Silent Son (18 page)

Brownie perused the first three, then picked up the last drawing, the one done just that afternoon. His face registered recognition.

“Brownie, what is it?” Gardner sensed that he was on to something.

The officer did not reply. He was too much into his examination of the paper. Suddenly he turned the page sideways, and placed
it under his magnifier. “Son of a bitch!”

“What is it?” Gardner and Jennifer both spoke at once, caught up in the excitement Brownie was generating.

“Hold on!” Brownie hollered. “Hold on!” Then he ran to his file cabinet, removed a file, and pulled out a stack of photographs,
hurriedly sorting through them until he found the one he was looking for.

In an instant, he was back at the magnifier, and he placed the photo next to the sideways drawing.

Gardner and Jennifer rushed close to peer over each shoulder while Brownie gently realigned each page.

“Jesus,” Gardner whispered, “I don’t believe it!”

“That’s it!” Jennifer added.

Under the magnifier, at a certain angle, an image appeared beneath the encircling scribbles. It was clearly defined, and unmistakable,
even though it was not readily apparent from an upright view.

“Now we’ve got something!” Brownie said triumphantly.

“Issue an arrest warrant immediately,” Gardner ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Brownie replied. He got up to start the paperwork, and pushed past the prosecutor.

Gardner stood in place, staring at the image under the magnifier. There it was. What Granville had been trying to say. The
vision he’d seen at the Bowers’ before his face had been smashed with the barrel of a gun. It was a death’s-head. A hideous,
grotesque caricature of a death’s-head. And it was identical to the one tattooed on the back of Roscoe Miller’s left hand.

Prentice Academy was ready for commencement. A battalion of white chairs had been laid out in the grass quadrangle between
the stone administration building and the ball field. Shaded by maple trees, the area would soon be filled with proud parents,
squirming brothers and sisters, and the men of the hour: the black-robed graduates. At 8:00
A.M
. it was quiet and cool, but
by noon the ceremony would be under way.

Gardner and Jennifer parked in the lower lot and walked briskly toward the headmaster’s office on the far side of the wooden
speaker’s platform. It had been a hell of a night. Brownie had filled in the prosecutors on Miller’s connection with the exclusive
prep school as he typed up the arrest warrant. There had to be some fire beneath the smoke, he said. The Addic-Henry killing
was a two-man job. He was absolutely convinced. Roscoe and another person. All of the workup on Roscoe so far had come up
short. He was a loner, and a recluse, and there were no cohorts to fit the profile of the second man. But now they had a line
on where he’d been spending a lot of time lately. Maybe the missing piece of the puzzle lay somewhere at the school.

“You think Brownie can do it?” Jennifer huffed as her feet rushed to keep pace with Gardner. While they interrogated the headmaster.
Brownie was going to try to pick up Miller.

“He’d better,” Gardner said solemnly. His anger had been building since they’d connected Granville’s drawing to the tattoo.
Roscoe Miller had hurt his son once, and was out to do it again. He had to be stopped, and Gardner secretly wished that Miller
would try to resist the arrest so Brownie would have an excuse to shoot him.

They arrived at the office as headmaster Edwin Charles was returning from breakfast in the main dining hall. He was dressed
for commencement in a dark blue suit, with a white boutonnierc pinned to the lapel. The prosecutors had arrived unannounced,
and Charles seemed flustered as he encountered them in the alcove outside his glass-top door. He had a lot of details to attend
to before the ceremony.

“Mr. Charles? I’m State’s Attorney Gardner Lawson.”They shook hands, and Gardner noticed that the man’s palms were wet. “This
is my assistant, Jennifer Monday.”

Jennifer put out her hand, and got the same clammy response.

“Need to discuss something with you.” Gardner continued. “It’s very important.”

Charles eyed his visitors nervously. “I’m quite busy at the moment, uh, have to get my eagles ready to fly…” He smiled, but
the humor was forced.

“Please!” Gardner retorted. “We’re conducting a murder investigation, and we need your help.” The word “murder” froze Charles
in his tracks.

The headmaster scanned (he hall for wandering parents, and then ushered the prosecutors into the privacy of his office. His
expression had turned grave.

Gardner and Jennifer sat in straight-backed chairs opposite a black inlaid desk. Charles twitched in his leather seat on the
other side.

“Have you ever seen this man before?” Gardner asked suddenly, handing a mug shot photo of Roscoe Miller across the desk.

Charles leaned forward and adjusted his glasses, gingerly seizing the picture between his thumb and index finger.

Gardner and Jennifer waited as the headmaster studied the photo for an inordinately long time, his eyes hidden behind the
glossy print.

“Do you know him?” Gardner finally prompted.

Charles put the photo down and removed a handkerchief from his pocket. “Believe he worked for us,” he said softly.

“Worked, as in past tense?” Gardner asked.

“Maintenance. Part-time. Came and went as we needed.”

“Is he still under that arrangement?”

Charles’s eyes began dancing again, the way they’d done in the hall. “Don’t think so. Hasn’t been here for several weeks.”

“What name was he using?” Gardner opened a file that Brownie had given him.

Charles wiped his hands with the handkerchief.

“Name?”

“On the payroll. How was he listed?”

Charles got up, went to a iile cabinet, and returned with a folder of his own. As he did this, Jennifer moved away from the
desk, toward a side wall.

“Hiller. R. Hiller,” the headmaster said.

“Did you get any ID from him when you signed him on?” Gardner asked, turning his head to see where Jennifer had gone.

The man’s face darkened. “I don’t get involved in those things. Our business manager handles maintenance personnel, things
like that. I would assume everything was in order, or he wouldn’t have been hired.”

Just then, Jennifer returned and tapped Gardner on the arm. He looked up, and she directed his attention to a photograph on
the wall.

Gardner stood, and approached the picture. It showed a group of men standing in front of a skeet tower, wearing baseball caps.
Third from the left, in the front row, was none other than Roscoe Miller.

“Mr. Charles?” Gardner pointed accusingly at the picture.

The headmaster rose and approached the photo. “What?”

“Who are these people?” Gardner asked.

“Skeet team. This year’s shooters.”

Gardner looked at Jennifer in puzzlement, then returned to Charles. “What’s he doing in there?” Gardner pointed to the third
man.

The headmaster leaned close to get a better look. “He’s a team member.”

Gardner frowned. “You let your employees play on your sports teams?”

“Sir?”

“Miller! or Hillcr,” Gardner said loudly. “You allowed him to shoot skeet with the kids?”

Charles’s eyes widened. “What?”

Gardner was still pointing at the man in the photo.

“Oh!” the headmaster said, suddenly understanding the confusion.

“That’s not him. That’s one of our students!”

Gardner and Jennifer pressed in for a closer look. The cap cast a shadow across his face, and Roscoe’s wild hair was hidden,
but the basic facial construction was similar, and the eyes burned the same clear blue flame.

Gardner shook his head. On closer inspection, he could see that it was not Roscoe. There was a lot more refinement and grooming
evident.

“Amazing,” Jennifer said. “When f first saw it, he jumped right out.”

The chief prosecutor was still staring at the image. He looked enough like Roscoe to be his twin. And that similarity gave
Gardner a nauseated sensation in the pit of his stomach. His mind suddenly pictured Granville, staring up at a pair of cold
blue eyes. Mesmerized and immobile. Unable to move as the gun barrel was lowered toward his forehead…

“Gard.” Jennifer saw his eyes glaze over, and she knew she had to bring him back. “What are we going to do?”

Gardner snapped out of it instantly. He turned and glared at the headmaster. “We’re going to get some answers from Mr. Charles,”
he said angrily.

* * *

“Need backup!’’ Brownie shouted into the radio of his cruiser. “Headin’ down Mountain, ‘bout to turn onto Meadow Lane.”

He’d encountered Roscoe in his old red truck, coming out of the Everheart coal field access road. Flashing emergency lights,
Brownie had tried to pull him over, but Roscoe hit the pedal and took off. Now he had an arrest warrant in his pocket, and
Miller in his sights. And he was not about to let him get away.

The truck fishtailed as it slipped from pavement to gravel apron and back to the road, sending up puffs of dust and spitting
pebbles against Brownie’s windshield. The traffic was sparse, and several locals scrambled out of the way as the chase blew
by them.

“Send a car down to Thomas Junction!” Brownie yelled as he took a sharp turn on two wheels and banged down on all four on
the other side. “Set up a block at Meadow and Thomas! He’s runnin’!” Roscoe was heading for the interstate to the north that
would lead out of the county, and out of the state.

“Shit!” The truck suddenly changed course. “Looks like he’s short-cuttin’ Thomas Road!” Brownie barked into his mike.

The truck made a sudden ninety-degree turn onto a dirt road, and Brownie went into a four-wheel skid to keep pace, narrowly
missing a tree, leaping a small gully, and finally settling into the dusty straightaway at eighty miles an hour. The ground
was very dry, and the dust flapped like a carpet behind the speeding truck, coating the front of the cruiser. Brownie hit
the washer switch and racked his brain to recall if he’d ever explored the road they were on. The direction, at least, would
bring them to the interstate below Thomas. And that meant there was no place for a roadblock before the county line.

“Okay you motherfucker,” Brownie grunted as he jammed the accelerator. He’d just made a decision. There was no time to get
the backup into position. No time to reposition a roadblock. He’d have to make the stop here and now.

The cruiser’s two hundred horsepower engine was overpowering for Roscoe’s aging six cylinder. In an instant, Brownie was at
the tailgate, a foot off the line.

“Stop now!” he ordered over the loudspeaker. “Stop your truck, now!”

Roscoe’s lips mouthed “fuck you” in the rear-view mirror, and there was no hint of a reduction of speed.

“Okay.” Brownie whispered softly, throwing the microphone onto the seat and gripping the wheel with both hands. “Have it your
way!”

Brownie maneuvered the police car so it angled off on the driver’s side and slammed the pedal all the way to the floor. The
cruiser leaped ahead and wedged against the truck, muscling it off the road to the right.

Roscoe screamed and tried to fight the momentum, but the force was too strong. He bounced through a mass of sticker bushes
and smashed headlong into a row of saplings. The truck crunched to a stop.

Brownie raced to the door and pointed his 9 millimeter into Roscoe’s face. “This is for you,” he growled.

Miller gasped and looked into the little black hole. He held his breath and waited for the blast.

Just then, Brownie laughed, and laid a paper over the lip of the open window. “Not this! This!” It was the arrest warrant.

Roscoe blinked, and in seconds Brownie had him spread-eagled and cuffed on the ground. “You’re under arrest for three counts
of murder, and one count of attempted murder,” he said. “Now lie there like a good boy while I read you your rights…”

Things were heating up in the headmaster’s office. Edwin Charles was being evasive.

“What’s his name?” Gardner asked for a second time. They were still gathered around the skeet team photo featuring the Roscoe
look-alike.

Charles shifted nervously on his feet. “He’s just a student…”

“But what’s his name?” Gardner repeated.

The headmaster returned to his desk and sat down, pulling out his handkerchief again. “You’ve got to tell me what this is
about before I give you any more information. We have a policy of confidentiality here.”

Gardner stood up and leaned across the desk. “Sure. I’ll tell you. In case you didn’t know. Three people are dead, and another
is under a death threat. Hiller’s real name is Miller, and he’s being arrested this morning for the murders. We have reason
to believe that his accomplice may have come from this school!”

The headmaster looked as if Gardner had just whacked him with a stick. “That’s impossible!” he said, his voice lowered.

Gardner pushed in closer. “The hell it is. You’d better think about it. We can have you in front of the Grand Jury this afternoon!
Now, are you going to cooperate?”

Charles stood up. “How dare you threaten me!”

Jennifer tugged on Gardner’s arm, fearful that he might go over the desk and engage the man physically. “Maybe we should sit
down,” she said softly, “and start over.”

Gardner and Charles glared at each other in silence, then, in deference to Jennifer, sat down.

“I’m sorry,” Gardner said sullenly. “My son was almost killed by these people. He was hit in the head. Knocked out. Now they’re
coming after him again…”

Charles’s face was blank, as if he was thinking about something else. “That’s very sad,” he finally said, “but I really do
not see where the school is involved.”

Gardner continued. “We need to know Miller’s contacts while he was here,” he said. “Who did he hang around with, talk to,
associate with…”

Charles shook his head. “I wouldn’t know those things. This is the administration center. We only deal with student matters.”