A Plague of Secrets

4

Joanne Ticknor sat next to her husband, holding her grandson Ben on her lap on the couch in her daughter’s living room.

Jansey came back into the room behind a man and a woman, both of whom were dressed casually but who looked serious and professional. “Mom, Dad,” she said, “these are inspectors Bracco and Schiff with the police department.” At the introductions Wayne Ticknor stood and shook hands, and Ben wriggled out of his grandmother’s arms and came forward to do the same.

Bracco went down on a knee to shake Ben’s hand. “How you doing, big guy?”

“Okay. Are you going to find who shot my daddy?”

“We’re going to try, Ben. We’re really going to try.” Then he looked up at Jansey’s mother. “But we’re going to have to have a little adult time to talk before we really get going.”

Getting the message, she stood up. “Come on, Ben, let’s you and Grandma go and find ourselves a snack in the kitchen. How’s that sound?”

As soon as they’d gone, Wayne asked, “Do you have any leads yet?”

Bracco gave him a nod. “Well, as a matter of fact, we might, or at least a place to start.” Including Jansey now, he continued, “Dylan was wearing a backpack that was full of marijuana. Did you know anything about that?”

She opened, then closed her mouth. Finally came out with it. “I didn’t know he had some with him this morning, but it doesn’t surprise me, no. He was selling it sometimes. I wanted him to stop. I asked him to stop. But he said it didn’t hurt anybody and we needed the money.”

“That asshole,” Wayne said.

“Dad.”

“Putting Ben and you at risk like that? What a fool.”

Schiff turned to the father. “You had other problems with him, Mr. Ticknor?”

“You could say that.”

“Dad!” Jansey repeated. “That’s enough, okay? He’s dead. Whatever he did, it’s over now. Let’s just leave it alone, can we?”

But Bracco wasn’t of a mind to do that. “What else did he do, Mr. Ticknor?”

Wayne looked to his daughter and shook his head. “Why can’t they know what he really was, Jansey? That he wasn’t much of a father to Ben? Or that he beat you?”

“He didn’t beat me!” She turned to Schiff, met her eyes. “He didn’t beat me,” she repeated more softly. “He hit me a couple of times, that’s all.”

“Recently?” Bracco asked.

“A couple of weeks ago, we talked about this marijuana thing and he got mad at me. But it wasn’t really a fight. He just got physical for a minute. It wasn’t really a big deal.”

“No, no big deal at all,” Wayne put in, with heavy sarcasm, “except for six months ago when she and Ben moved in with us for a couple of weeks.”

“He was under a lot of stress then,” Jansey said. “He wasn’t perfect, okay, but nobody is, you know?”

“True,” Debra said, “we all have imperfections, but maybe one of his made somebody want to kill him. You knew him better than anyone else. Maybe you could help us.”

Bracco jumped in. “Was anybody mad at him? Jealous about his job? Anything like that?”

Nothing.

Schiff asked, “Jansey, do you know where he got the marijuana? If it’s any help,” she continued, “we brought a search warrant along with us.”

This brought a bit of reaction. “What for?”

Bracco stepped up. “Dylan was on his way to work from here at home. Which means the weed was probably in this house last night. There might be more of it. He might also have left some records of where he got it or who he was going to sell it to.”

Jansey looked to her father, indecision playing over her features. Finally, she came back to the inspectors. “It’s in the attic,” she said. “He grew it up there.”

Debra Schiff climbed the stepladder and ducked through the small opening in the upper half of the closet wall and straightened up into a warm and humid room baking in a grow-light glow. She found a light switch next to the opening and flicked it, then spoke back over her shoulder to Darrel, on the steps of the ladder right behind her. “You’re not going to believe this.”

Bracco poked his head into the opening. “Lordy Lordy,” he said.

The attic space the size of the house’s footprint was filled with plants in various stages of growth, from just-germinated little shoots in cardboard egg cartons to full-blown, six-foot-high plants in raised planter boxes. The air was rich with the resinous scent of marijuana.

Bracco got through the opening and straightened up next to his partner, taking it all in. They shared a wondering glance and, at last, Bracco let out a breath. “Wow.”

“You said it,” Schiff replied. “How much is this worth?”

“Ten grand a pound, right? Or close.” He turned around and peered across the space and into the recesses in the far corners. “And he’s got a jungle of it up here.”

Walking over to one of the closer tall plants, he reached out and picked one of the heavy and sticky buds, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, then smelling his hand. “Not that I ever inhaled any of this stuff, Debra, of course, and not to get too technical, but my limited experience tells me that this is some righteously good shit.”