Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft (15 page)

I still thought a big
piece of it hinged on Jeremiah Vandreen. Why would Dillon attack him? I was
curious to know why she was running, but I thought it very telling she’d taken
the risk to visit Vandreen. When I’d asked Vandreen what Dillon had said during
the attack, I’d struck a nerve. He’d kicked me out of his office shortly after
that; he didn’t want to talk about Dillon. That raised two questions. One, what
had she said? And two, why was he lying about it?

Vandreen sure was
doing a lot of lying. He’d told his wife one story, the police another, and me
a third. I was betting only bits and pieces of each were true and that none of
those pieces actually added up to the whole truth. I needed to see that camera
footage.

Also, Mrs. Vandreen
had been in a hurry to get rid of me when I’d told her about her husband’s lie.
Why? What was she hiding?

In looking back on our
brief talk, I thought Mrs. Vandreen was likely a demure woman, very prim and
proper. She didn’t strike me as the strong or independent type. She might have
simply been offended I’d called her husband a liar. Or, she might have been
hurt to learn he’d lied to her. But I didn’t think I saw offense or hurt in
her. What I thought I saw was fear. Strange that she would be afraid and her
husband agitated (which he used to mask fear) when I started asking questions
about Danielle Dillon and the reason she attacked Vandreen. What were they
afraid of?  Who were they afraid of? Were they afraid of the same person?

She may not have
seemed very strong or independent, but Mrs. Vandreen was currently raising four
children, all of them very young. That was hard work. Maybe she’d just been
irritated I’d come around and pestered her. I could remember when my brother
was two. There had been days when I wished the worst thing he’d done was eat
sand.

Then it hit me.

I sucked in a sharp
breath as I sat up, my food forgotten. I was vaguely aware that everyone else
around the table had stopped talking to stare at me.

“What’s wrong?”
Ellmann asked, watching me.

I turned to him.

“Vandreen does foster
care,” I said, as if this answered his question.

He looked at me for a
beat. “Okay, and?”

“They have a boy who’s
probably about two or three years old. His name is Rusty.”

“Rusty, as in Rusty
Conrad?”

“How is it that
Dillon, Vandreen, and the Conrads are all connected?”

“Ever heard of
coincidence?” Natalie asked sarcastically.

“There’s no such
thing,” Ellmann and I said at the same time.

I wasn’t sure I liked
Natalie.

I picked up my fork and
turned back to my dinner. The conversation around the table resumed, but I was
distracted. All I could think about was Danielle Dillon and how Rusty Conrad
fit in. After ten minutes, Ellmann leaned over.

“Just go,” he
whispered.

I looked at him. He
smiled, nodded, and kissed my cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I told
him.

“I understand.”

Ellmann really is a
pretty good guy.

I pushed my chair
back. Everyone looked over at me.

“I didn’t realize we
were keeping you from something,” Vince said. And I was pretty sure I didn’t
like him.

“I’m sorry,” I said to
the group at large. “I’ve gotta go. It was nice meeting all of you.”

I hurried toward the
door. As I was passing the hostess stand, I saw our waiter returning some menus
to the hostess. I stopped.

“Oh, hey!” I said
quickly. “You know that pretty girl at my table you keep drooling over? Her
brother, the giant, is a cop, and I’m pretty sure if you keep it up he’ll find
some reason to arrest you. Thought you should know!”

I turned and shot
through the door for the truck.

__________

I retraced the route to Vandreen’s
house and parked at the curb. There were lights on when I arrived, and I hoped
I wasn’t interrupting dinner. I rang the bell and waited. It took several
minutes before someone answered.

Jeremiah Vandreen was
not happy to see me. That was fine. The feeling was mutual.

“You lied to me, Mr.
Vandreen.”

He’d shed his jacket and
tie, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. I also noticed the tail of
his shirt was untucked on the right side.

“My wife said you were
here this afternoon, asking questions. What did she tell you?”

I pulled the screen
door open and stepped into the house. Vandreen planted himself in front of me,
but I went in anyway, crowding him. We came nearly nose to nose and stood that
way for a long moment before he finally took a step back.

“First harassment and
now trespassing,” he said. “My attorney will have a field day with this.”

“Why don’t you just
call the police? It will save me the time.”

“What are you talking
about?”

“I intend to report
you. I know why you lied about Danielle Dillon.”

“I have no idea what
you’re talking about.” He pointed an index finger at my nose, and I saw his
knuckles were red, bloody.

I felt my own anger
beginning to bubble in my gut.

“Game’s over. I know.”

“Get the fuck out of
my house,” he hissed, that familiar fire burning inside his eyes.

“I know why Danielle
Dillon attacked you that day. I know what goes on in this house.”

“Jerry, what’s going—”

Mrs. Vandreen came
around the corner and stopped at seeing me standing in her living room with her
husband. Her face was red and puffy from crying, her left eye was swollen, and her
hair and clothes were disheveled. She was holding a towel that I guessed was
full of ice. Now I wished the only thing I’d interrupted had been dinner.

Anger boiled inside me
now. My father had been an incredibly abusive man, perhaps the worst on record.
I saw in Vandreen now so much of what I remembered seeing in him.

“Jerry,” Mrs. Vandreen
began, her voice hoarse, timid. “Should I call the police?”

“No,” he said, his
voice the same low, dangerous tone. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Call the police, Mrs.
Vandreen,” I said. “Then go upstairs with the kids. Turn on the TV.”

She was crying again,
and I could see her trembling from across the room. She didn’t know what to do.
Fear was all she knew in that moment.

“Don’t listen to her,
Marci!” Vandreen shouted, his voice ugly and terrifying, as he took several
angry steps toward her.

It was the same voice
my father had always used. As I child, I’d always stood in front of my father,
between him and my brother. Now, I cut across the room and stood in front of
Vandreen, between him and his wife. Unfortunately for Vandreen, I wasn’t a
terrified, defenseless little kid anymore. And my violent past had left me
prone to violence myself.

“Do as
I
say!”
He pointed a finger at his chest. “I’m your husband; you do as I say!”

Mrs. Vandreen cowered
against the wall, trembling and sobbing.

“You need to leave the
room now, Mrs. Vandreen.”

He glared down, his
eyes burning into me.

“Please!” she cried.
“Please, just do as he says! He’ll hurt you!”

“Go upstairs, Marci,”
I said. “Call 911.”

She sobbed, rooted in
place for another long minute. Vandreen glowered at his wife over my shoulder,
hate rolling off him in tangible waves. Then he made an attempt to move around
me, and I cut him off. His fists clenched, and he practically snarled at me.
Mrs. Vandreen cried out and finally bolted from the room. Behind me, I heard
her on the stairs.

“I’m going to teach
you some respect,” Vandreen fumed. “This is
my
house.
I’m
in
charge here.” That same predatory look I’d seen in his office was glowing in
his eyes now.

“You scare your wife,
Jerry. You don’t scare me. Whatever you’re thinking about doing right now is a
bad idea.” Then I thought about the state his wife was in and the four children
living here. I knew well what it was like living with an abuser. Anger flooded
me. “But I hope you do it anyway.”

He grunted and swung a
fist. Earlier, at the gym, I’d been trying only to detain Cole, not hurt her.
This was always true of my physical encounters; I held back so as not to hurt
people. But not now. Not with Vandreen.

In one well-practiced
move, I deflected the punch past me then delivered my own, sinking one fist
into his side below his ribs and cracking another across his jaw. He stumbled
backward and groaned, clutching at his side and gasping for air. When he forced
himself upright, I could see pain mingling with anger in his face.

He came at me again,
feigning with his right hand and punching with his left. I knocked them both
away then hit him again. I felt his nose break under my knuckles, and bright
red blood gushed from it like a faucet.

He cried out and
lifted his hands to his face.

“Bitch!” he screamed.

“It’s different when
they hit back, isn’t it? How’s it feel to be on the other end?”

“I’m going to kill
you!” he shouted as he charged forward.

He ran forward with
his arms outstretched, reaching for my neck.

“I’ve heard that
before.”

I stepped to the side
then reached up and grabbed his right wrist as it passed. Holding it with my
right hand, I brought my left palm against the back of his arm, just above the
elbow, ignoring the pain this elicited in my shoulder. There was an audible
crunch
as the bones broke and the ligaments tore. He cried out and jerked around,
swinging wildly with his left fist. I knocked it away with my right arm then
drove my heel into his gut.

He doubled over at the
waist, trying to suck in a breath. I raised my foot again and brought it down
against the side of his knee. It was forced in an unnatural direction, and he
started to fall to the floor. I made another fist and hit him for the last
time, catching him in the side of the head. He was unconscious before he hit
the carpet.

I don’t think I’ll
ever regret what I did to Jeremiah Vandreen, however cruel it might have been.
His elbow was broken so badly he lost nearly fifty percent of the strength in
his right arm. He is no longer able to play sports or do pushups, and his
ability to beat the shit out of anyone is significantly impaired, which has
been a hindrance in prison, he’s found. A series of surgeries on his knee
brought back much of the function, but he still walks with a limp.

I went to the kitchen
and found a roll of paper towels on the counter. I tore off a wad and wiped the
blood off my right hand. I picked up the phone and dialed 911. Pinching the
phone between my shoulder and my chin, I continued wiping my hands as I spoke
to the operator. I was surprised to hear someone from the same address had
already called. The police were on the way. I asked the operator to also send
an ambulance and hung up. 

The police arrived,
followed by EMS and later DHS. I’d fully expected to be arrested until they
could sort out what was what, but that never happened. That might have had
something to do with Officer Frye being the first officer on scene. Or it could
have been that all the responding officers got a good look at Mrs. Vandreen and
her four foster children.

Whatever the reason,
the police just took my statement and dozens of photos of my clothes and hands.
EMS loaded Vandreen onto a gurney and wheeled him out. A social worker brought
Mrs. Vandreen and the kids out of the house. Before she left, I spoke to Mrs.
Vandreen. She stood beside the social worker’s van, holding the kid I’d seen
eat sand that afternoon.

“This is Rusty Conrad,
isn’t it?” I asked, nodding at the boy.

She sniffed and wiped
at her eyes, then she nodded. “Yes.”

“I need to know about
Danielle Dillon.”

She smoothed Rusty’s
hair with a shaking hand. “She came here once. A couple weeks before she
attacked Jerry at the bank. Somehow she’d figured out this was where they’d
sent Rusty. She also knew about Jerry. She wanted to know if he ever …
hurt
Rusty.”

She stopped then.

“Did he?” I pressed.
But I already knew the answer.

“Yes,” she sobbed.

“And you told Danielle
that?”

She sniffed and took a
breath, wiping at her eyes. “I didn’t have to. She knew. She already knew.”

She knew the same way
I did. She knew because she could read it in Marci Vandreen’s face. She knew
because she could pick out the Jeremiah Vandreens of the world from a mile
away.

Now I knew why she had
gone to see Vandreen. She’d figured out what kind of man they’d put Rusty with.
People who have been abused turn out one of three ways. One, they become abusers
themselves. Two, they remain victims their entire lives. Three, they fight
back. I didn’t know Danielle Dillon, but I was beginning to get a picture of
her. She was the third type. And when she learned of Rusty’s abuse, she fought
back.
That’s
why she came out of hiding.
That’s
what was worth
the risk.