An Incidental Reckoning (34 page)

She drove slowly, and Jon staggered out from behind a garage situated beneath a burnt out streetlight, and nearly fell into the passenger seat. She glanced around, but nobody paid any attention to them at all beyond quick dismissive glances, all eyes fixed on the show over the hill.

After a fierce, unthinking hug that brought a cry of agony, followed with apologies and kisses, Erin found her way back to route five. She had an idea where to find Jon's car, and if they could claim this link in the chain that led back to them, she dared to hope that maybe, after all they had endured, they could finally go on with their lives.

Chapter 24

A week had passed since their journey home. They spent the time in the evenings together, waiting for their world to unravel. Jon didn't dare hope he could maintain such a run of luck in getting away with everything.

Again.

Several times he had picked up the phone with intent to call the police and turn himself in, do his best to explain. But with Will and Brody both dead, and the lack of anything to tie him to the crime besides Will's partner, he had gently set the phone back down into the cradle, never wholly convinced of the right course. But then, he hadn’t known that since the collision with Brody in the park.

That his wife had followed him, and had shot Will dead believing him to be Brody, Jon still worked to come to grips with. The thought of her putting herself in harm's way without his knowledge had angered him at first, but he couldn't deny his pride in her strength and marvel at her devotion to him.
Would you have let me go alone?
she had asked him, her arms crossed in a pose of defiance. He didn't answer, but they both knew the answer anyway.

He had stared at the picture of Will, the photo taken by the armored car company at the start of his employment donated for display in every imaginable media outlet, and tried to understand what had happened to his friend, as though he could sit on his couch and visually dissect his likeness to extract the parts gone bad. He hadn't gotten past the anger and betrayal, but he found a small store of pity inside that grew each time they brought up the case again. He felt especially bad for Will's son, Justin, who would grow up with his own questions of decidedly more weight, forced to bear that burden on small shoulders not built for the load.

Will had not only been blamed for the armored car robbery- he and an unknown accomplice - but new evidence tied him to a daylight burglary of a hardware store in the town of Loudenville, and the subsequent murder of a local man that had chased after him. The store owner, after realizing Will’s physical description matched the man that had robbed him, contacted police. Will's Toyota fit the eyewitness account of the carthat had fled the scene, and an analysis of his tires matched some tracks they had casted while processing the crime scene.

Jon thought back to the warehouse: certain they had him, praying fervently with his face pushed into the cold, grimy floor by Will’s partner. And then his boot had suddenly lifted. At the sound of the sirens, Terrence had wandered towards the door, stood swaying as though entranced by the music they made, and then collapsed. Jon had the presence of mind to pick up his flashlight and find the shotgun and then had run as quickly as his injuries allowed, finding a hole in the fence and shambling away, each deep breath an agony but so pumped with adrenaline that he managed a safe but tenuous distance between himself and the authorities.

The police didn’t even have a description of him, Terrence’s memory fuzzy about anything after being struck with the pistol with only a vague recollection of assaulting Jon.

Jon had explained his injuries to his boss at work as the result of a fall from his bike over the weekend, and was assigned light duty while he healed. He didn't bother with the emergency room (Erin wrote him a not on paper pilfered from her boss’ stationary, their last intentional crime), knowing they couldn't do anything for bruised or broken ribs, and reluctant to reveal a bruise in the shape of a man's size 13 boot to arouse suspicions of any kind.

Another week passed, and Jon’s fear and conscience eased as they moved further away from it all. He’d wanted to think that they escaped unscathed, but they both knew better than that. But they would go on. They had learned that about themselves. They could go on.

Jon sat on the couch on Saturday afternoon, flipping idly through the channels on television. His ribs were still sore, but not nearly as much, and he looked forward to things being normal soon. Or whatever passed for that, these days.

The phone rang, and he picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Jon Albridge? This is Detective Manning of the State Police. We spoke several months ago, if you recall?”

A stone dropped into Jon’s stomach and for a moment he lost the ability to speak.

“Jon? You okay?”

“Yes. Yes, Detective. What can I do for you? I told you everything I knew the last…”

“I’m actually in town, right down the street at the BP station, and wondered if I could stop by for a visit. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Jon froze again. Seemed like any answer was the wrong one. If he had nothing to hide, then why refuse a visit? If he seemed too eager, it might imply he had something to hide.

“Listen, Jon. I’m off duty, and this isn’t an official visit. I just want to talk.”

“Okay, sure,” he said, not sure at all.

He hung up the phone and called Erin, and they sat together on the couch, shoulder to shoulder and holding hands, waiting for a knock on the door.

After the offer of a drink that Manning declined, Jon and Erin sat back down on the couch, and Manning settled into the recliner facing them. He was in his mid or late fifties, with salt and pepper hair and looked to have skipped a shave this morning, unless he cultivated an image to heighten his gruff and weathered persona. He reached to the cigarette shaped bulge in the breast pocket of his dress shirt but paused and let his hand drop. Jon noticed how thick and stubby his fingers were. His pants, a pair of khakis, were clean but rumpled. Manning looked at them both in turn, holding their eyes, and both Jon and his wife returned the gaze without flinching, tension like an electrical charge building in the space between them.

“So, big happenings up in Erie, huh? Your friend Will turned out to be quite the character.”

Jon nodded slowly, buying time to steady his voice. “A shock to me too, Detective. I don’t know what happened, never thought he’d be capable of doing anything like that. I guess you can never really know someone.” Jon shut his mouth before he started rambling.

“I guess not. But what really interests me is the accomplice they haven’t found. And the fact that Will was shot dead, but all of the money remained in his trunk. Every penny accounted for.”

“Should Jon have a lawyer here, Detective? You say you’re not here officially, but I don’t like the way this is going.”

Manning waved away her concerns.

“No, Mrs. Albridge. Just let me think out loud, here. And when I’m done, we’ll pretend this conversation never happened. But I'm
not
going to pretend I'm stupid. You don’t have to answer any questions, or offer any statements. Just listen. Of course, if you want a lawyer, we could do that. But then it would need to become official business.”

"What do you want, Detective?"

"Jim. Call me Jim, please. Since I'm not here as a cop, I don't need any titles. I just used it over the phone to get your attention."

Jon tried to relax but his body refused, couldn’t understand what game Manning played, and therefore the rules, and especially the potential fouls and penalties.

“Okay, Jim,” he said.

“So let me tell you what I know. An inventory of Brody Stape’s belongings turned up a motorcycle registered to Chris Rothfield. And you know, of course, that Chris Rothfield disappeared several months ago at Ravensburg State Park. Because you helped to search for him.”

Erin squeezed his hand and opened her mouth, but Manning again waved his hand dismissively.

“I don’t want any statements of affirmation or denial. I’m just laying things out here. Please, you can trust me.”

Erin slumped back in her seat, and Jon had to wrench his hand away from her grip before she added new broken bones to his now-healing injuries.

“I did some digging, and found that Mr. Stape, and both you and Mr. Roup, spent time together in the same high school. Here in Tanville. So the meeting could have been a coincidence, or not. Now, with this much to go on, if it were official business, I wouldn’t be here just to chat. If I came, it would be with warrants, and I would advise you to have a lawyer present, as I’m not a big fan of coincidences.

“But a news story caught my eye. A convenience store was robbed that same weekend, and not too far away. And about a week or so later, the clerk receives a written apology from one of the thieves in the mail, and the company receives cash in an envelope, the exact sum stolen. I went and talked to that clerk myself, and his description of a tall, thin man holding the gun is close enough to Mr. Roup to be more than coincidental, I think. I can’t prove it and I’m not even going to try. It’s not my case. None of this, except for the disappearance of Chris Rothfield.”

He paused to clear his throat. “Mrs. Aldbridge, I’ve changed my mind about the drink if it’s not too late.”

Erin stood up, and Jon said, “Please wait until my wife returns Detec…Jim... before you continue. I want her to hear everything.”

Manning smiled.

“Of course.”

Jon searched for the trap, the deception, fought the urge to wipe the sweat from his palms but didn’t want Manning to see his nervousness. He guessed that maybe he was attempting to force a confession, tighten the screws until Jon couldn’t take it anymore. But Jon had a better sense of his limits these days, and knew he could go a great deal longer before he broke. And with Erin at his side, even longer than that.

Bring it on
, he thought. But he didn’t relish this fight at all.

When Erin had settled back down, and Manning had gulped half of the glass of lemonade set before him, he continued.

“I don’t know how well you knew Brody Stape, Jon. But he was a bad one. Bad as they come. I think all of civilized society breathed a collective sigh of relief when he went, whether they knew it or not. I met him twice. Only reason he got caught and went to prison was that someone tipped us off.”

Jon didn’t see the harm in divulging some information and said, “He used to pick on me and Will in high school. Made us fight each other, actually.”

Manning smiled, but without humor.

“Well, here’s what I think. I can’t speak about Mr. Roup, as I didn’t know him, but I do know he had no record before all of this. Same as you. I think something happened that weekend between the three of you. I think Stape pushed you into it somehow. Whatever he knocked loose in Will might have been set to go anyway. Who knows? Over twenty years in this job has taught me a lot of things, but human behavior is something I’ll never understand and I’m not sure I want to. But most people have a reason for breaking the law. The husband was screwing around or he was beating his wife, so someone gets shot. Money’s the biggest reason people break the law. But I don’t think Stape ever needed a reason. I think he was guilty the day he came out of his mother, just had to grow big enough to get things done. There aren’t many like that. I've seen people do worse things than him, at least what he was suspected of doing, but not many so absolutely dedicated to their craft.

“I’m going to lay it all down, Jon, because I need to get going and I want to set you at ease. I think you’re the accomplice in the armored car robbery. And I think you helped Will rob that convenience store. But I also believe that you sent the money back. Further, I suspect you had something to do with Will’s death. I’m not coming out and accusing you of murder. Nobody saw it. Hell, the old man that ran the place didn’t even find him until the following afternoon.”

“I think you need to leave, Detective Manning,” Erin said. Jon glanced at her, could see the emotion swirling beneath the surface of her pale face and threatening to squeeze out through tight lips and hard set eyes. But the pulse of the vein at her temple declared that anger was foremost. Jon, despite feeling sick, felt the same. The Detective could lay it all out, cold and lifeless and free of the passion and threats and fear, as if he had made his choices in a vacuum based on calculated reason alone. But at least Manning didn't suspect Erin; if it came to it, he would confess and not have to watch his wife led away in handcuffs.