Ollie Clark—Friday June 28, 2019
Cindy retreated for her phone call and hadn’t come down by the time someone pounded on the front door, but this time it wasn’t followed by an authoritative voice declaring himself as a member of the police. This wasn’t a policeman. Len Wilcox didn’t even have a press pass he could hold up, like he depended purely on his face to get himself in.
Ollie opened the main door but left the screen door between them and then waited.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Len demanded in a low voice, leaning in to get that air of intimacy despite the wire mesh. “Roger Porvoo just called me to say Jared’s downtown talking to people? Like they took him back and everything? And his contact said to hold off on printing anything about Randy.”
She raised an eyebrow and continued to wait.
“I went down there and I don’t know how many coffee shops are right around the police station, but I tried too many of them. I walked that block I don’t know how many times, but he hasn’t come out yet. Nobody’s come out. Jared’s been in there for hours, and that wouldn’t happen unless they thought they had something.”
Well. Jared could be in there alone in a room, sitting and waiting for people to come back and finally interview him. No matter what Roger’s contact said, they didn’t have to be listening to him. Just … keeping him, maybe to see how serious he was about what he had to say.
“Ollie. What’s Jared doing? He’s ruining everything.”
She licked her lips and considered before speaking. “What’s ‘everything’?”
“What?”
“Well, the thing is …”
Eli came up behind her and paused, quietly, with his hand on the small of her back.
“My ‘everything’ was ruined ten years ago, so whatever Jared’s up to is small potatoes. But, if you want something even more recent, how about a week ago? Sean Kelly has an alibi. Everyone seemed to think that was supposed to make it okay, you know? Because we had a name? Even though it didn’t undo a darn thing from ten years ago. So you’ve got Jared down at the police station and who knows what he’s saying?” She shrugged. “What do you even think he can do?”
“Look, Ollie, it sucks but I know your dad’s guilty. He did it. And now Jared’s going to ruin it because you get the police academy washouts and they don’t even have the single brain cell God gave all orange cats.”
“And that’s going to ruin what, exactly? Outside of your tell-all book about how you single-handedly solved this cold case and renewed my family’s tragedy for money.”
That made him straighten up. “It’s justice. And people deserve to know.”
People deserve to know? No, people were all too greedy for news updates in bite-sized pieces they could chew and forget until the next one came along. They thought they somehow deserved to witness grief in real time as people tried to process the horrific thing that happened to them and were now expected to externalize that process so strangers who’d never had anything worse than a splinter could think they understood the pain. And anyone with access to a recording device thought it was their job to charge in and shove it in someone’s face to catch every incoherent word.
Len freaking Wilcox, honestly. The University of Wisconsin should rescind his journalism degree.
This time he waited for her to break the silence. “If it’s justice, then you can attend the trial, same as anyone else. I have nothing more to say to you.”
“But—”
“We have your contact info, Len. If Cindy has anything, she’ll call. Otherwise …” Ollie lifted her chin to indicate the rental car parked in the street. “Get out of here.”
“Is that Len?” Cindy called from upstairs, followed by the thump of bare feet on the risers.
The man in question smiled smugly and raised his voice. “Yes, it is!”
“Good. Okay.” Cindy waited for Eli and Ollie to move out of the way, but she didn’t open the screen door. She just faced him through it. “You’ll be hearing from Deborah, but just so you know, we’re rescinding all permissions to use anything either of us has said to you, recorded or otherwise, in any works of any kind, including but not limited to written. Just so you know.”
Len blinked. “But …”
“She’s already gone over the contract Randy signed. Which he only did sign because you have that way out written into it. She said it’s probably so you can get what you want and then guilt them into letting you keep it, but you’re not keeping anything from us. So.” She crossed her arms. “That’s all. You may leave now.”
He bristled. “It’s your one chance to—”
“My overflowing inbox says otherwise. Good day, Mr. Wilcox. You’re trespassing.” She closed the door firmly and threw the locks.
Ollie raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t clear that with Dad.”
“If he balks, Deborah’s going to make it an order. Tell him it’s a condition of her continued service.”
“What, lawyers can lie to you now, too?” Eli asked wryly.
“She doesn’t have to hold on to a fool for a client. If Randy’s not going to act in his own best interest, she doesn’t have to go down with that ship.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t have to go down with it, either,” Cindy said archly. “I haven’t started packing, and I’ll see how this all shakes out, but if the scales tip and ‘I told you so’ feels like the better future …” She sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing at her temples. “I’m sorry, Ollie. That came out a bit harsher than I meant it, but he’s going to such lengths to protect your mom without seeing …”
“What it’s doing to you?” Ollie finished.
Cindy shrugged. “To me, to him … to both of you … I don’t know. I want to flip ahead and peek at some of the pages in the future to figure out if this book is worth reading.” Then she sighed. “It’s probably not a good day for me to try talking about any of this.”
“There’s plenty of moose tracks left,” Ollie reminded her.
“I haven’t had anything today but coffee. Is moose tracks a good breakfast?”
She shrugged. “It’s probably got less sugar than a lot of the cereals Mom wouldn’t let us buy.”
“Yeah, okay. Moose tracks for breakfast. If you can’t do that while your husband’s being held for murder …” She took one more look out the front to make sure Len was really gone, nodded, and then headed back to the kitchen.
Excerpts from Jared Chapman’s interview with Lieutenant Samuel Johnson and Sergeant Parker Dennis, June 28, 2019
JC: I couldn’t really see much inside the house, but that was fine. I was jumpy and I felt like I might faint if I relaxed at all, anyway. I just figured, you know … Ollie and Wendy were about the same height, and I didn’t have to aim properly, anyway. Buck shot.
SJ: At such a close range—
JC: Sure, it wouldn’t have much of a chance to spread, but it didn’t need much, did it? And the first one, that first person, came right up to the door. She opened the inner door and she was right there, but I’d backed down the steps a bit so I could plant my feet and raise the gun, and I’m not sure she even saw me. Just blam, and there was a hole in the screen. She took a step back and went down.
PD: And you got her in the face so you didn’t even know—
JC: Man, I couldn’t have told you where I shot her. All I knew was she was down and the other one was coming. I—okay, this is how little I knew, you know? I still don’t even know the right words. I popped the thing out and brought the gun up to shoot again, and you already know I was kind of an idiot, because you found both shells and all these experts were asking why I didn’t just leave the second one in, you know? I don’t even remember all the steps. I just saw the one shell lying there on the pavement, so I bent down and grabbed it, and I kind of straightened up again and tried to look in, but they weren’t moving. Two women, down, check. So I circled the house again, on the uphill side, angling away toward the neighbor’s back yard to keep out of the motion sensor’s range. I’d been doing good up until then, nothing more than a fast walk, but once I hit the alley I panicked. That’s why I tripped and fell and dropped the other shell near the Harrisons’ backyard. It was dark enough I couldn’t be sure if it was theirs or the Vedders’, but it was that side of the alley and about that far up. Then I reversed my path earlier: top of the hill to 1st, Globe to Trimountain, and back across the highway.
PD: And nobody saw you?
JC: You tell me. Nobody stopped me, and nobody reported seeing me. And I would’ve looked guilty as hell by then. I was all stiff-legged, like some sort of zombie speed walk, and my eyes felt like they’d never close again. The adrenaline, man. It didn’t matter that I still had the gun—if anybody had stopped me, they would’ve realized something was wrong. And I felt like the world’s least graceful water buffalo when I came back into the apartment and took off my shoes, but Eli didn’t wake up. He hadn’t even moved. I’d done that, just killed two people, and he hadn’t even moved. I went back into my bedroom, put the gun back under the mattress, and … man, I was so jacked up. I didn’t want to turn the light on in case anyone outside saw it and said oh, yeah, Jared was up all night, isn’t that weird? Because I wasn’t supposed to know yet. It would be hours before I was supposed to know. If anyone came banging on our door before dawn it wouldn’t mean the end of the world, since someone would’ve gone to Esther’s to find Eli and then figured he was with us if he wasn’t there, but it would be bad. Because the scene was bad, you know? And officially they’d want to tell Randy and Birdy first.
SJ: Even though you’d just—
JC: Man, you’re stupider than I was, okay? How many times does someone have to point out nobody knew about the switch? From what Ollie’s told me lately, it went down the way Randy always said it did: Birdy asked him to take Ollie so they could talk about Eli. Which has never made any sense whatsoever, unless you wanted it to support the story that Eli was the killer, which was just fucked up. I really thought you guys were going to nail him for it, all because she told another lie. Birdy Clark, man, always telling fucking lies. Except this time you were the ones who fell for it.
SJ: Mr. Chapman—
JC: Just hold your horses. The way I figure, I’ve told you maybe two things that weren’t made public: the shells weren’t found together, and the sensor on the garage was knocked out of true. Did they find that, by the way? Did anyone notice?
PD: It’s in the official report, yes.
JC: Okay. And I told you how I got the gun, but it’s untraceable. That thing bruised the fuck out of my shoulder, by the way. It would’ve been so obvious if anyone looked at me, but you didn’t. I was terrified you would, but I also didn’t think I could move the gun right away, and then … you talked to the paramedics who came to my aunt’s house, right? The ones who couldn’t sedate me enough with what they had on hand?
PD: Denomie interviewed them, yes.
JC: And still nobody caught out. You all thought I was just freaking out because some whack job killed Birdy and here was my proof, and not … not …fuck. I did it. I was so sure, so confident, that I was doing the right thing, and then I see Ollie, still breathing, and the dominoes fell. Because I shot two people in the Clark house, and if she wasn’t one of them … shit.
PD: Take your time.
JC: Yeah, because I haven’t taken long enough? The point is, that gun was under my mattress for weeks. First when they released me from the hospital I had people watching me just about twenty-four/seven in case I cracked again. About the only good thing was that my mom had stopped doing my laundry or cleaning my room when I was thirteen, so nobody was going to find it. I figured maybe I’d drive it out to the Portage and throw it in, but that never seemed like a good enough idea. And then …
SJ: Then?
JC: Then Randy Clark decided that renovating the living room wasn’t enough. He wanted to tackle their janky basement. You couldn’t even keep anything down there before without putting it on a table so it wouldn’t get wet, and he wanted something livable, which means he had a lot of work to do. And, unlike the living room, he wasn’t so set on doing it all himself. In fact …
SJ: In fact?
JC: He wanted me to help. He paid me to help. Something to get me out of my apartment and off my ass where he thought I was grieving Birdy and totally blameless. Like it wasn’t my fault. Randall fucking Chapman has spent the last ten years telling me to my face that it isn’t my fault while trying to keep Eli away from Ollie, and how’s that for irony? Excellent judge of character, my ass. I killed his wife and daughter, just blew them away, and the dude breaks into my apartment and freaking pays me to help renovate his basement.
Bury the Dead 29 – coming April 29
Rebecca Frost 