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CHAPTER 5
The Nimitz’s owned a ranch house on Jackson Street. Red brick lined the bottom third, and white siding decorated the top two-thirds. Faded, red wood shutters hung on either side of every window. A row of evergreen bushes ran along the sidewalk from the driveway to the front door, obscuring a small porch. A large oak tree rose up from the snow that covered the front yard.
Through the front room windows, a TV flickered and cast a bluish glow. Archie Nimitz, Billy’s father, peered through the window. As Dean walked up to the front storm door, Archie had already opened the main door. “What can I do for you?”
Dean took off his hat. “Lieutenant Dean Wallace. Can I come in?”
Archie’s lip quivered. “This about Billy?”
Dean nodded once. “May I come in?”
“Of course, of course.” Billy’s father stood to the side, holding open the door, which he closed after Dean passed.
Archie followed Dean into the living room. A commercial for Irish Spring soap played on the TV. Emily sat on the plaid sofa. Jordy, a mutt by the looks of it, looked up eagerly at Dean but remained seated next to Emily. She looked up at him, anticipation visible in her shoulders, which rose as she sat straight up.
Archie said, “This is Lieutenant Dean Wallace.”
She nodded. “Hello. What brings you here?”
After years of practice, with a serious but calm tone, Dean told them about finding their son out at the Pratt farm. They had reported him missing on the third of January when Archie had received a call from Charlie McCord, Billy’s boss at the body shop. They had feared the worst, but the shock was still palpable. Archie asked for details, but Dean fell back on the too-early to know anything line, which was true but also allowed him to escape having to describe anything specific.
Large tears rolled down Archie’s face. Some so big they caught at the rim of his glasses and ran sideways, wetting the bottom edge of the lenses. Emily put her head in her hands and leaned over into Archie’s side. He rubbed her back.
“I know this is very difficult, but I have a few questions about when William disappeared.”
Archie nodded once. He clicked off the TV with the remote and slipped it between his thigh and the sofa cushion.
“Tell me about that day, the last day you saw your son,” said Dean.
Archie’s chest rose with a heavy sigh. “I’m not sure what’s to tell. He didn’t get home before we went to bed, and we didn’t see him that morning. We assumed he had gone off to work early. Charlie called around, oh, I think it was nine or something like that. Asked if Billy was coming into work. We told him he had left already. Charlie said he wasn’t there yet. We gave it another hour in case he was doing something and was late. But when he didn’t get to work by ten we started to worry. So I called the police about then. They said to wait a while. So we did. We waited through the day. Waited through dinner. We had a plate set out for him even. But we didn’t eat. We were too sick with worry.
“We called Charlie at seven. Seven that night. Had to call him at home. Billy hadn’t shown up to work at all. So we called the police again. That’s when they sent one of you fellows down. Can’t remember his name. We answered some questions, and we’ve waited ever since.”
Dean knew that his dad had assigned fellow detective Jeremy Guthrie to work the case. “William lived with you, then?”
Emily pulled at her skirt at the knees, picking off imaginary lint. “He didn’t make a lot at Charlie’s, but he made some. And he worked overtime. He worked hard, really hard. He was saving and taking care of us.”
“Had anything been bothering him prior to his disappearing or had he acted strange?”
Archie shook his head. “No. No. He was the same boy he’d always been.”
“He wasn’t married, right? Did he have a girlfriend.”
Emily smiled. “No. But he had been dating that Sarah woman. Sarah, oh what’s her last name. Sarah—”
“Esposito,” said Archie.
“Yes, Sarah Esposito.”
“Dating but not a girlfriend?”
Emily answered with a nodding shrug.
“Did he date anyone else?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Friends?”
“Corey and Josh and Alex,” said Archie with a scornful tone on Alex’s name.
“Last names?” asked Dean.
“Bender, Frasco, and Smith.” He said “Smith” with a bite.
“Alex Smith?”
“Yes.”
Alex Smith, son of the Clinton County District Attorney, was a regular at the station holding cell for public intoxication and less frequent bar fights. He had spent a month in county lock up the year prior for seriously beating a man.
“I don’t like him,” said Archie.
“Why?”
“He’s a bum. Always getting into trouble. Always dragging Billy into trouble. But he and Billy have been best friends since grade school.”
Dean nodded. “What kind of car did your son drive?”
“Oh, he had one of those fast cars. He worked on it a lot. A seventy-three Dodge Challenger. Canary yellow with a black hood stripe.”
Dean had seen it around town. So that was Billy. But he had not seen it at the Pratt farm. He closed his notebook. “Can I see his room?”
Archie nodded and stood up. Emily lowered her head and started heaving. He looked down at her and put his arm on her shoulder. It was a small, effortless gesture that spoke of years of familiarity and fondness. “It’s down the hall. Last door on the right.” He sat back down, his arm wrapping his wife.
“Can I get you a water or start some coffee?” asked Dean.
Archie shook his head. He left them to their grief.
The hallway led straight off the entryway, and Dean walked it in the dark. He passed picture frames hanging on the wall, but assuredly photos of happier times, in happier days. He passed a bathroom, a closed door that he guessed was to the master bedroom. At the end of the hall, he stopped. The door in front of him was probably for a linen closet. He opened the door on the right. He did not know what he expected. Billy was still living at home so he thought he might enter the world of the teenage Billy, but he was wrong. He flipped the light switch, which turned on a lamp next to the bed. A twin bed with a solid blue bedspread and matching light blue pillows. The wall was an eggshell white. A tall dark wood dresser with five drawers stood in a corner near the closet. On top of it was a bowl with a few bits of change and a matchbook from the Shambles. A photograph in a light wood frame of grade school Billy holding a baseball bat over his right shoulder. Orange t-shirt with Franco’s Pizza spelled across the front. A black wood frame leaning on an easel held a photograph of a dark-haired, olive-skinned woman at a beach. Sarah Esposito Dean guessed.
A small desk with a desk light set against the wall beside the bed. Dean turned on the light and opened the drawer and sifted through the pencils and pens and rusting paperclips. He picked up the photograph leaning on its stand on top of the desk next to the light. Archie and Emily standing together with the Statue of Liberty looming behind them. With Archie’s black frames and leaner build and Emily’s darker hair, Dean guessed this was at least a decade old. Could have been while Dean was humping in the jungle and Billy was only fourteen or fifteen or so. Billy had just escaped the draft.
Dean opened the drawer on the nightstand, where the lit lamp sat. A small Bible—New Testament only—which he flipped through and found nothing. The dresser drawers exposed only clothes. Billy wore jeans and t-shirts. In the closet, two pairs of slacks hung on wire hangers with cardboard tubes. Two shirts with large pointed collars and decorated with some vague floral pattern hung along with three standard dress shirts in white, light blue, and a darker blue.
On the floor, Dean opened a shoe box to find a pair of brown dress shoes. He opened another and pulled out a manila envelope. He opened it and pulled out fourteen wads of cash folded in half and tied with red rubber bands. At the bottom of the envelope, a copy of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and some loose bills.
He picked up The Communist Manifesto. The gray cover was stiff. It looked like the same copy they had found on Billy’s body. The quote “Workingmen of all countries, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win” appeared below the title. Published by Charles H. Kerr Publishing. Samuel Moore translation and edited and annotated by Frederick Engels. He flipped through the sixty pages. No marks. Two copies of this book. Was Billy a radical?
The cash totaled nearly twenty thousand—two years’ wages for Billy, Dean guessed. Fourteen bundles of wrapped ten-dollar bills and one unwrapped set. The remains of the rubber band in the bottom of the envelope. Dean contemplated where the money might have come from. Legally, saving. Otherwise, moving heroin or marijuana across the border made the most sense, except that it was across the southern border most drugs moved through. Besides, Zion’s drug problem was not significant—it was there. In favor of moving drugs, New York was only a few hours south. But what do money and The Communist Manifesto have in common, in Zion of all places.
He put the money and the book into the manila envelope and debated what to do. He could leave it. If Billy was a suicide, then this money was his parents’ and no one would care about the book. If, however, this turned into a murder investigation, that was evidence.
He pulled out his flask and took a swig. The warmth of the Wild Turkey rolled down to his stomach. He played it safe and grabbed the manila envelope. He walked out of the room and set the package on the entryway table and then walked into the family room. Archie sat holding Emily’s hands, which were gripped together and on the top of her legs.
“One more question before I leave. You said William worked overtime. Was it a lot of overtime?”
Archie nodded. “All the time. He was working hard. They didn’t pay him a lot there.”
“Did he have any other job outside of McCord’s?”
“No. He worked more than enough there.”
“What were his politics?”
Archie squinted and thought. Emily looked up. “Why on earth are you asking that?”
“Just a question. I found some evidence where we found your son, so I thought I’d ask.”
“What kind of evidence?” asked Archie.
Dean contemplated how to answer and decided to be straight with them. “A copy of The Communist Manifesto.”
Archie squinted again and then his eyes opened and he looked straight at Dean. “I don’t know why he would have that.”
Dean nodded, said his thanks and condolences, grabbed the manila envelope, and walked out into the frigid January air.Can't wait for the next chapter next week? Order your copy ($2.99) here:
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