Vengeance Road

Clark looked off into the distance.

“I’m so sorry, Jack.”

“Don’t be.”

“No matter what anybody says, Styebeck’s a suspect. That’s a fact. And it remains a fact unless they clear him or charge him.”

Clark pressed her hands against the bench, leaning on it hard as she stood.

“At that meeting,” she said, “I was afraid that they were not going to look hard at Styebeck and I started to feel guilty.”

“Why?”

“When I’d heard these stories about Styebeck before, I did nothing. Now …” She turned away. “Jack, if you saw the crime-scene pictures of what Bernice Hogan’s killer did to her … I can’t explain it. Dammit, I helped you because I believed it was the right thing to do.”

A few tense moments passed.

“Thank you for protecting me.”

She touched his shoulder, offered him a weak smile, and then made her way to her car.

Gannon watched her drive off.

He sat alone in the Garden of Consolation, where stone angels watched over him and the dead as he contemplated his next move.

His cell phone rang.

“It’s me,” Adell Clark said. “Just heard on WBEN that there’s a news conference at eleven on the Hogan murder, out at Clarence Barracks.”

“Any idea what it’s about?”

“I don’t know, maybe they’ve got a break in the case.”

“Thanks, Adell. Gotta go.”

As he jogged to his car, Gannon checked his watch. He had just enough time to get out there.

12

The lot at Clarence Barracks was filled with TV trucks and news cars from the Buffalo News, WBEN, Niagara Falls, Batavia, Lockport, campus newspapers and the community Hornet chain, when Gannon arrived.

Indignation pricked at him when he saw a car from the Buffalo Sentinel. Who’d they send? Walking by the Sentinel’s Saturn, he glanced inside for a clue as to who it might be. He saw nothing. Forget it. Besides, he was here on his own, a freelancer.

Inside, he went to the woman at reception, who’d replaced the one he’d encountered earlier.

“I’m here for the news conference.”

“Just sign in and go that way,” she said.

Nearly two dozen news types were stuffed into a small meeting room. A forest of TV cameras on tripods lined the back. Operators made final adjustments as reporters in folding chairs gossiped, gabbed on cell phones, checked Berrys or made notes.

At the head of the room, three men and one woman, each stern-faced, sat behind a table heaped with microphones and recorders.

Bernice Hogan looked upon the gathering from her Buffalo State ID photo, which had been enlarged and posted on the big tan tackboard behind the officers.

A few hundred yards from the room where Gannon stood was a church and the upscale neighborhood of Serenity Bay, with its custom-built homes, clubhouse, tennis courts, beaches and residents who had little interest in the region’s latest murder.

While a few miles west, hidden in the woods near Ellicott Creek, was the shallow grave where Bernice was found.

A sad juxtaposition, Gannon thought, looking from the picture and opening his notebook.

“Let’s get started,” the white-haired man at the table said. “For those who don’t know me, I’m John Parson, captain in command of Troop A, Zone 2. To my left is Lieutenant David Hennesy. To my right, from our Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Investigators Michael Brent and Roxanne Esko, who are heading the investigation into the homicide of Bernice Hogan.

“Lieutenant Hennesy will give you a status update, then we’ll take a few questions.”

Hennesy summarized the case.

“To date we’ve received twenty-seven tips and are following all leads. Of importance are reports of a blue truck, a big-rig tractor without a trailer, possibly with unique markings on the driver’s door. It was seen several times in the Niagara-Lafayette area of Buffalo, prior to Bernice Hogan’s disappearance on the tenth of this month. If anyone has information on a vehicle fitting this description, we’re asking them to call us.”

Murmurs rippled across the room and pages were flipped.

A blue rig. This was new.

“Thank you, Dave,” Parson said. “We’ll take a few questions now. Yes, Cathy from the Observer.“

“Do you have more details on the blue truck?”

“The driver is believed to have had conversations with Bernice Hogan before her disappearance. However, we have no description on the driver, or the year and model of the truck. So we’re appealing to the public.”

“Hold on a second,” Gary Golden, a TV reporter, held up a copy of the Buffalo Sentinel. “With all due respect, seems we’re avoiding the elephant in the room. Is Detective Karl Styebeck of the Ascension Park Police Department your prime suspect? Yes or no?”

After a chorus of throat clearing and an exchange of glances among the four police officials, Michael Brent leaned into the microphones.

“Detective Styebeck is not the focus of this investigation.”

“Is he now, or has he at any time, been a suspect?” Gannon said from the back.

Heads turned to Gannon.

“He is not the focus of this investigation,” Brent said.

“That’s not a denial,” Kip Ramon, from the Buffalo News, said.

“Reports suggesting Karl Styebeck is the key suspect and focus of this investigation are wrong,” Parson said.

“Do you have other suspects? This mysterious blue truck, for instance?” That question came from Pete Martinez from the Sentinel.

“As Dave said, we’re following nearly thirty tips and we have some promising leads.”