The kid who entered looked younger than nineteen. Stringy blond hair, surfer cool, hooded, stoned eyes. When he saw Byrne he must have figured him for a cop, and he shoved his right hand deep into his baggy shorts. Dope pocket.
'How ya doin?' the kid mumbled.
'Good, thanks,' Byrne said. 'Are you Jason?'
The kid looked up, shocked, like there was no way that Byrne could have possibly gotten this information. 'Yeah.' Barely audible. The kid leaned back on his heels, as if that might increase the distance between them. Jessica could smell the marijuana on his clothes from ten feet away.
'Kenny's dead,' Sharon Beckman said, walking back into the room, a pair of old snapshots in her hand. She handed them to Jessica.
Jason stared at his mother, blinking. It was as if the words hadn't yet reached his brain. 'Dead?'
'Yeah. Like in not alive anymore?'
Jessica looked at the kid. No reaction.
Over the next few minutes Byrne asked Jason the basic questions, got the expected answers. Jason said he had not seen his stepfather in more than three days.
'Once again, we're sorry for your loss,' Byrne said to them both, putting away his notebook. He dropped a pair of business cards on the cluttered coffee table. 'If you think of anything that might help us, please call.'
They walked the half-block to the car, adrift on their own thoughts, sizing up the subdued reactions of Beckman's widow and stepson. It was not the usual response they got from notification, to say the least.
The temperature had dropped a few degrees since they had entered the Beckman house. The rain continued, getting colder. For the first time that year, it felt as if it might snow.
In the parking lot at the Roundhouse they saw Josh Bontrager getting into one of the detective cars. Spotting them, Bontrager closed the door and crossed the lot. Dennis Stansfield, already in the car, wisely stayed put.
'What's up, Josh?' Byrne asked.
'Have you made notification yet?'
'Just did. What do you have?'
'I ran Kenneth Beckman,' Bontrager said. 'A couple of things jumped out.'
'Such as?'
'Well, at one time he was a person of interest.'
Bontrager meant that the deceased had been looked at by the police for some sort of crime.
'What was the job?' Jessica asked.
'A homicide.'
Jessica felt her pulse kick up a notch. 'This guy was looked at for a murder? When was this?'
'2002.'
'How far did the investigation go?'
'They had him in, but I guess he didn't roll,' Bontrager said. 'The detective working the case kept an eye on the guy for a few years, made a few more notes, but then it went cold. Nothing in the file since '06.'
'Who was the victim?'
Bontrager pulled out his notebook. 'A nineteen-year-old girl named Antoinette Chan. Cause of death was multiple blunt-force trauma. Weapon was a claw hammer found at the scene. The weapon had been wiped clean of prints.'
'What was the date?' Jessica asked.
Bontrager flipped a few pages. 'March 21, 2002.'
A cold finger traced a path along Jessica's spine. It was the date that the old codgers had mentioned earlier. She shot a look at Byrne, who also seemed transfixed by the information.
'I'm going to take a ride over to Record Storage, get the whole story,' Bontrager said.
'We'll do it,' Byrne said. 'Check out the next of kin in the Chan family, see where they are, who they are. If they held Beckman responsible they may be worth looking at.'
'No problem.'
Josh Bontrager got into the car, drove away, a stone-faced Dennis Stansfield in the passenger seat.
'What do you think?' Jessica asked.
Byrne took a few moments to answer. He absently ran a finger over the small V-shaped scar located above his right eye, a keloid souvenir of the time he had been grazed by a bullet years ago. Jessica knew this meant the wheels were turning.
'I think we need to see that original file.' He looked at his watch. 'But first I want to have another word with the lovely and talented Mrs. Beckman.' He looked back at Jessica. 'Funny she didn't mention any of this.'
'Right. When I asked her if she knew who might have done this and she said 'Look in the fucking mirror' I didn't really get it. Now I do. She blames the police.'
'What a rarity,' Byrne said. 'And she seemed so nice.'
'Real debutante,' Jessica said. 'I'll run checks on her and the stoned kid. See where they were and what they were doing in March '02.'
'I'll meet you at Record Storage,' Byrne said. 'Call me if she has any wants or warrants. I don't care if Sharon Beckman did just lose her husband. I'd love to toss her in a cage for a while.'
'Oh, please,' Jessica said. 'You just like putting women in handcuffs.'
Chapter 12
In the first ten minutes after the police left her house, Sharon Beckman found she couldn't move. She stood by the front door, paralyzed.
Jason went back out. God only knew what he did these days. What Jason had not told the cops was that the last time he had seen Kenny the two had gotten into a fist fight. The last thing Jason had said to his stepfather was 'If you ever touch me again I'm going to fucking kill you.'
That was not something you told the police. She knew Jason would never do anything like that, but they didn't.
The house was quiet.
Kenny was dead.
Sharon knew she was supposed to be feeling something, something akin to grief, something like heartache, but she didn't. All she felt was a faint cold fear. And the knowledge that she had to move. Fast.
From right when she'd first met Kenny, Sharon had known it was all going to fall apart one day. It wasn't like she didn't know who he was when they'd met, what kind of life she was getting into. She was no angel herself. But eight years ago, when Kenny had robbed all those houses and put himself on the police radar, she'd known a day like this would come.
When she had set fire to the house on Lenox Avenue, back in 2002, destroying all that evidence, she'd known she'd pay for it some day. Today. She had been a little sorry that the whole block had gone up in flames, but no one had got hurt. She didn't lose much sleep over it. There was no love lost between her and her neighbors on Lenox Avenue anyway. Fucking lowlife crackheads.
She turned around three times in the living room, trying to organize her thoughts, trying to think straight.
She should have left a long time ago. When cops followed up on things it was a clear sign that they had you in their sights. Cops always knew a lot more than they let on. It was like those jobs she used to go on with her father when she was small. Her dad would work on somebody's plumbing, and when he was all done he'd turn the water back on and slide a sheet of newspaper under the pipes. If one drop of water fell, blotting out on the paper, the job was shit. Her father would always tear it out and start over. If there was one solitary drop there was certain to be more.
Same thing with cops.
Drip, drip, drip.
Then they had you.
