McAfferty, he had other things which couldn’t wait. He needed more ammunition for his ongoing interrogation of Darring, but it was hard to focus.
Swift looked at the computer screen and felt the pressure mounting. He sat trying to think through what he’d been uncovering, while at the same time going over and over his last conversation with Alan Cohen. He’d told Cohen to take another deputy with him, and Cohen said he’d buddy-up with Trainer. Trainer had been at the scene that afternoon when the explosion happened, and he was currently being treated for minor cuts, abrasions, and third degree burns. Word had already come down that Cohen had entered McAfferty’s house alone. Why? Why hadn’t he waited? If he’d waited for Trainer, he might not be in critical condition right now.
Of course, it could have gone the other way, too, and Trainer could be right there beside him in Intensive Care, also about to undergo surgery that would remove embedded pieces of wood, plastic, and glass.
Dear Jesus
.
Swift needed to see Cohen, needed to talk to him, but he wouldn’t be able to, not for a while. He needed to see Cohen’s family. He was going to have to take responsibility for sending Cohen up there to Tori McAfferty’s place. Better that they hear it from Swift himself than second-hand. Another wonderful task to look forward to.
As he stewed over this, the door to the substation burst open, making Swift jump.
Mathis came walking in, a swirl of snow in his wake. Swift quickly closed down the windows on the computer screen.
The prosecutor sat down across from Swift. Mathis, for a change, didn’t look his usual cocky self. His face was drawn, his eyes underscored with purple rings of fatigue. He looked wary. Maybe even out of his depth.
“How you doing?” Swift asked.
“I’m fine. You?”
Swift just stared across the table at Mathis until Mathis looked away. Swift wasn’t trying to intimidate the guy, he just didn’t have the words. Finally, he said: “I was the one who sent him up there.”
The ADA shook his head. “We were following a lead, Swift. A good lead. And now this guy, McAfferty, with these messages to Braxton Simpkins, this operation he’s got going on in Plattsburgh — it looks good for us. It’s better than this
vel non
bullshit we’ve been scraping by with.”
Swift shrugged. “Yeah.” If he recalled, “vel non” was a legal term, Latin, meaning “or not,” used when something was presented in a case because there was no other alternative. Even if it lacked any supporting evidence.
Mathis showed some of his familiar smugness for a moment. “It’s not perfect, Swift, but it’s an awfully big indicator that this guy is a wild son of a bitch.”
Swift blew out a long breath. “I know.”
Mathis squinted. “You’re a skeptic. Hey, you’re supposed to be. You don’t exactly like McAfferty for this — much as you like those kids. I get that. But think of this. Maybe McAfferty didn’t come down here and put hands on anyone. But maybe he called the kids up. Talked some real terrible shit to them. Threatened them. Have we got the phone records yet?”
“Still working on it.”
Mathis drummed the desk with his fingers. He seemed to be growing more himself again, becoming antsy.
“Well, I see Braxton Simpkins with a target on his back, any which way you slice it. Biological father, estranged, shut out by the mother and step-father; they move back here after years and years, he gets in contact with the son, who knows what sort of poison he fills the kid’s head with, who knows how he messes with him. I mean, you said the stepfather wrote to him? Threatened to kill him? I mean, come on. So, that right there, that sets McAfferty off, and he goes into some psycho mode, and he continues to contact the kid. Or maybe, maybe he’s not spewing poison, but he’s sweet-talking the kid, turning him against his parents. He convinces him that he needs to leave them. Maybe he tells him that they’ll meet. But something happens, and the kid has some sort of attack out there in the snow. Still waiting on the internal?”
Swift nodded. He’d tried Janine Poehler twice already that evening on her phone and left messages. Now he cocked an eyebrow at the ADA. “That’s a lot of maybes.”
Mathis obviously felt the barb. “I can make it stick. The emails, the step-father’s testimony, the meth-dealing; we catch this son of a bitch and we offer him a reduced sentence for the meth lab, we hatch a deal with the defense — he gets life reduced to thirty-years-plus-parole with a full confession for the murder of Braxton Simpkins.”
Swift spoke low, his voice growling. “For Christ’s sake, Sean, he nearly killed a cop.”
“Nearly,” Mathis said, his expression inscrutable.
“What if Cohen doesn’t make it? How are you going to negotiate with that? No judge in the world, no jury, if it comes to that, is ever going to sleep at night knowing they traded one life for another. Especially a cop’s life; you know how this goes. There’s no room to proffer here. Besides, it’s barking up the wrong tree; McAfferty
is
guilty, guilty of being a drug dealer and a piece of shit and someone who put a police officer in a life threatening situation and didn’t hesitate to light the fuse. But I don’t see him for this.”
Mathis leaned back. Swift expected him to revert to his high-and-mighty pose, but Mathis stayed affable. He ran a hand through his spiky, purposely unkempt hair. “You got something else?”
When Swift just gave him a look, Mathis leaned forward. Then he sat bolt upright. “You got something
else
. Swift? What the hell have you got?”
It was after nine p.m. when Mike pulled the pick-up into the driveway. Callie had grown listless beside him in the cab of the truck. When they had first left the hospital, the two of them had been animated, upbeat, almost giddy. It had been a struggle to get Callie discharged, to convince the staff crisis worker she was not a danger to herself or others, and they felt a bit like kids escaping out from under their parents’ house rules. Mike and Callie held hands, and cried together, and even laughed. The girls were safe, there were no meals to prepare or dishes to do or laundry to fold — for a couple of fleeting hours, it was almost a vacation. They had talked as they left the hospital and drove to the interstate to head the thirty miles south to New Brighton, but as their exit approached, the talk thinned out, and Callie seemed to shrink and harden in her seat, like something petrifying. As they turned onto route 9N, the truck filled with a heavy silence. The wind swept across the road, turning the fine-grained snow into waves. Their driveway was drifted with the powder, and the house looked small and windswept against the backdrop of the dark mountains.
A lone state trooper was parked at the mouth of the driveway. As Mike neared, he rolled down his window and the night chill immediately poured into the car, striking Callie’s exposed flesh. She drew her coat around her as Mike leaned into the door and spoke to the trooper. The trooper was young, Mike saw, barely in his twenties, blond and pale but with hard, serious eyes.
“Thanks for being here,” Mike said. “I appreciate it.”
“Yeah we were able to convince the press to back off.” The trooper glanced off into the dark night. “I’m surprised they didn’t follow you from the hospital.” His eyes came back to Mike and then looked past Mike at Callie who seemed to harden further under his gaze. “Press can be somewhat reasonable — just girls in there, I told them, and they didn’t even know . . .” He trailed off. “Didn’t know the whole story yet,” he finished, and now he was looking around, anywhere but at Callie. “Anyway it was enough your friend was able to stay here with the two girls. I think they rattled her, though. And I don’t know how long the press will stay away. So sorry for you folks, but this is a pretty major story for the area.”
“Thank you,” Mike said again, not knowing what else there was to say. The trooper looked impatient to be elsewhere; Mike could bet where. On the manhunt for Tori McAfferty. Where he wished he was himself.
“Okay,” said the trooper. He dropped his shifter into Drive. “Someone will be by in the morning.” And then he pulled away.
Mike sat for a moment, truck engine running, and then rolled up the window. Both he and Callie returned their attention to the house and he rolled slowly forward.
The girls were inside with Sarah, but that was all. The respite Mike and Callie had experienced at the hospital, the momentary lapse of reason and surreal giddiness only gave the reality more weight. Braxton was not inside the house. Braxton would never be inside the house again.
Mike parked the truck, and glanced at Callie. Her face was dimly lit by the console of the cab’s interior, casting her features in amber. She looked back at him and they exchanged a wordless communication. They had spent their time together, and now it was time to be strong for their daughters. The next few days would be nothing but ugly business, and they had to show their daughters love and security.
Mike turned the key and the truck rumbled and then stilled. The silence was massive.
“What do we tell them?”
Despite all the talking, this was the one question they had both avoided asking.
Callie was quiet for a moment, unmoving, surrounded by the night.
“Tomorrow,” she said.
* * *
The girls had both been asleep throughout the afternoon and were up now, active and bright, and Reno was asking questions about her brother, and about the reporters who’d been on the front lawn, the policeman she’d seen sitting there all day. She was six, sharp; there were plenty of clues, and she continued to suspect something despite Mike and Callie’s evasive answers. They did their utmost not to lie. Callie said, “Something happened to Braxton, but we’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“What happened to him?”
“Let’s say goodnight to Sarah and thank her for playing with you girls today.”
As they said their goodbyes Callie couldn’t look Sarah in the eye for too long, couldn’t withstand the sorrow and pity she saw. She was resolved now to stay strong, to move forward, but she knew she had to avoid certain triggers. She would handle one thing at a time, put one foot in front of the other. Sarah had done their dishes and picked up after the girls, and her contribution was so generous that Callie didn’t know how to acknowledge it. Sarah seemed to understand, leaving quietly, smiling at the girls. It was clear she was relieved to be gone.
