Undeliverable (23 page)

“Benjamin, oh Benji!”

“Ben.” He got up from his desk and made his way over to Steve and Larry. “Ben is just fine.”

Larry was rubbing his hands together briskly and watching Steve carefully load a cart with items from the shelves. “Sure thing. Sorry. It’s just we’re ready to move the auction items into the break room now and get things set up.”

“That’s right, my manual said something about the break room doubling as the auction house. Do I need to go do it, or do you guys know how it all gets set up?” Ben hoped they didn’t need his help as he would prefer to be doing everything in his power to keep up-to-date with what was going on with the green truck case.

“No, no, like I said, we’ve been doing this for years; you just unlock this back door that leads to the room and start helping us haul tables and bring stuff in. Trust us, we’ve got this.” Larry picked up a vase full of dried flowers and waited for Ben to open the secondary door to the warehouse. After he had gotten the door propped open, he turned to get an armload of stuffed animals. He tried to console himself with the fact that keeping busy would make the time go faster, but it didn’t help much.

The break room was already mostly cleared of the lunch crowd, and Steve and Larry made short work of the last stragglers by suggesting quite loudly that the shift managers were coming right behind them. The tables all needed to be relocated to the back half of the room and set up in tight rows to display most of the goods, while the chairs were brought to the front and set in rows facing the podium and one small table. During the rearranging, the duo somehow produced a locking display cabinet for all the jewelry and valuables.

After the furniture was placed to their exacting specifications, they shooed Ben back to the warehouse with the cart to get more items. It took ten trips to bring out all of the items for the auction, from books to dolls and figurines, hunting knives, and a child’s bow and arrow set. Once all of the items were in the room, Steve and Larry started arguing over what order to display them in.

“The vases should go together as a lot.”

“Nobody will buy them as a lot.”

“They buy books as a lot.”

“But people like having lots of books. Vases, not so much.”

“There’s only three of them.”

“Fine, try and sell them in a lot. Just don’t forget I told you so later.”

They wanted all the big-ticket items placed on the last few tables so people actually had to see all of the smaller stuff before they saw the jewelry and valuable statues or paintings. They had Ben move several of the items multiple times before they were happy with the arrangement.

With the combination of physical activity and caffeine, Ben’s hangover was receding, but he was hungry now and wanted to be done with the constant, irrational changes. “Is this it?”

Larry flapped a hand at him in irritation. “Don’t be so unhappy with us, Ben. This is an art, not a science. Everything must be arranged in its proper place in order to ensure maximum sales.”

Ben rolled his eyes behind the men’s backs. “Sure, I get it.”

Steve snorted and fussed at the dry flowers in the vase. “I’m not sure you do, but that’s okay because we get it and we’re the ones getting this thing working. So you can just go home now while we finalize the inventory paperwork and item sheets.”

“If you guys think you’ll be okay for the rest of it.” The offer was made out of habit, but he was happy to get back to his house and keep doing research on the murderer.

Larry came over and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Of course, we’ll be fine. We just wanted to borrow your muscles for this part of it. We really do prefer to be left on our own. It’s soothing; the calm before the storm, you might say.”

Ben smiled, happy to be on his way, and went to grab his bag from his desk before heading out. “Okay, then. See you in the morning.”

Larry and Steve waved him off and turned to the radio they were inspecting, debating whether it still worked. As Ben reentered the warehouse, he thought he heard voices again, but he tried to convince himself that it was just the echoes of the crowd that had invaded his space earlier. But as he approached the long term storage bay, he recognized the voice as belonging to Sylvia.

“It’s just…awkward. That’s the only word I can think of. I’m not sure if he regrets it or me or what. But he was a dick this morning, that’s all I can say.” She paused as if listening to an answer, but when she continued it was without a pause in her train of thought. “Maybe I just came on too strong. I should have been coy. I just don’t like waiting, you know? No, you can’t know, how could you?”

Ben backed slowly out of the warehouse, so that he felt certain she hadn’t heard him, before going down the hall and around the corner through the main entrance, making sure to make a lot of noise. When he had gathered his stuff for the night, he made his way to Uncle Shem’s urn, but there was no one standing in front of it any longer.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Sylvia’s number, more anxious than ever to straighten out what had happened last night, but it went almost straight to voicemail. Two rings, which meant she looked at the caller ID and then rejected it. Calling a hook-up was a lot less angst-inducing when you could just listen to the messages on a machine to determine whether you wanted to talk to anyone instead of shutting them down with the reject call button. Actually knowing someone didn’t want to talk to you instead of just letting the call go to the message machine was worse.

Ben headed home, stopping briefly along the way to pick up Boston Market takeout—the turkey dinner. He hoped the tryptophan in the turkey might help tonight because he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to sleep; he was pretty wound up between being worried about Sylvia and wondering whether his child’s body was just now being excavated from the soil of some pervert’s farm. And he was all out of alcohol. Besides, Sylvia’s words the night before about drinking too much still stung.

He ate in front of his computer again, checking news site after news site, doing a new search every ten minutes, hoping for a new development. He left the radio on and ended up falling asleep to it, his head thrown back against his desk chair.

He just about slid out of his chair at seven a.m. when there was a station break, and a new talk personality came on. He glanced at his watch, swore, and bolted for the bathroom. It was his first auction day, so he couldn’t be late.

After a quick stop at the drive through at Dunkin’ Donuts, Ben stumbled into the auction room just before the doors were supposed to open for the preview. The bidding wouldn’t start for another hour yet, but the potential buyers had this hour to inspect the merchandise more closely and make notes on what they wanted to bid on.

Ben took up his position next to the valuables case where he could assist anyone who wanted a closer look at any of the particular items. Steve drifted by at around a quarter after eight and tutted at Ben’s appearance but didn’t say anything. Instead, he made his way through the attendees, occasionally greeting people whom he seemed to know passingly well.

“Excuse me, honey, does that radio work?” A gray-haired lady had laid her hand on Ben’s arm and was pointing to an older-style radio next to the valuables cabinet.

Ben frowned, trying to decide if the auctioneers had established that yesterday. “I think it does.”

“I want to be sure before I bid on it. Can you plug it in for me?”

Ben waved Larry over and briefly explained what was needed.

Larry smiled at the older woman and gave her an abbreviated bow. “Sure thing, ma’am. I’ll take over your post, Ben. You know where the outlets are better than I do.”

“Ha, right, after less than a month. Come on, miss, let’s see if we can figure out if this thing still works.”

Ben wandered along the edge of the room until he found an outlet and plugged the radio in. It turned on with a pop, blasting static into the room. The volume control seemed to be stuck, so he rapidly spun the tuning dial until the sounds of a news radio program filled the room. “It seems to work alright, though the volume control is shot.”

“That’s okay; I like it loud. That way I can listen without my hearing aids.”

“Well, then, this is just fine for you.”

The woman made some reply, but Ben was now ignoring her. His entire attention was focused on the news report currently blasting through the room.

“The police just released his name. Leonard Moscovich is considered a suspect in eleven kidnapping and ten murder cases involving young boys. The police have barricaded his entire farm and are now digging up various areas in an effort to determine whether they have found all of the bodies.”

Ben finally looked up at the old lady as she shook him. “I said that’s enough, young man. You can turn the damnable thing off now. People are staring.”

“I’m sorry.” Ben switched off the radio and hurried to place it back by its lot placard. He started back to his post, changed his mind, and left the auction room, going straight to his desk. Eleven boys. Was that even possible? It was a horrifically high number of young lives cut short. But at least he now had a name.

His hands shook a little as he called up the advanced version of the white pages that he had access to, which included all addresses that the post office received for mail forwarding, etc. After searching for Leonard Moscovichs in Georgia, he was left with ten possibilities, only one of which lived near Savannah. In fact, his address was about equidistant between the two cities. Leonard had apparently lived with a Lena Moscovich, now deceased.

Sitting back in his chair, he ran his hands through his hair a few times, and left his hands on top of his head. He stared at the screen wondering what this man, the last face his son had probably seen, looked like. There was no indication in this database so he minimized the window and opened several of the other databases. The Department of Transportation confirmed that this Leonard’s mother did indeed own a green truck. A ’95 Ford F-150 to be precise. However, none of the other databases yielded any results, so he turned to the ultimate researcher’s friend: Google.

Now that the name was public knowledge, news agencies were scurrying to gather material on the man. The only pictures that accompanied the articles, however, were blurry distance photos taken as Moscovich was taken into the police station or excised from his school yearbook. They didn’t help Ben; he wanted to see the bastard’s face.

He closed the browser window in disgust and sat staring at his cursor. Should he do it or not? Skip out on work to go to the farm crawling with officers, where his son had probably been killed, see what there was to see, maybe talk to the investigators? Or stay here and play auctioneer to little old ladies and used book salesmen.

In the end, he decided he didn’t really have a choice. He copied Moscovich’s address onto a Post-it and shut down his computer. It didn’t matter that his first auction continued on without him. There was nothing for him to do now except to figure out who this guy was. He had to know what kind of a monster could have killed his five-year-old son.

He was halfway down the highway before he realized that he hadn’t told anyone he was leaving. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference anyway as he really didn’t have any idea what happened at these auctions except that Larry and Steve would take care of everything. So what did they need him for?

The driveway to the farm would have been invisible on any regular day; there wasn’t even a mailbox on the little two-lane highway. But today it had a police car parked on the highway’s shoulder with an officer standing at the end of it. Ben pulled over onto the shoulder and parked. It took a couple minutes before his breathing was under control and he felt his legs would support him when he got out of the car.

The officer’s full attention was on him as he walked the ten feet back to the driveway. “Excuse me, sir, this is a restricted area. You’ll have to go back to your car and leave.”

“This is the Moscovich farm, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, it is, but I’ll have to ask you to leave. This is an active crime scene.” The officer’s hand was now on his radio.

Ben took a step forward but stopped when the officer held up his hand. “I know, I just have to…is Detective O’Connor here? He knows who I am, please.”

“Hold on.” He switched his attention to his radio. “Is there a Detective O’Connor on the premises?” He listened to the squawking that resulted from his query. “There’s a guy here asking for him.”

“Benjamin Grant,” Ben supplied before the officer could ask.

“Says his name is Benjamin Grant.” The radio squawked again and the officer frowned. “Ten-four.” His attention came back to Ben. “He’ll be right out.”

“Thank you, thank you so much.”

Ben waited impatiently, pacing back and forth across the tar-coated gravel at the end of the driveway. Images of possible torture and murder scenes filled his head as he paced, each one more gruesome than the last. The officer alternated between watching him carefully and scanning the surrounding area. After about ten minutes, Detective O’Connor appeared from around the bend.

“O’Connor!” Ben called, waving. The officer glared at him, so he quickly amended himself. “Detective!”

“Ben, what are you doing here?
How
are you here?” The detective patted the officer on his shoulder, and the man walked off a few feet to continue watching the road and the sparse traffic along it.

“I heard it on the radio and…” He made a vague gesture in the air. “Well, I just had to come take a look for myself. I couldn’t not.”

O’Connor frowned and squinted at Ben. “I thought we were doing a better job keeping this location from the media.”

Ben shifted uncomfortably, well aware of the fact that he had probably broken a few laws to get his information. “You know the media; they always show up eventually.”

“But they’re not here yet. You are.” The detective placed himself firmly between Ben and the farm driveway.

“I, uh, whitepaged it.” Ben hoped this excuse would satisfy the detective and he would start talking about something important, like if Benny was buried somewhere up that gravel driveway.