Chasing The Dead

Chapter Thirty

“Who’s going to tell them, you or me?” Wheeler asked Rossi as they walked toward Robin’s house.

“I’ll take the lead,” Rossi said, “then you can fill in the details. What do we know about the family?”

Wheeler shrugged. “Five kids, bunched together, ages sixteen to twenty-one, I think.”

“Father?”

“Out of the picture. They’ve been divorced for years.”

Rossi rang the bell. A young man wearing jeans and a Kansas Jayhawks T-shirt answered the door. He was average height with an average build and light brown, almost blond, hair, a round face, and soft features, his connection to his mother apparent.

“Yes?”

Rossi and Wheeler showed their badges. “I’m Detective Rossi. This is my partner, Detective Wheeler. Are you one of Robin Norris’s children?”

“I’m Donny, the oldest. What’s this about?”

“We want to talk with you about your mother’s accident. May we come in?”

He furrowed his brow, hesitating. “What’s going on?”

“We’d rather talk about it inside, if that’s okay with you.”

He nodded. “Sure. Sorry. Come on in.”

Donny led them into the den. It had a high ceiling and was furnished with comfortable, overstuffed chairs and an L-shaped sofa. There was a fireplace on the back wall flanked by windows and surrounded by inlaid stone rising to the ceiling. The lighting was soft, the fabrics warm, the ivory carpeting accented with a maroon oriental rug beneath a mahogany coffee table, the top of which was covered with two large pizza boxes and a half-empty carton of Coke.

A couple Rossi guessed to be in their late fifties or early sixties was sitting on the long side of the sofa. He had silver hair, blue eyes, and a ruddy complexion and was wearing a navy blazer, gray slacks, and a blue oxford-cloth shirt. Her blond hair was cut in a shiny bob. Her short-sleeved lavender dress showed off her toned arms and well-defined calves. They were a handsome, prosperous-looking couple.

An unshaven man around their age wearing Dockers and an untucked polo shirt leaned against the wall by the fireplace studying his smartphone. A boy and two girls who looked to be in their late teens stood in the middle of the room talking while juggling slices of pizza and sodas. A fourth child, a girl closer to sixteen, was leaning against a wall near the unshaven man, pecking away on her smartphone.

“Everybody,” Donny said, “this is Detective Rossi and Detective Wheeler. They want to talk to us about Mom’s accident.”

“Well, actually,” Rossi said, “we’d like to talk to Ms. Norris’s children.”

Donnie and the older kids formed a line, shoulder to shoulder, as if they were used to being introduced as a group or answering roll call. They all shared the same features gifted to them by their mother. The youngest girl had dark hair and angular features similar to the man at the fireplace. Donny made the introductions.

“These are my sisters Carrie and Rachel and my brother Josh. And that’s Kim over by the fireplace.”

Carrie, Rachel, and Josh shook their hands. Kim stayed where she was, silent, grim faced, and sullen.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Rossi said, all the kids nodding except for Kim, who shook her head and disappeared into the kitchen.

“And I’m their dad,” the man at the back of the room said as he walked toward them, chest puffed out. “Ted Norris,” he added, shaking both Rossi’s and Wheeler’s hands.

He was half a head shorter than Rossi, his nose crooked like it had been broken at least twice. His hair had once been dark like his daughter’s but now was a slicked-back muddy gray. He had the red-speckled cheeks and rheumy eyes of a man who’d spent a lifetime getting the last drop out of the bottle. Rossi could smell the whiskey evaporating through his skin along with the stench of cigarettes in his clothes.

“Helluva thing,” Norris said. “Robin was a great gal and these are great kids. Gotta give her credit for that. Everybody knows I didn’t have anything to do with it, not that I didn’t want to or didn’t try. We had five kids in six years before she gave me the boot. My little Kimmy was only five years old, but she turned out okay in spite of her no-account old man.”

He flashed yellow teeth in an expectant grin, waiting for his kids to contradict him and tell him he wasn’t so bad after all and that he deserved some of the credit, but none did. Instead, they shifted their weight from one foot to the other, heads down or turned away, avoiding eye contact with their father.

The couple on the sofa rose, the man clearing his throat. “Ted, why don’t you get going and let the detectives do their job.”

Norris shot a hot look at him, eyes flashing, teeth bared. “Why don’t you hit the road, Tony? You’re not family.”

“I’d like Uncle Tony and Aunt Sonia to stay,” Donny said, turning to Rossi. “Uncle Tony is a judge and Aunt Sonia was our mom’s lawyer.”

Norris glared at his son, squeezing his arm. “You always took your mother’s side.”

Donny yanked his arm free, his jaw clenched. “That’s because there never was another side.”

“You little punk! I oughta. .” Norris raised his hand, palm flat, his face crimson.

Rossi grabbed Norris’s wrist before he could hit Donny.

“I’d take the judge’s advice if I were you, Mr. Norris.”

Norris raised his other hand, this time in surrender. “Okay, okay. Let’s not everybody get excited.” Rossi released him. Norris brushed his hands down his sleeves and straightened his collar. “So I’m getting thrown out of my own house again. I guess some things never change.”

Rossi walked outside with him.

“I don’t need a damn escort,” Norris said.

“Just want to make sure you get to your car okay.”

“So I don’t come back inside and kick your ass?”

“So I don’t cuff you, throw you in the back of my car, and let you spend the night cooling off in jail.”

“Big man when you got a gun and all I’ve got is a. .”

“Hangover and a bad attitude,” Rossi said. “So shut the fuck up and get your ass out of here while you still can.”

Norris climbed into a white Ford Escort parked on the curb and drove off. Rossi waited until he was gone, memorizing the license plate.

Everyone, including Kim, was gathered around the dining room table when Rossi returned. The judge rose to meet him.

“I’m Anthony Steele, and this is my wife, Sonia,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at Rossi. “You handled that very well, Detective. Ted Norris is a nasty drunk.”

“I’m convinced,” Rossi said. “What’s your relationship to the family, Your Honor?”

“No need to be so formal, Detective. We’re not in court. Robin was one of our closest friends. Sonia and I were young marrieds when we started law school. Robin was in our study group and we’ve been friends ever since.”

“We’ve known them all our lives,” Donny said. “They’ve always been Uncle Tony and Aunt Sonia to us.”

“I’m a trusts and estates lawyer,” Sonia said. “I wrote Robin’s estate plan and I’m helping the kids sort through the process. Fortunately, Robin took out a substantial term life policy when she was young enough to afford it. There will be enough for all the children’s education and a little something to get them started after they graduate.”

“Did their father know about the policy?” Rossi asked.

“At the time, yes. They both had policies making each other the beneficiary. Robin made the kids the beneficiary after the divorce. I don’t know whether she ever told Ted.”

“So,” Judge Steele said, “what brings two detectives out on a Friday night to talk about a traffic accident?”

Rossi had delivered enough bad news to know that people responded to it in many different ways. Some were so shocked they couldn’t speak. Some fell apart, crying or fainting. And some buried their reaction under a masquerade of calm that others mistook for grace under fire but that Rossi knew, more often than not, was the calm before the storm.

He took a seat at the table and looked around, making eye contact with each of the children. Donny and Rachel returned the look, their hands folded on the table and steady, oblivious to what was to come. Carrie blinked away tears, hands in her lap. Josh shifted in his chair, unable to get comfortable. Kim stared at him, dry-eyed and expectant, as if she knew what he was going to say and that it was bad. He didn’t disappoint her.

“Your mother was murdered.”