Death Trap by M. William Phelps Read Free Book Online

questions, in turn, gave the family answers. The agents didn’t need to say anything more.
    “They handed the bad news out in bites you could handle,” Robert recalled. He appreciated that immensely. This wasn’t a movie of the week. No knock on the door by two state troopers with their hats in their hands and a mouthful of heartbreak. This was a process. A slow dance toward what was looking to be an inevitable truth the family was going to have to contend with, one way or another.
    Knowing how distraught and upset Philip and Joan were, the agent called Robert outside. It was there, out of the earshot of Joan and Philip, that she explained how they had uncovered two bodies in the trunk of Alan’s rental car. She wanted to let Robert know that they needed Alan’s dental records.
    Robert’s stomach turned over when she asked. He knew, then and there, his brother was dead. He didn’t need DNA or dental confirmation. Instinct grabbed hold of his throat, put a lump in it. The only silver lining—if it could even be called such—in the middle of this devastating news was that there had been only two bodies found in the car.
    Not four.
    That meant the kids were not with them.
    The agent wanted to let Robert know first, before breaking the news to Philip and Joan. It wasn’t corroboration that Alan and Terra were dead, of course—that’s not what the GBI was implying here. The investigator said she’d seen more bizarre things happen in her career. But there was a good chance it was their bodies. The dentals records would answer a lot of questions.
    “How do you think I should deliver this to them?” the agent asked Robert, meaning Philip and Joan.
    “Dad likes to deal in facts. Give him the facts—however you choose to—and he’ll manage.”
    As the morning carried on, bits of information came into focus. As they spoke, first the GBI let out that they had uncovered bodies in the trunk of Alan’s rental; a while later, it became a car fire; then, “Can we have those dental records?”
    One plus one plus one equals three. Every time. Kevin and Robert knew it. The slow walk toward the bitter, sad truth: Alan and his wife were dead.
    Murdered.
    The agent also mentioned that the GBI had investigators heading into Birmingham.
    Kevin and Robert looked at each other. Birmingham?
    “We may have another crime scene over there.”
    Philip came by. He seemed to be listening. “Alan was in Birmingham,” he said, “giving a deposition in his child custody case.”
    That was important.
    After a bit more going back and forth, some history of what was going on with Alan and Jessica, where Alan might have taken off to if he decided not to pick up the children, the GBI had what it needed and got ready to leave.
    “We’ll be calling you with updates, okay?” the agent promised.
    Philip nodded his head. “Thank you.”
    What was left for the Bates family to do now? Especially because in their hearts they knew, deep down, that Alan and Terra were dead. This new dose of anxiety came in the form of an explanation as to what had happened, who had killed them.
    Kevin and Robert went into autopilot, comfort mode, without even thinking about it. Stay busy. Do things. Make calls. Get Terra’s family involved. Get family members over to the house so they could begin to put a support system in place for what they knew were going to be the roughest days of their lives ahead. Someone would have to tell the kids. Someone would have to sit them down and explain that their father and stepmother were gone. In fact, as Robert and Kevin and Philip thought about it, where were the kids?

9
    Kimberly Williams and Sheron Vance made it to the PPD by 2:00 P.M . Of course, they had gained an hour as they passed over the invisible line of the Central time zone.
    They waited around. Had some coffee. Explained the situation. “We talked to the chief and a couple [Pelham] investigators about Mr. McCord,” Williams told me.
    Through that, one thing