“When was the last time you saw John?” Officer Clapton asked Tim.
“At Susan Zimmerman’s party a few nights ago,” Tim said. “I was there for a little bit with Chelsea, Matt, George, and Al. We didn’t stay long. I don’t think we barely spoke two words with John.”
“Did you see Gordon and his friends hang out with John that night?”
Tim thought about it. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember. He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t even know he was missing until you told me he was dead.”
There was a lull in Tim’s narrative for a moment. Diane and Pat conferred quietly with each other, then Pat whispered something to Detective Andrews. Officer Clapton tried to smile in encouragement at the Gaines family. Dad and their lawyer were talking quietly while Mom patted Tim’s hand. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she told him.
Tim nodded and tried to feel better about everything. That was hard to do when he wasn’t entirely convinced Chelsea was safe and Gordon and his friends were in custody.
“What happened this morning?” Tim asked.
Detective Andrews nodded at Officer Clapton.
“We have several people missing from a cul de sac near Zuck’s Woods,” Officer Clapton said. “One of the 911 calls said a neighbor was trying to break in to her house. When I arrived I made my way around the rear of the property and saw John lying on the ground. At first I didn’t know what I was looking at, but then I saw his arm. It was moving. Like something out of a horror movie. The hand was dragging itself along. Like this.” Clapton demonstrated by crab-walking his hand across the conference room table. “That’s when I made out it was a body and that the pieces…they were all moving. I didn’t know who it was at first until my partner shot the shit out of it and stopped it.”
“So it was moving?” Tim asked.
“It was trying to get me!” Officer Clapton’s voice was adamant. He fixed Tim with a stare that told him he was serious.
“His partner can verify this,” Detective Andrews said. “I wouldn’t have believed it either if other officers didn’t see it.”
“You don’t know what happened to these people?” Tim asked.
“No, but it doesn’t look good,” Detective Andrews said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“The State Police are investigating,” Diane said. “I’m sorry we can’t reveal more, but we’re trying to keep as tight a lid on this as we can. We don’t want to start any kind of panic.”
“What the hell is going on?” The tone of Tim’s voice must have cut through the beauracracy because Diane and Pat started slightly. They glanced at each other and Pat nodded at Diane.
“We believe the people missing have met with foul play,” Diane said. “Their residences are empty, in some cases there are signs of a struggle. The State Police are organizing searches in Zuck’s woods.”
“Send somebody out to the Bradfield place,” Tim said. He could feel his heart racing with the urgency. “Do it now.”
As if the law enforcement personnel present sensed his urgency, they all rose as one. Tim and his parents got up too, along with Doug Fenner. Detective Andrews exited the room while Officer Clapton addressed the Gaines family. “We’ll get a team of Detectives out to the Bradfield residence and we’ll have officers pick up Scott’s friends.”
“If the State Police are searching Zuck’s Woods, they should look for places that appear to have been dug up recently,” Tim said. “Gordon said the area he held the ritual in was where he and his friends buried those homeless men.”
Officer Clapton nodded. “We’ll get them. Don’t worry.”
Pat stepped forward. “I think until we can formally have the arrest warrant withdrawn through the court, Tim should remain at Brendan Hall in protective custody.”
Naomi looked like she was going to protest but Doug put his hand on her shoulder. “I’d like that withdrawal faxed to my office by noon.”
“You got it,” Pat said.
As they filed out of the interrogation room with his parents on either side of him, Detective Andrews said, “We’ll get a team out to the Bradfield residence and we’ll have Gordon, Steve, and David picked up and brought in for questioning. Don’t worry Mr. and Mrs. Gaines, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“You’d better,” Naomi said.
“Let me know when Chelsea is safe too,” Tim said. He caught Officer Clapton’s gaze in the hallway. The officer nodded.
And then Tim was led back into the cell he’d spent last night in. His parents hugged him one last time and then he was ushered inside. Detective Andrews poked his head inside quickly. “Are you hungry? Can I get you anything from the cafeteria?”
At the mention of food, Tim’s stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten a thing since last night. “Yeah, I am.”
“I’ll bring you some breakfast. Be right back.”
And with that, the door was closed. Tim sat down, then got up again and began pacing the room, unable to get Chelsea out of his mind and hoping against all odds that she was safe.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Scott Bradfield had a feeling Tim Gaines would rat on Gordon, so he’d done the only logical thing he could think of. He told his father that the fuckwad was cooking up another bullshit scheme, another lame attempt at discrediting and defaming him.
Tom Bradfield listened as Scott told him a simplified story of what he’d made up shortly after talking to Dave and Gord early this morning. He’d been woken out of a sound sleep by his cell phone after a rousing night of bong hits and sex at Rebecca’s house. He’d snatched the phone up and was instantly awake when Gordon told him what happened between him and Tim.
There was no doubt Count Gaines’s parents would hound the DA about pursuing criminal charges against Gordon. That was what Gordon was trying to warn him about and Scott agreed with him. “If they come after me, they might come poking around at your place,” Gordon had told him. “And I ain’t going to say anything — you know me better than that — but you have to know that even if I do everything I can to steer them away from going to your place, they’re going to do it anyway. And I don’t want them to find the zombies.”
That had been the pisser, the thought that the cops would find the zombies. Thinking about it infuriated Scott, but he’d quickly calmed down and told Gordon he would take care of it. Then he thanked him for the warning. “Don’t mention it,” Gordon had said. “I told Count that if the cops came around our places, that his girlfriend Chelsea would be hurt.”
“You
“I just wanted to scare him, okay?” Gordon had protested. “I didn’t mean anything by it!”
Despite the fact that such a threat was something Scott would have levied against Tim himself, he didn’t like the idea of Gordon pulling something like this. He wondered how it was handled; did Tim take the threat seriously? Would he tell the cops Gordon had threatened Chelsea? If Tim’s folks got involved, the cops were bound to find out. “You better get ready to start denying you ever told him that shit,” Scott advised Gordon. He hadn’t been in the mood, nor in the proper space, to unleash his anger fully at Gordon — he’d retreated to the end of the hall near the lone bathroom at that end of the house for privacy. “Listen, we’ll talk about this later. In the meantime, call David and tell him what’s going on. I’ll take care of things here.”
“What are you going to do?”
Scott didn’t have an answer for Gordon at the time, but he assured him the problem would be taken care of.
Tom Bradfield listened patiently as Scott told his father about Tim Gaines attempting to blackmail Gordon Smith, how it all went back to that horror novel Gaines claimed he’d loaned to Gordon being found at the cemetery
