Wrongly Accused Read online

  “I don’t think so. When we went on vacations, Dad left one of our security keys with the Hendersons next door so they could water the plants and check on things.”

  “Did your parents have a housekeeper?”

  “A cleaning service comes every Wednesday. Mom was always here while they cleaned though. She didn’t trust them in the house by themselves.”

  “Was there a reason for her distrust? I mean, did anything ever turn up missing?”

  “Not that I know of. She just didn’t like strangers in the house.”

  “Don’t you find it strange, Brad, that the alarm system was armed when you came in? An intruder would have set the alarm off, right?”

  “I guess. All the windows and doors are wired. I don’t know how it was done, but I know that some burglars know electronics well.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I watch TV.”

  “Well, no forcible entry was found. It doesn’t appear to be a break-in. Nothing appears to be disturbed.”

  “How would you know? Do you know what we have in our house?”

  “No. Have you noticed anything missing?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to really look.”

  “Do you know anyone who would want to hurt your parents?”

  “Yeah. Like I told the other detective, a man threatened my father last Friday night.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I’d never seen him before. I was in the study working on a final project when he rang the bell. Dad answered the door, and they stood in the foyer talking. Dad left the man in the foyer and came into the study. He got something out of his briefcase. I wasn’t paying much attention, so I don’t know what he got, but when he went back out in the foyer, the other man became upset. He started yelling and talking like he was mad at Dad.”

  “Could you hear what he was saying?”

  “He said something like, ‘This isn’t enough. I need more. You got me into this, now you’re going to get me out.’”

  “What was he talking about?”

  “I don’t know. I went to the hall and saw him just as he was leaving.”

  “You didn’t recognize him?”

  “No.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was big, dark, with bushy hair and a mustache.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. He wore a sweat suit that was too small for him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He looked like he’d squeezed into it. I thought maybe he got it at the Salvation Army or something. It was red and black. It looked old. Maybe he was a panhandler wanting money.”

  “But you think your dad knew him, right?”

  “It sounded like he might. And he was pretty mad at Dad.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Hobos make their way up into this neighborhood sometimes, and Dad recruited them a lot for his work.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Dad is—was a pharmacologist at the university.” Again Brad began to tear up but took a moment to get control. “He tested new drugs. He always said transients make good participants because they need the money and often need medical help.”

  “I understand you took your cousin to the airport this morning. What time was that?”

  “We overslept. Jess was upset with me for keeping him out late last night. We didn’t leave the dorm until sometime around 6:10 or 6:15.”

  “Why were you out so late last night?”

  “We needed to loosen up, have fun. Well, you know. Exams were over. We went for pizza and root beer at the Wasatch Café. We started talking with friends and time flew by.”

  “What time did you come home?”

  “Sometime between 1:30 and 2:00. The café’s open all night during exams.”

  “So what time did you get to the airport this morning?”

  “A little after 7:00, I think.”

  “It took you more than forty-five minutes?”

  “Yeah, the roads hadn’t been plowed, and there were a lot of accidents. We sat in a traffic jam for something like twenty minutes too.”

  “How long were you at the airport?”

  “Only a few minutes. I was parked in the Delta loading zone and Jess didn’t want me to get a ticket.”

  “So you left before he boarded?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long did it take you to get home?”

  “About the same. I got here at 8:16.”

  “So your cousin can verify your whereabouts until around 7:15 or so, and you were alone for the next hour until the patrol arrived here at 8:30?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The roads must have been bad.”

  “They were. And I stopped to help this woman whose car was stuck.”

  “Did you happen to get her name?”

  “No. We didn’t really talk. I just pushed her car for her.”

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “A yellow VW Bug.”

  “Old or new model?”

  “New.”

  “I don’t suppose you caught the license plate.”

  “Only that it was an Arizona plate and seemed to be custom- made. The letters formed a name.”

  “What was the name?”

  “It wasn’t an actual name, but a nickname. I think it had the word Bug in it.”

  “What was the location of this incident?”

  “Second Avenue and maybe J or K Street. I’m not exactly sure which side street we were on.”

  “Do you think she had actually slid off the road or was trying to pull out of a parking spot?”

  “The tire marks in the snow made me think she had slid.”

  “Brad, one of our detectives found a .22-caliber revolver in a duffel bag on what is apparently your bed. What can you tell me about that?”

  She watched his response carefully, but it was not particularly remarkable. He simply answered her question. “About a month ago, Dad suggested we join the gun club and learn to handle a weapon. We went to a west-side pawnshop near the neighborhood where Dad grew up. Dad knew the owner. Dad purchased a Colt .45 automatic, and I bought a .22 caliber revolver. It was all done legally.”

  “Do you happen to have the name of the pawnshop?”

  “Westside Pawn.”

  “Why was the gun in your duffel bag on the bed this morning?”

  Brad looked up, concern showing in his expression. “Why are you asking so many questions about my gun?”

  “We have to check everything out.”

  “Dad and I practiced shooting at the gun club a couple of weeks ago. Dad was paged; something had come up at the office. I stayed behind to continue the practice shooting. Afterward, I took the gun back to my dorm room. I planned on returning it to the house as soon as I could. Then exams hit. I got busy. Yesterday when I was packing the duffel bag, I stumbled across the .22 hidden on the top shelf of my dorm closet. I stuffed it in the duffel bag.”

  “You brought the duffel bag with you this morning?”

  “No, I dropped it off yesterday.”

  * * *

  Doug Thornton stood in front of the glass doors to the sitting room and watched with admiration as Van worked with Brad. She could pacify the most agitated of suspects with her soft voice. Her looks didn’t hurt either.

  She carried her short, athletic build with spunk, and her short brown hair bounced as she talked. But most of all, he loved her ocean- blue eyes, which were accentuated by her blue sweater. A dimple on each cheek reminded him of old Shirley Temple movies. He couldn’t describe her as cute—he was too attracted to her for that. Maybe pretty was a better word, but it seemed too soft for Van. Of course, she was quite a bit younger than he. She was thirty-three and he was hitting forty.

  He remembered the day Captain Markakis had introduced them. “Take her under your wing, Thornton,” the captain had said. “She’s a rookie with a lot of potential.” The captain didn’t know Thornto
n had been admiring Van for weeks; the opportunity to train her was a stroke of luck.

  At the end of their first month together, he’d walked her to her car, and she had suggested they get a bite to eat. Delighted at this sign that she shared his romantic interest, he agreed. She followed him to a nearby diner. They talked about the hard month they’d shared and opened up to each other.

  Van told him about her childhood. Raised in Boston, she was one of four children born to affluent parents. Her father was a respected attorney who had expected Van to follow in his footsteps, but she headed west with a friend she had met in college, and when she got here she entered the Utah Police Academy. She worked for years as a patrol officer. Later, she joined the Mormons. Her parents still lived in Boston but had withdrawn from her because they disapproved of her career and conversion to Mormonism.

  Van had excelled as a patrol cop and worked up through the ranks, passing all the tests, performing beautifully under courtroom stress, and exhibiting extraordinary observational skills. But the quality that brought her from patrol officer to detective, in Thornton’s opinion, was her ability to make strangers trust and talk to her.

  She’d worked her magic with him that night. In fact, he’d felt so comfortable with her he told her about his childhood, about the rough Montbello neighborhood where he grew up in northeast Denver. Small and skinny, he was always getting roughed up. To find security, he joined a gang in his early teens—the Crips—and by the time he was a junior in high school found himself in jail for robbing a mansion in southwest Denver. He was sentenced to a reform school where he found a mentor in the officer in charge, Joe Montelli. He learned to box and lifted weights, and by the time he left the program, he was stronger and more confident. He didn’t let anyone push him around.

  That night, as they had opened up to each other, he had made his move. He covered her hand with his, and said, “Why don’t we let things go where they want to go?” She pulled her hand away and stood up. “Try that again,” she’d said, “and I’ll have you reprimanded.” Thornton smiled now as he thought of her spunk.

  “Thornton?” Van had opened the glass door and was entering the foyer. He felt his face flush. Had she noticed him staring?

  “Yeah, what is it, Van?”

  “Brad wants to take a look around to see if anything’s missing.”

  “Okay. I’ll have Uluave escort him around the main floor, but the second floor is off-limits right now. There’s too much going on up there.”

  Uluave came up behind Thornton, his huge body towering over the lieutenant. Brad walked past them like a sleepwalker, and Thornton wondered what he would do when he awoke from his delusional nightmare to learn he’d killed his parents. Uluave guided the boy toward the kitchen.

  “Thornton,” Van said, “Brad says his parents had a remote security key that automatically turned their alarm on and off as they came and went.”

  “Yeah, he told us that too. We found his parents’ keys in their bedroom. The remotes are on their chains.”

  “Well, we still need to account for Brad’s remote.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe the kid’s story.”

  “I’m telling you I believe his story.”

  “He must be a real smooth talker.”

  “You’re the one who told me I have good instincts.”

  “You do, but maybe your instincts have been influenced by his handsome face.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Give me a break, Thornton.”

  “Did he tell you about the one-armed man?”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you ever see The Fugitive, Van?”

  “What are you saying, Thornton? You don’t believe the kid’s story about the man who made threats against his family?”

  “A guy in a sweat suit that’s too small for him. What’s that? It’s crazy.”

  “That’s the kind of detail that makes me believe him. Why would he make up something like that?”

  “Van, it might as well be a one-armed man.”

  “There’s something you’re forgetting about that movie, Thornton.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There really was a one-armed man.”

  CHAPTER 3

  After leaving the Armstrong house, Thornton drove downtown to Gold’s Gym, gulping his power shake along the way. It was lunchtime, and he needed to work off some of his frustrations. He could never figure out how Van managed to get the better of him before he knew what was happening.

  He drove his unmarked Lumina around the crowded parking lot twice before he found an empty spot. While the Salt Lake City Police Department had its own gym, Thornton had found that Gold’s was a good place to meet women. He parked, gulped down the last swig of shake, crushed the can and threw it in a trash bag on the passenger side, then grabbed his gym bag and got out. Cold air blew snowflakes in his eyes, making him blink as he pulled up the collar of his overcoat and headed quickly to the entrance.

  The locker room was a hot, steamy contrast to the cold, dry air outside. He put on his gym shorts and T-shirt emblazoned with “SLCPD”—Salt Lake City Police Department. A lot of the girls in the gym were impressed by his detective status.

  He walked through the maze of shiny steel machines, barbells, sit-up tables, and squat racks that were being sweated over by grunting men and women and greeted everyone with a big smile.

  “Hello, sweetheart. You’re looking good,” he crooned to Alice Ann, one of several petite blond trainers in the gym.

  “So are you,” she gushed back.

  He threw his towel by an empty weight bench, and Joel, one of the trainers, came up to him. “Want me to spot you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, thanks, Joel.”

  “What’re you going for today?” Joel asked.

  “Four hundred.”

  “You sure?”

  “Do I sound unsure?”

  “Okay,” Joel said and shrugged. He began to stack the weights onto the bar as Thornton watched.

  Whenever he was feeling down, pumping iron put him right back on top. It was a mood elevator. The weights represented life’s struggles. Thornton pushed against them and tried to be victorious over them; it was a spiritual thing. Van had her religion; he had his.

  He loved the rush of exhilaration as he lifted the massive barbell over his head. He loved the power he felt. He loved the looks of admiration from the women and, even more, the looks of envy from the men.

  He knew that feeling of envy. He’d felt it in the weight room back in Montbello Middle School. He was skinny and weak back then. He’d tried to fit in; he read about sports and even tried out for the basketball team once. After seeing muscleman Charles Atlas beckoning to him from an ad in a comic book, he ordered the muscle manual. “Don’t let bullies kick sand in your face, weakling.” It was like Atlas was talking to him personally; Atlas understood him, knew what he was going through, and appreciated the pain.

  But the manual did him no good. He couldn’t seem to make it work. He tried doing push-ups and even tried doing chin-ups on the iron crossbar of his mother’s clothesline in back of their house. The muscles didn’t come.

  Of course, deep inside, he knew he hadn’t tried hard enough. It was not just his body that wasn’t cooperating; it was his heart. He didn’t have the confidence to make it work. If he’d had a father who was really there for him, to show him how it was done, maybe he could have succeeded. But all he’d had was Dotty, his mother, who worked all day and came home and drank all night. She would scream at him to wash the dishes and clean the house. She would tell him how lazy he was and how useless he was, what a burden he was. No one would marry her with a deadweight kid to support, she’d said.

  He often thought he didn’t blame Ralph, his father, for running off with the waitress from the bar down the street. That’s where he’d spent most of his time anyway, getting drunk at Al’s Bar in northeast Denver. Ralph hated to come home. When he did, he would get into violent drunken brawls with Dotty, the ne
ighbors would call the police, and either Dotty or Ralph would end up in detox for the night.

  The welfare services people had once threatened to put Thornton in a foster home. “Go ahead,” Ralph had said. “I pay my taxes and should get something back for it.” The pain he’d felt when Ralph said that was still acute today.

  Back when Dotty and Ralph first moved into the little house in the new Montbello development, they had dreams for a bright future, or so Dotty idealized it. Dotty and Ralph had moved in with three young children, Thornton’s brother, Bobby, and sister, Ruth. Montbello was only a year old at the time, and Thornton was only four. He and the neighborhood grew up together. Back then everyone had high hopes for the community. Who could have foreseen the area’s gang-plagued future? By the mid-1970s, Dotty and Ralph’s dreams had faded into a dreary reality. Both Thornton and the neighborhood were on their way down. Thornton, however, wasn’t going to let his past get in his way. He was stronger than his past, and today, as he’d done on other days, he’d prove it.

  “Your lift’s ready,” Joel said.

  He looked at the barbells with plates as big as manhole covers, and he felt a little knot forming in his throat. The pulse in his jaw began to throb, and he pressed his finger on it. The memories. He had to shake the memories. They were no good for him. They always brought on anxiety. Why was he feeling this way?

  He knew. It was that rich kid and Van’s sympathy for him. She found Brad interesting because he was rich and educated. The kid had been polished and pruned in an upscale environment like Van with advantages Thornton never had. No matter how hard he tried, his Montbello upbringing showed through.

  Thornton lay on his back, took a deep breath, and focused on the 400-pound bar resting on the rack above him. He was counting on adrenaline to carry him through the lift. There was something primeval about pumping iron, man against the forces of nature. Wide-eyed spectators who knew what he was attempting became a blur in the distance.

  With clinched fists wrapped around the bar and a rush of adrenaline flowing through his body, he extended every ounce of energy into the bar. Pushing the bar halfway off his chest, his giant biceps began to shake.

  He saw images flashing in his mind—Van, Brad Armstrong, and the house in Denver, that middle-school weight room. His focus was broken. Joel grabbed the bar and helped Thornton guide it back on the rack.