Chapter One
The contents inside the Christmas gift bag humiliated twelve-year-old Kellen Koufax. No one proved more adept at levying shame than his father, Rodney. Eagerness for whatever awaited Kellen beneath the eight-foot spruce tossed him out of bed at seven a.m. He raced to the tree. The sight of the oversized bag stopped him in the middle of the living room. No other presents occupied the space on either side.
Toilet tissue overflowed the bag. Kellen dug in. He scooped the tissue paper out until he uncovered two items at the bottom. Any other child might’ve stared at the gifts in disbelief. Not Kellen. His thoughts competed for the best way to thank his father for the one-pound Snickers and a dollar bill.
A squeak in the floor alerted him to his father’s approach. “I see you’ve opened your present before your mother, and I got in here for pictures.” Rodney Koufax gestured to the candy bar and dollar. “Let this be a lesson, Kellen. Thousands of children your age get out of bed on Christmas morning and have no presents awaiting them under a tree. Many of them don’t even have a tree. Aren’t you a blessed child?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Rodney moseyed into the kitchen. Kellen stuffed the toilet tissue back in the bag. He wrapped the dollar around the Snickers and strode to his room.
His mother stepped to the doorway in not-so-festive attire. “I’m sorry, son,” Myla Koufax whispered. “I’ll make it up to you. Merry Christmas.”
Kellen threw his arms around her waist and told her he loved her. “What can I do to make him proud of me?”
Myla took his hands and dropped to her knees. “Be yourself. I trust you will make the right decisions.”
“I don’t want to embarrass you.”
“You’re a wonderful son, Kellen. Nothing you do will ever embarrass me. I promise.”
Kellen embraced her. “Thank you. Merry Christmas.”
“I’ll call you when breakfast is ready.”
“May I eat in my room?”
“Sure. I’ll have it to you, special delivery.”
A breakfast of eggs Benedict with two extra slices of Canadian bacon satisfied Kellen’s appetite while he hungered for how he might avenge the wrong his father justified by his statements. The dirty plate distracted him. He wrapped the silverware in the napkin his mother provided with the meal and set it on the plate outside his room like he’d seen at hotels. A note folded across the napkin stated his intent.
Do not disturb. Mind work in progress.
After an hour, Kellen completed a plan of utilization and investment. The first endeavor might cost him more than the second. Either way, the fulfilment of his tasks guaranteed satisfaction. He set the Snickers aside, folded the dollar and stuck it in a hip pocket.
The dollar store he checked online showed the item he wanted in stock and on sale thirty cents off the $1.25 retail price. He’d ask his mother to take him and needed a penny. Neither presented a problem other than a day’s delay.
A shadow darkened two segments of light beneath the door. Three taps confirmed his mother’s presence. “May I come in or must I adhere to your sign?”
“Come in, please.”
Myla slipped in and closed the door. She had changed into casual garments appropriate for entertaining guests. “I understand you’re angry with your father. Not half as angry as I am, believe me.”
Scents of body wash and shampoo trailed her to the window. “What did he give you?” Kellen asked.
“My gift doesn’t matter. My concern is you. I can’t begin to make up for everything he done to you.”
“I’m okay. I hope you won’t disown me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I plan to make the gifts work to my advantage.”
Myla sat and put her arm around Kellen and tugged him against her side. “Oh, Kellen. I can’t condone whatever it is you have in mind as payback, you know that. This is between you and your father.”
“Have you ever wished he would leave and not come back?”
“Every Christmas since you were eight.” She patted his knee. “I’ve got to get dinner started. We have guests coming, which means the Christmas spirit for you and me ends at five.”
Kellen understood. Business ruled from the time guests arrived until time for bed. It happened every Christmas. Rodney Koufax loathed everything associated with Christmas and implemented his spite on those who found themselves in his presence.
He thanked his mother and began a search for celebrity appearances in Idaho Falls in the coming year. Autographs on playing cards increased their value. The keys on his laptop clicked beneath his fingertips. Names, venues, dates and times filled spaces in a small calendar. By 4:45, Kellen had amassed a list of twenty-seven athletes and entertainers who had appearances scheduled in the upcoming months. He trusted his friend, Whit, to help him get autographs of rodeo stars coming to Sandy Downs arena.
Aromas of roast turkey and baked goods welcomed Kellen to the kitchen. They trailed him to the dining room where place settings for eight, not nine, adorned the table. Kellen wrapped a fork and steak knife in a white cloth and selected a plate from among his mother’s China. He hid the plate beneath his shirt. He wanted no questions if his father saw him with a plate beyond the specified area.
Kellen turned into the hall and bumped into his father. He tightened his left arm against the plate. The doorbell saved him from the skepticism apparent in Rodney’s expression.
“Go to your room, boy.”
“Yes, sir.” Lead story: A nuclear bomb the size of a pinhead decapitated Rodney Koufax after wife planted it in a dinner roll. Kellen set the plate on his nightstand. No thank you. I prefer my approach.
Chitchat ebbed into a broken dialogue. His parents and guest had begun their evening meal. Kellen placed the Snickers on the plate and picked up the dinnerware. A bold twelve-year-old marched to the dining room.
Kellen set his plate between his mother and the youngest of the three women guests seated at the opposite end from his father. He removed the dinnerware from the napkin, folded the napkin, and smoothed it on the table. He bowed his head in silent prayer, inserted the knife’s point on the underside of the candy wrapper and sliced from middle to end. The wrapper crinkled as Kellen folded it open. With the fork in his left hand and knife in his right, he carved off a butter-pad-thick section of the Snickers. He gazed at it with hungry eyes and lifted it to his mouth.
“Mmmmn, good.”
His mother lowered her head. The woman on his left gasped. “If this is a joke, it’s not the least bit amusing.”
“Go to your room,” Rodney said.
Kellen repeated his ritual. “You should try it,” he told the woman. “Taste nothing like the turkey on your plate. I’d say more like chicken.”
At Kellen’s third bite, Rodney stood. Myla leaned over and kissed Kellen’s head. “Do like you father said, sweetheart.”
Kellen hugged her. “I love you, Mom.” He wrapped the rest of the candy bar and smiled at the guests. “I understand holiday leftovers are delicious.” He gathered the plate, dinnerware, and napkin and sauntered to his room.
The security lights out front lit ninety minutes later. Kellen rushed to the window and opened it. The guests moseyed to their vehicles on the driveway except the eldest man, who Kellen guessed was about fifty.
The man paused on the steps. “Rodney, I’ve always believed you an intelligent man and appreciate you allowing the wife and me to share a meal with you and Myla. The entertainment put on by your son was nothing short of spectacular. Pure genius. I’m sure you’re proud of the person he will one day become.”
Motion across the street captured Kellen’s focus. The neighbor stepped into porch light. Kellen waved. The man lifted his left hand. “Merry Christmas, young Koufax.”
He wished. Kellen looked forward to birthdays. Until …
Chapter Two
Four years, five months later
Nothing prepared Kellen Koufax for what happened on his seventeenth birthday. A woman darkened the doorway at Skyline High School and scanned the classroom until her gaze fixed on him. Her straight-lined lips tightened his stomach. The gun and badge affixed to her belt marked her as someone Kellen preferred to avoid. He wanted nothing to do with anyone who relied on a firearm in their career, with the exception of one family member
The teacher approached Kellen and whispered, “This lady is from Idaho Falls Police.” Concern and curiosity infected the teacher’s tone. “She asked to speak to you in private.”
Kellen glanced over at a Grizzly football teammate. His friend’s expression whispered questions everyone else in the classroom likely pondered. Kellen’s focus shifted to the logo of the bear print on his friend’s sweatshirt until the word GRIZZ blurred into its blue background before he turned and studied the woman’s face.
Young for a police detective. He guessed no older than twenty-five and attractive. He left his desk and paced her squish-squash footfalls from the classroom to the principal’s office where the school’s guidance counselor waited with a uniformed officer. The counselor ushered Kellen and the detective into her office. The officer followed and posted himself near the door.
The detective motioned Kellen to sit in one of two chairs in front of the counselor’s small desk. She sat on the other and leaned forward. “My name is Detective Sahar Osman. I work in Idaho Falls Police Department’s Crimes Against Persons Unit.”
Kellen stared at her. Why do you want to talk to me?
She continued, “Officers responded to a fire this morning at Sandy Downs.”
“My parents work there,” Kellen said. “Is that why you’re here. Has something happened to one of them?” He perceived a sag in her shoulders. Most bystanders might not have noticed but he did.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the fire engulfed the office before they could get out.”
They’re dead? They’re both dead? Kellen bowed his head. He closed his eyes and imagined a fire’s sounds and images as the whoosh of red-orange flames sucked oxygen from the air and lashed his parents who struggled to inhale their final breaths and flailed their arms to beat off the flames. A hand touched his left shoulder. The only part of his body to sense warmth other than the tears on his cheeks.
“Kellen?”
He lifted his head. His gaze met the detective’s. “Will I be allowed to see them?”
The guidance counselor said, “I don’t think—”
The detective held up her hand. “The county coroner has charge of their bodies. He removed them from the scene pending a postmortem examination. Would you like for me or your guidance counselor to call somebody for you?”
“My aunt Trina Covell in Hoback, Wyoming.”
“Anyone else?”
“She and my uncle and cousin are the only family I have left.” Hearing himself admit it opened a void inside his chest. Never had he felt alone. Kellen rattled off Trina’s address and a contact number.
The uniformed officer jotted the information on a pad. “I’m on it.” He left the room.
“How long will the coroner keep their bodies?”
Detective Osman inched closer. “These cases can be complicated. They require a systematic exam, which takes time to complete. How long that takes depends on their caseload. Their bodies will be treated with the utmost respect and the coroner’s office will release them to the funeral home of your choice as soon as possible.”
Kellen never imagined either of his parents, much less both, dying before he finished school, married and fathered a child or two for them to spoil with attention and gifts. At least from his mother. This was too much to take in. What was he to do?
“Do you know the fire’s origin?”
“We believe a former employee firebombed the office complex.” The detective pulled out a business card and placed it in his left palm. “I am available day and night. Call me if you feel the need.” She folded his fingers around the card and squeezed his hand.
Kellen loathed a stranger’s touch and would have pulled away any other time. He welcomed hers. A caring spirit seeped through the tough façade he had seen police wear in public. Detective Osman’s gentleness soothed him more than he dared admit but never deny its existence. He thought it might be the way she regarded him when she spoke. The way reassurance might come from an older sister if he had one.
He glanced at the crème-colored card she put in his hand. “I want to go home. Will you take me? It’s five minutes from here and I figure you might need to search the house for any clues to help explain their deaths or maybe look for a reason this person targeted them.”
Detective Osman’s expression remained businesslike. “The arsonist sent a message to a local television station stating his intentions. We have no reason to search your home.”
“Does that mean you will not be the one to take me?” His tone came out rife with sadness. “I would like you there with me when I talk to Aunt Trina. She will have questions, and I have no answers.”
The guidance counselor rose from her chair. “The vice principal and I will see you home, Kellen. I’m sure the detective has to get back to the investigation.” She lifted an attaché to the desktop, wrote something on her blotter and picked up her cellphone.
“Kellen is a vital part of our investigation, and I have a few more questions to ask him.” Detective Osman situated the chair as she found it in front of the desk. “He and I will resume our chat there.”
The counselor rounded the desk. “We have things here we need to discuss.”
Kellen opened the door and strode through the principal’s office. He heard the detective say, “This takes priority.”
Out in the hall, Hailey Pearson rushed up to him from behind. Her midnight, waist-length hair curled across her shoulders. She handed off Kellen’s book bag. Its weight lighter sans the textbooks. He curled his arm and shouldered the bag unaware of the item she hid inside.
“The vice principal told the class what happened. I’m sorry, Kellen.” Hailey sidled and kissed his cheek. “I’d like to see you whenever you have time.”
Kellen took her hand, rubbed his thumb across the hand he held on their dates and gave a terse squeeze before he released it. “I’ll find time.” Hailey nodded, rounded the corner, head down. Another reality turned into a memory. Finality poked a hole in his heart. Uncertainty filled the space in his chest where hope once thrived.
