The Man From Primrose Lane Part 12

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm-"

It moved. The back of the black round thing heaved up in what could only be a deep, labored breath, and then settled back down. Everett reached out and grabbed his father's arm.

"Dad?"

"What?"

"What is it?"

"It's not a frog."

"What is it?"

"I ... I don't know. Could be a dog that was. .h.i.t by a car. Or maybe a small bear."

"A bear?"

"Maybe."

Everett's father reached into the glove compartment and came out with his stubby Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter, which he quickly unlocked and loaded.

"What are you doing?" asked Everett.

"I have to see what it is," his father said. "Looks like it's suffering. I should put it down."

"No, Dad. Call Horace in. He'll still be up. Have him bring out his shotgun."

His father smiled. "It's okay, Scout," he said-a nickname he hadn't used in over a year. "Whatever it is, it's too sick to hurt anyone. This'll just take a minute. Stay inside." He left the driver's-side door open and rambled slowly toward the creature at the side of the road, the gun low in his right hand.

Still strapped in his seat, Everett watched his father approach the animal and circle halfway around it before stopping to pinch his nose with his free hand.

"What?" shouted Everett.

"It stinks!"

"What is it?"

In the beam of the spotlight, his father slowly moved to the form and pushed it with one shoe. It rocked a little, but didn't turn over. He pushed again and this time it nearly rolled before collapsing back. On the third push it suddenly came alive. Everett watched the black shape leap to a crouching position, its red eyes fixed on his father. It really did look like a frog for a moment-its face wide and wet and squished, its skin a greenish black muck-colored organ with holes for a nose and a gash for a mouth. That gash opened and what came out was a cry full of human anguish. It lifted a hand, webbed, covered in black foam, dripping pollution onto the blacktop of the road.

His father lifted his gun at the animal but as he did, the frog-thing wrapped its hand around the weapon and s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his grip, tossing it into the woods. It reached to its waist and Everett noticed for the first time that there was a metal rod attached to some sort of belt there. The monster's hand closed around the rod and pulled it out. It began to emit brilliant sparks of blue-white light, hissing like a road flare. The smell of alfalfa grew sickeningly sweet. All he could see of his father now was his backlit form against the overpowering light of the monster's wand.

"Dad!" cried Everett.

The light abruptly quit and Everett peered into the darkness for the shape of his father. But the light had been so strong, he saw nothing for a few seconds. He felt the car lunge to the side and he knew that the frogman was inside with him, opening its gash of a mouth for his throat.

"Everett."

His father. It was his father. Yes. He could see him now, lifting his legs into the driver's seat and closing the door behind him.

"Everett," he said again.

"Dad?" he said through tears.

And then his father's body pitched against the steering wheel. The horn blasted away the quiet with a droning wail.

Everett unbuckled himself and pushed his father's body back against the seat. His father's skin was gray and cool, his eyes rolled back into his head. One hand clutched at his chest. His doctor had warned him three years ago that it was time to quit the drinking and the red meat, that one day his ticker would get a shock and dislodge a buildup of plaque and then that would be all she wrote. He'd told the doctor the most excitement Loveland's police chief was likely to see was the Memorial Day parade. If he had known of such things as frogmen with laser sticks, he might have heeded the doctor's advice.

Everett would forever harbor a dirty guilt over his father's death. A Bear in the local Cub Scout troop, Everett had purposefully skipped the meeting in June when a paramedic had taught the boys basic CPR. He'd skipped it because it hadn't sounded fun.

Eventually, Everett would think to call in to the station on his father's CB radio. But for a long while all the boy could think to do was cradle his father's head against his chest and stroke his cheek the way his father had done for him as a toddler.

By the time Horace arrived, the monster was gone. And when Everett told the story of what had happened to his father, no one believed him. It was easier to believe the boy's mind had overloaded at the sight of his father's untimely death. Easier for the boy to blame a frogman than a clogged artery.

In fact, he should have blamed a writer named David Neff.

PART TWO.

BRUNE.

EPISODE SEVEN.

WITHDRAWN.

"Your Honor, state calls David Neff to the stand."

Elizabeth squeezed David's hand before he got to his feet. a.s.sistant Prosecuting Attorney Brice Russo, a paunchy fellow with curly gray hair, a seasoned vet of the criminal court of common pleas, greeted him with a friendly pat on his arm and directed him to the witness stand.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

"Fine," said David.

He took a seat at the stand to the judge's right and looked back at the courtroom as Russo made a show of gathering his notes, though what he was really doing was allowing the jury a moment to take in the author, to see him as the polished young professional he appeared to be-a man not unlike their own children or favorite nephews.

To David, the jury, seated in two rows along the wall to his immediate right, looked like a hastily a.s.sembled Mouth-Breathers Anonymous meeting: the fat old woman who drove the bus for the Independence Schools District; the thin black man dressed in a borrowed polo, fighting as hard as he could not to fall asleep; the armchair detective/pet store clerk who had already been reprimanded by Judge Jerald Siegel for rolling his eyes during the coroner's testimony. Closest to him was an astute woman with sharp features who taught social studies to fourth-graders at Parma Elementary. She would be the foreperson, when it came time to elect one. There was little doubt of this. Make eye contact with her early on, Russo had instructed him. Smile.

He met her eyes, partially obscured behind bifocals, and smiled. She did not return the salutation.

David turned his attention to the room. It was squat and square, the walls covered in cheap wood paneling. To his left, Elizabeth sat next to his father, who looked out of place and quite uncomfortable in one of David's suits. His uncle Ira was standing in the back today, he noticed. Russo continued searching through a box of police reports at the desk in front of them. Directly in front of David was Riley Trimble, the man David's words had put behind bars, a man who appeared to be a simpleton but who was, himself, playing the part. The defendant appeared out of his element here in this Cleveland courtroom, pulled from his rural setting due to the special circ.u.mstances of his crime that had resulted in a change of venue from Medina (where the majority of that county preferred a lynching). Flanking Trimble was his team of lawyers, led by Terry Synenberger, a former a.s.sistant federal prosecutor who had since made a name for himself defending some of Cleveland's most prominent businessmen, including Scott "The Man of Steel" s.h.i.+ck, busted in 1999 for bribing inspectors to overlook the carcinogens his refinery was dumping into the Cuyahoga. He was a muscular man with a large bald head, tanned to a light beige. Behind him, David was disappointed to see, was the family of Sarah Creston, the dead girl who just wouldn't die for good. In this upside-down world, they actually supported Trimble-the Medina County detectives had convinced them years ago that Brune was responsible for their daughter's murder. They believed David's motivation for accusing Trimble of the crime was fame and fortune.

Russo stopped his busywork and turned to David, a yellow legal pad in his hands. There were a few things written on it, but it was just another prop for the jury. The jury watched Law and Order and expected certain things like lawyers holding legal pads and coroners testing DNA in less than twenty minutes (not six months, like the Medina County coroner had tried to tell them).

"State your name for the record."

"David Joseph Neff."

"Where were you employed in 2007, David?"

"I was a reporter for the Independent, Ohio's largest alternative newspaper."

"Could you please describe for the jury what, exactly, an alternative newspaper is?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out myself," David said. Keep it light, Russo had told him. But his throat felt dry. He felt a coughing spell coming on. "An alternative newspaper is just that, an alternative to the daily news. The paper comes out once a week. It's one of those free magazines you find at the bar. College kids pick them up to see what band is playing at the Grog Shop on Sat.u.r.day or what art film is showing at the Cinematheque. It's edgier than the Plain Dealer. Some people call the writing 'snarky.' The articles are usually longer and told in the New Journalism style, meaning they have a narrative structure instead of an inverse pyramid like the daily papers' articles. They read like good fiction, sometimes."

Russo winced. Bad choice of words, David realized.

"But it's all factual reporting, just like the Plain Dealer," prompted Russo.

"Of course," he said. "What I meant was, it's a little more fun to read because it's told in the structure of a short story."

The prosecutor nodded, then paused, glancing at the jury.

"Mr. Neff, this isn't going to be a short interview. Would you like water or something?"

"Water, please."

Russo nodded at the bailiff, who produced a carafe of water from under the judge's bench and brought it over to David, who poured himself a gla.s.s, his fingers jittering. He did not drink it.

"Ready?" asked Russo.

"Yes."

"Mr. Neff, could you please tell the jury ... what led you to accuse the defendant of being a serial killer?"

"I'll do my best," said David. He looked at the schoolteacher, made eye contact. "Everything kind of got rolling when I talked to another reporter about the Ronil Brune case. His name is Frankie Thomas. We were sitting in the writers' den at the Independent one night and I said to him, 'I think Ronil ...

... Brune might have been innocent," said David. It had been three days since he'd taken the box home.

At the desk beside him, Frankie rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "No, you don't," he said.

"I think I might."

"Why?"

David nudged his chair closer to Frankie, who was at least feigning interest. "Let's look at the facts. What we know, for sure, about Brune. Guy's about forty-five. He's an intelligent-some say brilliant-accountant for a large Akron firm, right? In 1984, he's living by himself in a small ranch house in Bath. Woman shows up at his neighbors' house one morning. She's mid-thirties. She's naked. And there's a handcuff dangling from her wrist. She tells the older couple who live there that she's been held captive by Brune, in his house, for two days, that she escaped after he went to work on Monday morning. Police arrest Brune. She identifies him as her abductor, as the man who tortured her, who s.e.xually violated her over and over. And after his face appears in the Beacon Journal, three other women, all in their thirties or forties, come forward saying Brune kidnapped and raped them, too."

"You're right!" said Frankie. "He does sound innocent."

"Just listen. No doubt, no doubt Brune was a serial rapist. He admitted to it. He admitted abducting and raping those adult women. We can agree that he's-that he was-a very bad man."

"Agreed."

"The police search his house and find all these newspaper clippings about Sarah Creston, an eight-year-old girl who was abducted from Medina in 1982. Creston had been raped and strangled to death, then dumped beside an oil well drive. On her body they found several cat hairs, gray tomcat hairs. The hair matched samples taken from clothes and carpet in Brune's house. The cat itself was never found, but it was obvious it had lived there at one time. So they go back and look at other unsolved murders of young girls in the area. Detectives soon finger Brune for two more murders-the 1980 murder of ten-year-old Donna Doyle, who was wrapped in plastic that had once contained a bedspread purchased by Brune, and the 1980 murder of ten-year-old Jennifer Poole, who was covered in those same gray cat hairs."

Frankie looked back at David with a touch of concern. He shrugged. And?

"Doesn't fit," said David. "Haven't you seen those A&E interviews with FBI profilers? The ones who study these predators? They always say that serial killers become more violent over time. A serial killer wouldn't kill kids and then start abducting and releasing adult women. And they would stay with one age group."

"C'mon. n.o.body knows what really goes on in a killer's mind. They're sick. They don't make sense."

"Brune admitted to the rapes. Why not the murders? He already knew he was going to die. I'm sure the prosecutor offered him a deal. Life in prison if you fess up, for the families' closure."

"Have you talked to the prosecutor?"

"No."

"Then how do you know?"

"I guess I don't."

"Then don't guess," said Frankie. "You can't guess stuff like that. If a woman comes in here and tells me she's my mother, I'm going to get my father to verify it, you know? No guessing in journalism."

"I wasn't going to write it without checking."

"Good. And, oh, by the way, how the f.u.c.k are you going to explain away the evidence at Brune's house that links him to these girls?"

David smiled.

For the first time, Frankie perked up. "What? What did you find?"

"Did you guys ever read what was in that box?"

"Just a couple pages," he said. "Cindy read about half, I think. What?"

"Like I said, Brune was living alone in 1984, when the woman escaped from his house. But from 1981 to September 1982, during the time of Sarah's abduction and murder, Brune had a roommate."

"Why didn't that come out in trial?"

"It did, sort of, but Brune's lawyers didn't do anything with it. They didn't connect the dots for the jury. I think maybe Brune even told them not to."

"Who was it?"

"A nineteen-year-old man he'd first met through scouting. Brune let him live there, rent-free, so he could save some money. And get this. The kid abruptly quit his job and moved out of that house a day after Creston's body was found."

Frankie stared blankly into the air to David's right, deep in thought. "It's another suspect, I guess. But you're a long way from being able to suggest he was involved."

"I know. But it's something, right?"

"It's something," admitted Frankie.