The Lights Will Never Fade

Chapter 2: Welcome To Connecticut-1

Chapter 2: Welcome To ConnecticutThe small, suburban town hadn't seen a crime like this in years. The last murder in Jenks occurred four years ago, and the one before that was ten years prior. This was by far the worst tragedy the community had ever dealt with. With four of the five Hamilton's dead, and the fifth on her way to Connecticut, residents were shaken by the possibility of a murderer still on the loose. Few, if any, thought that Peyton had anything to do with the slayings. No one could believe that she possessed enough strength to commit the crime or hide the murder weapon so well. The police surmised that she was innocent as well since they searched the woods and subdivision thoroughly, yet they found no evidence that Peyton disposed of a weapon or did anything other than hide in the woods as she said. Yes, she was covered in blood when the police arrived, but she didn't have any marks or wounds on her like they would have expected to see on the killer.

All eyes and suspicion shifted to thirty-six-year-old Brock Greenfield of nearby Broken Arrow. Brock owned and operated a painting business since he was twenty-two, and those who knew him spoke well of him. They shared with police, however, that the last few years had been troublesome for Brock and his family. Three years ago his youngest son drowned in their swimming pool, and it devastated him. Brock and his wife divorced nine months later, the opposite of the life that normally comes after certain nine-month periods of time. He turned to heavy drinking and gambling binges at the casino in Tulsa. Both helped to numb the pain until the numbness faded, and then his sorrow returned even greater.

Brock kept his business going, but his savings began to dwindle from nearly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to just thirty thousand in less than three years. He was well known in and around Tulsa as one of the best painters, and he used to specialize in commercial painting. He landed huge accounts from the federal courthouse downtown to all of the Home Depot's in northeast Oklahoma. He also hit a fifty-thousand-dollar jackpot at the casino five years ago and unlike most people, he invested it in the stock market and turned the fifty thousand dollars into seventy-five thousand within a year.

Then, after the loss of his youngest son and the divorce from his wife of ten years, he stopped pursuing the big commercial contracts and only painted residential homes. His income dropped, and his wife kept the house in Broken Arrow. Brock rented a small home near the Tulsa city line and filled his fridge with beer and his cabinets with various types of liquor. He woke in the morning with a single shot of vodka and went to bed each night with a cold beer next to him. Scattered throughout the day he enjoyed all kinds of drinks and the occasional pill to keep a mild high.

The Jenks police department knocked on Brock Greenfield's door the evening after the Hamilton murders to ask him about his whereabouts and the dispute he had with Kevin Hamilton only a month prior to that fateful day. Detective Nelson and Detective Biggs stood in between the row of red chokecherry bushes planted on both sides of the small front porch and tapped on the navy blue door.

“Can I help you?” Brock asked with paint still on his hands from a full day of work.

“Yes sir,” Detective Nelson said as he got right to the point. “We'd like to ask you a few questions about a murder that took place yesterday over in Jenks. May we come in?”

“You mean the Hamilton murders? I heard about that on the news. What does that have to do with me?”

“Why don't we sit down and talk about it, Mr. Greenfield.” Detective Nelson took a step forward to let himself inside. “You can help us out by answering a few questions that came up during the investigation.” The detectives followed Brock the rest of the way inside, across the faded linoleum entryway, and onto the generic tan carpet in his living room.

“Have a seat.” Brock motioned for the detectives to sit down on the worn leather sofa as he grabbed a beer from the fridge. “You guys want a beer?” Brock asked, not thinking or caring that the detectives were on duty. He drank when he worked, and he assumed that it was late enough in the day for anyone to enjoy a beer.

“No thank you, Mr. Greenfield,” said Detective Biggs. “We heard that you and Kevin Hamilton were involved in some sort of dispute last month over nonpayment for a job you did for them. Is that true?”

“Yeah, it's true, but I didn't kill them.” Brock leaned back and took a nice, long drink from his beer before he sat down in his suede recliner that used to portray a dark tan color.

“No one is saying that you killed them, Mr. Greenfield,” Detective Biggs spoke softly, yet Brock knew that he was serious. He understood that this investigation was the biggest thing in Jenks right now. “We'd just like to find out more about the details regarding the dispute, and we'd like to know if the matter resolved itself or if it was still ongoing.”

“It never resolved itself. They stiffed me for the final thirty-one hundred dollars they owed me. Kevin refused to pay because it took me longer than expected to finish the job, and I threatened to sue him.” Brock took another heavy gulp of his beer.

“So, you threatened him, is that what you're saying?” asked Detective Nelson.

“Not like that. I told him I would sue him if he didn't pay me, and he said he'd see me in court. I never got around to filing a lawsuit, but I guess that doesn't really matter now, does it?”

“You don't seem too broken up over the murders.” Detective Biggs leaned forward from the sofa. He locked eyes with Brock and took on his role as the bad cop. “Where were you yesterday morning between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.?”

“Let's see,” Brock said before he downed the rest of his beer, “at 7:00 a.m. I was at the Chick-fil-A on Gary Ave, and I left there around 7:30 a.m. I got to the job I was working at by 7:45 a.m. at the latest, and I didn't leave there until lunch. That was probably around 1:00 p.m.”

“And where were you working yesterday morning?” asked Detective Biggs.

“At a house on Admiral and 145th. Call them; they'll tell you I was there all morning.” Brock crushed the beer can and tossed it on the floor. The detectives asked him a few more questions while Brock grabbed another beer and leaned against the kitchen table. He didn't care what the detectives thought about him and wasn't about to postpone his night of drinking. He escorted the detectives out when they were finished and drank until he passed out in his favorite recliner.

The detectives followed up on Brock Greenfield's alibi the following morning. They called the family where he claimed to be working, and they confirmed that Brock was there between 7:45 and 8:00 a.m. They drove down to the Chick-fil-A on Gary Ave and discovered that their video cameras were not working and had not been for the past week in fact. The police determined that Brock remained a person of interest. He was a viable suspect due to his lack of remorse for the deceased family and his obvious motive, with respect to nonpayment for the job merely a month prior to their deaths. Neither Detective Nelson nor Detective Biggs were convinced he was their man, yet they knew something was off with Brock.

Word began to spread throughout Jenks, Tulsa, Broken Arrow, and Owasso that the police suspected Brock Greenfield in the murders. Public opinion swung heavily against the grieving father of his own lost child. Brock lost every single job he had lined up after the one he was currently working on, and he turned to the vodka bottle before 10:00 a.m. and Jack Daniel's whiskey at night. The morning shot turned into a morning bottle, and the beer changed into drinks of much higher alcohol content. Brock made his way through the next few days in a buzzed haze.

The detectives informed Charity and Peyton that Brock was a suspect but admitted they still had no evidence to tie him to the crime. It was September 8, seven days after the murders and the day after the memorial service at Riverside Park. They assured the girls that they would not rest until they found the man responsible for the killings. They promised them that they would investigate Brock Greenfield as thoroughly as possible. They would either rule him out as a suspect, or they would find the evidence needed to convict him for the crimes.

Detective Nelson also assured Peyton that she was not a suspect in the case. The Jenks sheriff held a press conference on September 8 to make that clear to the public as well, that Peyton was not a suspect in the murder of her family. Peyton and Charity both breathed a sigh of relief when they heard this though neither thought she would be charged anyway. Still, some rumors began to spread, claiming that the girl was the true killer. They both felt better after they heard the sheriff say that she was not a suspect.

The consensus was that she simply could not have been strong enough to kill them all, especially her father, while not leaving any evidence behind. The blood found on her body and clothes when the police arrived were easily explained as a grieving sister and daughter who held her little brother and tried to see if her father was still alive. Yes, there must be a good explanation for the monstrous crime that took place that day, and most of the Bible Belt turned their eyes to Brock Greenfield. After all, desperate drunks have been known to commit all sorts of crimes when they were impaired.

On the morning of September 9, Charity and Peyton loaded up Peyton's orange Jeep Grand Cherokee and hit the road. The girls embarked on the fourteen hundred mile trip from Oklahoma to Connecticut. They'd put everything of value from Peyton's parents in storage, and she packed her nicest clothes and a few family pictures with her in the Jeep along with the four urns. Charity canceled her return flight to JFK and drove the two of them as they began their somber yet somewhat hopeful journey home.

Oklahoma quickly turned into Missouri as Illinois waited patiently on the other side. The girls made it across the state line into Indiana and spent the night in Terre Haute at the Super Holiday Motel. The room was fitted with retro décor and even had a mini fridge and microwave to match the paisley curtains and bedding. Peyton rested well while she dreamed about starting over in Connecticut. She pictured the beautiful weeping willow tree in the front yard of Aunt Charity's off-white colonial home. Her dreams didn't last all night anymore as she usually woke to a nightmare of some sort.

Many nights she woke up in a warm sweat like someone running a fever. A few times since finding her family lifeless, she woke up wide-eyed and sitting straight up like that first night with her aunt in Oklahoma. This night in Indiana made for the most peaceful rest yet. She didn't experience either of those two things though she did wrestle with dark patches in her mind. She couldn't quite explain what the dark patches and images were, but she knew where they came from. She'd tried to bury them deep inside, but now that she was all alone they were beginning to creep out of her. They headed out in the morning and stopped in Indianapolis for a late breakfast at Parker Jean's Diner, slightly off Highway 70.

“This is my first time in Indiana,” said Charity. She tried to make conversation with her niece as she was fairly quiet so far on the trip.

“Me too.” Peyton ate her pancakes and sipped her Mountain Dew while her aunt opted for bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and a glass of ice water.

“I don't know how you drink soda with pancakes, it sounds so disgusting. It's like brushing your teeth and then drinking a glass of orange juice.”

“It's funny that you call it soda,” Peyton said with a half-smile and another drink of her pop.