Hundreds of ghosts.
And now David and Ellen, too.
As he heard the second gurney on the sidewalk, he turned his back to the house, sucked on the cigarette, and did his best to ignore the sound of the wheels rolling along over the concrete. With all his heart, he wished Ellen would sit up and tell him to put out his damn smoke.
Carstens said, “You’ll have to come in with us, J.C. — there’s going to be more questions.”
Harrow nodded. “The sooner you finish with me, Larry, the sooner we can go after the real killer.”
The detective said nothing.
There was nothing to say, Harrow knew. Even in his own ears, “Go after the real killer” summoned images of O.J. Simpson on a golf course.
Hell with that. The only thing that mattered to Harrow now was getting through with this bullshit so he could bury his family and, if DCI and the sheriff’s department didn’t find the son of a bitch, start his own search.
When Harrow and Carstens finally entered the sheriff’s office, only a couple of hours lacked before sunup. By Harrow’s calculation, he’d been up for just short of twenty-four hours and, oddly, felt not so much as a hint of exhaustion.
The deputies and other staff were scattered throughout the lobby, the corridors, the break room; they and the bullpen got an eyeful as Carstens and Harrow marched through on their way to the interview room at the rear. Unlike Harrow’s compatriots, who had avoided his eyes at home, these folks, some known, some not, stared openly.
And for those several long moments, J.C. Harrow felt not like a cop or a father or a husband or a victim, much less the hero who’d saved the President.
But another suspect.
Chapter Three
David and Ellen were buried in a cemetery in Ames, not far from Ellen’s parents. A huge crowd, too many of them media, turned out for the funeral. The nation mourned with him — the tragedy that befell the man who had saved the President. But even on that sacred day, consumed with grief, Harrow heard the whispers.
He hired it done.
The coroner was an old pal who covered up for him.
It’s all a cover-up, so no one would know the kid killed his mom and then himself.
Though they all kept their voices low, every allegation screamed at him.
As Harrow had predicted to Carstens, his firearm test came back that his pistol had not been fired. He also tested negative for gunshot residue. The Secret Service had video of Harrow on post for the hour on either side of the approximate time of death determined by the coroner at the autopsy. Everything about Harrow and his story checked out, and still the rumors continued.
The DCI worked the case hard, but there were just too few clues. The best one, a tire track lifted from the driveway, led nowhere — a P235/75R15, the most popular passenger car tire sold in the United States. Harrow knew too many knockoffs were out there for anybody to even be sure of a brand.
The story ran big. Not just in the Des Moines Register and statewide media, but USA Today and CNN and every other cable news outlet. When Harrow was exonerated, leaving the DCI to search for, as NBC Nightly News put it, “a killer in the heartland,” the story began to attract international attention.
The mail had started then, some accusing him, the far larger percentage telling him the nation shared his grief — the man who saved a president only to have his family murdered the same day had become something of a national celebrity.
His friends, the people he’d worked with for most of his adult life with either the sheriff’s office or DCI, busted their asses for him. They wanted to find the murderer who had killed the family of one of their own. Months passed, then a year, with no new leads.
Harrow’s law enforcement brethren wanted to help, but they had other crimes on their hands, and of course the national media had a finite attention span.
Finally, J.C. Harrow returned to the decision he’d made in his front yard on that terrible night: David’s father, Ellen’s husband, would track down the killer himself.
He had no idea how, but he would find a way.
Sell his car or sell his soul, he would find a way.
Two
The Team
Chapter Four
Though he’d never admit it, not under threat of torture or death even, Jeff Ferguson loved his older sister.
She’d just helped him with his sixth-grade math homework — he felt a grudging respect for Jessica and her ability to do the kind of complex story problems that a calculator couldn’t dent.
Like everything with Jessica, her aid came at a price. Jeff would be taking his sister’s shift doing the dishes every other night. That meant dishes duty for a solid week.
Jeff’s dad, the town marshal, would call this cheating. But it wasn’t like Jessica had just filled in the answers for Jeff — she’d shown him, as they went along, how to solve the complicated problems. In fact, he had done the last two on his own, Jess watching over his shoulder.
Blond and blue-eyed, the pair could have been clones of their mother, a successful real estate agent here in Placida, Florida. Jessica was in the eighth grade, but seemed older than that to Jeff.
Sometimes, though, she seemed really immature to him. She texted constantly during various stupid shows that she and her clique of girlfriends found “awesome,” always about girls their age or a little older and a lot richer. Jeff had agreed to make sure Jess didn’t get busted by Mom for texting when she was supposed to be doing homework — that was the second half of his payment for the math boost.
Even in the family room, where he sat curled on the floor in stocking feet with his math book, Jeff could detect the wafting aroma of spaghetti and meatballs, a family favorite. The tomato sauce would mean extra scrubbing when he did the dishes tonight, but why complain? He was guaranteed an A on his math homework, and he loved spaghetti.
Then he heard the sound of trouble — Mom’s heels clicking in the hallway.
“Jess,” he hissed, voice low.
His sister, eyes glued to the family room’s big TV, didn’t hear him, or those clicking heels either.
“Jess,” he tried again, struggling to keeping it low enough to avoid their mother’s radar-like hearing, but loud enough to snap his sister out of her texting trance.
Still no response.
Panicking now, knowing that if he slipped up in his guard duty, Jess would make his life eternally miserable, the boy did the only thing he could think of: he hurled his pen at his sister’s noggin.
After the pen careened off her skull, she spun on him, her eyes wide with homicidal rage.
Making a terrified face, he pointed violently toward the hallway, and Jess’s expression melted immediately. She fumbled for, and got, his pen, tossed it back, hid the offending phone under a pillow, and turned down the TV to a more reasonable volume. She also managed to pick up a history book and appear to be enthralled.
The whole series of actions seemed to Jeff like a great baseball play — Evan Longoria, his favorite player, diving to his left to stop a hot grounder, then rising, stepping on third, and throwing to first to complete a double-play.