Bad Thoughts

Chapter 26

Phil Dornich couldn’t keep from thinking about Liza Keenan. A lot of ink had been given to her murder-more than you’d expect for a junked up prostitute in East Boston. The pure brutality of the crime was partly responsible. Even though the papers didn’t give many details, they sure as hell hinted at them. It bothered Dornich when he read the articles. There was something oddly familiar about the murder, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He tried calling acquaintances of his from the East Boston precinct, but they were being vague about it; either they didn’t know anything or they weren’t talking. It took over a dozen phone calls before he was told about her tongue being pulled out and then another half hour of calls before finding out about the internal damage that had been done to her.

He tried to imagine how difficult it would be to pull a person’s tongue from their body. After a while he realized he couldn’t even imagine it.

Dornich was rereading the articles when Susan Shannon called. She wanted to know if he had found anything yet. He hesitated before telling her that he had. “I think it would be better if you came to my office,” he told her.

Susan tried to get him to tell her over the phone what he had found, but Dornich refused. She finally agreed to meet him at his office during her lunch break.

Dornich closed his eyes and tried to pull out whatever it was that was lurking in the back of his mind. Eventually, he gave up and made a long distance call to California.

Susan Shannon showed up at his office around twelve-thirty. She looked a bit ragged, her eyes reddish, thin lines creeping underneath them.

“I only have about fifteen minutes,” she told Dornich after he offered her a seat.

“We shouldn’t need much more than that,” Dornich said, smiling sympathetically, showing his few rotting teeth. “I’d like to ask you to read something.”

Dornich handed her the articles he had gotten from the Sacramento Journal. As Susan read them, the skin around her mouth tightened. It gave the fat detective a good idea what she’d look like at fifty. By the time she finished with the articles her hands were shaking. She looked up at him, her eyes nothing more than small black beads. Dornich could see fear in them.

He asked her if she knew about any of it.

“N-no.” Her voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again. “All I knew was that Bill’s parents had both died. About the way she was murdered… our neighbor, Rose Hartwell, was murdered the same way…”

“I know.”

“What-what do you think it means?”

Dornich tried to make his shrug look natural. He had been thinking about that question off and on since he found those articles. The obvious explanation was that Shannon was involved-that when he blacked out, he repeated his mother’s murder. That was the obvious explanation, but it didn’t ring true to him. He didn’t feel it in his gut and usually his massive gut was right on target. Except recently. Every gut feeling he’d had about Shannon had been wrong, so why not this one…?

“I don’t know. It’s possible he’s involved. It’s also possible someone’s trying to frame him. Or it could all be a coincidence.”

“Do you think he’s involved?”

“I don’t think so.”

His answer didn’t seem to comfort her any. All her color seemed to bleed out of her. “The articles say Bill was hospitalized. They didn’t say what happened to him,” she said.

“Fingers on his right hand were badly broken. Repeatedly. I was able to speak to the doctor who treated him. He still remembers it. He thinks that the damage occurred over several hours. That the murderer, Herbert Winters, used those fingers to torture him.”

Susan put a hand over her eyes. “I can’t believe this.”

“There’s something else,” Dornich said. “His dad’s still alive.”

Susan took the hand away from her eyes. She stared blankly at Dornich.

“He’s living in California,” Dornich explained. “I’ve got his phone number. He’s willing to talk to you if you want.”

“I’d like to talk to him.”

Dave Zeltserman

Bad Thoughts

Dornich hesitated. He took out a handkerchief and wiped some wetness from his neck. “I have to warn you. It’s going to be unpleasant. There’s some mental illness there.”

“Like father like son,” Susan muttered under her breath.

Dornich started to say something and then thought better of it. He didn’t want to discourage her from talking to Shannon’s father. He wanted to see her reaction to what the old man had to say. He reached over and redialed the number to California. “I’m going to put this on the speaker phone.”

After a few rings a voice picked up. It wanted to know who was calling. The voice was both strained and hostile.

“Hello, Mr. Shannon,” Dornich answered. “This is Phil Dornich calling back from Boston. I’ve got your daughter-in-law with me.”

The line seemed to go dead. Then, in a tight brutal voice, “Okay, I’ll speak to her.”

Susan had to clear her throat before she could talk. “Hello, Mr. Shannon,” she said. “I’m your daughter-in-law, Susan.”

There was a soft hiss over the line, something that could’ve been static but more likely was the old man breathing hard. Then, “You want to know about your husband?”

“Why, uh, yes-”

“I’ll tell you about him. First, though, let me tell you about his mother-my wife. About what was done to her.” He started to tell her about the murder, the brutal facts that the police had determined. At some point he shifted away from reality to a series of grotesque obscenities that he had convinced himself of over the years. They were hateful and irrational things. Monstrous things. His rantings spewed out over the speaker phone like blood from a burst artery. It was sickening to listen to. After only a few minutes of it Susan had to disconnect the line. By that time her face had turned a queasy white.

“You realize none of that makes any sense,” said Dornich.

Susan just shook her head.

“Winters had spent several hours breaking and rebreaking your husband’s fingers. Whatever your husband might’ve done, he had no choice.”

“How could he say those things?” Susan asked, her eyes wide open as she stared into the fat detective’s face.

Dornich shrugged, lowering his eyes.

“No wonder Bill told me his father was dead,” Susan said. She started laughing; a weak, tired laugh. “At least I know why he goes crazy every year.” The thought seemed to sober her up. She stood up quickly and then put a hand out and steadied herself to keep from falling back into her seat. “I have to get back to the office.”

Dornich watched quietly as she left, amazed at how small and frail she looked. How much older…