Poison Town (6 page)

“Man, they don’t pay me for this.” Derrick slammed his door. “Wait up, Critt.” Derrick slipped but grabbed the big side mirror on the Cruiser to stabilize himself.

“Watch yourself,” Jack kidded. “Calm down, Rusty,” he said in his nicest tone. “Be nice to Derrick.” He looked back at Derrick, who was ten steps behind him. “I hope this dog’s not prejudiced.” They both laughed.

Jack trudged up the steps, which were covered with a half-inch of snow and a bunch of old footprints.

“Just wait for me, would you?” Derrick was right behind him. “Easy, Fido, ea-sy.”

The dog pranced in a circle and sniffed them with his dirty nose, then gave a low growl.

“Hurry up, man. He’s seriously deranged.”

Jack snickered as he opened the squeaky screen door and nudged the heavy wood door open, Derrick pushing from behind.

The place did not resemble the kitchen Jack had stepped into that morning.

“Hold up.” Jack threw an arm up to stop Derrick.

Derrick froze and looked around. “No way.”

“Shhh.” Jack held a finger to his lips.

The kitchen cupboards and drawers were open at cockeyed angles, their contents spilled over the counters and floor. Broken dishes, pots, silverware, pans, and shattered glass were everywhere.

Standing completely still, they listened. Something moved in the adjacent room. Jack bent down, hiked the leg of his pants up over the black holster, and yanked the gun out. He rose, caught a glimpse of Derrick’s gaping mouth and huge eyes, and cocked the gun with his thumb instead of racking the slide, to keep it quiet.

A skinny gray cat slinked around the corner.

Both men exhaled, and Jack lowered the weapon.

With its back arched, the cat tiptoed through the broken plates and strewn silverware.

“What’re you doing with that?” Derrick eyed the gun.

Jack ignored him and took in the scene. The kitchen table where Travis had eaten that morning was overturned, and the desk where the Demler-Vargus folder was supposed to be had been smashed onto its side, its drawers and contents scattered everywhere.

“I think they’re gone.” Derrick’s voice broke. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Jack holstered the gun.

Someone had been searching for something.

Whoever it was knew the Randalls were away.

Jack’s head got fuzzy as he contemplated the danger the Randalls were in—and the potential story he and Derrick were sitting on. He made his way across the kitchen and peeked into the TV room—a complete demolition site.

“There, too?” Derrick asked.

Jack nodded.

The couch was overturned, its cushions knifed open and gutted. Everything was smashed, from the big-screen TV to an antique glass cabinet that looked like it had held a coin collection.

Jack assumed that the rest of the little house was in a similar condition, and his heart broke for Galen and the boys.

He came back into the center of the kitchen. Whoever had ruined the place had done so with a vengeance. The kitchen chairs were broken like kindling. The dishwasher door was dented from a boot.

“I’ll call Travis.” Jack got his phone out. “Let’s look for the folder.”

“You think that’s what they were after?”

“Who knows? It might just be random, but somehow I don’t think so.”

“Should we call the cops?” Derrick bent down over one of the desk drawers on the floor and began sorting through what was left in it.

“Yeah … I’ll ask Travis if he wants me to.”

Jack dialed Travis’s cell phone and got no answer, so he tried LJ.

“LJ, is Travis available?” Jack knew Travis had the cooler head.

“He’s indisposed right now, if you know what I mean. He told you the Jetta’s gonna be late, right?

“Yeah, how’s Galen?”

“Steady. Should be back to a private room right quick here.”

“Good.” Jack hesitated, knowing he needed to tell LJ about the break-in. “LJ, did Travis tell you he gave me permission to go to your house and get your dad’s notes on Demler-Vargus?”

“No, but it’s fine. The house is open.”

“Yeah, me and another reporter from the
Dispatch
came over to get the folder.”

“Knock yerself out.”

“There’s a problem, LJ. Your house has been … searched.”

“Searched? Whatcha mean, Jack?”

“When we got here, we found it—pretty badly torn up. Someone was looking for something.”

“Tore up? You mean
robbed
?”

“We don’t know if anything’s missing. Do you want me to call the police? I kind of wanted one of you to be here …”

“Just wait, Jack. We’ll be right there, fast as we can.”

“Okay, we’re going to keep searching for the notes.”

“How bad is it, Jack?” LJ’s voice was low and cold.

“It’s pretty bad, LJ … I’m sorry.”

“Bo!” LJ had covered the phone, but Jack could still hear his booming voice. “Git yer coat. Find your uncle. We gotta go … Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re coming.”

Jack put his phone away and examined the mess as Derrick made his way to another of the strewn drawers on the floor.

“Which ones haven’t you looked in?” Jack asked.

“Those two.” Derrick pointed toward two small desk drawers lying on the floor near the sink. Jack tiptoed through the maze of broken dishes and picked up one of the drawers.

“Hold up. Got something.” Derrick turned a manila folder toward Jack. “Says D-V right here in pencil.” He opened it, stared down, then lifted the manila folder so that it dangled open—empty.

Derrick’s face was stone. “This is all that was in it.” He waved a small piece of white paper in two fingers, then held it up and read it aloud to Jack: “LEAVE IT ALONE.”

Chapter 6

Although you wouldn’t guess it from the clothes he wore, Travis was a neat freak. He tried to keep the house clean, because that’s what his mother had always done. So when he walked into the foul mess at the house, a sick feeling gnawed at the pit of his stomach, and he got right to work picking things up.

Who could do this to another person’s property? It was downright heartless. There just wasn’t any respect anymore.

Jack and the other reporter, Derrick, had stayed at the house till Travis and LJ arrived. When Travis saw the note he was scared and blazing mad at the same time. LJ was just blazing mad. They scanned the house and quickly determined that nothing else was missing. To Travis’s way of thinking, that meant the break-in and his father’s poisoning had something, if not everything, to do with Demler-Vargus.

LJ wanted to wring somebody’s neck but didn’t know whose. Instead, he ended up kicking things around, muttering to himself the whole time, making things even more tension-filled than they already were. Bo had stayed behind at the hospital to keep an eye on his grandfather. So it was pretty much up to Travis to do the work, picking up that cruel mess until the winter sky turned dark at suppertime.

The cop who came to the house was a skinny, nervous wreck of a kid named Delgado who Travis was sure was a rookie right out of officer training. He basically took a few notes, stuttered that he would file a report, and advised the boys to keep the door locked. Trenton City’s finest.

“What you want to do for dinner?” LJ lazed into the TV room where Travis had finally plunked down in Daddy’s blue corduroy recliner to take a blow.

“This mess and Daddy’s poisoning … they got nothing to do with you, right?” Travis said.

“Me?” LJ craned his neck. “What would they have to do with me?”

“I want to make sure there’s nothing you’re not telling me, like if you’re in more trouble with Roxanne’s crowd.”

“No sir. Whoever did this is the same person who poisoned Daddy, most likely.”

The phone rang, and Travis answered.

“Travis, it’s Jack. Just calling to see how Galen is.”

“Bo is still with him. He says they done moved Daddy back to a private room. Nurse said he’s in ‘good condition.’”

“Is Bo going to spend the night there?”

Travis raised an eyebrow. “Why? You think they’re gonna try something else?”

“This thing isn’t sitting right with me,” Jack said. “I think one of you should be at the hospital overnight. Did the police ever get back to you on the video from the hospital?”

“Tomorrow,” Travis said.

“Think about it, Travis. They poisoned Galen. They ransacked your house. These guys are playing hardball.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“Let’s meet at the hospital, see if we can talk to your dad. I’ve got some questions for him. And meanwhile, you need to tell your lawyer what’s happened.”

“How soon can you be there?” Travis was already heading for his coat and keys.

“I’m about to grab a bite with my family,” Jack said. “But I can be there in an hour. I’m going to have Derrick meet us there too.”

“We’re going now. They moved him to room 356.”

“See you there.”

* * *

Rebecca and Faye loved eating at Campolo’s, the cozy Italian restaurant nestled along the sidewalks near their Merriman Woods neighborhood. Pamela sat on one side of the booth, watching for Jack, while across from her Rebecca and Faye colored away at their kids’ menus, sipping their lemonades through straws, gabbing like old ladies, and looking out the window every once in a while at the gently falling snow.

After the awkward call from Jack, when he told her he needed to work that evening, they had agreed to meet for a quick bite. Pamela placed their order when she and the girls arrived so the food would be ready when he got there.

“Look, girls, here comes Daddy.” Pamela tried to sound excited as she shooed them off to greet Jack. With a solemn face, he peeled off his heavy coat on the way to the booth. When the girls reached him with squeals and hugs, he couldn’t help but smile as he knelt and engulfed them in his strong arms.

He hung his coat and gave Pamela a quick kiss as he slid into the booth next to her. “So tell me …” He leaned over the table toward the girls. “How was your day today, young ladies?”

The girls’ eyes flashed as they jabbered about spelling bees, a butterfly collection, and a pet hamster named Golem that visited Faye’s second-grade class. They were oblivious to the tension that sizzled like an invisible electric fence between their parents.

“So, what are we having? One large kitchen sink pizza pie?” Jack kidded.

“Noooo!” Nine-year-old Rebecca shook her head vehemently. “We girls are getting a medium cheese pizza pie with extra cheese. You and Mommy
are getting a
medium
kitchen sink pizza pie, but no sausage, because Mommy says—”

“It’s greasy,” Jack finished, pretending he was going to faint.

The girls laughed, and he and Pamela exchanged obligatory smiles.

“Let me guess, did Mommy get extra black olives?”

“She most certainly did,” said Faye. “And if you don’t like it, you may pick them off—one by one.”

So there
, Pamela thought.

Jack took Faye’s little hands in his big ones and shook them. “Did Mommy say that? Did she?”

Faye nodded and smiled broadly. “She most certainly did.”

“And if you have a problem with it,” Rebecca chimed in, “you don’t have to eat.”

Pamela felt her cheeks warm.

Jack changed to Rebecca’s hands. “She did not say that!”

“Uh huh.” Rebecca nodded. “Yes, sir, she most certainly did.”

The girls giggled and went back to their coloring. Jack turned toward Pamela. “So I’m going to need to pick off the black olives one by one, am I?” he teased her, clearly trying to gloss over what had happened earlier. “Any more word on your dad?”

Jack was ignoring the obvious elephant in the room.

“No.” She fidgeted with her napkin and stared out at the crisp winter night, at the patches of snow beneath the streetlamps, at the cars and people heading to and fro.

“Maybe we can get up to see them soon. My car won’t be ready for a few days.” He told her about Galen’s poisoning and the break-in at the Randall house.

Pamela had always believed in choosing her battles wisely; if it wasn’t worth an all-out war, let it die. But this was worth going to battle over. It was time. For the past year and a half, even before Granger got out of prison, Jack’s unforgiving spirit had worsened. Now that the topic was out on the table, she wasn’t going to drop it until she had spoken everything that was on her heart.

“What do you think about what we talked about on the phone today?” She examined his eyes.

Jack searched beyond the window, then glanced at the girls, who were busy with their creations.

“You have your opinion, and I have mine.” He lowered his voice. “Pam, it’s my job to protect us, okay? Think about what we went through, what he did to us—to
you
. Cut me some slack. You don’t have to agree with the way I feel. I’m doing the best I can.”