The Lost Brother by Rick Bennet

Author:Rick Bennet [Bennet, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611455502
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2011-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

Passer: Locked him up and came back? Mallory shot him just a block away.

Kellogg: Criminals, especially mentally fucked ones, do come back to the crime scene sometimes. They get a thrill out of it. Especially someone like Ells. I mean, he taped the murders. That tells you something.

Passer: He had blood on his clothes. He wouldn’t change first? Time of death was just after ten at night. Crime scene gets discovered at six the next morning. Ells gets shot about seven.

Kellogg: He didn’t have that much blood on his clothes. And you’re attributing logical behavior to a psycho.

Passer: Notice how we switch roles all the time? It’s like we just naturally contradict each other.

Kellogg: I’m just thinking things through. The boy leaves, just after Ells. Ells grabs him. Takes him somewhere.

Passer: He isn’t going to drive through the city, a white man with a screaming black child. He’s going to put the boy in the trunk.

Kellogg: That was my original thought.

Passer: So if Ells didn’t kill the boy, he locked him up, and the fact that no one’s found him means the boy is still locked up, and if the shock didn’t kill him, time has.

Kellogg, in a rare act, takes Passer’s hand.

Kellogg: There’s something about this case touching you real deep.

Passer: That boy, he could be my brother. Mixed-race child. You know?

Kellogg nods. Then, realizing where he’d put it, takes his hand away.

Passer: So he’s almost certainly dead, and if he’s not, he’s hungry and terrified and in shock.

Kellogg: Passer, he has to be dead. If Chavez or Mrs. James didn’t get him, then that only leaves the bad guys. And I trust my instincts that Chavez and Mrs. James told us the truth.

She nods. Accepts.

Passer: So what are we investigating? The police have nothing to go on, and no reason not to accept Ells as a sole actor, and aren’t pushing any possible LTC connection. You’re pretty sure they don’t have the tape Close is worried about. So we don’t really have an excuse to be involved in this. We should be getting started on investigating Joan Price. That was the other thing Jimmy Close wanted from us.

Kellogg: We’ll be doing that soon. There’s going to be an LTC fund-raiser in Rockville tomorrow. But we can justify looking for the boy because there’s a good chance he’s got the videotape of Henry James and Jimmy Close’s meeting. Which brings us to the Big Fact. There’s one in every case.

Passer: And the Big Fact here is?

Kellogg: The erasures on the Ells tape. Why would someone not want the world to know that the boy took videotapes with him?

Passer: It really could have been an accidental erasure. You’re the one always saying never underestimate the role of chance in the world, never conclude conspiracy when incompetence or stupidity explains things just as well.

Kellogg: Nah, not here. It’s too conspicuous. No, it all comes down to videotapes. Figure it this way: Henry James gets hold of some tapes. Part of some investigation.

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