Deadly Intent (15 page)

Looking sheepish, Jordan raised a tentative hand in a wave, but instead of running toward his father the way he usually did, he walked slowly, studying John’s expression with a look of apprehension in his big blue eyes.

“Hi, Dad.” He stopped in front of John, gave a tug to the straps of his backpack and looked up. One thing about Jordan, no matter what trouble he got himself into, he was never afraid to look John in the eye. “You talked to Mrs. Rhinehart?”

“I just left her.”

“Am I suspended?”

“No, but there better not be a repeat of this incident, kiddo, or you will be. And we don’t want that, do we?”

“No.”

They didn’t say anything more until they were inside John’s car, a black Plymouth he used on and off duty. Once Jordan was buckled up, John turned in his seat. “So, you want to tell me what happened?”

“Well—“ Jordan swiveled to face his father “—there’s

this kid in my class who thinks he knows everything about baseball.”

John felt a tug at the corner of his mouth. “I thought that title belonged to you.”

“I know a lot more than he does, Dad.”

John didn’t doubt that. Jordan lived and breathed baseball. And when it came to facts, he was a walking encyclopedia. “What did he say that ticked you off?”

“He said that Lou Gehrig still held the record for consecutive games played, when everybody knows that Cal Ripken now holds that record.”

“And that’s what you fought over?”

“I wasn’t going to, but he hit me first, so I hit him back. That’s what you told me to do, right, Dad?” Serious eyes studied John’s face. “You said I could defend myself.”

“Yes,” he said, not sure Mrs. Rhinehart would approve. “I did tell you that, but did you have to hit him so hard?”

“I didn’t, Dad, I swear. I can’t help it if he’s got a glass nose. Besides,” Jordan added with a touch of scorn in his voice, ‘ ‘he made a big deal out of nothing. His teacher told him to tilt his head back so the blood wouldn’t gush out, but Tim wouldn’t do it. He let it run all over his mouth, making it look a lot worse than it was.” Jordan made a disgusted sound. “He wailed like a girl.”

John wasn’t sure how he managed to keep a straight face. “He was probably in a lot of pain,” he offered, starting the car. “Apparently you hit him with a pretty solid right hook. It’s a wonder you didn’t break his nose.”

Jordan, who didn’t have a malicious bone in his body, nodded as he looked out the side window. “I know. When I heard him scream and saw all that blood coming out, I felt bad.”

John reached over and tousled the boy’s hair. “Just promise me you won’t let something like that happen

again. The moment you realize a fight is coming, you walk away.”

“But wouldn’t that make me a coward?”

“There’s nothing cowardly about walking away from an argument, especially if you know you can hurt the other person.”

Jordan swung his head from one side to the other, which was his way of saying he didn’t like the suggestion but would give it some thought.

At that moment, John’s cell phone rang. “That will be your mom,” he said, taking the phone from the cradle beside the gearshift. “Hello?”

“John, what’s going on?” Clarice said in an agitated voice. “What did Jordan do? Where is he? Is he hurt? Mrs. Rhinehart only said he had been in a fight.”

“Jordan’s fine, Clarice. He’s right here with me in the car.” Before she could embark on a new string of questions, he added, “I’m taking him to my place. Why don’t you meet us there?”

As John hung up, Jordan threw him a worried look. “Is she mad?”

“More worried than mad. Expect to be grounded, though. You know how your mother feels about fighting.”

Ten minutes later, as he approached his town house on Terhune Road, he saw Clarice waiting by his front door. Though she had just celebrated her thirty-eighth birthday and complained her looks were quickly vanishing, she was still a beautiful woman. She had wide green eyes that could go from friendly to frosty in a microsecond, blond hair she always wore neatly clipped at the back of her neck, and a figure she kept trim and fit with regular visits to the gym.

“Well, Jordan,” she said as father and son approached. “What do you have to say for yourself?” The look she

gave John left no doubt that she would somehow find a way to blame him for today’s incident.

“’Please, Clarice, let’s not give the neighbors a free show, okay?” John opened the door to the town house and moved aside to let her in.

As usual, the place was a mess. Standing on the threshold, Clarice let her gaze sweep across the living room, furnished with contemporary, comfortable furniture. She took in the newspapers scattered on the coffee table, the empty coffee mug next to it and the pile of shirts John had meant to take to the laundry but hadn’t gotten around to because he’d been called on a homicide in the middle of the night.

To her credit, she said nothing. She only let out a small resigned sigh, as though she had finally accepted his lifestyle, now that she was no longer a part of it, and folded her arms. “Now can I find out what happened?”

John repeated what Mrs. Rhinehart had told him, stressing the fact that Jordan had not started the fight but had merely defended himself.

“And that makes it all right with you?”

John turned to Jordan. “Why don’t you go to the kitchen and get started on that homework, kiddo. If you’re hungry, there’s a pack of Oreos in the cupboard. And milk in the fridge. But smell it first,” he added as an afterthought.

He glanced back at his ex-wife in time to see her roll her eyes. John’s eating habits, which she deemed deplorable, were another pet peeve of hers. “Now,” he said, pointing to a brown leather sofa, “why don’t we do this the civilized way and sit down.”

Her high heels clacked on the hardwood floor as she marched toward the sofa. She sat on the edge, as if afraid to get too comfortable, her legs pressed together, her hands folded on her lap. She was ready for battle. “This is your fault, you know,” she said, breaking all previous time rec

ords in the “blame John” category. “You taught him that in order to survive, one had to resort to violence.”

In the old days, he would have snapped a sharp reply, but he had learned that tit for tat accomplished little. And Jordan was in the next room, probably listening to every word. “I taught him how to defend himself,” John said patiently, even though he had said those same words a million times. “Which is what he did today.”

“He could have broken the boy’s nose.”

“Would you prefer if he had been the one with the broken nose?”

“I would prefer if he used words instead of his fists.”

“Words don’t do much good when you’re being pounded on. Believe me, I’ve been there.”

Clarice was silent for a while, as though weighing what he had just told her. When she spoke again, the frost in her voice matched the one in her eyes. “I want to send him to military school. I’ve been meaning to discuss—“

John sprang out of his chair then sat back down, aware that an outburst would be heard from the kitchen. “Over my dead body,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Jordan needs structure, John. He needs discipline and focus. He needs to learn how to follow rules and get along with others.”

“He gets along with others just fine. As for structure, discipline and rules, he doesn’t have a problem when he’s with me. All he needs is to know he’s loved.”

“I do love him. You know that.”

“Then show him you do, Clarice. Spend more time with him. Take him to a movie once in a while, or to one of his games. Grab a handful of his friends and take them all out for a bike ride. How hard can that be?”

Color rushed to Clarice’s cheeks. “I’m doing the best I can, John,” she said stiffly. “I have a job, too, you know.”

And I’m paying you enough money to stay home, dammit. But he didn’t say that. Why start World War III?

“Look,” she continued, determined to settle the matter here and now. “I’ve already checked out several schools. Brandywine Military Academy in Philadelphia comes highly recommended. The tuition is high, and I don’t expect you to pay all of it—“

“Stop right there. You know I don’t care about the money. I’ll gladly double the child support payments, if that’s what you want, but military school is out of the question. The boy is nine years old, for God’s sake. These are his formative years. He needs his parents not a drill sergeant.”

Clarice’s thin lips tightened. An authority in marital discord, she was smart enough to know when a battle had been lost. Not one to take defeat gracefully, however, she would simply retreat and rethink her strategy before attacking again. For the time being, she just averted her eyes and called out Jordan’s name to let him know they were leaving.

John walked them to the door, an arm around his son’s shoulders. “See you at the game on Sunday?”

Jordan looked up, his expression only half-hopeful. “I thought you were working this weekend.”

“I am, but I’m planning to take the afternoon off so I can come and watch you play.”

The grin on his son’s face was all the reward John needed. Maybe General Rhinehart had more insight into this parenting thing than he had given her credit for.

Clarice’s BMW had just pulled out of his driveway, when his phone rang. It was Officer Wilcox of the township police. The officer got straight to the point.

“We found a body.”

Seventeen

Since its opening date in 1906, Lake Carnegie had been the sight of many aquatic sports—canoeing, sailing, windsurfing, and of course, intercollegiate rowing. John’s great-grandfather, a graduate of Princeton University, had been one of the school’s first rowers to use the long-awaited boathouse after it was built in 1913. Never in the lake’s ninety-seven-year history had it been the scene of a murder.

A light rain had begun falling again, turning the June morning damp and dreary. The inclement weather had kept boaters away except for a lone sculler, a college sophomore practicing for an upcoming race. The university student, whom John had already questioned, had just taken his scull out of the boathouse when he had spotted the body at the edge of the woods.

The area had been cordoned off with yellow police tape. On the road, a uniformed officer was trying to move motorists along and keep gawkers at bay. Two crime scene techs were already at work, walking inside the sealed off area in search of evidence, tagging things and not paying attention to John.

“What can you tell me about the victim?” John asked the uniformed officer standing beside him.

Dave Wilcox was an eighteen-year veteran and as shrewd as any detective in the department, which was the

reason John had encouraged him to take his detective test next fall.

“Caucasian male by the name of Ian McGregor,” Wilcox replied without looking at his notes. “Forty-three years old, according to an expired driver’s license issued in Toledo, Ohio. Cause of death seems to be multiple stab wounds to the abdomen. A clothes hanger shaped into a garrote was found near the body, along with a key from the Clearwater Motel. That’s down the road a ways.”

John nodded. He knew the place. “Found the murder weapon?”

“Not yet, but there are tire tracks and footprints all over the place.” They started walking toward a large area of the parking lot where one of the CS techs had started to spray the tire tracks with a special fixative.

The man looked up when John approached. “Looks like an SUV, Detective.” He pointed at the tracks going in all directions. “Some kids showing off. Or maybe someone tried to run the victim down.”

John studied the tracks spread over a circumference of twenty to thirty feet. The tech’s last assumption made more sense to him than the first, but if someone had tried to run the victim down, how had McGregor ended up in the woods, stabbed? On the other hand, if kids had been here, they may have seen or heard something. Ditto for the houses along the road, he thought, looking up at the handful of homes overlooking the lake.

“Let me know what you find out.”

“Sure thing, Detective.”

Ignoring the nagging drizzle, John walked toward the medical examiner kneeling over the body. Frank Wang was a small, almost frail-looking Chinese-American, with sallow skin, graying brown hair and tired eyes that had seen too much. He and John had been together the previous