The Two Minute Rule Part 17

"Two boys."

"Then you know. This is going to sound terrible, but you know what I used to say? If he's going to get killed, then please G.o.d let him get T-boned by some drunk-driving movie star with millions of dollars. At least I could sue the sonofab.i.t.c.h. But no--he has to get killed by some piece of s.h.i.+t cholo without a pot to p.i.s.s in."

She glanced at Holman.

"We should still look into that--me, you, and the other families. They say you can't get blood from a stone, but who's to know? Would you like a gla.s.s of wine? I was just about to have one, first of the day."

"No, thanks, but you help yourself."

Pollard said, "I'll have one."

Mrs. Fowler told them to take a seat, then continued out to her dining room. A second bottle of wine was open on the table. She poured two gla.s.ses, then returned, offering one of the gla.s.ses to Pollard. Holman realized it was a long way from being the first of her day.

As Jacki Fowler took a seat, she asked, "Did you know Mike? Is that why you're here?"

"No, ma'am. I didn't know my son very well, either. That's more why I'm here, about my son. My daughter-in-law--Richie's wife--she told me that your husband was my son's training officer. I guess they were good friends."

"I wouldn't know. It's like we lived two lives in this house. Are you a policeman, too?"

"No, ma'am."

"Are you the one was in prison? Someone at the funeral said there was a convict."

Holman felt himself flush and glanced at Pollard, but Pollard wasn't looking at him.

"Yes, ma'am. That's me. Officer Holman's father."

"Jesus, that must have been something. What did you do?"

"I robbed a bank."

Pollard said, "I used to be a police officer, Mrs. Fowler. I don't know about you, but these murders have left Max with a lot of questions, like why his son went out in the middle of the night. Did Mike tell you anything about that?"

Mrs. Fowler sipped her wine, then made a dismissive wave with the gla.s.s.

"Mike went out in the middle of the night all the d.a.m.ned time. He was hardly ever home."

Pollard glanced at Holman, nodding that it was his turn to say something.

"Max, why don't you tell Jacki what your daughter-in-law said? About the call he got that night."

"My daughter-in-law told me your husband called. Richie was at home, but he got a call from your husband and went out to meet him and the other guys."

She snorted.

"Well, Mike sure as h.e.l.l didn't call me. He was working that night. He had the dog s.h.i.+ft. The way it was around here, he came home when he came home. He never showed me the courtesy to call."

"I got the idea they were working on something."

She grunted again and had more of the wine.

"They were drinking. Mike was a drunkard. You know the other two--Mellon and Ash? Mike had been their T.O., also."

Now Pollard stared at Holman, and Holman shrugged.

"I didn't know that."

Pollard said, "Why don't you show her the phone bills?"

Holman unfolded his copy of Richie's phone bill.

Mrs. Fowler said, "What's this?"

"My son's phone bills for the past couple of months. You see the little red dots?"

"That's Mike's phone."

"Yes, ma'am. Ash is the yellow dots and Mellon the green. Richie was calling your husband two or three times a day almost every day. He hardly ever called Ash or Mellon, but he talked to Mike a lot."

She studied the bill as if reading the fine print in a lifetime contract, then pushed to her feet.

"I want to show you something. Just wait here. You sure you don't want any wine?"

"Thanks, Mrs. Fowler, but I've been sober for ten years. I was a drunkard along with being a bank robber."

She grunted again and walked away as if that had made no more impression on her than knowing he had been in prison.

Pollard said, "You're doing fine."

"I didn't know about the training officer business."

"Don't worry about it. You're doing fine."

Mrs. Fowler came back shuffling through several papers and returned to her spot on the couch.

"Isn't it strange you checked your son's phone records? So did I. Not your son's, I mean, but Mike's."

Pollard put down her wine. Holman saw that it was untouched.

Pollard said, "Had Mike said anything to make you suspicious?"

"It was the not saying anything that made me suspicious. He'd get these calls, not on the house line, but on his cell. He carried those d.a.m.ned cell phones all the time. The d.a.m.n thing would ring and he'd leave--"

"What would he say?"

"He was going out. That's all he would say, I'm going out. What was I to think? What would anyone think?"

Pollard leaned forward quietly.

"He was having an affair."

"f.u.c.king some wh.o.r.e is what I thought, pardon my French, so I decided to see who he was calling and who was calling him. See, here--on his cell phone bill--"

She finally found what she wanted and bent forward to show Holman the pages. Pollard came over and sat beside Holman to see. Holman recognized Richie's home and cell phone numbers.

Mrs. Fowler said, "I didn't recognize any of the numbers, so you know what I did?"

Pollard said, "You called the numbers?"

"That's right. I thought he was calling women, but it was your son and Ash and Mellon. I wish I had thought of the little dots. I asked him what are you doing with these guys, fruiting off? I didn't mean anything by that, Mr. Holman, I was just trying to be mean. You know what he said? He told me to mind my own business."

Holman ignored her comment. Richie had been calling Fowler every day, but Fowler had also been calling Richie, Ash, and Mellon. It was clear they were doing more than lining up beer parties.

Mrs. Fowler was back in the anger of that moment and rolling on.

"I didn't know what in h.e.l.l they were doing. It made me angry, but I didn't say much until I had to clean up after him, then I had had enough. He came home in the middle of the night tracking dirt all over the house. I didn't find it until the next day and I was so mad. He didn't even care enough to clean up after himself. That's how little consideration he showed."

Holman had no idea what she was talking about, so he asked her, wondering if it had anything to do with Richie.

Mrs. Fowler pushed to her feet again, but this time it took more of an effort.

"Come here. I'll show you."

They followed her out through the kitchen onto a small covered patio in the backyard. A dusty Weber grill was parked at the edge of the patio with a pair of Wolverine work boots on the ground beside it, caked with dirt and weeds. She pointed at them.

"Here--he clopped through the house in the middle of the night with these things. When I saw the mess I said, Have you lost your mind? I threw them out here and told him he could clean them himself. You should have seen the mess."

Pollard stooped to look at the boots more closely.

"What night was that?"

She hesitated, frowning.

"I guess it was Thursday--two Thursdays ago."

Five days before they were murdered. Holman wondered if Richie, Mellon, and Ash had also gone out that night. He told himself to ask Liz.

Pollard, reading his mind, stood.

"Was that a night when he went out with the others?"

"I didn't ask and I don't know. I told him if he hated being here so much he should get the h.e.l.l out. I was fed up with the rudeness. I had had enough with the discourtesy, coming into my house like this and not even cleaning up after himself. We had a terrible fight and I don't regret one word of it, not even now with him being dead."

Then Pollard surprised him.

She said, "Did Mike ever mention the names Marchenko and Parsons?"

"No. Are they on the police?"

Pollard seemed to study her for a moment, then made the gentle smile.

"Just people Mike used to know. I thought he might have mentioned them."

"Michael never told me a G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing. It was like I didn't exist."

Pollard glanced back at Holman, then nodded toward the house, the gentle smile deadened by sadness.

"We should be going, Max."

When they reached the front door, Jacki Fowler took Holman's hand and held it an uncomfortably long time.

She said, "There's more than one kind of prison, you know."

Holman said, "Yes, ma'am. I've been there, too."

Chapter 19.

HOLMAN WAS ANGRY and unsettled when they left. He had wanted to find a grieving widow with straightforward answers to explain his son's death, but now he pictured Mike Fowler having secretive phone calls with his hand cupped over his mouth. He saw Fowler slipping from his home too early for the neighbors to see, then returning under cover of darkness. What were you doing, honey? Nothing. Where did you go? Nowhere. Holman had spent most of his life doing crime. Whatever had happened in the Fowler house felt like a crime in progress.

Pollard gunned her Subaru up the freeway on-ramp into the thickening traffic. The drive back would be ugly, but when Holman glanced at her, she was glowing as if a light had been turned on inside her.

Holman said, "What do you think?"

"Talk to your daughter-in-law. Ask if Richard went out the Thursday before they were shot and if she knows anything about where they went or what they did. Ask about the Frogtown connection, too. Don't forget that."

Holman was thinking he wanted to drop the whole thing.

"I wasn't asking about that. You said it wasn't up to the police to look for missing money."

She jacked the Subaru between two tractor-trailers, diving for the diamond lane.

"It's up to them, but recovering loot isn't a front-burner priority. No one has time for that, Holman--we're too busy trying to stop new crimes from happening."

"If someone found it, though--would they get a reward? A legal reward?"

"The banks award a recovery fee, yes, but policemen aren't eligible."

"Well, if they were doing it on their own time--"

She interrupted him.

"Don't get ahead of yourself. Deal with what you know, and right now all we know is Fowler tracked dirt in the house on Thursday night and didn't give a s.h.i.+t what his wife thought about it. That's all we know."