Orphans of Wonderland (6 page)

“Adam,” Joel asked, “do you agree?”

Clearly in a panic at being asked, Adam did his best to avoid eye contact with his wife as he drew a series of slow deep breaths, then finally said, “Yes, I do.”

“All right, let's move on. Did Lonnie have any problems with the law?”

“No,” Katelyn replied. “Few traffic and parking tickets, that's about it.”

“Did he gamble at all?”

“He'd go to Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun, maybe Twin Rivers now and then, but it was recreational and very rarely. Once every few years, I guess. He certainly never gave any indication that he had a gambling problem or addiction or anything even close to that sort of thing, if that's what you're asking.”

“Any significant debt?”

“No. He only had one major credit card and a couple department store ones. None of them had large balances.”

“No mortgages, anything like that?”

“His apartment was a rental. Sadly, he never owned his own home.”

Joel nodded and made more notes. Although it was brutally cold outside, the heat here was so strong and dry it was becoming uncomfortable. “Actually, could I bother you for a bottle of that water after all?” he asked.

“I'll get it,” Adam said, quickly heading for the refrigerator.

“Were there any relatively new people in his life?” Joel asked. “Maybe new friends or acquaintances that came into the picture not long before he died?”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

“Was he seeing anyone? A girlfriend or anyone special?”

“He dated from time to time, but he hadn't had a serious relationship or what I'd call an actual girlfriend in several years,” Katelyn explained.

“He'd become kind of a solitary guy,” Adam offered, appearing at his side with the bottled water.

“Thanks.” Joel took the bottle and had a long drink. “Do you know why?”

“No,” Katelyn said. “He'd never had a huge group of friends. He led a very quiet and simple life, for the most part. He was friendly with a couple guys he knew from work, and he still saw Sal and Dorsey now and then—more Sal than Dorsey—but they stayed in touch, got together maybe a couple times a year.”

“So Sal and Dorsey are still in the area?”

“Sal's still in Westport. In the same house he grew up in, in fact. Dorsey lives in New Bedford with his girlfriend.”

“Were they at the funeral?”

“Dorsey was. Sal wasn't.”

“Much of a tough guy as Sal could be,” Joel said, mostly thinking aloud, “he never did handle things like that well.”

Katelyn shrugged.

“What about Trent Pierce?”

“He's fallen off the radar. Sal said no one's sure where he is.”

“When did this happen?”

“Several years ago. Sal said he was somewhere out west, but no one's heard from him in quite some time, as I understand it. Sal said Trent went through some hard times, a bad divorce and some other things, then just sort of fell off the grid.”

That didn't strike Joel as that surprising or odd, since at least in their circle of friends, Trent had been the most rebellious one, the least establishment and the most likely to have issues with society in general. As he knew all too well, things changed. People changed. Nothing—no one—stayed the same. But it sounded as if Trent had only gotten worse in that regard. “Katelyn,” he said, “can I ask why you didn't tell me about the funeral? Why didn't you contact me until afterwards?”

Looking physically uncomfortable with the question, she said, “I should've called you, and I'm sorry I didn't. My father talked about you a lot. He missed you, missed your friendship. But he also felt bad for you, because he knew you'd been through hell with that other business. He told me that if anything ever happened to him to leave you alone, to let you know after the fact because you'd been through enough. I honored his wishes. Until I realized that, under the circumstances, you were the first person I should've contacted, not the last.”

“It's fine,” Joel assured her, giving her hand a quick pat. “You mentioned he was friendly with a couple guys he worked with.”

“They weren't terribly close, but he socialized with them now and then.”

“In our last conversation you said he was still working in the security field.”

“Yes, mall security. He was with the same company for years. He worked his way up to senior officer, a supervisory position. The company has contracts with several area malls, so he moved between them a lot.”

Joel turned his notebook to a blank page, then handed it to Katelyn along with his pen. “Jot down their names and the company they work for, please.” He turned to Adam. “Were there any people he knew you'd call suspicious?”

“Suspicious?”

“Any friends with unsavory contacts or associations, troubled pasts, that kind of thing.”

“Not that we know of,” Katelyn answered for him.

“You mean like a criminal element?” Adam asked.

Joel nodded.

“I don't know; that Sal character is a little scary,” he said, laughing lightly.

“He could be intimidating for sure, and was always was a little rough around the edges,” Joel said, tossing out some brief obligatory laughter. “But far as I know, Sal was never a criminal.”

“No, of course he isn't.” Finished, Katelyn slid the pen and notebook back. “My father didn't associate with criminals. People make jokes about mall cops and all that, but he cared about people and their safety. He was a good man, he liked helping people and the businesses he protected, he took pride in keeping them safe.”

“You said he had very little credit card debt, but did he owe anyone else money? Personal loans or things like that?”

Katelyn shook her head.

“Did he have any enemies to speak of? People he'd had problems with or who were vocal about disliking him for some reason, maybe someone he had a disagreement with or had issues with through his job? A person he may have caught shoplifting or had a prior confrontation with, for example? Someone who may have had a vendetta against him and just taken it too far, or maybe a neighbor with some sort of gripe that got out hand?”

Katelyn and Adam exchanged quick glances. “Sorry, the police asked these same questions. Far as I know there was nothing like that going on. He had problems with people at work at times, as you say, shoplifters or rowdy kids or whatever, but none of that ever translated to his personal life. He was careful to keep all that separate so he wouldn't have problems with those sorts outside work. And on the personal front, as I said, his was a very small circle of friends and acquaintances, and within that circle he was well liked and respected.”

Joel referred to the notebook briefly, then folded it closed. “You told me your mother and Lonnie were never married, and you lived with your father growing up.”

“That's correct.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“My mother had struggles with drugs and alcohol most of her life. She was out of the picture from the time I was a very little girl. She served time in jail on occasion and ran with a rough crowd—bikers and whatnot—so I rarely saw her. Now and then she'd appear as if from nowhere, and my father would let her see me for a few minutes, maybe an afternoon, and then she was gone and I wouldn't see her again for months, sometimes years. I never really considered her my mother, to be honest. She was just some strange woman who made me uncomfortable and smelled like cheap booze and cigarettes.” Katelyn sighed heavily and wiped away more tears with a fresh tissue. “My father loved her—or did at one time—and I'm not sure he was ever the same after she left him. But it did bring us closer together. He was a wonderful parent. He did his best.”

“So is your relationship with your mother still strained?”

“She died four years ago of a heroin overdose.”

Joel was surprised it had taken her so long to mention this, but it also struck him how difficult it must have been for her to lose both parents at such a young age. “I'm sorry,” he said.

“I barely knew the woman, but thank you. She was living somewhere in New Jersey when she died. I hadn't seen or spoken to her in about five or six years, and neither had my father.”

Joel had another drink of water, hoping a brief silence might ease the tension in the room. “You mentioned a brand on the back of Lonnie's shoulder. What else can you tell me about that?”

“He implied
they
had marked him. Whoever
they
were.”

“Marked,” Joel said. “Interesting way to put it.”

“That's the word he used. But he had no memory of when or how it had been done, and had no idea why.”

“And you're certain he was telling you the truth?”

Katelyn's eyes, red from tears, locked on his. “My father didn't lie to me.”

“No, of course not, I—I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that.” This time it was Joel's turn to sigh heavily. “Can either of you think of
any
reason why anyone would want to hurt Lonnie?”

“No,” Katelyn answered.

Adam shook his head. “No, sir, I can't.”

“All right. If I have more questions I'll be in touch.” Joel finished off his water. “Now, Katelyn, you said you had more to tell me. I'm ready to hear it.”

She tensed up again, and rather than lean against the bar counter as she had since Joel arrived, Katelyn gathered his and her empty water bottles, walked to a bin in the corner marked RECYCLABLES and dropped them inside. “My father wasn't the type who scared easily,” she said with her back to them. “Or much at all, for that matter. When I thought about it, I couldn't come up with a single time, not even one memory, of ever seeing my father afraid.” Slowly, she turned around. “Until the last months of his life. He was terrified. I'd never seen anyone so frightened. Maybe a child, but not an adult, and certainly not my father.”

“I understand.”

“No, I don't think you do.”

The dark memories lingering at the back of Joel's mind begged to differ, but he saw no sense in arguing the point. “Did he say anything specific about the people he thought were following him and had
marked
him, or expound at all on his fear that something bad was going to happen?”

“On more than one occasion I asked him to elaborate, but he kept saying he didn't want me to know what he knew, what he'd seen. I got the impression he was more concerned with protecting me from whatever he was dealing with, and telling me anything more or giving me any details would have the opposite effect.”

“And this sort of behavior went on for months?”

“It was a gradual thing,” Adam said, and then, realizing his wife was less than pleased that he'd interrupted, added, “wouldn't you say so, honey?”

Katelyn nodded. “It began with a change in his behavior, then progressively got worse, yes.” She moved closer to the counter. “There's something I haven't told the police.” She hesitated, as if she'd expected Joel to say something. When he didn't, she continued. “A few days before my father was killed, he asked me to meet him at a diner not far from his apartment. When I did, he gave me something.” She looked to Adam, and this time gave him a quick nod. He immediately hurried off, disappearing into the other room. “He told me not to tell anyone about it—he was adamant about that—and that if anything happened to him, I was to destroy it.”

Adam returned carrying a small, wrinkled paper bag. He handed it across the counter to his wife without comment, then sat back down.

Katelyn removed a thick notebook from the bag. With shaking hands, she placed it carefully on the counter between them. “This is what he gave me.”

Joel watched as she slid it over to him. There seemed nothing remarkable about it, just a standard four-subject spiral notebook one might find at any number of stores. He opened it.

Written on each line were a series of numbers that repeated again and again, all the way down the first page. “What is this?” he asked.

“Keep going,” she said softly.

He turned the page. The second page was identical to the first. The numbers were the same, all of them written in the same intense, somewhat hurried hand. Joel drew a breath and went to the third page. It was the same. Unsettled, he flipped quickly through the notebook. Every page was filled with the exact same number sequences, repeated again and again throughout the entire notebook.

“Jesus.” Certain all the blood had drained from his face Joel slowly ran a hand up over his forehead and through his hair. “Did Lonnie do this?”

“It's his handwriting, yes.”

“What does it mean?”

Katelyn swallowed so hard it was audible. “I have no idea.”

“He didn't say anything about it?”

“Only that I was to destroy it if anything happened to him.”

“But you didn't. Why?”

“Because I felt that if you agreed to help us, you needed to see it.”

“Why didn't you show it to the police?”

“They already think my father was out of his mind. A notebook full of the same numbers scribbled thousands of times wouldn't exactly help to convince them otherwise.”

Joel nodded. “Yeah, I can see what you mean there. But you have to agree that it's not normal to have something like this. It's not normal to
do
something like this.”

“For some reason, it had importance to him.”

“Regardless of his mental state or what he may or may not have been suffering from, Lonnie was still murdered; there's no disputing that. You need to show this to the police, Katelyn.”

“Turn to the last page,” she said.

He flipped through until he'd reached the final sheet. Drawn across it in pencil were a haphazard series of stick figure sketches of extremely disturbing humanoid beings with distorted limbs and several lines scribbled across and hanging from their bodies and heads.