The Ravine (3 page)

This time it was Danny who came up with the scheme. Tony listened intently as his brother described how they would climb in the
window he’d unlocked, unlatch the back door, grab a case of DeWalts, and scoot out to their waiting pickup. Easy peasy.

“You didn’t think of one thing, Einstein,” Tony said with a grin. “That stupid mutt Barney who sleeps there all night will be all over us.”

“Damn, you’re right! What are we gonna do about that mangy pain in the ass?”

“Well, we can either risk it tonight or wait a day.”

Danny gave Tony a quizzical look. “What good’s it gonna do to wait a day? He’ll still be there tomorrow.”

“Or maybe he won’t,” Tony said with a mock evil grin followed by his best ghoulish laugh.

The brothers high-fived, and Danny had to hand it to Tony yet again. How lucky he was to have such a smart brother. He was like a master chess player, always thinking several moves ahead. He was definitely going places, and Danny would be right by his side.

The next afternoon, the whole warehouse was in an uproar when Barney’s body was discovered lying next to his water bowl. Danny and Tony stood off to the side and watched the spectacle unfold. It felt good to be in control while those goons freaked out over a lousy mutt. “How’d you get him to swallow the Seconals?” Danny whispered to Tony.

“I just split them open, sprinkled them on a piece of chopped meat, rolled it into a meatball, and gave it to the dope. He gobbled it up.”

Phil, the warehouse manager and titular owner of Barney, was so distraught and preoccupied with the burial out back that he didn’t think to make certain all the windows were locked. Normally he wouldn’t have had to consider such things with Barney at his post, but without Barney’s presence the brothers easily managed to lug four cases into the truck and speed away into the night. Tony knew a guy in Chardon who would pay fifteen bucks for each saw, so with eight to a case, they would bring in a total of around five hundred dollars. They drove home and hid the boxes behind the shed and covered them with a tarp. Tony sat
on the top of the pile and proposed a toast: “To the Turner brothers and the easiest haul ever made in the history of Chesterland.” They chatted excitedly and acknowledged their brilliance in planning the whole thing.
Too bad about the dog, collateral damage, ya know . . . what the hell, we’re just making minimum wage . . . we were just getting our due
. Finally they ran out of accolades and headed in to catch a few winks before getting up for work.

Old Man Tager was more pissed off than anyone had ever seen him the next morning, when he ordered the troops to gather near the back door to listen to his tirade.

“I know one of you punks stole those saws. Probably was a couple of you workin’ together.” He seemed to look at Danny and then at Tony as he said this—or maybe it was just their imaginations working overtime. Tony didn’t show any emotion, but Danny felt his heart pounding like a jackhammer and his face go flush. He might as well have been wearing an “I DID IT” sign, he thought.

Just then two cops came through the back door and, in feigned
sotto voce
, told Tager they knew the make of tire of the getaway car, and would need to look at all the trucks in the employee parking lot.
Oh no!
Tony thought.
They’ve already narrowed it down to a truck. Man, are we screwed!
He knew he could keep his cool, but had his doubts about Danny. He snuck a glance at him, and his brother’s panicked eyes confirmed his worst fears.

The taller of the two cops stepped forward. He had the mean, narrow, no-nonsense look of a military guy who was used to dealing with the lower elements, and was itching to crack one of these imbeciles in the skull and beat the truth out of him.

“Okay, listen up. I’m Officer Colby, and I am going to expect all of you to cooperate in this investigation. I’m going to make three points, and I’m only going to say them one time. One, it’s obvious that someone climbed in that open window, unlocked the door, and took off with four cases of saws with a retail value of close to five thousand dollars. Two,
it’s also obvious that the same person, or persons, planned this and went so far as to poison the guard dog yesterday. Three, this could only have been done by an employee, which means that several of you know who did it. So, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. The easy way is you come clean now, return the merchandise, and deal with the consequences. The hard way is you stand there and keep your mouth shut, and try to make me look like an idiot. But I guarantee you that is a mistake because that will make me very unhappy, and believe me, you don’t want to do that. So, what’s it going to be?”

After a few seconds of silence, the group started to murmur, and then a few guys said straight out “wasn’t me,” “I wouldn’t kill no dog or steal nothin’,” “don’t blame me, I had nothin’ to do with it.” Pretty soon it got very loud with more than a few men saying that anyone who would kill a dog was the lowest form of scum, and they planned to beat the crap out of the guy when they figured out who killed a harmless dog like Barney.

So Danny and Tony joined the chorus, shouted out their innocence at the top of their lungs, and cursed the killer of the innocent dog. They reasoned that only a guilty person would keep his mouth shut, and each made the independent decision that the best way out was to lie. Thus was set a pattern in the life of the Turner brothers, which, for one of them, would have fateful consequences at the most crucial moments of his life.

Eventually it became clear that no one was going to fess up to the crime, so Colby took each of the nine warehouse workers to a glassed-in room for an interview, one at a time. He leaned across and stared into their eyes, nose to nose, pounded the table and kicked over a chair or two for effect. When he interviewed Danny and Tony individually, his antennae shot up, but neither cracked, and Colby just naturally gravitated toward the two black guys because one of them had a record, and, well, they were black. Colby actually didn’t have any tire tread evidence,
or any evidence to speak of. His main tool was intimidation, and when that didn’t work, he didn’t have many arrows left in his quiver. The truth was, this level of criminal escapade was pretty much beyond his sleuthing powers. Danny and Tony breathed a sigh of relief as they watched the patrol car turn out onto Fairmount Road and head off to parts unknown. Of course, had Colby and his partner thought to delve into this mystery a little deeper and actually bothered to visit the home of each employee, they eventually would have discovered the saws beneath a tarp behind the Turners’ shed. But lunch beckoned, and that put an impromptu end to the investigation.

That night Danny and Tony unloaded the saws in Chardon. They didn’t get five hundred but rather one hundred and fifty bucks. On the drive back, they started arguing about how stupid it was to risk jail over such a low take. They blamed each other, and then sat in silence until Tony burst out laughing.

“Man, did you see the look on Old Man Tager’s face this morning?”

“Yeah, and that cop thought he was spooking us, but I knew all the time, he didn’t have nothin’,” Danny lied.

And this was pretty much the way things went for the next year on their petty crime spree. Good old Turner luck kept them going until it finally ran out.

C
HAPTER
3

There Are No Coincidences

But I have promises to keep
,

And miles to go before I sleep
.

—Robert Frost

D
URING THEIR HIGH
school years, throughout football season, Friday was the best day of the week for the Turner brothers. And, of course, the best part of the day was Friday night. It seemed as though Tony and Danny had some form of mental telepathy on the field, particularly when the team was in dire need of a score. Their specialty was the broken play. Just when things looked most desperate, Tony would sense where Danny was on the field, toss the ball in the air, and, like a heat-seeking missile, it would drop into his hands. Then Danny’s legs would do the rest. After the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
ran a feature on the brothers, they became a source of pride for the entire community. For a few years, Steve Turner’s money was no good at any Chesterland pub.

It was after one of these games that Danny was introduced to Rachel McKenna by Carolyn Hamilton. Carolyn knew Danny because her dad had coached his Little League team, and her brother Kenny palled around with him

Carolyn was convinced Danny and Rachel would make a great couple, and was excited to introduce them. However, Danny breezed by after the introduction, in pursuit of the keg party that was also part of the Friday night tradition.

“Nice meeting you,” he said as he walked away. “What did you say your name was? Renée?” But Danny was gone before Rachel could answer.

Years later, after they were married, Rachel never tired of telling this story, and, as if on cue, Danny would look chagrined, raise his hands in a gesture of innocence, say “I love you, Renée,” and plant a big kiss on her cheek.

Logically, Rachel and Carolyn did not seem like great candidates to become acquaintances, let alone develop a lifelong friendship. Rachel was outgoing, boisterous, seemingly self-assured, and melodramatic. She came from hard-drinking Irish stock who defined the phrase “dysfunctional family” before it was in vogue. Carolyn was raised by strict parents who took their Roman Catholic faith seriously, sending Carolyn to elementary and middle school at Sacred Heart in Mayfield Village. Studious and shy, she liked her routine and was uncomfortable with change. She lined up her pencils at home in order to be better prepared to do her homework.

So when Carolyn suddenly found herself attending Geauga High, an enormous public school where she hardly knew a soul and coolness was clearly the highest priority, she felt totally invisible. Then one day all of that changed.

Much to Carolyn’s horror, wacky Mr. Ercolano, the language arts teacher, who wore his hair a bit shaggy to complement his mutton-chop sideburns, declared that everyone in the class was to immediately select a partner, because today was the day they were going to learn how to “really talk about themselves with another human being.” Ercolano had
spent a summer on a commune during college and this was one of the things they did with the aid of hallucinogens. He’d come up with this brilliant idea last night while he and his girlfriend stared at the night sky from their beach chairs sharing a joint. This was going to be heavy.

Of course, the kids instantly gravitated toward their friends, elated at the opportunity to spend the next forty minutes joking and gossiping rather than listening to that windbag Ercolano drone on about dangling participles, the dangers of homonyms, and other nonsense they would never put to use. The room instantly came alive with activity.

Carolyn didn’t really know anyone, and would never have just walked up to a veritable stranger, so she slowly rose and stood next to her desk, mortified as the rest of the class paired up. She felt a jolt of fear in her stomach that would doubtless explode into that horrible red blotch that erupted on her throat whenever she was embarrassed. She was certain that within seconds she would be derided as the most uncool person ever to exist in the history of the universe. Then she heard a sweet sound.

“You look like you could use a partner. I’m Rachel. What’s your name?”

And so were spoken the first of many millions of words they would share with each other during their lifetimes. Neither of them could remember what they talked about on that day, but talk they did, nonstop, until the bell rang. Then they exchanged numbers at the classroom door. Each knew they had found someone special. Carolyn never forgot Rachel’s simple act of kindness. She knew Rachel was one of the “cool” kids who easily could have matched up with someone else, but, as Carolyn was to learn, Rachel always followed her heart and her natural instinct was to reach out to help someone in need.

For her part, Rachel discovered that Carolyn was someone she could trust with her deepest secrets, which was amazing, because she spent so much of her time hiding the truth. At fourteen, Rachel’s life was already
filled with darkness that she spent much of her time hiding from the world. But for some reason, when she looked into Carolyn’s eyes that first day, she began to learn how to trust a friend.

A few months after they met, Rachel did something with Carolyn that she almost never did with anyone; she brought her home.

Home for Rachel was always a roller coaster ride. There were times when things were peaceful and almost cheerful for days at a time. Rachel was close to her two younger brothers, Sam and Petey, and very tight with her older sister, Terry. Her mother was sweet and loving, but completely incapable of controlling the chaos her alcoholic husband brought into the household.

Ted McKenna learned how to drink at an early age, and for the first part of his life booze was his friend. It helped him loosen up and chat up the girls, and it gave him the courage he needed when the Polish guys who shared a border with the Irish on the east side of Cleveland would make some slur about how it was too bad all these Micks had moved into town and were stinking up the place.