Ties That Bind (20 page)

TWENTY-SEVEN

Fourteen-year-old Milton Needham had been discovered by his mother, hanging from his bunk bed, a belt around his neck. Her screams brought her husband and older son into the room, and they quickly got Milton down and began doing CPR. By the time the paramedics arrived, they could detect a faint heartbeat and he was Life Flighted to Primary Children’s Medical Center, where he would be treated in PICU, the same place where Whitney slowly healed.

Pictures of Milton in various stages of growth were framed and on the walls of this newer home in West Kanesville. One set upon the mantelpiece featured Milton with his father. Milton was pimply and gangly, with thick glasses, a large beaked nose, and a braces-filled grin.

In the picture, he wore his Boy Scout uniform while his father beamed beside him. Obviously, the picture had been taken when Milton received his Eagle Scout award. His father looked proud. Milton’s smile looked fake and miserable.

Mormons always placed a special emphasis on Boy Scouts, and getting to be an Eagle Scout was a sign of accomplishment within the community, almost as important as baptism and serving an LDS mission.

Milton was right on target. And according to his mother, he also
was
a target—for bullies.

“I haven’t been able to get him to go to school for the past week. The kids are so mean, just so, so mean,” she said, sobs slipping out between each word. “I offered to go talk to the principal, but he wouldn’t let me. Nobody should be allowed to do that to someone. No one should be that cruel.”

The scene was almost a repeat of the one at Susanna’s house, only it was Marsha Needham’s husband trying to get her dressed and her things together so they could be rushed to the hospital—only to stand by helplessly as a machine breathed for their son.

Any interviewing the police did would have to wait, but Sam’s gut instinct told her that this was exactly what it looked like. A teenage boy’s suicide attempt, one who was tired of being tortured, teased, and ignored by the pretty girls. There was a note that explained this in detail. He was hanging from his own belt. The other deaths—and Whitney’s near death—happened to the very kids about whom Milton’s mother complained. Someone was targeting the bullies, not the victims. Nothing about this attempted suicide resembled the others; while there was a good chance this boy had been “inspired” by the others, Sam knew instinctually that Milton had brought about his own near death. But she would follow up every report and piece of evidence.

“You need to stop whoever this is. Find whoever did this to my boy!” Marsha Needham said, shocking Sam out of her thoughts.

“Ma’am, this appears to be a suicide attempt,” she said soothingly.

Marsha Needham was having none of that. “I’ve heard what people are saying, and I know the truth. The truth is, somebody else is doing this. We have a killer here in Kanesville, and he’s going after our children. You need to stop it or find someone who can. Find the person who did this.
Fix this!
”

Gage walked through the front door just as Sam was being told to “fix” the situation, and he quickly came over to stand by her.

“Who are you?” the distraught woman asked.

“This is Detective Gage Flint,” Sam told her. “He’s helping us on this case.”

Gage raised his eyebrows for a minute as he made eye contact with Sam, and then turned to the distraught mother.

“We’ve dealt with this kind of thing before,” he said, his voice a calming tone in the midst of all the medical hustle and bustle and raised voices. “We know what we’re doing.”

“Fix it,” the woman implored him.

Sam and Gage watched as Marsha’s husband urged her out the door. “Well, so much for keeping the killer theory quiet,” Sam said to D-Ray, who just shook his head.

“Why did you do that?” Gage asked her after D-Ray walked away to confer with the head of the Kanesville Fire Department, who always responded on medical calls.

“Do what?”

“Tell her I was helping you. You haven’t exactly been a member of my cheerleading section.”

“You have cheerleaders?”

“Funny. You know what I mean. What changed your mind?”

“Who says I changed my mind? She’s a Mormon woman in a patriarchal community. She’s distraught. She’s not going to look to me to save her. She’s going to look to a man. You just happened to be standing there at the right time.”

He looked at Sam and shook his head. She didn’t know if he was hurt or genuinely puzzled. She didn’t know how she felt, either.

“So you don’t really want me on this case?” Gage asked. “If I said I would leave right now, would you tell me to go?”

At that moment, D-Ray came back to join them. All three stood and watched as the paramedics and police officers loaded up their gear and prepared to leave the Needham house.

Only a few would remain behind to process any possible evidence.

“This is a mess,” D-Ray said. “Do you think this was the Vengeance killer?”

“Don’t say that out loud,” Sam told him. “All we need is for the media to give this a name.”

“They’re out there. Channel Five and Nixon, and a few from the local papers,” Gage said.

“Well, don’t talk to them,” Sam said.

“I’m not stupid, Sam,” Gage growled back at her.

“I just mean…” Sam stopped talking. She didn’t want anyone to know she was doing her own form of playing with the media, hoping that Nixon would be squawking about the “choking game theory” loud and profusely and that would head people off in a new direction. But if the media got to Milton’s mother …

This would hurt her. But there was no way around it. Who wanted to think their own child could take his life? Who wanted to realize that someone they loved so much was in that much pain that the only answer appeared to be death? Hanging was not a cry for help, like drug overdose or slitting of wrists. People who hung themselves were done.

Sam sighed and rubbed her temples. While this wasn’t going to make her job easier—in fact, it muddied the water—Gage had given her the answer she needed to stave off a little time. She flinched as she realized she owed him one. Maybe she’d drop a six-pack off at his front door and call it good.

That would work, right?

Not even close.

“You didn’t answer me,” D-Ray said insistently. “Do you think this is the … uh … same killer?”

“No,” Sam said. “I think a sad, lonely, emotional boy decided he’d had enough of being bullied, and since other kids were doing it, why shouldn’t he? I think he hung himself because he figured he didn’t have much else to live for.”

“Yeah, me, too,” D-Ray said, then chucked Gage in the shoulder like men do and walked away from the scene.

“You didn’t answer me, either,” Gage said to Sam once they were alone again. “Do you really want me to leave?”

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully.

“Well, maybe you better go looking for that answer.” He turned and followed D-Ray over to talk with the responding officers.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Mark Malone sat in a large recliner in the Mormon room of his house and held his face in his hands, leaning forward, rocking like a small child seeking comfort. The traditional Mormon room was a small sitting room where LDS families entertained church visitors—those like the visiting teachers or the home teachers. This room held a piano, a portrait of Jesus, a gold-painted bust of Joseph Smith, and muted green and maroon rugs and table coverings.

It made Sam distinctly uncomfortable to be here, in the room of the house normally reserved for the believing, but this was where President Malone had asked to meet.

They had waited a lot longer than normal to interview the man, mainly because the chief had made her give Malone “time” to absorb his grief and cope. In fact, Chief Roberson had insisted on coming along for the interview, leaving both D-Ray and Gage out in the cold.

And she knew what this meant. She would be sabotaged. No matter what she said, it wouldn’t be the right thing, and she wouldn’t get the answers she was looking for, because the chief was going to protect his own. And his “own” was not his detective but one of the members of his dogged faith: the only true church. No matter how fair he seemed, she knew the ropes here in Mormon country, and priesthood authority trumped all other hands.

Sam didn’t want to do this now, even though a few days had passed. She never did. It was one of those things that would be wonderful to put off for as long as possible—say, forever.

It was not hard to question a perp, thief—or, worse, a murderer, the scum of the earth. But working the family of a dead victim, or a live victim for that matter, gave her nightmares.

Malone’s wife, Lydia, had been given a sedative by the paramedics the day of the incident. She was still nowhere to be seen, and President Malone claimed she was unwell and in her bed—probably the slumber of the undead, those left behind by someone they loved more than life itself. And yet, as with her mother, Sam questioned the depth of a love that was so fragile a woman could disappear into herself or, even worse, become a shell, an outer body, a host for the organs inside with no real brain or feelings or love. Disappear while her children were still alive, needing a nurturing parent. In Sam’s mother’s case, while her other children were still alive.

“I’m sorry to have to do this now, President Malone,” Sam said, anxious to get it over with. “But unfortunately it’s part of my job, and I have to ask these questions.”

He shrugged his shoulders and removed his head from his hands, leaning his head into the back of chair, eyes closed.

Sam took his silence for assent to continue. “Did you have any indication that your son was suicidal?”

Malone’s eyes popped open, and he sat forward in the chair. “My son would not kill himself. Ever. This was not a suicide.”

“I understand you want to believe that, President Malone,” Sam said in her kindest, most understanding voice. “And it may very well be that you are right. But first we have to follow all the proper steps and make sure that it wasn’t a suicide or an accident. He was found strangled with a tie in your computer room. Unfortunately, this could be something that is currently really common among boys. It’s called autoerotic asphyxiation, and often ends in death. There is another game they call the ‘choking’ game, and sometimes that ends this way as well.”

“He did not kill himself. This was an accident. Your assumptions are wrong.”

The man’s words were calm, but his demeanor belied his ease. He leaned forward, tense, angry, eyes flashing sparks that were directed in her direction. She knew he was used to running the show, to asking the questions. This went against the grain. She didn’t care. She couldn’t.

It was her job to get the truth, and she was going to get it, no matter what she had to do. So he was a man in authority, a stake president, leader of the faithful in many local wards. She was the law. It shouldn’t be a question.

But it always would be a question. And it spurred her on. “I know you don’t want to think he killed himself. But the truth is, it looks that way. So give me something, please, to help me believe you. Tell me why your son would not do this?”

“He was the captain of the football team, for hell’s sake,” the man burst out. “He was popular and had lots of girls after him. He was being looked at for a full-ride scholarship for Brigham Young University. Quarterback. They don’t just hand those out, you know.”

“I know that. But this happened, and I have to get through all of this to find out why. Are you absolutely certain nothing could have been upsetting enough he would kill himself? Or that he didn’t regularly participate in the practice of autoerotic asphyxiation?”

“What the hell? What the hell is that anyway? You keep saying that. What does it mean?”

Sam had no desire to explain the hows and whys of choking yourself while masturbating, or the supposed extreme rush it gave you. She would if she had to, but there had been no sign of masturbation at the scene, leaving the two options: either suicide or the choking game.

Malone began again before she could start. “Didn’t you hear me? He was going to BYU. Full-ride scholarship. They have an honor code there. Nothing could be more exciting or important than that. Nothing. He’s a good Mormon boy. A good boy. He doesn’t do that kind of thing. That kind of vile…”

Vile thing. Malone was a stake president and heard lots of horror stories. He was not innocent to this, she realized. He knew what was being implied.

“President Malone, all teenage boys do it. Even good Mormon ones.”

“Don’t you tell me that, missy!” He glared at her, denial, anger, and harsh reality spreading quickly across his face. “You have no right to say that to me, or to say that my son was responsible for tying that tie around his neck because he was trying to get himself.… aroused. I don’t know who you think you are.”

“President Malone, my title is Detective Samantha Montgomery. It wouldn’t bother me if you called me Sam. But I do not answer to ‘missy.’”

The chief started to move forward, perhaps to intercede, but then thought better of it. He stepped back and let Sam continue.

“I’m a police detective, trying to solve a crime. Do I enjoy this? No. I would rather be running a marathon. But it’s my job. So please tell me what you know. Was that your tie? The one he used?”

“No, God no. I’ve never seen it before. It wasn’t even a good-quality tie. And I never wear dark blue. Are we done now?”

Sam stood up and turned abruptly away from him. She knew this tactic would work, because she’d been a subservient Mormon girl for most of her life. Walk away and they would try to woo you back. Whether through force, fear, or sheer desperation—a Mormon man could not bear for any woman to walk away from him or to treat him as though he were lesser than her. He had to have the last word. No one turns their back on the holy priesthood.

“Wait, why are you going? You haven’t even come close to figuring out what happened.”

Sam decided to gamble, while she had the upper hand. She turned and stared back at him.

“We already have an idea, President Malone. Jeremiah was caught up in a game, if you want to call it that, that teenagers sometimes play. It’s all part of growing up, but sometimes they get caught up in it, and that’s it. They take it further. Sometimes, too far.”