Somewhere Over Lorain Road, page 28
He lifted his phone from his pocket and dialed. “I’d like to report a murder.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The next morning, Christmas day, Bruce arrived and pulled Don aside. He looked nervous.
“I wanted to say I’ve never been so happy to be as wrong about something as I was about Rich. I tried telling you yesterday, but things were a little crazy.”
“A little?” Don chuckled. “Thanks for apologizing. I don’t blame you. You were right about my guilt, and I started to suspect Rich, too, but it’s all over now, so let’s move on. Is your family upset that you’re not with them today?”
“Yeah, but they’re really distracted.” He hooked a thumb to the street. “They’ve been watching the coverage obsessively. They want to know if I know anyone involved.” They shared a soft laugh. “I told them I might be able to tell them something interesting someday.”
“Thanks for not blowing my cover,” Don said. “The police are going to keep my name quiet for as long as they can.”
The Esker family had gathered in the living room. Everyone came, even Tim and Sally’s son with his wife and three kids, along with Randy’s daughter Julie and her semi-official boyfriend. Linnette looked out the window, crying silent tears.
“Look,” Don said, raising his voice so that everyone could hear, “We’ve decided it’s just going to be…”
A helicopter flew over, forcing him to wait. As it thumped away, he continued, “It’s just going to be Mom and us brothers. We went through it together, and we want to tell him ourselves.”
“Let’s go,” Tim said, wrapping his arm around Mom’s shoulders. She cried softly as they shuffled down the hallway. Randy followed.
“Dad?” Don said, knocking lightly and opening the door at the same time.
Dad sat up, holding the tablet. He looked alert, and as they entered, he removed his headphones. “What’s all that racket about? I keep hearing sirens and helicopters, even with the headphones.”
They gathered around. Dad went serious. “What is it?”
“You tell him, Don,” Mom said. “I don’t think I can get it out.”
Dad’s alarm grew. “What happened?”
Don took a deep breath. “Dad, they found out who killed those boys.” He told him who, and why.
Dad seemed to absorb the news slowly. As it filled him, he grew visibly numb and dazed. Slowly, his mouth dropped.
“That’s what all the racket is about, Dad. There are about a million cops and reporters across the street. They arrested Billy and Chief Tedesco yesterday, but we waited to tell you because we wanted to be together.”
Dad drew back and stared into the distance.
“We’re all happy you lived to see this day, Dad,” Tim said.
“Yeah, we are,” Randy added. “Even Renee called me last night…” Everyone looked. “She wanted to say she loves you and thinks you’re as much of a victim in this as anyone else.”
After a long silence, Dad slowly shook his head. “No. Those boys were the victims. Rich was a victim. Not me. Not us. Not anymore.” He sighed. “It’s funny. I don’t feel happy. I always wondered how I’d feel if this day ever came, and I never expected to be just…content. I know I’m dying, but I feel like…a survivor. I survived.”
With watery eyes, he raised both arms and everyone clung to them and huddled close.
“All of you survived, too,” Dad said, crying.
* * *
Two hours later, a rumor circulated that the police would soon remove Eddie’s remains. They got Dad’s wheelchair and rolled him to the porch. The day was cool but comfortable. Randy raced to the foot of the stairs, with Tim above holding the handles. Dad looked nervous as the brothers argued.
“Tim, goddamn it, just push the wheels a little off the edge and I’ll grab them.”
“No,” Tim replied. “They’re wheels, you bonehead. They’re going to start spinning the second they aren’t grounded and you’ll lose control and knock us all on our asses. Grab it by the support bars.”
Don slapped Bruce’s shoulder and motioned for him to follow. “Hey, guys, stand back, okay? Bruce and I can handle this.”
Tim and Randy stepped aside. Don grabbed the handles and turned the chair about, lowering it down the steps backward. Bruce stooped and held the supports above. Gently, they lowered Dad to the driveway.
“Thank God for you guys,” Dad said softly. “Those two were gonna break their necks and kill me in the bargain.”
Don pushed, with Bruce and Linnette at his side. Mom rested a hand on Dad’s shoulder. The rest of the family followed.
Police cars flashed and white evidence vans idled. Neighbors stood by the hundreds, this time looking away from the Esker home. Up and down the street, massive news vans lined the road between the driveways. The story captured national attention as soon as the details spread online yesterday: a forty-year-old cold case, a chief of police, his son one of the victims, a former Navy SEAL. They didn’t have the details right, but it was sensational enough to warrant Christmas Day coverage.
As they reached the apron, an officer stepped from the Tedesco door and shouted, “May we have some silence out of respect for the victim?”
A hushed anticipation fell, but nothing happened for a minute.
Mom whispered to Don, “I didn’t know Patty Tedesco well at all, but I thought she was a nice lady. Do you think she had any idea of what went on in her home?”
“I don’t see how she couldn’t have known. Maybe she didn’t know about the other boys, but she knew Billy killed Eddie and her husband buried him in the basement.”
Mom pursed her lips. “I can’t imagine a mother not saying anything.”
The Tedesco door opened, and news photographers clicked at a manic pace. Two police officers wearing white gloves emerged, carrying a small box shrouded with white fabric. Bulbs flashed a relentless, unnatural, pulsating light.
The small box could only hold bones. Linnette wept, and Bruce put his arm about her shoulder.
Don looked about at the people rooted by the scene. Down the street a bit, he spotted Agnes with her purple-tipped hair. The greasy guy from the bar held her protectively from behind while she covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes glistening with tears. She broke down in sobs, and the man led her away. He wondered if he should catch up to her, but he wouldn’t know what to say.
Don remembered Billy breaking the refrigerator handle, rescuing Eddie. One week later, Billy killed him.
Mesmerized, the crowd watched as the officers solemnly walked to the street and placed the bones in the back of a white van. As it drove away, the crowd seemed to relax as one.
A gorgeous television reporter approached, carrying a microphone, followed by a tall woman balancing a camera on her shoulder. Don recognized the reporter. She was famous, a celebrity journalist, although the term always made Don shake his head.
“Did any of you know Chief Tedesco?” she asked.
“No,” Dad said firmly. “We never knew the man. We never knew him at all.”
The reporter frowned and moved along.
* * *
They crowded into Dad’s room on New Year’s Eve. Glittering hats, horns, and noisemakers were piled on the dresser.
Don and Bruce sat next to each other, holding hands. Tim and Sally did the same, a nice thing to see. Randy leaned on the doorframe, holding a flute of bubbly. Mom sat next to Dad’s bed.
Randy checked his phone. “It’s getting close to midnight,” he said.
Dad groaned. He struggled to breathe. His head hadn’t moved for half an hour. His mouth hung open, so wide his cheeks sank inside. His eyelids were half-closed.
A sweet ripeness scented the air. Fruit baskets and flowers filled the kitchen, overflowing into the living room, a steady stream of deliveries since the people of North Homestead learned the truth. Almost none arrived signed.
The deliveries cheered Dad. Mom seemed to like them, too. Don and his brothers didn’t tell their parents of their scorn for these tokens of regret and apology, although the number of people who remembered shocked them.
“Here we go,” Randy said. “Ready? Ten, nine…”
The room took up the countdown in hushed voices and ended with soft cries of “Happy New Year, Dad.” Tim and Sally smacked out a quick, obligatory kiss. Don and Bruce gave theirs more enthusiasm but kept it short.
Mom kissed Dad. “Happy New Year, Rob,” she said, stroking his forehead.
Randy handed out champagne flutes, but nobody took more than an occasional sip.
Another twenty minutes passed.
Dad stared at the ceiling. “I’m going to see Rich,” he said weakly, and Tim said, “Tell him I said hi.” Crying, Mom added, “Tell him I love him so much, and I miss him with all my heart.”
About half an hour into the New Year, Dad took a deep breath. As his chest deflated, he groaned with a timbre and tone that captured the essence of his voice, a sound only he could make, and Robert Esker died, a survivor, an innocent man.
* * *
Tim and Sally drove off, winding slowly through the lanes of Memorial Park Cemetery, followed by their son and his family.
Randy helped Mom into his car, Julie and her boyfriend in the backseat. Even Renee came to the funeral and graveside service, but she drove herself and had already left.
Don turned. Bruce stood uphill, incredibly handsome in a suit. Don held out his hand as he approached, and Bruce took it with a smile. They walked up the slope, stopping at Rich’s grave. Cemetery workers, busy at the next spot burying Dad, saw their clasped hands. Maybe the workers would talk about it later, maybe not. It didn’t matter.
“It was the same way with Rich,” Don said. “Mom insisted someone stay behind to make sure he was buried. Back then, it was Dad who stayed.”
“Why does she worry about something like that?”
Don shrugged. “I’m not really sure. Just a thing she has. She wants to make sure that people are safe, even in their graves.”
Shovels sliced into the wet clay on the tarp. The clumps fell into the grave with hushed thumps.
“I have to tell you something,” Bruce said in a confessional tone. “I paid a little visit to Chief Ladmore yesterday.”
“Why did you do that?”
“To chew his head off. I told him that I figured it out. Tedesco didn’t give Ladmore a promotion because he owed his uncle in the Navy a favor. Ladmore’s uncle told him that Tedesco was never a SEAL. Ladmore was greedy and used the information to blackmail Tedesco for the promotion. If he’d exposed the sicko instead, they might have found Eddie years ago. The clothes and photos. People would have known the truth about your dad way back then.”
“I should have put that together. Good job.”
“I asked him if Tedesco covered up something for him to keep his mouth shut, too. He didn’t answer, but I could see it in his eyes. Tedesco had something on Ladmore. A sex thing or something. They were blackmailing each other.” He snorted. “What a pair.” He raised a finger. “I told him…”
“Hey, Bruce,” Don said, taking and lowering his hand. “My dad’s been exonerated. That’s all he ever wanted, all any of us ever wanted. I don’t care anymore what happens to any of them. I want to start enjoying life without all of that in the background.”
Bruce looked pained, breathing hard. “Where, Don? Where are you going to enjoy your life? Back in San Francisco?”
“Wherever you are, okay?”
Bruce looked hopeful, but still guarded. He shot a breath from his nostrils. “Really? You want to give it a try?”
“The thing is,” Don said, taking his hands and squeezing, “there’s something I need to tell you. About a portal in time.”
About the Author
Bud Gundy has won two Emmy Awards as a producer, director, writer, and on-air host for KQED, San Francisco’s PBS and NPR affiliate. He’s worked as a television and print journalist and is one-half of a popular on-air fundraising duo. He was raised in North Olmsted, Ohio, as the youngest of ten children. He lives with his boyfriend, Chris, in much-needed peace and harmony in San Francisco.
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