Trouble in Mind by Michael Wiley

Author:Michael Wiley [Michael Wiley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2019-07-10T23:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-ONE

But first they drove to Christian Felbanks’s condo.

When Christian’s parents let them in, they looked awed by the big man. ‘In the last couple of days,’ Kelson told them, ‘I’ve gotten the sense that whoever went after Christian and Raima wanted something the police don’t know about. The police think this is about prescription drugs. Maybe drugs are in it too, but there’s something else.’

The Felbankses exchanged a glance.

‘Can you think of anyone Christian hurt? Anyone who—’

‘No,’ the man said. ‘No one.’

Rodman spoke with his low, gentle voice. ‘A pretty, red-haired girl.’

The woman made a sound, as if something stung her.

Her husband said, ‘Like all boys, Christian … tested boundaries. But he never hurt anyone, never would.’

‘What do you mean, tested boundaries?’ Kelson asked.

‘The same as every boy,’ the woman said.

‘He smoked a little pot? Snuck a drink from your bottle of gin?’

‘We don’t drink,’ she said.

‘What did he do?’

‘Nothing the other boys didn’t,’ the father said.

Rodman asked softly, gently, ‘Whose daughter did he fuck?’

Again, the mother made a sound.

‘I need to ask you to leave,’ the man said.

‘You don’t like how I talk?’ Rodman said.

‘I don’t like what you insinuate.’

‘It was an innocent question if the answer’s innocent,’ Rodman said.

Kelson said to the woman, ‘When I worked on the narcotics squad, I met parents who tried to protect their kids by denying their addictions, as if the denials kept them from something even worse – jail, humiliation, maybe breaking the last trust between them. Some of those kids died – OD or a bullet or a knife – and, even then, a lot of the parents kept up the act. At first that surprised me. I thought they would want to take down the dealers who killed their kids. But then I figured it out. All they had left was illusions. They could talk to me or they could keep imagining their kids before the drugs. It hurt too much to talk. You see what I’m saying? They pretended they were honoring their kids by keeping their secrets. But really, by allowing the people who sold the drugs to keep selling, they were just killing again.’

‘Get out,’ the woman said.

‘Please,’ her husband said.

Kelson said, ‘You need to take responsibility for Christian.’

The husband had tears in his eyes. ‘Please.’

Kelson and Rodman went down to Kelson’s car.

‘They’re scared shitless,’ Rodman said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Whoever got their boy is bringing it to them too. You see that man’s eyes? I’m guessing whoever’s threatening you is threatening them twice. How much did you look into that family?’

‘I talked to one of their cousins in Sioux City,’ Kelson said. ‘Heard about the daughter they keep in a home. And I checked Christian’s record. Clean.’

‘How about his fiancée – Raima?’

‘Good people even when they’re waving guns at me, I think. Scared too.’

‘You’d better get back on the phone,’ Rodman said.

‘I’ll ask Greg Toselli if he’ll call the Sioux City PD and see if they ever heard of Christian. Maybe he’ll do that much.’

‘Leave Toselli out. He’s a hothead and a player.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.