The Dead Man

Chapter Sixty-five

"Olathe is one of the fastest growing cities in the country," Simon said.

"Really," Lucy answered. "Gee, that's fascinating. You know any more cool stuff like that?"

He was driving, Lucy in front, both of them giggling, slapping each other on the arm, drunk on love. It took something that strong to beat back the fear of being too late again. I envied them.

I was in the back, stretched out across the seat, my arm over my eyes. I had been riding the troughs all day, shaking and contorting, brain fog rolling in and out. The thirty-minute car ride was a chance to rest and buy time.

"Does Goodell know why we're coming to see him?" I asked.

"I told him you wanted to talk to him about a cold case. He asked which one. I told him the one about Maggie Brennan."

"What did he say?"

"He said it's about time."

Tom Goodell had the collapsed build of a tall, once powerful man; his shoulders still broad but rounded, his neck thick but stooped, his chest wide, his belly overflowing his belt. His cheeks were pinwheeled with red spider veins, his hands were age-spotted, and his fingers were gnarled with arthritis but his gaze was sharp and clear when he looked me in the eye.

"Missed you at lunch yesterday," he said.

"Got tied up, sorry."

"Well, come on in."

He led us into the den where there was a fire burning and a television on. A small boy, maybe ten, was sprawled on the floor near the fire, staring at the TV. He motioned us to a couch across from the fireplace.

"Hit it, junior," Goodell said to the boy. "Upstairs and get your homework done before your daddy comes home and kicks both our asses."

"Both our asses, Grandpa?"

"You bet, junior. Yours for not getting your homework done and mine for not making you." The boy scrambled to his feet and headed for the stairs. "Hey, boy! Aren't you forgetting something?"

The boy blushed and smiled, trotted over to Goodell who bent down, offering a rough whiskered cheek for the boy to kiss, hugging the boy and brushing the boy's hair with his hand, the boy returning the gesture, tugging on Goodell's thin white hair, both of them laughing. Goodell waited until the boy was gone.

"Okay, then," he said, settling into his recliner. "Let's talk murder."

"It's a long story," I began.

"You see that," Goodell said, interrupting and pointing to the television. "That thing's on the whole goddamn day. Keeps me company when the kid's in school and my son's on the job, now that he and his wife are split up. I favor MSNBC over those morons at Fox but I've been mostly watching the local news this week."

"That so?"

"It is so. And you see that," he said, pointing to a police scanner sitting on an end table next to the couch. "I'm not one of those old cops who sits around waiting for a heart attack or the balls to stick a gun in my mouth." He sat up in his chair and leaned toward me, speaking slowly. "I pay attention."

"Then you know about the murders," I said.

"You want me to recite their names for you? Your friend there said you wanted to talk about Maggie Brennan. Well, then, let's get to it."

"A woman named Maggie Brennan works at the Harper Institute. The murder victims were involved with the project she's working on. I need to know whether she's the same Maggie Brennan as the one in your cold case."

"Why?" he asked, narrowing his eyes, bearing down on me.

"She's missing. I'm hoping you can help me find her."

He leaned back in his recliner, clasping his hands across his belly. "They're one and the same."

"What makes you so certain?"

"Unsolved case like that doesn't leave you. Not ever. You know that. She was the only survivor. I took an interest, kept up with her as much as I could. Lost track of her for a long time but I found her again when she moved back here."

"Have you been in touch with her?" Lucy asked.

"Just who are you, missy?"

"I'm Lucy Trent."

"What's your interest in this?"

"I'm helping Jack."

"You know what you're doing?"

"I was a cop for five years."

He snorted. "Another ex-cop. Well, I guess we all used to be something else. And, no, I haven't talked to her and don't plan on it."

"Why not?" she asked.

"You ask me that question again when you find her. Her parents, Sam and Gretchen Brennan, owned a place near Spring Hill, that's about twenty miles or so from here. It wasn't much, a few hundred acres. Sam's brother, Charlie, owned a place west of theirs, twice as big. The brothers inherited the land from their parents. Charlie was the favored son so he got the bigger spread. Caused all kind of problems between them but Charlie said they'd patched things up and we never did find anybody who could prove otherwise.

"It was wintertime, fifty years ago this month. Early one morning, old Charlie, he goes over to Sam and Gretchen's place. He said he and Sam were fixin' to work on some fence they shared, get it ready for spring.

"Charlie pulls up in Sam's yard and knocks on the door but he don't get an answer. He tries the door and it's unlocked which wasn't unusual in those days. Folks didn't have so much to be afraid of like they do now. He goes in the house and calls out a hello and he still don't get an answer. So, he goes looking upstairs and he finds Sam and Gretchen lying in bed, cut to pieces and bloody as all hell. Well, the sight of them damn near drives him crazy. He climbs in the bed, puts his arms around them and starts screaming.

"After he calms down a bit, he goes looking for Maggie. Ten years old, she was. Same age as my grandson. He finds her hiding in the bushes outside the house wearing a little slip of a nightgown and near froze to death. That's when he calls the sheriff's dispatcher, crying and crazy, hollerin' that Sam and Gretchen are dead and he's got Maggie. He hangs up before the dispatcher can get anything else out of him. The sheriff, Ed Beedles, he hightails it out to Spring Hill and I'm right behind him. I was Ed's deputy. Been on the job ten years by then but I swear to Jesus I never seen anything like what I saw that morning."