Rough Men (5 page)

Lou was good to his word; in fact, he was still in the yard installing the sign when the first news van rolled up, this one from Fox 17. Watching Lou and the falling snow through a barely cracked window blind, Will considered going outside, after all. Fox
had given him coverage for both books, and he recognized the reporter.

“That’s Michelle DePalma,” Alison said, now standing next to Will and peeking out. “She looks a little older in person.”

“I told you that,” Will said, watching Lou shake the reporter’s hand. The van drove away just a few minutes after arriving, and Lou went back to his sign. “She’s really nice, though.”

“She was. She might not be so nice now. I bet a lot of people that we thought were nice are going to treat us differently. The paper and television are going to make Alex into a monster, especially if the other people aren’t caught.”

Alison closed her eyes for a moment, like she was bearing down against a sharp pain. When she opened them, they were burning into him. “God,” she said, “I just realized how bad I want them to get caught. And not just for Alex, either. They did something really horrible, and not only to our family or Alex. All those people who died at that bank. All their families.”

Again, she shut her eyes against the hurt in her. When she opened them this time, they were huge and wet. They broke his heart. “They got Alex into a situation where he was doing things that he never would have done,” she said, almost whispering now, “and then they killed him.”

“It’s awful,” Will agreed, aware for the first time of the rage building in him. Anger was an emotion he’d gotten skilled at suppressing—booze worked well, writing even better—but now he was angry like he’d been through most of the latter, bitter years of his youth. It had a taste, like iron in his mouth.
What if they don’t catch them, and I spend the rest of my life wondering who was with my boy when he died, wondering
why
they killed him, wondering if he knew he was going to die?
Will’s mind wandered to the Sig 1911, and he knew in his heart that, given the chance, he could and would kill the person who had done this to Alex.

Lou waved at them, got into his Cadillac SUV, and drove away. When the truck for News 8 showed up, Will let the blinds fall closed and left the room. Alison followed him.

“When will Isaac be here?” she asked his back.

“As soon as he’s able, from the sound of things.”

“Good,” she said, grabbing Will, spinning him around and wrapping her arms around him. “I’m scared, Will. You keep getting this look on your face, and it’s not a good look. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but when I said I wanted those bastards caught, I meant by the law.” She tightened her grip on him and said into his chest, “You need to remember that you’re a bartender turned writer. You haven’t been in a fistfight in years, you’re going to see fifty before you see forty again, and the law is going to handle these guys when they find them. No matter what happens, you need to accept it, even if it’s not enough to satisfy either one of us.”

Will nodded but knew he was lying when he did. He had a hard streak in him. Those things don’t go away; they lay dormant until they’re needed. Like a housewife able to lift a car off of a trapped child, Will knew in his heart that if he had half a chance, he would kill the men who had hurt his son.

W
ill offered to help Isaac carry his stuff in, but his brother had only brought one bag and insisted that Will stay in the house.
Once he was settled into Will’s office as a temporary bedroom, Isaac assembled with Will and Allison at the kitchen table. Will laid out what Lou had told him, and Isaac agreed with all of it.

“Well, these are about the worst possible circumstances,” said Isaac, “but it is nice to see you both. It’s been too long.”

“We’ve all been busy,” Will said. “That’s just how it is when you get old.”

“And we’ve all accepted that’s how things are supposed to be,” said Alison, “that’s the real problem.” She took a napkin from a caddie at the center of the table, wiping both eyes and then blowing her nose into it. “I’m glad you were able to come be with us, Isaac. It means a lot. How’s Daisy?”

“Daisy’s good. She sends her love. She wanted to come, but I told her this wasn’t the trip she needed to make. Besides, she has classes all week, and she only gets so much time off. I, however, wouldn’t have missed this for anything. Have either of you two eaten since you found out what happened?” Will and Alison shook their heads, and Isaac stood up. “Well, no one ever accused me of being Tom Colicchio, but I imagine I can whip up some food for us. And I don’t want to hear any crap about not being hungry; of course you’re not hungry, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to eat.”

Isaac set to banging around in their cupboards, and neither Will nor Alison stood to help. Alison took his hand and squeezed it, but Will felt nothing from the gesture, no warmth, just the rage building in his stomach, and he knew that, eventually, he was going to need to release it on something.

The doorbell rang constantly despite Lou’s sign, but none of them answered it, nor did they check to see who was standing on the stoop. Both Will and Alison’s phones rang constantly as well, and after the second reporter called, Isaac switched Will’s inbox message to what Lou had suggested.

The two brothers talked little to each other, the old frigidity coming back without effort. Alison seemed not to notice, but Will knew that she could see the divide growing slowly between them. Try as he might, Will knew that Isaac held him at least partially responsible for what had happened to Alex, and knowing that his older brother was right, and polite enough not to mention it, made Will resent him even more, whether it was fair or not.

They slept a fitful sleep, Will with unspeakable and thankfully unremembered nightmares, Alison tossing and turning at his side.

T
he second day went the same as the first.
Alison was quiet, the two brothers’ interactions with each other forced. Lou called twice, once to see how they were doing, the next to schedule a meeting for the following afternoon to prepare a press release.

Late in the morning, Will’s cell phone rang for what felt like the thousandth time. This time, the screen said Kent County Sheriff’s Department. Will answered immediately.

“This is Will Daniels.”

“Mr. Daniels, this is Detective Van Endel.”

“Do you have information on my son?”

Isaac and Alison had gone dead silent; a pin dropping would have been an explosion in the kitchen.

“Is your wife with you? I’m comfortable with being on speaker if you want her to be able to hear this right from me.”

“She is, so is my brother, but this fine.”

“All right. Mr. Daniels, this is going to sound like bad news. It’s not—at least not all bad—but it’s probably not what you were hoping to hear. First off, your son’s remains are going to continue to be analyzed by the medical examiner for at least three more days.”

“I was hoping to hear you’d caught them. Anything else is all the same to me.”

“Your son was shot with a revolver made by the Brazilian firearm manufacturer Taurus; it’s a gun called ‘the Judge,’ and it’s basically a shotgun in pistol form.”

“How is that legal? I thought shotguns had to be a certain size.”

“This Judge pistol rides a legal tightrope, because it has a slightly rifled barrel and can fire pistol rounds along with shotgun shells. It’s perfectly legal. Now, here’s where the problem starts. Your son was killed by a four-ten shotgun self-defense load. Turns out, even if the Judge had fired a bullet, it wouldn’t have carried identifiable rifling marks, but the point’s completely moot with a shotgun round. Pellets are pellets.”

“So it would be impossible to tell exactly which pistol was used to shoot my son.”

“Yes, precisely,” said Van Endel. “And of course, that’s not the news you were hoping to get. That said, there’s only been two other felonies committed with a Judge revolver in the state of Michigan in the last twelve months. One of them was a father who shot his daughter’s boyfriend in the stomach and groin with birdshot; the other is a still-unsolved murder that took place about three weeks ago. A sixteen-year-old alleged prostitute named Cassidy Reynolds was shot in the back of the head with a Judge. Just as interesting, her body was burned, with gasoline used as an accelerant, like it was with Alex. And the body was found in Kent County.”

Will sucked in air through his teeth, his heart pounding in his chest and his mind racing. “So you think that whoever killed that girl was involved with Alex’s death?”

Van Endel snorted. “Hell of a coincidence that the only two unsolved crimes involving one of those pistols took place in the same county, and both on the north end. The problem is that, even if we caught the guy who killed them with the pistol, the gun is basically unlinkable to the crimes. What that means for your son, the girl, and our still-unidentified suspect is that he is going to have to trip up massively in some other way to get caught.

“The plus side, men who rob banks aren’t known for good decision making after the fact. First of all, nearly all of the money they stole was marked. If so much as one of those bills turns up again, we’ll be able to trace exactly where it was spent, and likely by whom. Secondly, these guys—as messed up as it may sound—are going to be proud of what they did. They’re not going to be able to keep it to themselves. Bragging to women, that sort of thing. Luckily for us, that sort of bragging makes the wrong kind of impression on most people, especially women. Third, they might try and pull off something like this again. And maybe they’ll make some mistake doing it.”

“But you weren’t able to find any mistakes they made this time.”

“Not yet,” sighed Van Endel. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you, but I figure honesty is the best policy at this point. Speaking of which, is there anything you wanted to tell me about your own history? I know you’re a bit removed from that scene, but I have to ask.”

Will felt himself redden, shocked to have this soft accusation placed at his feet by the detective, but both the surprise and anger faded quickly. He stood from the table and left the dining room, covering the bottom of the phone with his right hand and ignoring the reactions of his wife and brother.