The Ravine (2 page)

Life insurance? Take care of the boys?
“What the hell?” he shouted.

“Babe, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Look at this,” he said, handing the phone to Emily. Now they both started to panic.

“Oh, my God, what does it mean? You better get him on the phone.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” he said, pacing the floor, while Danny’s phone kept ringing with no answer. At last, he got his voice mail.

“Danny, what the hell is going on? What’s this about life insurance? Call me back, right away, you understand? Right away!”

“Tony, that sounds serious. What could he mean by that?”

“I don’t know, but it’s certainly not good. He’s not answering his cell. You call Rachel’s cell and I’ll try their house.

They had no luck with either place. The message at his brother’s house played sharply in Tony’s ear: “You’ve reached Rachel . . . Danny . . . Evan . . . and Christopher.” The tone and pitch of voice changed as each Turner family member called out his or her name. “Please leave us a message,” they ended in unison.

“Guys, it’s Tony and Emily. Pick up, right now, if you’re there. We need to talk to you right away.” He waited. No answer. “Okay, when you get back, give me a call right away, on my cell, so I know everything’s okay,” he said, trying to reassure himself. Five thousand miles away, back in Ohio, his voice echoed through the silent house.

Tony always fixed problems and he would figure out how to fix this one. It was probably just a mix-up of some sort, but he couldn’t disguise the quaver in his voice when he got Tom Schroeder on the phone. Tom was one of his best managers, and lived a few miles from Danny and Rachel. True to form, Schroeder picked up on the first ring.

“Tom, this is Tony. Thank God. I’m really glad I reached you. I need a really big favor. I’m on vacation, and it’s probably nothing, but I think that Logan creep might have done something to Danny. He called and left some strange messages, about life insurance and stuff—”

“Tony, what are you talking about? I just saw Danny yesterday.”

“Yeah, but something’s wrong. Nobody’s answering; can you drive over there right away? I’m really worried about him.”

“You got it, bud. I’m in my car now, on my way to work out, so I’ll just swing by. I’ll call you back in a few minutes. Chill out, and go back
to enjoying Italy. I’m sure everything’s okay. I’ll check it out.
Ciao
, boss! Stop worrying!”

Tom gazed in his rear-view mirror as he backed up to make a U-turn. He was about a mile or two from Danny and Rachel’s house, so he planned to shoot over there and then head directly to the gym. He was a little put out because it meant he would have to cut his workout short, but really, he had to admit to himself that he just generally resented Danny. For whatever reason, it seemed that anything that had to do with the guy usually turned into some sort of needless problem. His brother owned the company, and so Danny had five shops under him. But everyone knew that the only reason he had so many shops was because he was related to the boss. Behind his back, he was “the Little Brother” to Tony and all the managers, who usually had to suck it up and cover for Danny when he forgot to put in his orders on time, or just didn’t show up for work and stuff like that. On top of that, Danny would always use his trump card as Tony’s brother if he wanted to one-up one of the other employees.

Tony was famous for his common sense, except when it came to Danny. Everybody else knew he couldn’t be trusted, messed around on his beautiful wife, Rachel, and, for a forty-three-year-old man, still acted like a kid. Tom only managed three shops and probably made half the commission Danny made, though he could run rings around him. It just wasn’t fair. When Tony got back, he planned to sit down with him and give him a piece of his mind. Things had better change, or he’d tell Tony to take his dopey Steve’s Sporting Goods job and shove it.

Suddenly Tom laughed out loud to himself, letting out a big, self-deprecating guffaw. A few seconds before Tony’s call, he’d just finished saying his morning prayers. It hadn’t been two minutes since he’d asked
for God’s help in being patient and understanding that day—in feeling love for all the good and great people in his life. He’d even specifically mentioned Tony as someone for whom he was grateful. But the first little curve he was thrown, and he was off to the races, wallowing in self-pity, jealousy, and plots of revenge. “Okay, Lord, let’s start this day over,” he said, as he made the turn onto Danny and Rachel’s street.

Little did he know that he was going to need every ounce of God’s grace to cope with the scene he was about to encounter.

C
HAPTER
2

A Brother’s Love

God dislikes evil

And no happiness can be built on hate
.

Love one another as brothers
.

—Josephine Baker

D
ANNY
T
URNER HAD
it all going for him when he was in high school. His stunning blue eyes and crop of blond, wavy hair gave him the sort of bad-boy look that the girls just seemed to love. He wasn’t a big guy at five foot nine, but he was one of the strongest and fastest players on the football team. He’d worked out diligently since that day when he was thirteen and was humiliated by the neighborhood thug, Al Rocco.

Al was an oversized Neanderthal who liked nothing better than grabbing some smaller kid so he could pin him down and taunt him. That day Al not only pushed Danny to the ground, but held him there, digging his knees into his shoulders and letting his filthy spittle drip slowly and repeatedly onto Danny’s face. The other kids gathered, cheering and chanting each time another glob landed on Al’s latest victim.

It was payback time pretty soon for Al when Danny’s brother, Tony, heard what had happened. Tony jumped into their dad’s pickup truck and bolted to the school yard faster than a speeding bullet, while Danny tried to explain why he’d let that Rocco kid get the better of him. Sometimes Danny thought Tony was a lot like Superman, because he
could always be counted on to swoop in and save the day. Tony’s jet-black curly hair and blue eyes lent even more credibility to the image Danny had of his brother.

Over the years, this incident became a valued piece of Turner-brother family lore. Whenever the brothers recounted this story (which frequently happened while perched on barstools), they would invariably begin by mimicking the wide-eyed, guppy-swallowing expression and squeal that escaped “Fat Al” the second he turned around to see Tony barreling down on him.

Tony was taller than Al; while he didn’t weigh as much, at six foot two, 175 pounds, his athletic build was solid muscle. So it wasn’t hard for him to grab Al by the throat and pin him to the fence with one hand while punching him smack in the center of his stomach, sending him tumbling to the ground.

“Get up, you fat turd, and apologize to my brother.”

Al just sat there with a scowl and said, “I didn’t do nothin’, ain’t gonna apologize to nobody, ain’t no way, and you can’t make—”

Tony grabbed him by the hair, brought him to his knees, and slapped him full across the face. The wallop raised a big red mark on the kid’s cheek.

“Come on, get up and fight somebody your own size.”

Al just kneeled there with a stunned expression. He wiped the snot off his nose; otherwise, he didn’t dare move or say a word. When it became apparent that the excitement was over, the group of kids who had just been egging on Al quietly began to disperse, afraid Tony would turn on one of them.

“This guy’s just a punk,” Tony said to Danny. “Let’s go home.”

With that, Tony turned and marched out of the school yard with Danny trailing behind, feeling vindicated and protected.

But Danny decided then and there that he was never going to let anyone push him around again. Even if it took hard work, he was
determined start a workout program and bulk up, and that’s just what he did. He dusted off his dad’s barbells and bench, and worked out every day. Pretty soon he started to see ripples in his biceps. The squats and leg raises gave him lower-body strength, and he would spend half an hour every day doing sprints to build up his speed.

So by the time Danny was a sophomore at Geauga High, he was the starting halfback, and Tony, by then a senior, was the quarterback. In football-loving Cuyahoga County, the Turner brothers were local celebrities in that magical year of 1978, the year they went all-state but lost in the finals. The Geauga Arrows had never gone so far, and never would again.

The Turner family moved to their ranch-style home in 1967, in the part of Chesterland that was not as bad as Streetsboro (which was literally on the other side of the railroad tracks), but not as nice as Clover Hill, the development that was built in the early’60s. The kids whose fathers worked in the office at AE’s Jayomar plant, or at one of the other big manufacturers, or were local professionals, tended to live in Clover Hill. The kids whose fathers worked in one of the factories or at one of the stores on the main drag, Mayfield Road, lived near the Turners in the area commonly called the Junction.

Most of their neighbors kept up their houses and the lawns were usually tidy, but every once in a while you could find a house with a junker in the front yard, weeds pushing up through the rotted steel. Steve Turner had two healthy teenage boys who kept his yard in great shape, for which each earned ten dollars a cut. It was his way of teaching them responsibility and giving them some spending money. When it was time to cut the lawn, Tony always had to bug his brother to do his part, but a few smacks upside the head would usually do the trick.

Steve and Debby Turner had a traditional marriage. He’d worked his way up to foreman at Jayomar and she ran the house and mothered with the best of them. Tony and Danny took a special pride in friends’
comments that going to their house was like walking into the TV show
Father Knows Best
. Visitors were usually greeted by the scent of a cherry pie or a pot roast at the front door, and Debby had a way of making their friends feel welcome, even when she was preoccupied with one of her projects. She would always praise their new haircut or cool sneakers, and then break out the cookie jar.

Steve would arrive home after work around five, read the paper, drink his one beer, and then sit down to dinner and say the blessing. After the dishes were cleared, the family would gather around the television set to watch Walter Cronkite and the
CBS Evening News
at 6:30. Ever since that day in November 1963 when ole Walt took off his glasses, hesitated, glanced up at the clock, and choked out the exact time President Kennedy had died, Steve felt like he knew the man personally. The country could be at war, preparing to dodge nuclear missiles, rioting in the streets, landing on the moon, or queuing up at the gas pump; all would be put right or at least explained when the Turners settled into their living room to perform their simple family ritual with the rest of America.

Of course, a hardworking guy like Steve would get frustrated with those fools in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles who flew over Ohio (except during the presidential elections) but otherwise didn’t care about Ohio, and didn’t give a damn about the farmers, plumbers, auto workers, and the other “Steves” who were the backbone of the country. It seemed the politicians just couldn’t figure out how to get along, and Steve would often remark, “they’re like three bald guys fightin’ over a comb.” This would always get a laugh out of Tony and Danny, though they never could quite figure out what it meant.

They looked up to their father and knew they were lucky to have the mother they had. When 1978 rolled around and the boys made their parents proud, all was good.

But the truth was that Tony and Danny, like most teenagers, had another life, a secret life their parents didn’t know about. That’s the way it’s always been and always will be. In most cases, teenagers grow up and life moves on, but with the Turner boys, things always went a bit too far. The more they got away with, the more they pushed the envelope.

Tony was the leader, and Danny liked it that way. He found it impossible to resist whatever adventure was on the agenda. When Tony decided it was time for Danny to become a man at age sixteen, he brought him downtown to Cleveland and got the matter settled for fifteen dollars with a buxom Spanish girl whose kids were crying in the next room while she told him to “hurry up and get it over with.” Tony taught Danny how to smoke cigarettes, roll a joint, snort coke, and hot-wire a car, as well as the most efficient way to cut through a chain-link fence while breaking into a stockyard.

However, by the time Tony and Danny graduated from high school, and were passed over for the football scholarships they had presumed would come their way, they no longer needed wire cutters. They had discovered the simplicity of the inside job.

Both brothers found employment in the warehouse at Tager’s Lumber. Tager sold every tool known to mankind, along with construction materials, paint, and everything a homeowner or carpenter could ever want. The brothers wore blue overalls with their first names emblazoned on the pockets so that customers could call them by name when directing them to cut wood or load items into their station wagons. The job wasn’t fun, but they had big plans for the future. The prize they had their eye on for their first big score was a new shipment of circular saws that Danny had shelved not more than twenty feet from the back door earlier that day.