What You Don't Know, page 3
“Don’t start.”
“And it looks like a few of the cameras are glitching—”
“They’re coming on Tuesday, all right? Jesus. I’ll have them look at the cameras too, okay?” She rolled her eyes. “My God. It’s not the end of the fucking world.”
“One thing I ask you to do, one thing I ask you to take care of right away,” Malcolm grumbled more to himself than Blair. “And if I try to do it myself, I never hear the end of it, because you’re always right, everything has to be what you—”
“Are you through, Malcolm Gilbert?”
He sighed. “You know what? I just won’t answer the door. You go upstairs, do your thing, and I’m going out through the garage.”
“You parked out front last night. You put your golf clubs in the trunk last night. And you were going out the front door when Felice showed up. Remember?”
“Ah … that’s right.” Malcolm smacked his forehead with his fist as the doorbell chimed again. “Shoot.”
“Knowing Felice, she wants a cup of sugar and all my eggs.” She headed toward the staircase. “You deal with her. I have to take a shower.”
“What if she really wants—?”
The doorbell pealed a third time.
“Just answer the door, Malcolm.”
Fear in Highland Park
Lieutenant Dimitri Cora, Highland Park Police Department: With cases like this, you have to look at two things. One, what was the marriage like, what was the family situation like. Was there any tension between them? A financial motive of any kind? Infidelity? Two, you have to look at the circles … who’s in the family circle—their friends, their family. Who’s close to them? On the flip side, you have to ask, who’s outside the circle that maybe wants to be in the circle? Or maybe it’s someone who used to be in the circle and they want, you know, revenge of some type because they’re on the outs. The Gilbert’s knew a lot of people. A lot of people knew them. And that’s a lot of potential suspects.
* * *
Skye Stafford: From the beginning, there was a lot about this case that didn’t make sense, a lot that didn’t add up.
* * *
Elena York: Initially, the media speculated this was a burglary gone wrong, except that didn’t really jibe with what was found at the crime scene. There was no sign of forced entry. There was a fair amount of jewelry stolen from Blair Gilbert. All the cash they had on them was taken, but none of the electronics: TVs, iPads, laptops. There was a garage full of cars, the keys all hanging on hooks in the kitchen. This couldn’t possibly be a burglary gone wrong. The evidence just didn’t point to it. Quite honestly, if anything, it was more like an afterthought burglary.
* * *
Lieutenant Sharon Donahue, Highland Park Police Department: Contrary to popular belief, burglaries typically don’t happen at night or on the weekends—they usually happen between ten a.m. and three p.m. on a weekday, when most people are at work. So, because of that, something happening on a Saturday or Sunday morning is highly unusual—unless they’ve been casing your house and know you’re out of town.
* * *
Felice Patterson, the Gilberts’ Neighbor: Well, I had just popped over that morning to borrow Blair’s mixer to make cookies for my grandson’s bake sale—she was always letting me borrow things, because of our close friendship. Well, anyway, I missed the whole thing by minutes. Minutes. I mean if I had been over there, just two minutes—even a minute later … I mean, it really goes to show you that everything happens for a reason. I was spared for a reason.
* * *
Cassie Wexler: God, I hated looking over there. I had to start looking the other way every time I drove by the house. Especially knowing that we weren’t a hundred feet away when everything was happening … it … it gave me nightmares.
* * *
Lani Jacobs: I’d be lying if I said deadbolts weren’t turning all across Highland Park afterward. People were beefing up their alarm systems, hiring private security, contracting for panic rooms. I heard gun ranges got a major uptick in business. We were all terrified. If it could happen to the Gilberts, it could happen to us. We were all thinking, “Maybe we’ll be next.”
* * *
Lieutenant Dimitri Cora: We ruled out burglary gone wrong right away. Now we have to look at, was it random? Well, there hadn’t been any other crimes of this nature committed either in the neighborhood or in Highland Park, in general, quite frankly. So, we had to either view this as the beginning of a possible string of similar attacks, or an isolated incident.
* * *
Lieutenant Sharon Donahue: I’ve been an investigator for over twenty-five years. Seen a lot of crime scenes. Thousands, probably. This was no burglary gone wrong. This was no ordinary home invasion.
11:00 a.m.
Malcolm squinted at the freakishly tall young man standing in his doorway.
Basketball player.
“Can I help you?”
The guy hesitated, staring at him, his jaw slack. He stepped back a bit to look up at the doorframe before smiling at Malcolm. A big, bright smile full of yellow pebbles masquerading as teeth, protruding from dark pink, almost black, gums. The pads of his fingers all touched each other, forming a triangle that rested in front of his stomach, elbows jutting away from his waist. His faded black suit was cheap and shiny, imprinted with the metal grate pattern of an ironing board. Loose threads dangled from the hems and the cuffs flopped over his wrists. The white button-down underneath was rumpled and dingy. Brown loafers scuffed and peeling. Fuzzy, matted dreads swept the bottom of his earlobes and fluffs of lint burrowed inside the frayed ends.
Malcolm narrowed his eyes at this bizarre-looking kid, the hairs dancing frenetically across the back of his neck.
Something was wrong.
“Yessir, I uh, I was wondering if I could come in and use your phone. You see, my car, my van out there, broke down outside your house and my phone died, and I need to call my friend to ask him for directions to get to his crib—I mean his place.”
Malcolm slowly ran his tongue across his bottom lip, the hairs jitterbugging now. “Where does your friend live?”
“I think it’s uh, uh … Dobson! That’s right, that’s right. He lives on Dobson.”
Malcolm gripped the doorknob. “No Dobson around here. No Dobson anywhere in Highland Park.”
“You sure? Cause my friend told me—”
“No, no, no Dobson.”
“Okay, ah … shoot.” The guy put one hand in his pocket and clamped his hand across his mouth. “So, like I was saying, my phone just died and if I could use your phone to call him—”
“No, sorry,” Malcolm said, closing the door.
The guy’s palm exploded against the door’s wood panel and he rushed toward Malcolm, who threw his weight against the door to block the tackle. He grunted as he pressed against it. The guy had both hands planted against the wood and pushed just as hard.
The door started to give way. Malcolm’s feet slipped beneath him on the slick marble floor, his heart beating a little faster than he wanted to admit. He just about had it closed when the barrel of a gun peered through the crack of the door and directly into his face.
“Stand back,” a girl’s voice said. “Stand back and let us in. Now.”
His heart stopped as he contemplated whether to comply with the request. A gun pointing in his face. Hell of a choice. Malcolm eased back, his hands up. The door flew open, smacking the wall, as the owner of the pistol rushed into the house right behind the kid who’d rung the bell. In all his sixty years, he’d never seen the cold black hole of a gun staring back at him. His mouth burst with cotton. He gulped and took a shallow breath.
“Hey, look, listen—”
The girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen, snapped a wad of fluorescent blue gum between healthy pink gums and white teeth, her lips outlined with black pencil and filled in with shiny purple lipstick. She inched the gun closer to Malcolm’s face, as he flicked his eyes up and down to size her up like he did all his opponents, a lingering habit from his playing days, the importance of imprinting memories even more important these days. Her ample breasts spilled out of the snug black tank top she wore beneath the brown pleather jacket, the zipper pull dangling above her belly button, her acid-wash jeans shrink wrapped around her sizable thighs.
He glanced at the third member of “us,” a wiry young man with a massive case of BO. The boy followed behind her, his eyes darting around the foyer like rowdy pinballs. There was no pretense with a cheap, hand-me-down suit or stained button down dress shirt with this one. He wore the standard teenage uniform of saggy jeans—a black leather belt snaking ironically through the loops—and a faded black Hanes t-shirt, massive black Nikes weighting his feet to the floor. The shoes looked new to Malcolm. Were they stolen? It was doubtful any of these kids had much disposable income. No weekly allowance from mommy and daddy. Was that what this was? A bid for shoe money, TV money, iPhone money?
The smelly, t-shirt-clad kid continued to dart his eyes around the room as he slammed the door shut. Glossy drops of sweat blanketed his forehead. He, too, had a gun, though the weapon seemed clumsy in his floppy, puppy dog paws as he raised it and pointed it at Malcolm, the butt of the gun resting in a shaky palm.
Cheap Suit, as Malcolm had come to think of him in the short time they’d been acquainted, clutched his own piece as he paced in a semi-circle, one wild, wary eye trained on him the entire time. The other two kept flicking glances his way, waiting for Cheap Suit to say something. Anything.
The ringleader.
He thought about his phone. Specifically, the panic button on his phone connected to the alarm system. He needed to get to that.
In the meantime, work with what you got.
Malcolm tried to catch Cheap Suit’s eye. Bypass the minions, go straight to the head of the table to negotiate.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble. I got about two thousand in cash on me and another—”
“Malcolm Gilbert, what—?” Blair sputtered behind him on the stairs.
His heart dropped. Blair the Bomb. The last thing he needed.
If I ask her to keep her fucking mouth shut, to, for once, be quiet, will she do it?
“It’s all right, BJ.”
She bounded downstairs and marched toward the three, a mix of irritation, confusion, and anger swimming across her face. “What—? Who the fuck are you?” she demanded as Malcolm caught her around the waist. As he sometimes forgot, she’d grown up with this. Boogie Down Bronx. Girl in the Hood. Blair from the Block. Staring down three guns was no big thing to her.
“Shut up, Blair,” he said.
No, of course she won’t shut her damn mouth. That’s always too much to ask.
“Shut up? No, I want to know who the fuck these people are. Did you let them in?”
“Blair, huh?” Cheap Suit’s eyes glittered as he regarded her. “You should listen to your husband and shut the fuck up … Blair.”
She blanched in Cheap Suit’s direction. “Excuse me?”
He didn’t have to look to know the lake was storming in her eyes. She was ratcheting up to blow any minute. He gripped her tighter, hoping she’d get the message to shut it.
“Listen, like I said, I got about two thousand in cash on me, with another ten in the house. Take it and whatever else you want,” Malcolm said.
“Give him—what? What are you doing? Malcolm—” Blair was back to writhing, twisting around him in an attempt to free herself, to confront these intruders.
“I said, shut the fuck up!” Cheap Suit yelled, the black coals of his eyes flashing erratically as he waved his gun around. The trio looked scared. Unsure. The girl rocked from side to side, her gaze flicking between Malcolm and the leader, while her panicky companion licked his lips and hopped from one foot to the other, the sweat from his forehead now cascading down his cheekbones, damp patches of it gluing his shirt to his bony frame.
“Take whatever you want.” Malcolm pursed his lips. “Take whatever you want and we’ll call it even.”
Cheap Suit pointed his weapon at Malcolm again, aiming directly for his head. Blair gasped.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, finally, it seemed, having gotten the hint this wasn’t another Tuesday on the block, that this was serious.
Cheap Suit’s accomplices were now rooted to their spots, frozen in action figure stances, guns clamped in what Malcolm suspected were sweaty palms. The five of them stared at each other, three against two, each side unsure of who would make the next move or what that move should even be.
The room crackled with the sound of Blair’s agitated panting. Malcolm’s shallow breaths. The snap of the girl’s gum. The nervous sniffing from Sweaty Smelly Guy. The clap of Cheap Suit’s footsteps against the gleaming marble floor as he resumed pacing.
“What we gonna do?” the girl asked, shattering the impasse, her voice quivering.
“Yeah, what we gonna do?” Sweaty Smelly Guy echoed. “You said there wasn’t—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Cheap Suit shouted again. “Stop all that noise so I can think about what I’m gonna do ’cause this shit is all fucked up now.”
Malcolm narrowed his eyes as he watched the young man pace. What did that mean?
“T—” his smelly accomplice tried again.
“I said shut the hell up!” Cheap Suit thundered, rushing toward the boy, who cowered away from him and got shoved for his trouble anyway, before resuming his march around the room.
T. An abbreviation for a nickname or a full name? T for Ted? Tyrone? Tank? T for Trouble. Find out what it stood for. Build a rapport. Get chummy.
An odd sound escaped T’s dark, crusty lips, an anguished cross between a grunt and a cry. The heels of his hands flew to his temples, the gun pointing toward the ceiling, as he slammed his eyes shut and took several deep breaths.
Malcolm licked his lips, decided to go for broke.
“Yo, T. What’s the T stand for?”
The boy came to a dead stop. Eyelids popped open to reveal bloodshot eyes no more settled, no calmer, than they had been just moments before. Maybe he was high on something. Their menace though, as they focused on Malcolm, was clear.
“The T stands for T.”
“Okay … T. You go by T, okay. Okay. T—I got cash, a car—lots of cars—jewelry, electronics. Whatever you want, it’s yours. Like I said before, we don’t want any trouble.”
T rushed toward Malcolm just centimeters from his face, his rank breath stale, wet, and heavy. Malcolm tightened his grip on Blair and put on his game face.
Don’t move.
Show no fear.
Don’t blink.
Don’t even breathe.
Dominate your opponent.
Win at all costs.
“You about to be in a whole lot of trouble, you keep running your damn mouth,” T said.
“Okay, then, you talk. You talk. I’ll listen. I’m here, man.” Malcolm shrugged. “What can I do for you? What do you need?”
The guy blinked. His lip trembled. His face drooped. Malcolm could see he was caught off guard by the magnanimous gesture. He felt himself relax. Despite the gun pointing in his face, Malcolm Gilbert was the one in control. Not this guy. Malcolm.
“What you think you can do for me?” he asked, drawing up.
“What do you need?” Malcolm repeated, his voice low yet confident.
The guy was silent and their stare-down continued, neither giving the inch required. Malcolm could smell the guy’s fear. He’d inhaled that scent all his life. The vapors flooded Malcolm’s nose, wove their way into his own pores.
He knew how to conquer that fear.
T opened his mouth.
“Oh my God, what—!”
All five heads snapped toward the sound of Farrah Gilbert’s voice from the top of the stairs.
Unexpected Guest
Lieutenant Dimitri Cora: The daughter, Farrah, wasn’t supposed to be home that weekend, which, of course, raised suspicion right away.
* * *
Elena York: Farrah Gilbert was a freshman at Indiana University in Bloomington, double majoring in education and English, with a minor in creative writing. She was a literacy tutor, wrote for the school paper, contributed short stories to a student anthology, Dean’s list.
* * *
Lieutenant Sharon Donahue: We had to examine Farrah’s relationship with her parents. Did she have a plan, was she in cahoots with someone, did the plan go awry somewhere along the way?
* * *
Elena York: She came home late Friday night, surprising Blair and Malcolm, as they hadn’t expected to see her until she came home a month later for her summer break. A high school friend was having a surprise birthday party at a club in the West Loop on Saturday night and at the urging of her friends, she decided at the last minute to join the festivities.
* * *
Skye Stafford: According to Farrah’s friends, the only real blemish on her record was an ex-boyfriend, Theo Tillis, who she’d met shortly after coming to Bloomington and had dated on and off over the course of the school year. He was a native of Bloomington, a few years older, high school dropout, a couple of kids by a few different women. He and Farrah were light-years apart in terms of education, socioeconomic status, and just about everything else, so their relationship was a bit of a mystery to her friends.
* * *
Chloe Marston, Farrah’s Best Friend: He was a loser.
* * *
Laila Amari, Farrah’s Roommate: You know, I could never really figure out what the attraction was there. He couldn’t hold down a job, wasn’t terribly cerebral. A total pothead. He wasn’t even all that good-looking.
