Undeliverable (24 page)

“I see.” The detective wiped sweat off of his forehead and came off the defensive. “This is an active crime scene, Ben. I can’t let you past here.”

“You have to! I mean, you at least have to tell me, my Benny—”

“May not be one of the boys here.” The detective placed himself more firmly in Ben’s path, as if he expected him to make a run for it and start digging for himself.

Ben’s frustration was difficult to keep in control. The man simply refused to give him any information, even though it was Ben’s tip about the green truck that had led them to Moscovich. Well, maybe not led, but certainly reinforced the discovery. “But the truck fits the description, and they said there were eleven bodies. Eleven!”

“And there are over one hundred missing boys of the age range that we’re finding. You have to be patient and let us do our jobs! Go home and do yours. Unless I’m mistaken, this is a work day and last you told me you had a government job.” Detective O’Connor turned and started back down the driveway.

“Wait!” Ben reached out and grabbed the detective’s shoulder, trying to get him to listen.

The detective rounded on him, knocking Ben’s arm aside, finally getting angry. “Look, Ben. I can’t tell you
anything
. Do you get that? It’s part of my job. Do I wish I could? Sometimes. But I have been looking at little skeletons being unearthed all day, and unless you want me to charge you with obstructing an investigation, tampering with evidence, assaulting a police officer, and whatever else I can come up with to keep you out of here,
go home
.”

Ben stood dumbfounded while Detective O’Connor rubbed his face roughly. For the first time, Ben could see just how tired the detective was. There were bags under his eyes and lines that hadn’t been there the last time they spoke. “Is it that bad?”

The detective didn’t raise his eyes from the gravel when he answered. “Yeah. It’s that bad.”

It took Ben a moment to get the words out around the sudden constriction of his throat. “I’m sorry. I’ll go home. Can you just keep me updated?” All those little skeletons in the ground. Ben thought he could almost see it himself.

“If I ever learn anything.” This time when the detective turned around and started walking away, Ben didn’t try to stop him. Instead, he went back to his car and baked under his windshield for another ten minutes before he thought to turn on the car so at least he’d have air conditioning. He still wished he could go down that driveway, but he wasn’t willing to push his one connection to the case any further than he already had. He was afraid it would break entirely.

That being said, he also didn’t think he could go back to work and face the crowd, so instead, he drove back to his apartment. All the way home he couldn’t stop thinking about tiny skeletons in shallow graves. They danced in his head, and every one of them had a broken right arm and was just the right height to walk into the kitchen counter corners.

He swerved into the liquor store and bought the cheapest bottle of whiskey they had; there wasn’t much left in his debit account. As soon as he was through the door, he opened the bottle and sat at his desk. He automatically reached for his cell phone to put it on its charger and realized that he’d left it at work. Cursing himself because that was the number Detective O’Connor had to get in touch with him, he rummaged under the papers on his desk until he found the landline phone that he hadn’t yet bothered to activate and reached for his wallet. He still had the emergency phone card Jeannie had insisted he carry at all times. It was wedged behind all of his other cards, and he’d forgotten about it until now.

After taking five minutes to figure out exactly what order he had to dial the various numbers in, he was ringing through to Sylvia’s phone. She picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Ben.”

“Where in the hell are you?”

He cringed at the fury in her tone, but he pushed on. “I had to do something.”

“You should be here. We don’t have enough people here. We had to pull Byron from the bullpen, and he’s pissed.”

Ben didn’t particularly care about what Byron thought, but he needed his phone for when Detective O’Connor would call. “It was important. Look, I left my cell phone at work. Could you bring it by?”

“Have you started drinking today?”

He glanced at the bottle of amber liquid in front of him. “Not yet.”

“Then come get it your own damn self.” And she hung up on him.

Ben slammed down the receiver and fumed for a moment before grabbing his keys again and heading out the door.

B
en made it back to the Center just as Larry and Steve finished pushing the last table into place and Sylvia had picked up a broom to get the worst of the debris off the floor.

“It’s over already?”

Sylvia glared over her shoulder before she resumed stabbing at the floor with the broom. “Yes, it’s over. You just took off, Ben. This is your job. Where the hell did you go?”

“I had to go find out…you know what, never mind.” Ben was still seething from the phone call and didn’t much feel like justifying himself. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. I had a personal emergency.”

She stopped sweeping and gave him a level stare. “We all heard the radio broadcast, Ben.”

He hunched his shoulders and tried to get around Sylvia and into the warehouse. “So what?”

Sylvia planted herself in front of him, broom propped upright against her shoulder. “You heard a broadcast about a man and a kidnapped boy and you go tearing out of here. I know what you were thinking. At least, I know what I was thinking, and I have less of a response to such stimulating information than you do.”

Larry and Steve until this point had been trying to not eavesdrop over by the coffee machine, but Larry could no longer contain himself. “What, what were you thinking? A dick move there, Benjamin, leaving us here.” He turned his attention back to the coffee, trying to pretend he hadn’t just busted in on the conversation.

Sylvia glared at Larry and turned back to her boss. “Well, Ben, was he there?”

Ben sighed and slumped into a chair still in the middle of the room, burying his face in his hands. “They don’t know; there’s too many boys, god, there’s too many.”

Sylvia regarded him for a moment, her anger starting to subside at the sight of his collapsed frame. “How many?”

“More than ten. Including the one they found alive in the guy’s truck. But they’re still looking. God, so many boys.” He was starting to wonder himself why he’d gone out to the farm. It was torture, plain and simple, to make himself confront all those lost boys, but if he hadn’t, he’d never have forgiven himself for not trying to get to Benny, wherever he was.

Larry piped up again, “And what is your relationship to the radio broadcast and kidnapped boys?”

Steve finally broke into the conversation. “You really don’t know? I keep telling you, you need to read the newspaper we get, but no, all you want are the comics.”

“Apparently, yes, you were right. I should read the papers. But what’s with him, it looks like someone killed his puppy.”

“It’s more likely someone killed my son.” Ben stood and stormed out of the break room and slammed his way into the warehouse.

At his desk, Ben paced back and forth fuming, wondering how anyone could be so calloused, so self-absorbed, to have missed the radio broadcasts, the television news, and the newspaper articles from the last year, particularly if they lived around Savannah. It was only a year ago, and a man who had interacted with him before, who knew his face, couldn’t remember that his son was missing. If not him, who would remember? Who would remember the face on the poster? If they had known about it when it happened, would they have known something, seen something, that would have Benny back home already?

He wrenched open his desk drawer, grabbed the cell phone, and then stopped, staring at his computer, which was patiently waiting for him, the USPS logo twirling back and forth across the screen.

Leonard Moscovich. Ben was here, he might as well take advantage of the reasons he signed up to be there in the first place. He woke up the computer by slamming the space bar. Starting up the most basic of his search programs, he entered the son-of-a-bitch’s name. Leonard Moscovich, Lenny, Mosy. What nicknames did your friends have for you?

The search just covered known address, any forwarding requirements, other names at the household, any incidents. The only other name at that address was a Lena Moscovich. Wife? Mother? Daughter?

He pulled up the DMV database, but before he could start snooping, Sylvia slammed a stack of ledgers on the desk. Obviously not all her anger had been dissipated by the news.

“If you’re here, you better go take care of the credit slip for Larry and Steve. They need your signature to get paid. And if you’re too busy wallowing to do your job, you can at least make sure they get paid for doing theirs.” She turned to his computer screen. “Is that work? Or pleasure?”

“Neither.” Ben minimized the window before Sylvia could get a good look and crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. If she was going to continue to be angry, so could he. She had no right to judge him for going after information about his son, regardless of who he discommoded to do so.

“Masochism is a form of pleasure, you know. And that new auditor is going to show up any moment and catch you with your pants down wanking away on this machine.”

He was appalled at her use of language, but more so over the image of him taking gratification from the search for his son. This wasn’t pleasure, it was torture, and he wished to God he didn’t have to keep going, that his son would appear and he could be done. “Sylvia!”

She colored a little but stood her ground. “What? It’s not like these activities are getting you anywhere, and sitting in front of that computer too long will make you go blind. And it makes you feel better for a very short while. Try and explain to me how this is not masturbatory?”

Ben turned his back on her and idly straightened his shelf, trying to seem busy, trying to get her to leave. He hated that he was arguing with her, but he wasn’t going to apologize to her or back down. And she should know that. She was the one who needed to back off the subject and leave him to his search. “It’s not…I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Oh? You think not? How do you think I spent the time after my family died?”

“Medicated.” He hated himself as soon as the word came out, but he couldn’t take it back.

Sylvia didn’t say anything. She simply turned and left him alone at his desk.

“Damn it!” That morning he had been worried about having to apologize to her over sex, but that paled in comparison to the apology he owed her now. He had crossed her one hard and fast line: don’t make fun of the crazy. He hadn’t meant to, it had just slipped out. But he knew if he went to try and find her now, he wouldn’t be able to; she would have slipped into whatever hidey hole she had around here when she was trying to avoid him, and she wouldn’t come out until she was good and ready.

He decided instead to go back to his DMV search while he waited for her to calm down enough so that approaching to apologize for his crack wouldn’t get him beheaded. Apparently Leonard wasn’t supposed to be driving; the state had only issued him an ID card due to restrictions. “Restrictions, like what? Sight, hearing…” Ben scrolled through the screens before coming to a little box at the bottom. It read,
Mental Impairment
.

Ben sat back in his chair, running his hand through his hair. “Mental impairment? What kind of mental impairment has you killing boys?” He emailed the entire file to himself to look over later and had just started scanning the program list for his next source of information when the door to the warehouse opened again to the sounds of bickering.

“He didn’t sound at all well. I don’t think we should bother him.”

“I don’t know about you, but I want to get paid, thank you very much.”

Larry came around the corner of Ben’s cube and slapped a paper down on his desk. “Thanks for your help. Sign here.” He stabbed the paper and kept his finger there until Ben had found a pen and signed, but Ben wouldn’t let go of the paper until he at least tried to set things right with the two men.

“Look, guys, I’m sorry, but this thing came up, and I just had to…go see.”

Larry deflated a bit and turned to Steve, ignoring Ben. “Come on, let’s get out of here, leave him to his...thing.” The two left without saying goodbye.

Aware of the departing couple and how angry they had seemed, Ben called after them, “Looking forward to next month!”

“We’ll be here!” Steve called, then the door closed.

Ben had just decided on searching the criminal database next when Sylvia came back in.

He hurriedly stood, nearly knocking over his chair in the process. “Look, Syl, I’m sorry, okay? It just came out, and I didn’t mean it.”

“Freud would beg to differ, but stuff it. The auditor just showed up.” She added under her breath, “Prick.”

Ben’s anger flared again at the insult. “Look, I said I’m sorry!”

Sylvia snorted and crossed her arms. “Not you. Him. You’re a dick. There’s a difference. He had the gall to ask me if it was take your daughter to work day.” She scowled and turned her back on Ben. “By the way, I’m officially pissed off at you and will refuse to communicate with you whenever possible. I will do my work, you do yours. Dick. But no one deserves to face this bigot without a warning.”

“Grant!” The voice was a full tenor, and it echoed off the walls of the warehouse.

Sylvia ducked around into the long-term storage bay, pretending to rearrange the journals so she could look through the shelves.