The Intersection of Purgatory and Paradise (17 page)

Doug bit the inside of his cheek until the taste of copper filled his mouth. When his relationship with Leon crumbled, he’d been alone. He’d never told anyone what had happened to him, not until Christopher. The shame had kept him silent, but how much worse would it have been for a teenager? A kid who thought his parents loved and trusted him only to find that, instead of protecting him and helping him heal, they’d turned on him and defended his attackers. They’d accused him of lying, obviously neglected to get him any medical attention, and ignored every cry for help his behavior had broadcast.

He glanced at her tear-stained cheeks and opened the case file. He turned to the second page of the coroner’s report, found the section he was looking for, and set it on the counter. “A state forensics pathologist from Helena performed your son’s autopsy, Mrs. Owens. The reason was because the coroner found extensive scarring within his anal canal, scarring that indicates he suffered a violent rape that left him with significant internal injuries. The pathologist concluded the scar tissue was approximately six months old and therefore not a factor that might have contributed to his death. Not directly, anyway.”

“That’s impossible,” she said simply. “He was watched while he was in treatment, and—”

“Six months old,” Doug repeated. “The types of scars your son ended up with came from wounds that would have taken weeks to heal. Did he ever go to a doctor after he came to you and told you he’d been beaten up on the bus?”

“Well, I’m sure David would have—”

“Laxatives,” Doug sneered. “I read about a case where a young man in Florida survived a similar assault. He practically starved himself for months afterward, trying to live off liquids because every bowel movement he had for months was excruciating.”

“But that can’t be right….” She picked up the report, holding it close to her face as she scanned each line frantically. The words were there, spelled out in black and white.

“He came to you for help,” Doug said in disgust. “And instead of taking him to a doctor, you and your husband decided he was making things up. He had to resort to using drugs and stealing medication he should have been given in a hospital.”

“Get out,” she hissed. She stood up so fast, the stool she’d been sitting on fell over backward. The tears that had been trickling down her cheeks became a thin stream, fed by the gasping sobs that came from deep in her throat. “Get out!” She picked up her half-empty glass of iced tea and flung it over the kitchen island. It shattered against the refrigerator, the liquid dripping down the stainless steel.

“Ma’am,” Doug said as gently as he could manage in his current state of mind. “You can still do something to help Caleb. Help me bring his attackers to justice. I cannot bring him back, but I can do my best to make sure they answer for what they did. But I can’t do anything without knowing who they were. Do you know the names of the guys who attacked him?”

She folded her arms around herself and sank to the floor, her shocked expression giving way to agony.

“Please? He came to you for help. Help him now.”

“Jeff, Levi, and Michael,” she cried. “Jeff Lowe. Levi
Campbell and Michael Harris.”

Doug knew he wouldn’t forget the first name as long as he lived. But he scribbled the second and third on his notepad just in case.

“But he said….” She shook her head again and squeezed her eyes shut. “He said he made it up! He said it was a mistake! How can….”

He stared down at her, his pain and fury evaporating as her sobs echoed around the perfect home. His stomach wrenched with guilt as he replayed his own words in his head. He’d just told the mother of a recent suicide victim that she was all but responsible for her son’s death. He was suddenly glad he’d refused the iced tea she’d offered because he was pretty sure he’d be throwing it up all over her carpet right now.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “I…. Mrs. Owens,” he knelt down and touched her shoulder gently. “I am sorry. I’m so sorry. I…. Can I call your husband?” She kept wailing, ignoring him. “I’m going to call someone,” he promised.

Doug looked around, desperately trying to spot an organizer or an address book, but there was nothing. Then, on the fridge, he noticed a magnetic calendar with the logo of the Mission Mountains Evangelical Church. It was just his luck the Owens family were members of the Mission Mountains congregation. Doug had never gone to a service there, but since Christopher’s brother had worked at the church his entire time in Elkin, he’d met the minister once or twice.

A
N
HOUR
later, the Owens house was filled with a dozen older women. They’d come bearing casseroles, mason jars filled with homemade soup, and cleaning products. The previously spotless home was restored to its pristine state, the fridge was stocked, and Mrs. Owens was hovered over protectively.

Reverend Liedes, a giant of a man who tended to wear white wool and tweed suits even in the heat of summer, ushered Doug out, sat him on the curb, and went to provide what comfort he could. It wasn’t long before the horde of women he’d brought with him shooed Liedes outside too.

The moment the man sat down beside him, Doug told him everything he’d said to the poor woman, burying his face in his hands so he couldn’t see the outrage he was certain would be on the reverend’s face.

Reverend Liedes listened silently, his massive hand on Doug’s shoulder. “Son,” he said when Doug had finally finished, “I can understand how you might see a reflection of your Christopher in young Caleb. I can understand how the desire to protect the innocent can be strong and hard to ignore. But there were kinder ways to have that conversation.”

“Chris? No, I….” Doug took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then gave up. “Me. Hearing about it, knowing what really happened, it brought back some bad memories of my own. I… I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Oh.” Liedes squeezed his shoulder a bit tighter. “If these memories are going to make it difficult for you to work on cases like this, you’re going to have to come to terms with them. I know your young man absolutely hates me, but if you need someone to talk to about it, I’m right here in town.”

“No.”

“I could recommend someone else, too.”

“No.”

Liedes didn’t move his hand. “Suit yourself.”

“You say that like it’s normal,” Doug muttered.

“Hmm?”

“You said ‘my young man’ like it’s….” Doug wasn’t even sure what it was.

“Isn’t it?” Liedes asked. “And if it isn’t normal yet, I dare say the world would be a kinder place if more people thought it was.”

“It’s not like it’s going to change. Not here.”

“I know you don’t believe what you’re saying. We’re all in a position to reshape this world. It’s almost funny to think the very man who’s reshaped this town’s notions of men from the reservation hasn’t considered tackling the problem of homophobia the same way.”

“I think one failed crusade is enough,” Doug said bitterly. “Besides, I doubt I’m going to have to worry about working another case like this again. When the sheriff hears about this, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be out of a job.”

“You think he’d fire you? For being….”

“Cruel? I would,” Doug said, nodding. “If I were in his position, I would.” He turned to look back at the quiet house. “Is she going to be okay?”

“You told her the truth. You were cruel about it, I won’t deny that. But it’s still the truth. She’ll be okay eventually.”

An old pickup truck pulled up behind the line of cars now outside the Owens home, and a rumpled man in heavy work clothes climbed out, surveying the vehicles.

“I guess that’d be Mr. Owens?” Doug asked, shifting to stand up.

“Son,” Liedes shoved him back down on the curb with ease, “no offense intended, but, let me.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“You done here?” Liedes asked, hoisting himself to his feet.

“Oh yes. It would take blowing something up for me to turn this into more of a mess than I just did,” Doug said.

A flash of blue and red caught his attention right before he heard the siren. Another cruiser pulled to a stop beside his. Jackson, his uniform jacket hanging open, scrambled out of the cruiser and hurried to him. “You are still here! Thank God! We’ve been trying to get you on the radio, and you weren’t answering your phone.”

“When I still had an active brain cell functioning in my head, I thought it might be rude to have my phone ring during a somber conversation.”

Jackson raised a single eyebrow. “What?”

“I just made a colossal ass of myself,” Doug explained. “What’s up?”

“Everything is falling apart,” Jackson said seriously. “There’s….” He glanced toward Reverend Liedes and Mr. Owens warily, but they were already heading into the house. “Your boyfriend found a dead body taped to a goal post on the high school football field, and Marshall’s got him in custody.”

Doug stared up at Jackson, trying to digest what he’d just said. “Custody?”

“Yeah. Because the first body was found out at your place, and he’d assaulted Chris a few days before, and him and Coach Peterson called in the second body.”

Doug took a deep breath, once again grateful he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink, and climbed to his feet. He ran his hands through his hair and wondered how fucked-up the day could still become. There was only one way to find out. “Was it Harris or Campbell?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“The body. Was it Levi Campbell or Michael Harris?”

Jackson’s mouth dropped open. “How?”

“Which one?” Doug asked.

“Campbell. Levi Campbell.”

“Crap,” Doug said half to himself. “I think it’s time to go talk to the sheriff.”

“But what about Chris?”

“What about him? I’m not going to say something stupid like I know he’d never kill somebody. I saw him kill Sheriff Brubaker. But I know him. If he’s responsible, he had a reason. And if he’s not, which is pretty damn likely since he was with me at the Super 8 all night, the evidence will prove it.”

“You’re assuming Marshall is actually looking for evidence,” Jackson muttered.

Doug shook his head with certainty. “I try not to assume anything. It’s safer that way.”

Jackson stared at him, understanding slowly dawning across his far too young face. “Take whatever you’ve got to Daniels. I’ll… I’ll go see if the hotel will hand over any security footage. What times were you there? What room?”

Doug was surprised. “Eight last night until about seven this morning. The security camera from the second floor hallway.”

“I’ll get the footage,” Jackson promised.

D
OUG
WENT
straight to the sheriff’s office. For the millionth time, he suppressed his memories of seeing Greg Brubaker, the former sheriff, sitting behind the desk with his feet propped up, smiling like he was actually Doug’s friend. Every time he saw Daniels sitting behind the same desk, he had to crush the surge of anger and distrust that swept through him. Daniels wasn’t Brubaker. Daniels wasn’t the man who’d tried to kill Christopher because he was Peter Hayes’s brother. But when he saw Daniels in Brubaker’s old office he couldn’t help but remember they’d been friends too. But with what he’d just learned, he didn’t have the luxury of waiting to confide in someone he trusted anyway.

“You got a minute?” Doug asked, leaning in through the open door.

Daniels stared at him, eyes wide with disbelief. “You don’t look angry.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not angry? Haven’t heard about Hayes yet, then?”

“I heard,” Doug said. “But something more important has come up.”

“More important than your significant other being arrested for murder?”

Doug stared at him, trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. “You know he didn’t do it.”

“The smart money is on the county attorney refusing to bring charges. Get in here. Tell me what’s more important than Hayes sitting in my jail.”

“You told me about the Caleb Owens assault,” Doug began, sitting in one of the old chairs in front of the desk. “It was Marshall’s case, wasn’t it?”

“It was. So?”

“How’d you get involved?” Doug asked.

“Owens got picked up for shoplifting about a week after the initial report. He was still bruised pretty badly. I wanted to know why, so I reviewed the case file. I interviewed the kid a few times, tried to get him to give another statement about the assault. He just kept repeating everything that was in Marshall’s report, almost word for word. It felt off, but I couldn’t get anything else out of him.”

“That’s consistent with Mrs. Owens’s account of events, too. I need you to call Harris and have him join us for this,” Doug said.

“Harris? He’s down at the school. Most everybody is.”

Doug nodded emphatically. “Harris. Just Harris. Daniels, please trust me right now. This is important.”

“How important?”

“If I were to say it’s a matter of life or death, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration.”

Daniels reached for the radio, his eyes narrow with suspicion, then grabbed his phone instead.

Doug gave him a grateful nod.

Using the radio, while habit for all of them, would have meant every other deputy in Elkin would hear Daniels ask Harris to come in. When he was off the phone, Daniels glared at Doug again. “All right, Heavy Runner. We got a couple minutes at best, and I don’t like being blindsided. What’s this about?”

Doug set Caleb Owens’s case file down on the desk and filled him in fast.

“You made her cry?” Daniels asked when he described coaxing the names of the alleged perpetrators out of Mrs. Owens.

“I screwed that up,” Doug admitted. “And if she wants to file a complaint, I’ll save you the trouble of having to deal with it. Hell, call this my two weeks’ notice. You can say you dealt with it proactively. But for now, we need to sort this out. In the week since Caleb Owens killed himself, two of the three boys who were probably responsible for raping him have been found dead. Is it that much of a stretch to assume the third might be next?”