Nearly Found (14 page)

A hand appeared on Reece’s shoulder.

My heart climbed into my throat.

“Hey, Whelan. What’s going on in here?” An officer I didn’t recognize looked us all over, then at Nicholson’s empty desk, then at me, on the wrong side of it. “Is the lieutenant around?”

Jeremy and Reece exchanged nervous glances.

“I was just delivering some lab reports,” I said quickly. “He must be in a meeting. I’ll leave them on his chair.” I held the stack of papers at my side, and fidgeted with the lanyard around my neck making sure the officer noticed it.

Reece cleared his throat. “Hey, Walker,” he said, drawing the officer’s attention. “I heard you’re good with a bike? I got this weird thing going on with my brakes. Got about
five minutes
to look them over for me?” Reece stepped into the hall, glancing at me one last time as he led the officer away.

I quietly shut the door, blocking Jeremy’s exit.

“What are you doing? We should get out of here.” He sounded panicked.

I looked around the office. At the Rolodex. The keyboard. The printer. I plucked a Kleenex from the box, ready to wipe down everything we’d touched. Reece had bought us five minutes to cover our tracks, but there was no erasing the fact that we’d been here. If I’d learned anything from Lonny’s case, I knew that assigning guilt was about more than just fingerprints. More than hair and fibers and things left out of place. It was about who we were, and what people expected us to be. My father’s report was heavy in my hand. I crumpled the tissue and tossed it in the wastebasket.

“Nothing.”

J
EREMY PARKED IN FRONT
of my trailer and killed the engine. I knew he wanted to come in, but I needed to be alone.

“I’ll let you know if I find anything,” I said, holding the police records to my chest. “And Jeremy? Thank you for helping me.” I opened the door.

“I just want all of this to be behind us. You want that too, right?” he asked.

The police records were hot in my hands. I remembered what Anh had said. That sometimes you have to get through something before you can put it behind you. “Yeah, I want that too.”

I went to my bedroom and fanned the police records over my comforter. The list of my father’s Known Associates seemed like a logical place to start. My mother, Butch, and I were first on the list, but below that was a list of other names. Jason Fowler, denoted as our landlord. Reginald Wiles, cross-referenced with his own case number. Then Anthony DiMorello, Karl Miller, and Craig Reinnert. My mind skipped over the old photograph of the poker club.

I flipped the page. According to Nicholson’s files, an arrest warrant was issued for my father on June 28, 2009. A day earlier, an anonymous call had been placed to the police department, disclosing the details of a several counts of extortion and an illegal gambling ring being run by my father, in connection with a money laundering operation that used Reggie Wiles’s brokerage firm as a front. The call had been traced to a phone in the lobby of the Belle Green Country Club. June 28 was the date Reggie Wiles had been arrested, according to the article in my bag. The same anonymous call—originating from the Belle Green Country Club—had incriminated both of them.

My stomach roiled. The anonymous call, the warrant for my father, the murder of Karl Miller, who was buried in the same golf course where the call was made. What if Karl Miller had been the one who’d made the anonymous call and turned my father in?

Or worse . . . What if my father killed him for it?

I dug the plastic bag out from under my bed. Carefully, I removed the faded photo of my father and his friends. Karl Miller had his arm around Reggie Wiles. Reggie Wiles had his arm around my dad. They were all smiling.

I thought about Jeremy and Anh. The long stretch of days when we didn’t speak. But even when Jeremy and I were angriest with each other, like the day we’d argued in the hall at school, or when Anh and I were at our most competitive, fighting for a life-changing chemistry scholarship, I could never have imagined killing them. The idea of my father—the man who’d gently placed Band-Aids on my knee, who’d never touched my mother when they argued—murdering anyone didn’t sit right. This had to be wrong. I had to be wrong. There had to be another explanation.

Maybe Lonny was right. Maybe I shouldn’t blindly believe. Maybe some latent piece of the puzzle was missing, something I couldn’t see because I didn’t have all the facts, letting a long rap sheet of other crimes sway me into thinking my father could be capable of something like this. But Lonny had also once told me that it all boiled down to motive—if I could identify a motive, I’d find the person behind the crime.

My father had opportunity. My father had a motive. And if the motive wasn’t convincing enough, he’d run.

I dropped the photo and cursed every pushpin I’d stuck back in my wall until my eyes burned with tears. I stormed to the bathroom and splashed handfuls of cold water on my face.

Then I stopped. The bathroom smelled strange. I flipped on the light.

A stray drop of water trailed down the mirror. Over the letters written in bold, blue ink.

THE ENEMY HIDES BENEATH A FALSE FRONT.

THE CLUB WILL ILLUMINATE ITS SECRETS.

A chill spread down the wet neck of my shirt, then through me. The smell of permanent marker lingered in the room.

Someone had been here. Hands shaking, I ran from room to room, checking locks, looking for anything unusual. Any clue to who had been here or how they’d gotten in. The deadbolts were intact, the screens and glass secure on every window. Nothing was missing. Nothing left behind but the message on my mirror.

I used my cell phone to photograph the message. Then I dialed Gena’s number.

“Gena,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady when she answered. “I need a favor.”

I numbly half listened as she griped about all the favors I’d asked for lately. I held my phone in place between my ear and my shoulder, clutched an old rag my mother wouldn’t miss and a bottle of her nail polish remover. I smeared it in circles, harder and harder over the letters, determined to wipe out every trace. My mother shouldn’t see this. It would only scare her. But I needed to be sure we were safe. “I need to know if Reggie Wiles left the halfway house today. Can you find out if he’s still there?”

Gena grew quiet. Then she asked, “Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” I answered too quickly.

“I can come over. I’ll bring dinner—”

“No,” I said. “I have a test tomorrow. I need to study.”

“Is there something you want to talk about? Did something happen?”

I swallowed hard. What could I tell her? If I told her someone had been inside my trailer, I’d have to tell her about Jeremy father’s key to our trailer, and if the police involved Jeremy’s parents, then Jeremy would take the brunt of his father’s temper. He’d already risked too much for me. All I needed was proof that Reggie wasn’t where he was supposed to be. “I just need to know.”

“I talked to Reece a little while ago. He’s really worried about you. He thinks the internship might not have been such a good idea. I’m starting to think maybe he’s right.”

“No!” I tried to hold down my panic. “The internship is fine. Everything’s fine. Why would he say that?” Because he’d seen me in Nicholson’s office and knew I was doing something I shouldn’t be? Had he told her about that too?

“He also said you guys still haven’t worked things out. You can’t keep putting him off like this.”

I didn’t answer.

“I know you’ve been through a lot, Leigh, and your head’s probably in a tough place right now. I still have the number for that counselor I told you about over the summer. Maybe you should talk to someone.”

Great, she thought I was crazy. If I wasn’t careful, she’d pull the internship out from under me and put me in therapy twice a week.

“Dammit, Gena! I told you I’m fine. I don’t want to talk to anyone!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

It’s what I used to say to Jeremy when things were bad at home. It might as well be code for “Intervention: I’m coming right over.”

“Look,” I said, deliberately smoothing my voice. “I’m sorry that I yelled. I’m fine, Gena, I swear. I know I’m probably worrying for nothing. Just please . . . will you check for me?”

Gena sighed. “Okay. Fine. I’ll call Alex and see what he can find out. I’ll call you back in an hour.”

I hung up the phone and checked the bathroom for ink stains before putting the rag in the Dumpster at the end of my street. Then I rechecked the doors and windows and took the baseball bat to my room.

The faces of my father’s friends stared at me from the photo. Their matching shirts and smiles.

The enemy hides beneath a false front.

Eric’s dad had been buried under a false front. But the media didn’t know that. They only knew the body had been buried under the golf course. The police hadn’t released the precise location, keeping the exact details of the crime scene and the code on the bones confidential. No one should know this except the police, the people who worked in the lab, the groundskeeper at the golf course . . . and the person who’d buried the body.

. . . the message wasn’t intended for just anyone to read. It was intended for someone specific.

I tore open my backpack, ripped a piece of paper from a spiral notebook, and grabbed a pencil from my desk. I closed my eyes, recalling the scratches in the bone. I wrote down the numbers in order by memory, fighting to keep the pencil steady in my hand.

90179257433275. If it was intended for me, like the message on the photograph and on the mirror were, then I should be able to decipher it. I should already know the key. I should already know the significance of these numbers.

A cold knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I tore open my closet door and dug frantically under a pile of loose clothes, scattering old textbooks across the floor. I snatched up last year’s chemistry book and turned to the periodic table. Making furious notations, I paired the numbers together, over and over in different combinations, until I knew I had it right. Until the message was clear.

90179257433275 became 90-17-92-5-74-33-2-75.

Th-Cl-U-B-W-As-He-Re.

The Club Was Here.

My phone rang, flashing Gena’s name. I picked it up and put it to my ear, the textbook still balanced on my knees.

“I talked to Alex. He called a friend, who called a friend, who confirmed with Reggie Wiles’s parole officer. He’s been accounted for all day. He left the halfway house once, for work release. He signed in on time, and came home immediately after.”

How was that possible?

“Leigh, are you there?”

“Are you sure? Gena, I feel like I’ve seen him.”

“Where?”

My mind wandered back to the slouching shoulders of the man who’d bumped me in the intersection. To the man reading the missing person flyer in Sunny View. To the man watching the crowd at Lonny’s trailer. Nowhere I could prove.

“Just around. Everywhere. I feel like he’s following me.”

“Did he approach you? Did you clearly see his face?”

“Yes. Maybe . . .” I sighed, my breath still shaky. I’d only thought I’d recognized his face from a grainy black-and-white image in the paper. I couldn’t even be sure they were all the same man. “No, he didn’t approach me. But he’s out there. I know it.”

“Leigh, honey. I’m really worried about you. You need to talk to someone. Try to get whatever’s eating you off your chest. Maybe find some closure. TJ’s gone, Leigh. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

But it wasn’t TJ I was worried about. And I wasn’t imagining things.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, knowing that was the only thing she wanted to hear.

I disconnected and picked up the photo. I brought it close to my face, examining the logo on their shirts, a puzzle piece sliding into place. The Belle Green Poker Club.

The club will illuminate its secrets.

The club.

The poker club. That was the key. The key to figuring out who killed Karl Miller. And the key to figuring out who wanted me to know.

G
ENA WAS RIGHT.
I did need to talk to someone. I’d been up all night checking the locks on my trailer and staring at the ceiling with my phone in my hand, thinking about calling Reece. I knew he would come if I called. That he would stay the night if I asked him to, so I wouldn’t have to be alone. He’d covered for me at the station, and I wanted to be able to trust him with this too. I wanted to be able to tell him everything—about the break-ins and the message on my mirror. But he’d already told Gena he was worried about me. And now she was worried too. And I couldn’t risk Gena snooping around because I’d been acting strangely. Not now, when I had a stolen bottle of luminol in my backpack, a report hacked from a police department computer, and an evidence bag hidden in a stack of fingerprint cards I wasn’t authorized to process. I had a lot more than just the internship to lose.

But I couldn’t figure this out on my own.

The next morning, I reserved the computer lab at school for an after-school group project. In reality, it felt more like an experiment. What would happen when I put four disparate elements together in a room, expecting us to yield some solution?

Vince was first to arrive. He crushed a piece of paper and tossed it at me. It was the note I’d left in his locker:

I know who broke into your car, meet me in the computer lab after school if you want to know too.

He dropped into a chair. “You’d better not be playing games, trailer trash.”

I stood by the door, wondering who else would show up, dreading the possibility that Vince might be the only one.

“Sorry I’m late.” Jeremy burst into the room, red-faced and panting. “I got your note.” He smiled, trying to catch his breath. “Yesterday was awesome, by the way. Haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I still can’t believe we—” Jeremy paled when he noticed Vince across the room.

Vince laced his fingers behind his head, watching with a salacious smile. “I always figured there was something going on between the two of you.”

The blood raced back into Jeremy’s cheeks. “Why’s he here?”

“I invited him.”

Vince chuckled to himself. “If two geeks get busy in the woods and no one is there to see it, do they still make a sound?”

Jeremy took me by the elbow and pulled me into a corner, his back to Vince. His irritation was sharp and metallic and it set my teeth on edge. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”

“Not yet,” I said, jerking out of his grip.

“What’s that supposed to mean!”

“Uh-oh,” Vince sang. “Shit’s about to get real. I got my money on the hooker’s kid.”

“My mother’s not a hooker!”

“Whatever,” he said, standing up. “But someone better fucking tell me who broke into my car, or I’m out of here.”

Jeremy’s gaze shot expectantly to me. I opened my mouth to explain why I’d brought them here. That I couldn’t yet prove who’d broken into Jeremy’s house or into Vince’s car, but I had a theory.

“Sorry,” a quiet voice interrupted from the hall. “I must have the wrong room.” All three of us turned to see Eric Miller standing in the doorway, holding the pink slip I’d left in his locker. The room fell awkwardly silent.

“You’re in the right room,” I said.

“Oh.” He looked confused. “I was supposed to be meeting Mr. Hurley. Are you meeting with him too?”

I’d taken the blank pink slip from an unlocked supply cupboard between classes and signed Hurley’s name. “The note in your locker was from me.” I cast a warning glance at Vince to keep his big mouth shut, but Eric’s presence was sobering. Jeremy and Vince pressed their lips tightly closed. I gestured to the empty seat beside Vince. Eric cast a wary glance at him before easing into it. I pulled two chairs out for Jeremy and me, nudging Jeremy into one.

Eric looked around the room. “So Mr. Hurley isn’t here? I don’t understand.”

“Join the club,” Vince muttered.

The words stopped me cold. We were all members of a club, our places handed down to us through our parents, without any of us realizing what kind of baggage we carried. And if my theory was right, the messages we’d received had been a warning meant for us. Someone who knew our parents had dug up their secrets.

I passed the picture of our fathers around the circle. Watched the shift in their body language as they recognized their own dads in it. “I’m sorry, man,” Vince whispered to Eric as he handed the photo to him.

“This is the Belle Green Poker Club,” I explained. “The photo was taken six years ago. The man whose face is torn away is Reggie Wiles—TJ’s dad. Our dads were friends with each other, before . . .” I paused when Eric’s eyes lifted to mine. I didn’t know how to finish that sentence without making it sound like an admission of guilt. Before what? Before my dad and TJ’s dad had conspired to rip off their friends? Before one club member was murdered and another one ran?

“What does this have to do with us?” Jeremy asked, glancing at Eric. Karl Miller loomed like a presence in the room.

I walked to the whiteboard and wrote the formulas for all three of Newton’s Laws of Motion. Then translated them in layman’s terms.

“The first law was left inside Jeremy’s bedroom. The second was left inside Vince’s car. The messages were meant to look like the ones TJ sent me last year. They’re written in the same blue ink with similar lettering. But TJ is in prison. We know these messages couldn’t possibly be from him.”

Vince was halfway out of his seat. “You’re not telling us anything we don’t already know. This is a total waste of my time.”

I ignored Vince. The backstory was for Eric’s benefit. I pointed to the third law. “This one was left in my trailer three weeks ago. Someone broke in and left it in my room.”

Vince eased back in his chair. “You never said. What does it mean?”

I set the dry erase marker on the rack. “Out of context, it means nothing. I figured it was a prank. Someone’s idea of a joke. Everyone who followed TJ’s case knew his MO.

“But there’s more,” I continued. Eric sat silent, staring at what may have been the last photo taken of his father. His finger traced the torn edges. There was no tactful way to say what needed to be said.

“For five years, Karl Miller was buried under a false front by the ninth green of the Belle Green Golf Course. Only, last week someone dug him up. Which means someone knew Karl Miller’s body was there. And they wanted him found.”

Eric curled in on himself. Vince’s chair groaned as he shifted uncomfortably. “Hey, Boswell. Aren’t you being a little fucking insensitive?”

“As much as I don’t want to, I think we have to talk about this. It involves Eric too.”

“How? I don’t understand,” Jeremy asked.

“There was another message. Last night. In my trailer.”

“But you changed your locks.”

“I did.”

Jeremy paled. As long as his house was still vulnerable, mine was too.

“Someone wrote a message on my bathroom mirror.”

Vince fidgeted and Eric scowled, picking at the edges of his backpack. I was losing them. In another minute, Vince would walk out. Maybe Eric too.

I talked fast, hating the urgency in my voice that sounded more like a plea. “It said,
The club will illuminate its secrets
. It can only mean one thing. The Belle Green Poker Club.”

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with Eric’s dad,” Jeremy argued.

I grabbed a marker and lifted it to the whiteboard.

“This is getting stupider by the minute.” Vince erupted from his chair. “I’m out of here.”

I furiously wrote all fourteen numbers on the board.

I turned in time to see Vince reach the open door. “There’s more!” I said, already regretting what I was about to do. But they’d given me no choice. They weren’t listening. “There was also a message—a number—carved in Eric’s dad’s bone. After the bones were dug up.” Vince froze. Jeremy’s mouth hung open. “This number.”

90179257433275.

Vince looked disgusted. “You’re nuts, Boswell. I’m going home.”

I took up the marker. Added hyphens. Then slammed a copy of last year’s chemistry textbook on the desk, startling them all. I stood aside, giving them all a better view. It was open to the periodic table, and I watched their faces fall as they gathered around it, their eyes moving back and forth between the numbers and the book.

90-17-92-5-74-33-2-75.

Th-CL-U-B-W-As-He-Re.

A thick and heavy silence filled the room. Vince slid into a chair by the door. Jeremy looked like he might be sick. Eric stared at the floor.

“Eric’s father was a member of the poker club with our parents,” I explained. “Someone knows what happened to him.
The club will illuminate its secrets.
I think one of our fathers knows the secret. I think one of our fathers knows who killed him.”

Vince darted a nervous look around the group. “What are you trying to say?”

“The medical examiner and the detectives investigating Karl Miller’s death think the body was buried in late June five years ago, while the false front of the golf course was under construction. It would have been an easy time to conceal the body. The dates coincide with the same week an anonymous tipster made a call incriminating Reggie Wiles and my father. The call that led to their arrest warrants was traced to the Belle Green Country Club.”

Vince leaned forward in his chair. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling us that your dad murdered Eric’s dad because Mr. Miller ratted him out to the cops?”

“I’m not saying my dad killed anyone.”

“But that’s what you’re implying,” Jeremy said.

“I’m not implying anything.” My cheeks burned, and I wondered if he could read the lie on my face. “We don’t know who killed Eric’s dad, but someone thinks the poker club is involved. And they want us to figure it out.”

“No,” Vince said, pointing a finger at me. “They want YOU to figure out. I don’t want anything to do with this shit.”

“Like it or not, we’re all involved.” And they were all I had left.

Jeremy and Vince started talking at once, their faces reddening with their raised voices. Both of them arguing about all the reasons this had nothing to do with them. All the reasons none of this made any sense. Panic fluttered in my chest.

“It makes perfect sense,” Eric said. Vince and Jeremy fell silent, mouths still half-open. They turned to face the one who’d been so quiet we’d all forgotten he was there. “Think about it. Your dad kills my dad, and leaves town. Reggie Wiles goes to prison and your dad gets away.” Eric’s eyes creased at the corners, his brow furrowed, in anger or pain. “Meanwhile, no one said a word. Our families are all complicit. They all let Reggie Wiles take the fall. They all let David Boswell get away. Not a single one of them came forward to find my dad. Instead, they all bought into some bullshit story that he’d run off with some woman. Why? Probably because all their hands were dirty. Now they’re all calling each other in a panic because Reggie Wiles is out on parole. And if I was him, I’d probably be pissed off at every single one of you.”

“Wait a minute.” Jeremy stiffened. “What do you mean, Reggie Wiles is out on parole?”

Eric looked surprised. “My mom got a call from Vince’s mom. Vince’s mom said she heard it from Jeremy’s mom. I thought everyone already knew.”

Jeremy looked to Vince. Vince shook his head. “How long has he been out?”

“About six weeks,” I said.

Jeremy turned to me with a stunned expression. “You knew? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because up until a couple of weeks ago, you weren’t even speaking to me!’”

“Shut up!” Vince shouted at us. He turned to Eric. “So you think Boswell’s dad killed your dad, and now Reggie Wiles is out of prison and wants to expose him. Just to get revenge?” Vince nodded to himself. “You’re right, Miller. It makes perfect sense. And clearly, this has nothing to do with me and Fowler, so we’re leaving. No offense, man. Real sorry about your dad and all. Come on, Fowler. Let’s go.”

Jeremy didn’t move. His stare bored into me. “You should talk to the police.”

“I did. I called Gena and Alex and asked them to check if Reggie ever left the halfway house. According to his parole officer, he didn’t.”

“Did you tell them about the break-ins? About the messages?” There was a cold, clear challenge in his eyes.

I didn’t answer.

“You didn’t, did you?” He shook his head, his disgust clear on his face. “You’re making the same damn mistake you made before. Reggie Wiles is out there, breaking into our houses and digging up bodies, and you’re not going to say a word to anyone? You’re putting us all at risk!”

“Even if I did tell them, they’d never believe me, Jeremy! Reggie Wiles is in a halfway house under twenty-four-hour supervision. If he did get out long enough to do these things, somebody was either asleep on the job, or they helped him do it. I’m going to need concrete proof. Before I go to the police, I have to figure out who’s helping him and how he’s getting away with this.”

“Are you sure that’s it?” he sneered. “Or are you just scared that if you tell Nicholson what’s really going on, you’ll give the police a more compelling reason to find your dad and arrest him for murder?”

A hot flush raced over my face.

“That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you wanted my help yesterday? So you could find him before they do?”

“No! If I were covering for my father, I never would have brought you here. Or told you what I know about the club.”

He leaned in close and whispered harshly, “I can’t believe you let me break into Nicholson’s computer to do your dirty work, and you didn’t tell me why you were really looking for him!”

“That’s not why I asked for your help, I swear! I’m not trying to hide anything. I just need time to figure this out.”

“Figure it out yourself. I’m going home.” Jeremy followed Vince out the door. Eric slipped out after them with his head down.

I slumped into Hurley’s chair. Picked up the eraser from his desk and spun to face the numbers on the board. I had hoped we would work together. Hoped one of us would know more of our parents’ story. If we could put the pieces together, we’d have some solid evidence to take to the police. And all I’d managed to do was make Jeremy distrust me, and spill the details of a case that were supposed to be confidential. That, and tell a grieving kid that his father’s body was mutilated for the purpose of communicating a message intended for me. I wouldn’t blame him if Eric hated me for the rest of his life, even if none of this was my fault.