Garage Sale Stalker (Garage Sale Mysteries) (28 page)

CHAPTER 65

A
day later,
Adam investigated
the case’s newest clue: utility company payment history for 3508 Winding Trail Road. A prominent McLean attorney had signed those monthly checks for at least twenty-five years.

Curious about the direction this might take, Adam anticipated brief, guarded answers, since lawyers tended to give law enforcement the minimum information legally required. Attorney-client privilege justified this, plus the strategy that fewer facts given meant fewer to bite back in the courtroom. Adam expected little from the interview.

“Come in, Detective Iverson. I’m Greg Bromley.” The attorney welcomed Adam into his office. “Coffee, soda, homemade cookies?” Bromley asked, indicating two comfortably facing chairs with a low table between.

“Thank you, Sir, and okay to the cookies. They smell good.” Shaking his hand, Adam did a double-take of this man, momentarily feeling the familiar “haven’t-we-met-before” connection, yet knowing they had not.

“I’m absolutely shocked at what I read in this morning’s newspaper,” Bromley began as a secretary brought in the cookies. “It’s unbelievable. Multiple murders at a place I often visited… by a boy I tried to help. I had no idea… no idea at all.” His voice trailed away as he shook his head in disbelief and stared vacantly out the window for a long moment.

Finally, Adam cleared his throat, the sound drawing Bromley back to the present. In a stronger voice, the attorney said, “Actually, I intended contacting you today, but you beat me to it! Good detective work,” the older man congratulated him. “My finding you as the detective working this case would have been easy, but how did you find me?”

Cautious with this likeable individual who played an as yet undetermined role in an important case, Adam answered, “I followed the money, Sir.”

“Of course! I not only was Mrs. Yates’s attorney but also paid her bills, which would be a matter of record. Now I’ll bet you’re wondering what light I can shed on this bizarre situation?”

“Exactly,” the detective agreed. Despite Bromley’s well-respected reputation and pleasant demeanor, Adam would evaluate this man as they talked, because everyone connected with a case was a person of interest until otherwise categorized.

“All right, how can I help you?”

“Why not just tell me everything about your experience with the Yates family.”

Bromley leaned back in his chair to collect his thoughts. “This case really troubles me, Detective.” He sighed. “With all the principals dead I think attorney-client privilege is flexible. Besides, I want to understand it just as you do, so I’ll tell you the whole story.”

Adam tried to hide his surprise. Reaching for a cookie, he maintained eye contact with Bromley.

“You want to ‘know everything,’” the attorney repeated. “I’m nearly sixty now, so this starts
way
back! Long before she married Yates, Ruger’s mother Wendey and I were high school sweethearts and again in college. She was a vision: lovely, cheerful, intelligent. A beautiful person in every sense.” He smiled at his memory of her. “We graduated in the same Virginia Tech class. Then she taught school in McLean and I was a summer intern here for an attorney before entering law school. We were inseparable! We were in love! We wanted to spend our lives together. The truth is, even after what happened, I never married… because I didn’t stop loving her.”

“After what happened?” Adam repeated.

“We were the perfect couple until that day when we met for lunch. We each had something important to tell the other, but she insisted I tell my news first. We were both laughing and I was so excited I could hardly talk. I told her I’d been accepted at law school that very morning. This news clinched our future together because we always planned to wait until I earned my law degree before we married. We discussed it often and agreed it made sense since we were both young, had little money and I needed loans to pay for law school. I wanted to be able to support a wife and the children we hoped for, which meant graduating first. She heard me talk about it often enough since I’d dreamed of becoming a lawyer ever since I could remember.”

Bromley shifted in his chair as if the memory still made him uncomfortable.

“Naturally, I thought she’d be thrilled with my news, but instead she clasped her hands across her stomach and I can still see her stricken expression when I spoke about waiting. Instead of welcoming my news, she changed in an instant from the glowing person who walked into that restaurant into someone with a broken heart. She said she loved me too much to destroy my dreams and ran from the restaurant. I was flabbergasted! I ran after her but she disappeared. I phoned her dozens of times, but she wouldn’t answer. I pounded on her front door, begging her to talk to me, but she wouldn’t. I was half crazy because she was the love of my life. And...”

After an awkward silence, Adam prompted, “And…?”

“And two weeks later she eloped with Tobias Yates, an awful man. She’d joked about rebuffing his coarse advances for months. When I learned they’d eloped, I was stunned, hurt, angry and jealous, but at the same time I felt guilty. Whatever I said at lunch that day changed our relationship. What seemed so logical to me seemed to devastate her. I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now.”

“What happened next?” Adam asked.

“When I learned about her sudden marriage and their move to his farm, I went there to ask for an explanation, but Tobias found us talking in the farm driveway and went ballistic. He beat me up, physically threw me off his property and said he’d kill me if I came near her again. I believed him! So I tried adjusting to the reality that she married someone else, that I couldn’t undo it and that I must accept it. But I couldn’t stop loving her. I’d drive by their house, hoping for just the sight of her, but to no avail.”

“Did you see her again?”

“Yes, about seven years later but under terrible circumstances. Are you familiar with the Miriam Yates murder case?

“Why don’t you refresh my memory?”

“Wendey’s mean, crazy husband suffocated their three-year-old daughter, Miriam. He said he couldn’t revive the child after she fell down the cellar steps, but the police found signs of physical and sexual abuse that didn’t track with his explanation. Remember, this was over thirty-five years ago, before anyone knew about DNA, so we couldn’t pinpoint guilt as we can now.”

“How did you get involved?” Adam reached for another cookie.

“Wendey sent me a letter, begging me to defend her husband. I don’t know if it was her idea or his, but she was a gentle person who I knew didn’t believe in capital punishment. Frankly, I took the case in order to be near her again. But when I saw her, she’d changed almost unrecognizably in those seven years… from the neat, happy, capable person I’d known and loved into the disheveled, depressed neurotic she’d become.”

Bromley stared into space as if seeing her ghost in the room with them.

“I pled insanity for Tobias and it wasn’t hard to convince the jury since he looked and acted like a madman every day in court. By the time he was sent to a nearby mental institution, Wendey’s deterioration had progressed too far beyond normal to restart our romance. Still, I loved her ‘in sickness and in health.’ She was my lady!”

“With Yates gone, did she improve?” Adam asked.

“No, I think she had a nervous breakdown—not surprising with her daughter’s terrible death, her husband a murderer in an insane asylum and a farm to run. Turns out she also had two little boys to raise. I begged her to get psychiatric help, but she flatly refused. She also wouldn’t accept my offer to find a person to help with housework and farm chores. The more I pressed, the more upset she became, so I decided to care for her the best I could.”

“How did she manage there alone?”

“She convinced me she’d mastered a simple, mostly self-sufficient life on the farm and
refused
to leave her home voluntarily. I hated the idea of removing her forcibly, a change which might even destroy her remaining sanity. Also, I hoped in time I could persuade her to get the psychiatric help she needed. I agonized after every visit about how best to help her and finally concluded not to interfere…unless necessary for her safety. Neurotic and eccentric yes, but at the farm she lived free as opposed to a drugged, dehumanizing existence in a mental institution. I’d seen a few such facilities and balked at the thought of committing her to one.”

“Did she have any other contacts outside the farm besides you?”

“I was the only person she trusted, so I began visiting her; every week at first, then every two weeks, then at least once a month. She made short lists of things she needed, so I brought flour, sugar, coffee and so on, to supplement food from the farm.”

“And how does Ruger fit in to this?” Adam asked.

“Ah, here the plot thickens. First, her three children were born at home and I found no birth certificates recorded for any of them. I suspect that creepy Tobias masterminded that. Eventually, I legally prepared one for Ruger, to enter him into society. Second, when the home and farm buildings were searched during the little girl’s murder investigation, they found no other children and both parents denied having any. Wendey apparently hid her two boys and all evidence that they existed. I didn’t know about them myself until several months afterward. In most homes, children and their toys are easily visible inside or outdoors. But there? No trace.”

“Then how did you learn about the boys?”

“Of necessity my visits were unannounced because Wendey had no phone and wouldn’t let me install one. When I finally saw the boys at a distance and asked about them, she told me their names but when I went outside to say hello, they disappeared. The next time I came they were in the house, but when they saw me they ran like scared rabbits. That happened to be one of Wendey’s better days and she revealed they were indeed her sons but very shy and afraid of strangers. When I asked to talk to them, she said they weren’t ‘social’ and besides they had chores.”

Adam wrote some notes on his pad. “So you were curious about them.”

“You’re right. When I asked their ages and where they went to school, she said they were five and six and she home-schooled them, which tracked with her teaching background. After that, I always looked for them, brought them school supplies, candy bars and little gifts for her to give them at Christmas. I rarely saw them, even then always at a distance, and so never spoke to them. Of course, I asked myself if she was in any condition to raise kids, but the house looked tidy, she showed me the boys’ bedroom, the refrigerator had enough food and from a distance I personally had seen nothing to suggest mistreatment or neglect.”

Bromley walked to his office wet-bar and filled a glass with water.“Would you like something to drink?”

“Oh, no thanks. So how did you discover there was a problem?”

“On one visit when I asked after the boys, she told me Mathis was ‘gone,’ but where would a child his age go? She’d mentioned earlier having no living relatives, so who would he visit? I pressed her about Mathis, but she clammed up tight. I chalked it up to temporary confusion. She gave the same explanation about him on my future visits. Then, as I left the farm one day, I found the younger boy examining my car in the driveway. Before he could bolt, I grabbed his arm and took a really close look at him for the first time, sickened at what I saw.”

“What
did
you see?”

“Bruises, scars… It was obvious he’d been abused. I knew then I had to get both boys, or at least Ruger, out of that environment. But I wanted to do it in a way that avoided the authorities taking Wendey also. My problem was how to make that happen.”

CHAPTER 66

A
mazed at Bro
mley’s unexpected
“need to talk” and the resulting cathartic stream-of-consciousness, Adam paid close attention. “So did you make that happen?”

“I had the younger boy by the arm and knew he’d vanish again if I didn’t hold on. He was really terrified. He fought me like a wild animal, almost as if he thought I was going to take a bite out of him. I finally maneuvered him back into the house where he calmed down a little when Wendey told him I was not a stranger but a friend. Funny, he looked at us as if he didn’t know what ‘friend’ meant. But now that I had him, I wracked my brain for some solution.”

“What did you come up with?”

“When I was young, my parents sent me to board for a semester at a prep school to bring up my grades and,” he chuckled, “to improve my behavior. Back then, I hated trading my comfortable life at home for a 24/7 academic environment, but I looked back on it later as a positive experience. Still, I expected Wendey to veto such a plan for her son, given her mental state and fear of ‘outsiders.’ ”

“How
did
she react?”

“Imagine my surprise when she offered no resistance to my boarding school suggestion! She said she didn’t want Ruger in the first place and hoped he never came back. She said it right in front of him! This had to be her illness talking. Now, I was always gentle with her before, but this time I needed her attention so I shouted that I wanted to take the bigger boy as well. This seemed to terrify her
and
the younger boy, as if they knew something but dared not tell. They both stared at me wild-eyed as she screamed again and again that Mathis was
gone
and would never come back.”

“What did you do?”

“I took Ruger away that day, spruced him up presentably, fed him well and drove him to a military school in southern Virginia. I’d known the commandant there from earlier days when we served together in Vietnam. I convinced my friend the boy’s miserable home life meant he’d be safer and better prepared for life at the academy.”

“And he agreed?”

“In an odd twist of fate, my proposal played right into the commandant’s own need at that time. He was trying to keep his academy afloat financially and the long-term enrollment of every student counted toward his school’s solvency. So he and I struck a special bargain. Ruger’s mother would pay extra for him to stay for summer school and holidays, besides his regular tuition. Like the military service itself, these academies are well-versed in ‘straightening out’ troubled boys, so Ruger fit right in. He enrolled at age six and didn’t return home during his twelve years at the academy. This arrangement sounds extraordinary now but was uniquely possible back then.”

“How did that work out?”

“The commandant knew the real story, but the boy understood himself to be an orphan with a guardian who paid his bills. He seemed to accept this and adjust quickly to his new environment. He made above-average grades with high scores in military aptitude and marksmanship. Remember, in contrast to his chaotic home life, the order, predictability, nutritious food, regular meals, reasonable discipline and health care at the school were immediate pluses for the boy. They sent me regular reports about his progress and, although I gave the originals to Ruger about five months ago, I made copies you’re welcome to look at here in the office.”

“How did he spend summers?” Adam asked.

“He went to the academy’s summer school and then the commandant paid members of his academic staff to care for Ruger in their homes the remaining month. The staff liked earning extra money and Ruger seemed a quiet child, offering little trouble except for suspicion that he mistreated their pets. Some animals disappeared during Ruger’s visits, which might have been coincidental except for what we now know about him.”

“What about holidays during the school year?”

“The academy pretty much closed down during Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving, leaving only a few cadets on campus. With the mess hall dark, the school ordered special meals for this handful of students and a skeleton staff stayed to supervise them. Occasionally, a compassionate teacher at the school invited Ruger to spend a holiday at his home, or he was invited to the home of another classmate, but those visits must not have worked out well because they were infrequent and not repeated at the same places. The school sent me this information in their regular reports.”

“Did you make contact with Ruger during that time?”

“I wish now I had, but wrestling with the decision then, I thought it would complicate more than improve his life. He’d want to know who I was and about his mother, with whom no productive connection existed. I thought of entertaining him for holidays or cheering at his graduation but drew back each time. Hell, I even thought once about adopting the little tyke, but with no wife, I hadn’t a traditional home life to offer him. While I loved his mother, I detested his father, and he was that man’s spitting image. Somehow, I just couldn’t warm up to the kid for the kind of commitment which, once started, should continue.” Bromley grew pensive again.

Adam broke another long silence, “And when he graduated…?”

Bromley nodded, “With no welcoming home and life-skills learned at academy, joining a uniformed service was logical and he did. Afterward, I lost track of him, but at least knew where to start looking when his mother died.”

“Can you think of anything else?”

“No, except I’ll tell you, Detective, I’m really broken up about this whole thing. I never imagined the situation could turn out this way. If I hadn’t brought Ruger back to McLean, two local women would be alive today and that poor girl he tortured would be whole again. If I’d thought back then that I might have made a positive difference in Ruger’s life, perhaps I’d have acted differently, but now that’s in the past.”

Adam’s silence encouraged Bromley to fill the conversation’s void again. “Strange, but I’m haunted as well by that other boy, Mathis. I have an awful feeling that your digging at the farm might uncover his body, which would be a grisly explanation for his being ‘gone.’ If so, I also failed to rescue
him
in time. This twenty-twenty hindsight is cruel stuff.”

Looking haggard, Bromley changed the subject, “Now will you tell me something? What about Wendey? Have you found the explanation for her transformation once she married that man?”

“We have evidence that Tobias Yates savagely abused his three children and their mother. It must have been a nightmarish environment for them all.”

Ashen, Bromley held his head in his hands, “My beloved Wendey… put through that horror, not in some medieval dungeon centuries ago but right here, today, in McLean, Virginia. It just doesn’t seem possible!”

“Sir, you’d be shocked at what police see every day in Fairfax County. In fact, it’s...” Adam’s voice wavered, thinking of gory situations detectives confronted, “…unbelievable.”

“If only she hadn’t married that man, so many lives would be different!” Bromley produced a handkerchief and blew his nose several times.

Standing, Adam laid his business card on the table. “If you think of anything else, please contact me, Sir. I’ll let myself out.”

“Why did she do it?” Bromley muttered as Adam stepped into the hall, closing the door quietly behind him.

A few minutes later in Bromley’s conference room, Adam sat alone, contemplating the unopened file of Ruger’s school reports the secretary had placed on the table in front of him.

He thought about Bromley’s tale, marveling that this otherwise intelligent, capable lawyer remained so blind to the obvious.
Bromley
was the one who’d pushed this iceberg into the water, creating the ripples that ultimately washed against so many other lives.

Why did Wendey do it? Adam had a hunch: She was pregnant thirty-five years ago when abortion was illegal and out-of-wedlock babies brought scandal and ridicule. She loved Bromley too much to trap him into an inconvenient marriage. So to avoid ruining his life-plan and presumed brilliant future career, her solution was wedding Tobias Yates! Bad enough to willingly resign herself to a loveless marriage, but catastrophic to discover too late that instead of a man, she’d married a monster!

Though circumstantial, the evidence fit perfectly.

Mathis was Bromley’s son!