You Can't Stop Me. Max Allan Collins
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on that sacred day, consumed with grief, Harrow heard the whispers.
He hired it done.
The coroner was an old pal who covered up for him.
It’s all a cover-up, so no one would know the kid killed his mom and then himself.
Though they all kept their voices low, every allegation screamed at him.
As Harrow had predicted to Carstens, his firearm test came back that his pistol had not been fired. He also tested negative for gunshot residue. The Secret Service had video of Harrow on post for the hour on either side of the approximate time of death determined by the coroner at the autopsy. Everything about Harrow and his story checked out, and still the rumors continued.
The DCI worked the case hard, but there were just too few clues. The best one, a tire track lifted from the driveway, led nowhere—a P235/75R15, the most popular passenger car tire sold in the United States. Harrow knew too many knockoffs were out there for anybody to even be sure of a brand.
The story ran big. Not just in the Des Moines Register and statewide media, but USA Today and CNN and every other cable news outlet. When Harrow was exonerated, leaving the DCI to search for, as NBC Nightly News put it, “a killer in the heartland,” the story began to attract international attention.
The mail had started then, some accusing him, the far larger percentage telling him the nation shared his grief—the man who saved a president only to have his family murdered the same day had become something of a national celebrity.
His friends, the people he’d worked with for most of his adult life with either the sheriff’s office or DCI, busted their asses for him. They wanted to find the murderer who had killed the family of one of their own. Months passed, then a year, with no new leads.
Harrow’s law enforcement brethren wanted to help, but they had other crimes on their hands, and of course the national media had a finite attention span.
Finally, J.C. Harrow returned to the decision he’d made in his front yard on that terrible night: David’s father, Ellen’s husband, would track down the killer himself.
He had no idea how, but he would find a way.
Sell his car or sell his soul, he would find a way.
Chapter Four
Though he’d never admit it, not under threat of torture or death even, Jeff Ferguson loved his older sister.
She’d just helped him with his sixth-grade math homework—he felt a grudging respect for Jessica and her ability to do the kind of complex story problems that a calculator couldn’t dent.
Like everything with Jessica, her aid came at a price. Jeff would be taking his sister’s shift doing the dishes every other night. That meant dishes duty for a solid week.
Jeff’s dad, the town marshal, would call this cheating. But it wasn’t like Jessica had just filled in the answers for Jeff—she’d shown him, as they went along, how to solve the complicated problems. In fact, he had done the last two on his own, Jess watching over his shoulder.
Blond and blue-eyed, the pair could have been clones of their mother, a successful real estate agent here in Placida, Florida. Jessica was in the eighth grade, but seemed older than that to Jeff.
Sometimes, though, she seemed really immature to him. She texted constantly during various stupid shows that she and her clique of girlfriends found “awesome,” always about girls their age or a little older and a lot richer. Jeff had agreed to make sure Jess didn’t get busted by Mom for texting when she was supposed to be doing homework—that was the second half of his payment for the math boost.
Even in the family room, where he sat curled on the floor in stocking feet with his math book, Jeff could detect the wafting aroma of spaghetti and meatballs, a family favorite. The tomato sauce would mean extra scrubbing when he did the dishes tonight, but why complain? He was guaranteed an A on his math homework, and he loved spaghetti.
Then he heard the sound of trouble—Mom’s heels clicking in the hallway.
“Jess,” he hissed, voice low.
His sister, eyes glued to the family room’s big TV, didn’t hear him, or those clicking heels either.
“Jess,” he tried again, struggling to keeping it low enough to avoid their mother’s radar-like hearing, but loud enough to snap his sister out of her texting trance.
Still no response.
Panicking now, knowing that if he slipped up in his guard duty, Jess would make his life eternally miserable, the boy did the only thing he could think of: he hurled his pen at his sister’s noggin.
After the pen careened off her skull, she spun on him, her eyes wide with homicidal rage.
Making a terrified face, he pointed violently toward the hallway, and Jess’s expression melted immediately. She fumbled for, and got, his pen, tossed it back, hid the offending phone under a pillow, and turned down the TV to a more reasonable volume. She also managed to pick up a history book and appear to be enthralled.
The whole series of actions seemed to Jeff like a great baseball play—Evan Longoria, his favorite player, diving to his left to stop a hot grounder, then rising, stepping on third, and throwing to first to complete a double-play.
Mom strode in—slender, blond, blue-eyed, wearing the slacks and blouse she’d worn to work—and moved immediately to Jeff’s side. She tousled his hair and gave him a huge smile that he couldn’t help but return.
Jess smiled at her mother too, but to her brother it seemed forced.
“What are you reading, dear?” Mom asked her.
Holding up the book dutifully, Jessica answered, “American History.”
Mom didn’t miss a beat, glancing at the screen and saying, “Like the invention of lip gloss?”
Jessica, her mouth moving, couldn’t find words.
Trying extra hard not to laugh as his sister got busted, Jeff buried himself in his math book and did his best to look both busy and completely disinterested in Jessica’s fate.
“Let’s turn off the TV,” Mom said, “and get ready for dinner.”
Jessica didn’t argue, simply used the remote.
Mom asked Jeff, “How was your day?”
He shrugged.
“Did they teach you brain surgery or anything?”
“Mom,” he said, drawing out the last letter.
Jessica fell into line behind their mother, who led the way out of the family room, Jeff trailing. Mom was making her usual left turn to the kitchen, Jess about to head over to the stairs to the bathroom, Jeff ready to head down the hall to wash his hands when the front door opened.
Jeff at first thought it was his father, but this figure was skinnier, and maybe not as old, and held a pistol, which Jeff’s dad would never do in the house.
The man’s entrance was so sudden, Jeff was more surprised than afraid, stunned to see the stranger step inside and close the door behind him, as casual as if this were Jeff’s father.
Mom, however, seemed to instantly see that something was very wrong and moved between the intruder and her kids.
Looking past his mother, Jeff watched in silent horror as the stranger brought the pistol up and pointed it at her.
“No,” Mom said, holding up a hand like the crossing guard at school, and the man fired the gun.
Orange and yellow flame and sparks erupted from the barrel like the sparklers last Fourth of July….
Mom took an involuntarily step back, her other hand coming up as if to protect herself, but it was too late. A tiny pink misty cloud hovered