“What kind of heavy stuff?”
Tim told them. About the trips to Philadelphia and Harrisburg to kidnap homeless people, how they were transported back to Scott’s house and tied up in the abandonded guesthouse on the property and beaten and tortured until they died. Mom and Dad looked surprised and shocked by these allegations, but the prosecutors and police weren’t. It almost seemed like they’d expected something that twisted to come from the mind of Scott Bradfield.
It wasn’t until he got to the part about the spell being used to reanimate the dead homeless people so they could be put through more abuse that gasps of shock went around the table.
“Gordon told you this last night?” Officer Clapton asked.
“Yes sir,” Tim said. “I saw them, too.”
“What do you mean you saw them?”
Tim told them about Gordon’s visit to the house yesterday morning and his proposition, the blackmail attempt. As he related this, Mom and Dad became visibly angry. Mom turned to Officer Clapton. “So it’s okay for Gordon Smith, Scott Bradfield and the creeps they hang out with to threaten and psychologically abuse my son and get away with it, but the moment some religious nut gets a hair up their ass about a harmless horror novel he’s reading, you throw him in jail? Tell me what rationale you use to justify the actions of your department, Officer Clapton? I’d really like to know.”
Officer Clapton didn’t acknowledge Mrs. Gaines verbal barb. His attention was focused on Tim and his testimony. “What was it Gordon told you? What did he threaten you with?”
“He said if I didn’t help him get out of the situation Scott and the others were involved in, that he would plant evidence that I robbed that grave. He also said he’d make it hard for me to get out of it.”
“Hard to get out of it?”
Tim shrugged. “He…he made it sound like he had an in with you guys. With the police. You know, because of my reputation and all the shit that’s happened.” The words were tumbling out of his mouth now. “I can’t say I blame him. If I’d gone through life pushing a guy around that always got in trouble for fighting back, I’d think I could get away with it, too.”
“Gordon convinced you that you wouldn’t be believed if you went to us?” Detective Andrews asked.
Tim nodded. “Yes.”
“How did he think you could help him?” Diane asked.
“I think he’s afraid of being caught,” Tim said. “He told me that he didn’t want to get in trouble for participating in the crimes Scott and the others were committing, but he didn’t want to make it seem that he was formally getting out of it. If you ask me, I think he was scared to tell Scott that they were taking things too far. I think he just wanted to ease his way out of it and hope Scott and the others would eventually get bored and do something else. That’s what he wanted me to do. Find a way to make the spell not work, so Scott and others would lose interest in what they’re doing.”
Mom muttered. “What could be possibly worse than what those cretins were doing?”
“So he blackmailed you into helping him?” Diane prodded.
“Yeah.” Tim drew forward in his chair, posture straight. “He told me about the spell, told me what they’d been doing, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He thinks I know how to end the spell, but of course I don’t. I tried telling him that, but he wouldn’t listen. He just said I had to come up with a way to end the spell or he’d make the police aware of the evidence, that he’d frame me for the grave robbery. And…well…” He shrugged and looked at his parents. “My folks and my friends, Al and George, they’ve been through enough because of their association with me anyway. I didn’t want to put them through any more. You know?”
“Oh, honey,” Naomi hugged him. Dad patted him on the back.
“So you felt compelled to help him?” Officer Clapton asked.
“At first I didn’t believe him,” Tim said. “He told me he’d show me proof, so he took me over to the Bradfield place last night and showed me.”
“And what did you see?” Diane asked.
Tim told them how they’d snuck onto the property, how Gordon had instructed Tim to stand back while he’d opened the guesthouse door and shined a flashlight into the interior of the structure. He told them about the two things inside, chained and shackled up against the far wall. “They certainly looked like zombies. I guess.” Tim scratched his head. The five seconds or so he’d gazed into that house had seared itself into his memory but had also scarred him. “They looked dead, they were all messed up, covered in blood and one of them looked…I don’t know…kinda bloated and rotted, I guess.”
Tim concluded the events by relating their drive through town, how he’d tried to come to grips with what he’d seen. “That’s when you pulled us over,” Tim said, nodding to Officer Clapton. “And that’s when Gordon threatened Chelsea. Said that if I told you any of this, if the cops even came around his house to talk to him about it, he’d make sure Chelsea was hurt.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Officer Clapton said. “She’ll be under protection.”
“Her family, too,” Detective Andrews said.
“So did they kill John Elfman?” Tim asked. He looked at Officer Clapton.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Detective Andrews said.
“When was the last time you saw John?” Officer Clapton asked Tim.
“At Susan Zimmerman’s party a few nights ago,” Tim said. “I was there for a little bit with Chelsea, Matt, George, and Al. We didn’t stay long. I don’t think we barely spoke two words with John.”
“Did you see Gordon and his friends hang out with John that night?”
Tim thought about it. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember. He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t even know he was missing until you told me he was dead.”
There was a lull in Tim’s narrative for a moment. Diane and Pat conferred quietly with each other, then Pat whispered something to Detective Andrews. Officer Clapton tried to smile in encouragement at the Gaines family. Dad and their lawyer were talking quietly while Mom patted Tim’s hand. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she told him.
Tim nodded and tried to feel better about everything. That was hard to do when he wasn’t entirely convinced Chelsea was safe and Gordon and his friends were in custody.
“What happened this morning?” Tim asked.
Detective Andrews nodded at Officer Clapton.
“We have several people missing from a cul de sac near Zuck’s Woods,” Officer Clapton said. “One of the 911 calls said a neighbor was trying to break in to her house. When I arrived I made my way around the rear of the property and saw John lying on the ground. At first I didn’t know what I was looking at, but then I saw his arm. It was moving. Like something out of a horror movie. The hand was dragging itself along. Like this.” Clapton demonstrated by crab-walking his hand across the conference room table. “That’s when I made out it was a body and that the pieces…they were all moving. I didn’t know who it was at first until my partner shot the shit out of it and stopped it.”