September 13th, 2016. 9:00PM
Burlwood, Indiana
Nearly four hours in front of twenty-four Confederate Way had yielded little in the way of useful information for Jake and his investigation of Rusty Parker, the man he was leaning towards dubbing the original Butcher Of Burlwood. A van marked Indiana Home Hospice had stopped in around seven o'clock, a woman dressed in scrubs stepping out of it and going in to spend about thirty minutes with him before she finally came back out and drove off. There hadn't been so much as a sighting of the old man strolling around inside the place before or since, and there had been no action to speak of besides her visit whatsoever.
If Rusty was putting up a front and acting more incapacitated than he truly was, he was going all in on the endeavor. More likely, Jake figured, was the fact that the man really was terminally ill and had a hard time moving about. That didn't scratch him out as the killer of Duncan, Banks, Dawson, Wade, Marshall or Timmy Lane, but it certainly put a damper on the idea that he'd been involved with the murder of Billy Marsh, which did nothing to free Chucky.
Tired of watching nothing happen and frustrated with his overall progress in the investigation, Jake decided that he was going to pay Mister Parker another visit and try to drill him a bit harder about those past cases than he had last time he scoped out the old man's residence, when they hadn't come up at all. Flinging another cigarette out the window and feeling his throat's objection to his chain smoking, he fired up the Malibu and moved from his surveilling position just up the road and pulled right into Rusty's driveway.
Stepping out of the car, he slammed his door with authority to announce his arrival and broadcast a bit of intimidation into the home. Marching to the front door, he readied his wallet with the Private Investigator portion of his badge carefully obscured and ready for flashing again when Rusty eventually answered. To illicit that response, he pounded on the wooden door as hard as he could with his left hand as his right prepared to present his less than official credentials.
It took time for Rusty to answer, and the man looked even more frail when he eventually opened the door than he had just a few days prior.
"Good evening, Mister Parker," Jake said authoritatively.
"Oh, it's you," Rusty replied in his congested wheezing as plumes of oxygen vapor poured from his nasal cannula. "Detective Palazzo!"
"Yes sir," he responded, still irritated with himself for having given such an ignorant false name during his last visit. "I've got a few more questions for you, may I come in?"
As before, Rusty simply stepped slowly out of the way and let Jake follow him as he pushed his walker into the front room, where the machines that helped him breathe were rumbling at full bore. The man collapsed onto the love seat, and Jake took a more aggressive approach than last time by sitting on his coffee table, face to face with him.
"Still looking for that van?" Rusty grumbled and gurgled, "because I still have no idea where it's at!"
"No, it's more than that this time, Mister Parker" Jake replied, trying to sound official and in confident control. "If you don't mind, Mister Parker, I'd like to get right down to what this is about without wasting any time on the minutia surrounding it. With that in mind, are you comfortable or is there something I can get you before we begin?"
"Comfortable?" Rusty laughed and coughed. "How the hell should I be comfortable, I'm dying you stupid asshole!" The old man apparently found this statement, and the rebuttal of authority it represented, quite funny, and his continued attempts at laughing between hacks and spasms were as irritating as hell to his guest.
"I'll take that as a yes," Jake returned with the annoyance on his face. "The first topic I'd like to discuss with you are the events of September twenty-fourth, 1994."
"September twenty-four, 1994?" Rusty repeated like a parrot. "Christ, that was almost twenty-three years ago! What do you figure I should know about September twenty-fourth of 1994?"
"I figure you should know plenty," Jake advised with certitude. "First of all, I figure you should know who was driving Evander Hughes' Brougham that night. You should know who picked up Timothy Lane from the Our Mother carnival!"
"Timothy Lane?" Parker repeated again. "Isn't that the kid that got killed? Daryl Lane's boy?"
"Yes, it is," Jake assured him.
"What the hell should I know about Timothy Lane?" he asked defiantly.
"You should know quite a bit, Mister Parker," Jake returned the volley. "I understand you were in contact with the boy a few hours before he disappeared."
"I was?" Rusty asked.
"Yes, you were," Jake reminded him from his memory of the meeting in the nave. "And I believe you were in contact with him not long after he disappeared as well."
"You are trying to figure out who killed that kid last month! That Marsh boy!" Rusty cackled. "I told you, I got no idea what happened to him! I got no idea what happened to the van! Look at me, does it look like I could pose any threat to that little boy??"
"We're not talking about Billy Marsh right now, Mister Parker," Jake replied, "we're talking about Timothy Lane!"
Parker looked surprised and confused, like he had no idea where this line of questioning was coming from or where it was expected to go. The bubbling and gurgling in his chest intensified as he tried to raise his voice in retort. "You say I saw this Lane kid after he disappeared?" He asked. "Didn't you bother to look at the files on that boy back at your precinct? I'm sure they tell all about what I was doing when he went missing, because I had feds with their hands up my ass like I was a puppet that whole time!"
"I've seen the files," Jake lied, "the feds lost you, they have no idea where you were for that entire evening after you left work."
"Bullshit!" Rusty choked furiously. "They know exactly what I did! I came home from work, I sat here watching the television until I fell asleep on the couch! In fact, I'm pretty sure it was Clyde Rambo himself I saw parked out in front of my place that night! I'm pretty sure it was the King Shit of the department babysitting me, and he was out there! I remember seeing that raggedy old Crown Vic of his just up the road!"
"Wow, it seems like your memory is coming back to you pretty sharply," Jake jabbed, "so you should be able to tell me who it was in that car that brought Timmy back here for you to slaughter!"
"What?" Rusty hawked. "You're a crazy man! You don't know shit about that night!" He accused. "Who the hell are you anyway? Does Ron Boudreaux know you're here?"
"Of course he does!" Jake pressed his luck in the gambit, his suddenly heavy chest not pleased with the move. "He's the one who sent me!"
"In regards to what?" Rusty asked.
"In regards to many things," he replied, "the first of which is your alibi for the deaths of the six children murdered in this town between the years of 1990 and 1994!"
"You want my alibis for those killings?" Parker snorted. "Go talk to Clyde Rambo and Alberto Gomez! Something tells me they'll know exactly where I was when each of those kids died! Something tells me they've got it all written down on paper somewhere, and I bet they themselves signed the reports!"
"Actually," Jake countered, "they have very little information on you before the case of Timothy Lane! Even then, the information they do have about the Lane case is highly questionable, and that's why I'm here!"
"What about it do they question?" The man replied. "What could they possibly question?"
"As I've already mentioned, they want to know who it was that brought Timothy Lane to your house in Evander Hughes' Brougham!"
"Who the fuck is Evander Hughes?" Rusty asked. "And what the fuck is a Brougham?"
"Come on, Mister Parker!" Jake shouted. "That's enough playing dumb, I can see right through this charade of yours! The blue Brougham, the Cadillac that your accomplice brought Timmy Lane to you in! The one that he also kidnapped Nathan Dawson and Ricky Marshall in! The one the two of you probably used to snatch all of the children!"
"I have no ide
a what you're talking about!" Parker explained in snorts. "And I think it's about time you left my house!"
"I'm here on the authority of The State Of Indiana!" Jake barked back. "And I'm not going anywhere until you start answering some questions!"
"I've answered all these questions!" Rusty insisted. "These and a thousand more! I was cleared of these charges two decades ago, you have no right to come into my home and rub my nose in it all over again! You come here, to the home of a dying man, and you bring up ghosts that have long since faded to nothing!"
"There's no statute of limitation on murder," Jake informed him, "and we'll ask you these questions either until the day you die or the moment at which we determine you've told us the truth! What happened to your saw blade, Mister Parker? Why do you have a perfectly good table saw in the garage with no blade to speak of?"
"Does it look like I could use a table saw?" The man chuckled.
"I believe you could!" Jake countered. "And I believe you could operate that engine hoist in there as well!"
Rusty laughed harder, almost gagging again at the strain on his vascular system. "Right, and rip the engine right out of your missing van? I bet you think I stripped it down to nuts and bolts all on my own, don't you?"
"Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But, I believe that if I was to spray some Luminol on that saw, the hoist chain and around the drain in the floor, it would light your garage up like a fucking Christmas tree!"
"Then spray them!" Parker gurgled adamantly. "Spray them and show me, you fucking bastard!"
"Oh, I will," Jake promised. "I was just hoping I might get some real answers for you before I have to call the cavalry in!"
"The cavalry?" Another parrot-like mocking. "And you say Ron Boudreaux sent you?" Parker asked.
"Yes, he did!" Jake cried. " He wants answers, and he also wants to know how you're connected to FGSI Services!"
Rusty seemed to be thinking for a minute, his eyes closing slightly and making him look like he'd passed out again as he put pieces together in his mind. "It was you!" He accused, raising an unsteady and bony finger. "You stole my mail from the table!"
"Seized would be more appropriate!" Jake continued, morphing his strategy to suit Rusty's realizations. "We've determined that FGSI is a criminal entity, and if you thought the feds were up your ass back in the day, just wait until the racketeer influenced corrupt organization case comes crashing down on your interest!"
Again, the old man laughed -- but this was a taunting laugh, the kind that made Jake immediately uncomfortable. He felt as though the rug had been yanked out from under him when he heard it, and he knew instinctively that he'd pressed a button he would grow to wish he hadn't mashed. He felt his face dropping in response, knowing he'd made a terrible miscalculation and misstep that would lead him somewhere far from where he wanted to be.
"A RICO case?" Rusty snorted. "You're trying to tell me that Ron Boudreaux has initiated a RICO case against FGSI? Oh, that's a laugh! That's a really good laugh, Detective Pallazzo!"
Seeing his window closing, seeing any further information he might glean speeding away from his grasp, he raised his voice and tried to verbally beat his answers out of the feeble old man who was in danger of entering respiratory arrest with his laughter.
"What the fuck IS FGSI?" He barked.
"It's an ice cream company!" Rusty gasped, choking on his words.
"What do you keep at Safe & Secure Self Storage?"
"Christmas decorations!" Parker nearly whispered in his struggle to breathe with his snickering.
"You listen to me, goddamn it!" Jake shouted. "I KNOW you killed those boys, and I KNOW you had something to do with Billy Marsh, you raggedy old fuck!"
"Prove it!" Rusty coughed. "But do it fast, because I'm calling the Sheriff!"
Jake watched as the haggard shell of a man reached for a phone on a table next to him, lifting the receiver and struggling to dial with his shaking hands as he laughed and gagged. Knowing he needed to be long gone before the call was made, he stood up quickly and darted for the front door. He'd set this bridge alight, and he needed to get to the other side of it before it melted away entirely and left him stranded in a pair of shiny handcuffs with Ron Boudreaux's fat hands holding them by the chain. Smashing his way out the front door, he raced to his Malibu and jumped inside.
Once it was started, he squealed the tires in backing out and racing away from twenty-four Confederate Way for what would likely be the last time until he had the evidence to pin all of this on the man who lived at that address. As he turned onto the main route, he swore a pair of headlights that hadn't been there before flashed to life behind him. Again, he felt he was being followed -- but this was not the time to worry about it, unless the cherries-and-berries fired up and Ron Boudreaux appeared with the shackles he intended to bind him in. Praying, begging that this wouldn't happen, he turned his attention to the road ahead and sped towards The Meadows hoping to out-run the law that Rusty Parker was surely calling.
Back inside, Rusty calmed his fit of laughter once he was sure his visitor was gone. He hung the phone up, trying to steady his hands, then lifted it again to dial a number he had committed to memory long ago. Listening to the rings, he took breaths as deep as he possibly could to help the oxygen regulate his system. By the time the answer came, he was back in control enough to speak his words of warning.
"Hey, it's me -- Rusty," he said. "We've got a bigger problem with this guy than I thought."
FORTY-THREE