Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 13
Corey Bender worked at the Farmer’s General Store store at the east edge of town on Harrow Road. The building’s facade was corrugated sheet metal in alternating dark blue and forest green. The place had started out in the nineteenth century as a seed and general store. Since the 1950s, it had expanded—and built the current building—to sell fertilizer, work clothes, toys, lawn furniture, and many other items no longer used by the farmer for his crops or herd.
A clerk filling candy bar boxes at checkout line three pointed the two detectives to the inventory room at the back of the store when asked about Corey. They followed the main open aisle toward sporting goods before turning left and finding the two large swinging doors that led to the inventory room from the lawn mower section. Jeremy eyed a Lawn-Boy push mower. “I need a new one.”
“For mowing snow?”
Jeremy laughed. “No. But they’re always better deals in the winter than in the spring, when you need them.”
They walked through the double doors into a small warehouse. The back loading dock door was open, letting in the bitter January air. The driver of the truck was standing just inside the building, his hands shoved into his pockets.
A man, a full head of silver hair, a large silver mustache, and large gold-rimmed glasses walked up. He wore the bright green polo shirt with Farmer’s General Store embroidered on the upper left chest. Below it the phrase, “More than seeds!” His name tag read “Joe,” and he smiled and lowered the clipboard to his side. “How can I help you?”
“Detectives Dean Wallace and Jeremy Guthrie. We’d like to talk to Corey Bender.”
Joe grunted. “He’s that away.” He pointed and fluttered his hand up and down toward the back of the inventory room. “He’s loading the new shipment on the shelves.” He walked away from the detectives and toward the truck’s open door, waving at the driver.
They walked back in the direction Joe had indicated and found Corey jamming a pallet lift beneath a stack of boxes wrapped in plastic. Corey pumped the lift to raise the pallet up and then pulled back and pushed forward to maneuver the awkward stack from its narrow space. When he noticed the detectives, he stopped his effort and put his hand on the lift’s handle.
Corey, the same age as Billy, was lanky but short. His dark brown hair fell over his ears and was parted slightly off center. It had a slight wave. He wore a thick, red turtleneck beneath a Farmer’s General Store blue and green vest. His blue jeans covered the tops of his steel-toed work boots. He had stuffed a green knit cap into his front pants pocket. He reached into his vest and pulled out a pack of Salems and lit one.
“You okay to smoke when you’re not on break?” asked Jeremy.
Corey waved his hand dismissively in the direction of Joe. “What can I help you fellows with?”
Jeremy said, “You remember me?” He pulled out his badge and held it up for the kid to see.
“Yeah, detective or something, right?”
“Yeah. Guthrie. And this is Detective Wallace.” He stuffed the badge back into his inside coat pocket.
Corey inhaled and let out a large bellow of smoke.
“You heard?” asked Dean.
“Yeah, I heard.” He let his cheeks bloom and slowly exhaled, a small stuttering sound.
Dean knew he had lit the cigarette in an effort to control his emotions. He could see Corey’s eyes getting moist. “So you were with Billy the night his disappeared, right?”
“Yeah. The Shambles.”
Dean waited for Corey to add more color, but when he did not, he asked, “Just drinking and stuff?”
“Usual night. We had a few beers. Called it. Left.”
“Who?”
“Me, Billy, and Josh.”
“What time did you guys leave?”
“We left around eleven-thirty. All three of us. Josh walked home. Billy and I got in our cars and drove away.”
“That’s the last time you saw Billy?” asked Guthrie.
“It is. I went home. Went to bed. Got up and came here.”
“Anyone vouch for that?” asked Dean.
Corey’s hand paused before he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. “No.” His eyes focused and looked and held Dean’s gaze. “No.”
“Anything going on with Billy’s life we should know about?”
Corey ran his hand through his bangs. “The usual, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means? People have shit going on in their lives.”
With Corey’s tone turning hostile, Dean wondered if he had gone too quickly to the alibi question. So he smiled, hoping to re-inject some friendliness into the interview. “Pretend we’re stupid. What was going on with Billy?”
“The dude was unhappy. He was living at home, hated his job, and had a whacked girlfriend. But he was stuck in this town.”
“He didn’t want to live at home?”
“Hell no. Who wants to live at home? But his mom insisted on it. Said she needed help. So he did it. And he didn’t like his job. No matter how much Charlie says he did. That guy pays as cheap as he can and screws them out of overtime. He needs to be arrested for something. It’s criminal what he pays his employees.”
“And the girlfriend?”
“Ah, man. She was just using him. Using him for his money but mocking him for living at home. Dude couldn’t win. He’d buy her something, and she’d want something nicer. Like for Christmas, he bought her a diamond necklace. I don’t know how much he paid, but those were some stones. But the month before, he’d bought her a bracelet with a bunch of stones. Sarah was like happy for a day and then started demanding more.”
“Did you hear her demand more?”
“Nah. We didn’t hang out with her. Billy knew we weren’t keen on her, and, well, she would’ve been the only girl with us drinking. Not what we wanted.”
“How do you know she was demanding stuff all the time if you didn’t hang out with her?”
Corey scratched the back of his neck and then took a long drag. “You could just tell. And he’d like talk about her, so we knew he was buying her stuff. And Alex knew. He’d tell me and Josh all the time about how bad Sarah was.”
“If McCord’s pays cheap, how’d Billy afford these diamond necklaces and bracelets?”
“I wondered that myself. I don’t know.”
“He sell drugs or something?” asked Guthrie.
Corey snorted. “No. If you knew Billy, you’d know that’s ridiculous. The guy was like a saint. No he didn’t sell drugs. Maybe he saved well or something.”
“What do you mean by ‘like a saint’?”
Corey dropped the cigarette and crushed it with his shoe. “I don’t know. I mean, the guy was an upstanding guy. He’d go over the speed limit a little. He’d help old ladies cross the street. Boy Scout stuff. He just wouldn’t be part of something illegal like that.” He bent down and picked up the crushed filter.
Dean had personally witnessed a paid killer for the mob help an elderly woman across the street in Manhattan. Boy Scout stuff there too. “Where was Alex the night Billy and you guys went to the Shambles?” asked Dean.
Corey shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Man, Billy and Alex got into it after Thanksgiving. Something about Sarah. I don’t know the details. I felt like we were being made to choose sides.”
“Between Billy and Alex?” asked Dean.
“Yeah. Alex can be a jerk, so I’m fine hanging out with Billy. But they were arguing—Alex and Billy—about Sarah. I didn’t want to get mixed up in it. No way.”
Dean turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. Joe was walking toward them.
Corey looked back and forth between the two detectives. “My boss is getting antsy. Can I get back to work?”
The truck pulled away from the loading dock, roaring in low gear as the driver gave it gas.
“Sure,” said Dean. “If you think of anything else, anything at all, call us.”
Joe stopped about ten feet behind them. “About done? I need to get these boxes put away.” He sniffed the air and looked at the detectives. “You’re not supposed to be smoking in here,” he said to them.
Guthrie frowned a sorry and then he and Dean parted like the Red Sea and let Corey walk between them, dragging the palette lift toward a row of shelves with more pallets of boxes wrapped in plastic.
“What do you think?” asked Guthrie, scratching the back of his neck.
Dean made a sucking sounds between his lips. He looked at his watch, it was close to three. “Let’s get back to the station and write up our reports. Tomorrow morning we talk to Sarah Esposito.”
* * *
Dean picked Jenny up from his parents. A day of puzzles and crochet, which Jessica was intent on teaching her. Before they went home, they stopped at an ice rink the city set up just a block from downtown. Dean pulled out his hockey skates for the first time that season, got his skating legs beneath him, and joined the dozen people on the ice. Jenny liked to twirl, and they raced a few times. She seemed happy and oblivious to the murder and drugs her father had been investigating just a few hours earlier.
At home, he made them TV dinners. He despised the things, except for the overcooked mashed potato edges, but he could not argue their efficiency. A bit of television, and she was off to bed to read until she fell asleep.
He poured himself a tumbler of whiskey and sat down to watch the evening local news when the phone rang. He jumped up and got it just as the second ring was ending. “Hello?”
“Dean?”
“Yes.” A heartbeat before he recognized the voice. “Tony?”
“Hey brother. Am I bothering you? I know it’s late.”
“No. No. Jenny just went to bed, and I was going to catch up on the news.” His brother had not called him in months. They hardly spoke at all, though it was not because of any animosity. Just living their lives.
“Good. Good. Look, uh, I—” Tony paused on the line.
Dean let him gather his words.
Tony continued, “I just didn’t want you to think I was rude this afternoon. At lunch.”
“Huh?”
“When we saw each other and I was in and out. Didn’t sit with you.”
“Oh. That.” Dean had forgotten about the encounter. “Think nothing of it. I wasn’t offended.”
“Good.”
A pause. Neither knew how to proceed. They could talk about what had been going on in their lives, but they knew each would gloss over the details and offer generic statements. But to not ask seemed un-brotherly. So, instead, a pause. A pause Dean broke. “Hey, actually, I’m glad you called. I had a question for you.” He gave his brother a quick summary of Billy’s murder without using names and told him of his call with Renard, and particularly the Canadian detective’s query about talking to the FBI.
Tony said, “Well, he’s probably being thorough. The FBI would be involved if the crime crossed into Canada, though, frankly, we usually leave that to local law enforcement to coordinate with the Canadians. Maybe The Communist Manifesto prompted it. We do conduct counterintelligence. I can’t think of any other reason why he’d say that. You’re victim doesn’t seem the spy type.”
Dean scratched his chin. “He doesn’t. Just a young kid working in an auto shop.”
“There you have it.”
They exchanged a few more pleasantries and hung up.
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