Silent Son (14 page)

Granville was smiling now. “You gonna buy one, Dad?” Granville asked.

Gardner smiled. The tactic was working. “We can look. Maybe if we find one like Minnie your mom might let me get it for you.
But you know they’ve got some other animals there too.” Gardner tensed. He did not want to shift subjects so fast that Granville
would realize he was being maneuvered back to Bowers Corner.

“Uh-huh.” Granville was still throwing Minnie the Bally-wally in his mind.

“They’ve got snakes, and gerbils, and hamsters, and rabbits…”

Granville stopped smiling.

Gardner let out his breath slowly. “You love rabbits, don’t you, son?”

Granville went silent and began to swing both feet. He gripped the bench with his hands, his face cast down again.

“What’s your favorite? White? Or black?”

The feet speeded up.

Gardner swallowed hard. “You used to be real good at catching them. Remember?” He was back at the Bowers’.

The feet were now a blur of motion.

Granville was struggling. It was as if he wanted to help Dad. He really wanted to, but something was standing in the way.

“Uncle Henry said you were the best catcher he ever saw.” Gardner said softly, looking at his son as the word “Henry” was
uttered.

The feet kept up their pace, and Granville gasped aloud. Tears began squeezing from his eyes and dribbling down his cheeks.

“So did Aunt Addie.” Gardner’s heart felt like breaking as he said the dead woman’s name, but he had to keep pushing. Granville
was trying. Trying hard.

Suddenly Granville stopped swinging his feet and looked into his father’s eyes. Tears were splashing everywhere. “Dad!” he
screamed. His voice sounded as if it had come from the bottom of a well.

Gardner scooped Granville into his arms, and hugged him, and kissed his head, and told him again and again that it was okay.

Gardner knew he’d made a start. As agonizing as it was, he’d have to keep going, pushing Granville until the menace revealed
itself. So that Dad could destroy it forever.

“Got it!” Brownie yelled. The results were back from the laser fingerprint job on the soup can, and there, in photograph number
six, was the fuzzy oval outline of a latent print on the edge of the label.

Brownie steadied the photo under his laboratory magnifier and eyeballed the photo close up. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” he said to
himself. Inside the faint outline was a network of interconnecting lines, the ridges, whorls, and bifurcations of the print.
There was enough there to make a comparison.

He removed the photograph and placed it on the optical imaging receptor of his classification computer. After several adjustments
of the light-dark control, he finally had it suitable for a feed into the system.

“Okay, let’s roll,” he said, pushing the enter button, which allowed the computer to store the pattern of the print into memory.

Then he moved over and sat at the console, activating the compare-and-classify control. The screen responded by flashing a
series of lightning-fast images of fingerprints into view as thousands of prints in the same general subcategory were juxtaposed
to the one that Brownie had just fed in. The fingerprints of local felons and misdemeanants were on file there, but the system
was also tapped into the Maryland and FBI data banks, which provided access to almost a million more prints.

“Come on, baby,” Brownie sweet-talked the machine. “Come on. Give it up.”

It seemed as if the computer was running the gamut of loaded prints. The pattern was changing faster and faster, as the optical
imager came up short on the comparison each time.

Finally, the images began to slow down, and then they stopped.

There was an audible beep and the word UNKNOWN appeared on the screen.

“Shit!” Brownie whispered, giving the console a gentle whack with the palm of his hand. “You done let me down, baby.”

He moved the switch to the review mode, and ran the numbers on what the machine had just done. OFFENDER FILE COMPLETE, the
summary said.

The print wasn’t in the file. That meant that the person who left it had no criminal record.

Brownie rose and went to the case file on the lab desk. He ruffled the pages and pulled out Addie’s and Henry’s prints that
were lifted at the morgue. In a minute, the comparison was run, and the result was negative. Neither Addie nor Henry’s had
left the print.

“Who else?” Brownie said. Then a thought struck, and he hit the keys to access the law enforcement officers’ prints stored
in the personnel files of the department. The place had been swarming with cops after the shooting. Maybe one of them touched
the can.

Again, there was a whirring sound as the unknown print went up against the hundreds of prints in the personnel File.

Suddenly, there was a double beep. A match!

Brownie dropped the case file and raced to the screen.

POSITIVE COMPARISON was captioned at the top, and at the bottom the name of the person who left the print.

“Son of a bitch,” Brownie moaned.

The print belonged to: SERGEANT JOSEPH BROWN.

It was late afternoon and Jennifer was at the State’s Attorney ‘s office scouring the police report on the Bowers case for
the thirtieth time today. Sitting at Gardner’s desk, in the privacy of his inner sanctum, she had been absorbed in the file
for hours.

Jennifer leaned back in Gardner’s leather chair so that the air conditioning vent in the ceiling could blow some coolness
across her face. The weather was heating up outside, and moist tendrils of summer were somehow finding their way inside the
building. She closed her eyes.

She missed Gardner. He was like a petulant child sometimes, bent on having his way, but she couldn’t freeze him out for long.
Her heart was too soft to hold the anger that flared when he got bullheaded.

Jennifer opened her eyes and focused on the photo of gran-ville perched on the corner of the desk. He was laughing, and his
hair was flying as his father had caught him zooming down the hill at Watson Road on his bike. The boy was always in the middle.
Caught between Mom and Dad in the breakup. And now, between Dad and a killer.

Jennifer snapped forward and flipped the file open to the bank records that Brownie had obtained. Gardner had belittled the
monetary connection, but she and Brownie were convinced that somehow money was at the root of the shootings.

The report was specific on one point: there was no bank account in the name of either Henry or Addie Bowers. Not in Western
Maryland National. Not in Mountain Federal. Not even in Apple Valley Savings and Loan.

Jennifer picked up the phone and dialed Brownie’s number at the lab. The line buzzed twice and a familiar husky voice answered:
“Brown.”

“Brownie, Jennifer.”

“Afternoon.” There was an uncharacteristic sadness in his tone.

“Catching you at a bad time?” she asked.

“Uh, no. Not really.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I did something stupid, Jennifer.”

The response took her by surprise.

“Spent the whole damn afternoon lifting my own fingerprint off that soup can.”

“What?” Jennifer wasn’t following.

“Ran the latent print through the computer and it came back registered to Sergeant Joseph Brown. Don’t even know my own damn
print!”

“How did that happen?” Jennifer’s voice was sympathetic.

“Don’t know. I swear I never touched that can. I know better than that. All the damn evidence I’ve collected, never made a
dumb move like that one.”

“So you touched the can, so what?”

“So that was my big lead. Chance to find out who dug the slug out of the wall.”

“No other prints on the can?”

“Nope. Just the thumbprint of a dumb-ass cop!”

Jennifer knew that Brownie was trying too hard. That’s probably why he’d screwed up. His relationship with Gardner was so
close that his objectivity was slipping too.

“Okay, Brownie, that’s done. We’ve got to get back on track.”

“I hear you.” The professionalism was returning.

“I want to talk about the bank records. I’ve been going over them, and I need to confirm a few things,” Jennifer said.

“Shoot.”

“You Ran every bank in the area on the Bowers, right?”

“Every one.”

“And there were no listed accounts for Addie or Henry Bowers.”

“Correct.”

“What type of accounts were you looking for?”

“Checking. Savings. Business accounts.”

“How about safe deposit boxes?” Jennifer asked.

“Them too,” Brownie answered.

“What names were you searching under?”

“Henry R. Bowers and Addie S. Bowers.”

“Any others?”

“No. What are you driving at, Jennifer?”

“Did you run Purvis Bowers?”

“Not yet.” It was on Brownie’s list, but he’d been sidetracked with the print search.

“Can you get a summons out on Purvis’s bank records? As their accountant, maybe he did Addie and Henry’s banking in his name.”

“Thought about that,” Brownie answered. “He could have the account. That might answer the question of why he got so squirrelly
out at the store. Maybe he’s the bagman for their secret stash.”

“Well, right now, he’s our only live lead,” Jennifer said.

“Purvis?”

“Yes. I think he’s the key at this point.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Brownie asked.

“I’m going to subpoena Mr. Bowers to appear before the Grand Jury,” Jennifer said resolutely. “No immunity. No deals. He’ll
have to talk. You check out his bank records at the same time. Maybe we can catch him in a lie and force out the truth.”

“King won’t like that,” Brownie said solemnly.

“Screw King!” Jennifer snapped, sounding more like Gardner than herself. “Bowers is gonna tell us about the money or face
an obstruction of justice charge. And King can’t protect him.”

“Now you’re talkin’!” Brownie chuckled. “I’ll run the records summons, and you get your subpoena out on Purvis, and we’ll
be cookin’.”

“Okay.”

“One more thing.” Brownie’s voice dropped. “How’s Gardner doing?”

“So-so. Up and down. You know.”

“Take care of that boy,” Brownie said. “Stick with him. He’ll come around.”

“I’ll try,” Jennifer whispered. Then she hung up the phone, pulled out her legal pad and began drafting a Grand Jury subpoena
for Purvis Bowers.

* * *

Gardner and Carole had been called to Nancy Meyers’s office for a conference. Granville had been to four therapy sessions
now, and she needed to talk with the parents about his progress.

“We seem to be off to a slow start,” she said. “He hasn’t yet adjusted to being here.”

Gardner recalled Granville’s listless reaction on the floor of the therapy room, and his senseless scribbled drawings.

“How’s he doing at home?” Meyers looked at Carole.

“Quiet. Almost morose,” Carole said.

“And with you?” She turned to Gardner.

“About the same,” Gardner replied. He said nothing about the tears at the playground.

“We’ll just keep at it, then,” Meyers said. “Slowly, slowly, slowly. I’m sure he’ll start to relax before long.”

“How long do you think it will take?” Carole asked.

Meyers fiddled with her pen. “No telling…”

Gardner hefted a paper bag he’d brought with him from the floor to his lap. “I’ve noticed you have a lot of toys, but I didn’t
sec one of these…” He pulled a large white stuffed rabbit from the bag and set it on the therapist’s desk. “How about putting
this in there during Gran’s next session?”

Carole gave Gardner a quizzical look. “What’s that for?”

“It’s his favorite animal,” Gardner said.

“But it’ll remind him of Bowers Corner!” Carole said.

Nancy Meyers picked up the rabbit and studied it. “That might be okay,” she said. “I could put it on the side, make no reference
to it. He could go to it only if he wanted to…”

“But,” Carole said, “won’t it just get him upset?”

“Not necessarily,” the therapist answered. “He may take some comfort in it. Not all memories of the Bowers were bad.”

“But—” Carole was still trying to protest.

“Good idea, Mr. Lawson,” the therapist continued. “This might be just the gentle stimulus we need.”

* * *

Gardner was in the yard behind his town house, fiddling with the barbecue grill, when Jennifer arrived at dusk. They’d spoken
few words since the flare-up at the office, and Jennifer approached cautiously.

Gardner was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and his face still radiated the glow of the midday sun. He looked more relaxed
than he had earlier.

Jennifer let the screen door snap against the frame to alert him to her presence.

He looked up from the half-scraped grill top. “Hi, Jen.”

She forced a thin smile. “Getting ready to cook something?” In the course of their tiff, coordinating evening meals had been
overlooked.

“Thought I might throw on a few burgers… You hungry?” Gardner’s grilling techniques were as impromptu as some of his trial
tactics. He liked to fire up the coals, toss on the meat, poke ‘em, flip ‘em, close the lid, sip a martini, open the lid,
and redeem the remains. Remarkably, like many of his offbeat courtroom maneuvers, the results were usually favorable.

“Let’s eat,” she said tentatively. There was still a barrier between them, despite his obvious overture of peace.

Jennifer went to the bedroom and changed into shorts and a halter top. She loosed her ponytail from its black cloth band and
shook out her dark shiny hair. When she returned to the yard, the smell of the burgers was beginning to replace the cool grassy
odor of the summer evening.

Gardner snapped up the lid and retreated from the burst of heavy smoke. Then he flipped one of the burgers and closed the
top again.

Jennifer sat at the round patio table and Gardner joined her. They were on opposite sides, looking at each other in silence.

“We’re going after Purvis Bowers,” Jennifer said suddenly. “Brownie and I are convinced he’s hiding something. I’m bringing
him before the Grand Jury.”