The Last Time She Saw Him (18 page)

The big man grabs his license and shoves it under my nose for a close inspection.

“See? I didn’t look half bad then, don’t you think? You’re married, aren’t you? I see that big rock on your finger. That’s too bad. You’re real pretty.”

I scan the driver’s license for any pertinent information. The man getting sauced in front of me was born the same year as Ben. He would have been in my brother’s class in Sparrow.

I check the name on the license to see if I remember him. Brewster. Mark Wallace Brewster. A sickly panic starts to build in my chest. Thirty years after he tried to beat up my brother at Funland, my childhood bully is standing right in front of me. I feel overpowered for a second, like I am a seven-year-old poor kid again. I look over at Brewster and swear that I can detect the makings of a nasty smile beginning to spread across Brewster’s face as he senses my fear. But before I give in to self-doubt and panic, I steady myself and remember Ben’s words as we sat outside of the library in Sparrow after we ran away from our bully.

I look back at Brewster, the once spoiled rich kid who is now drunk out of his mind and covered in pig shit, and I regain control. I had forgotten about the rumors of Brewster’s demise. He became a big druggie in high school after his mother died. He smoked pot under the bridge with the older kids before school and then graduated to meth and later heroin. His father was still president of the county council and remarried a woman who was only four years older than Mark. The dad finally cut Mark off after two unsuccessful stints at a military school and later rehab. If Brewster wound up with Parker, he obviously had nowhere else to go.

“Small world. When I was a kid, my parents took me to Sparrow during the summers. I loved that place. I remember Funland. Sparrow also had a roller skating rink with a bowling alley downstairs as I recall. And there was the boardwalk. Back then, I thought Sparrow was the greatest place on earth.”

“You’ve been to Sparrow?” Brewster asks.

He leaps up from his chair and gives me an uncomfortable hug that is too close and too tight. Brewster smells like a biker bar at closing time. I back away and put the cheap card table between us.

“I remember one summer while we were visiting, there were a lot of stories about a kid who went missing,” I say. “My mom got really overprotective and wouldn’t let us go to the beach by ourselves after that. I’m trying to remember the kid’s name. I think it was a boy.”

Brewster goes back to the refrigerator for another beer and then lights a cigarette. He starts hacking after his first puff, coughs up a yellow phlegm ball, and spits it into the ashtray.

“Oh, right. You mean that little bastard Ben,” Brewster sneers. “Ben Gooden was his name. Stupid brat. He was poor as shit and came from nothing. But he acted like he owned the whole damn town. He and his crappy little family weren’t even good enough to be white trash. He was a big-mouthed jerk, always getting in people’s faces if they said anything about his family or that kid sister of his.”

Brewster throws his head back and begins to howl with laughter, opening his mouth so wide I can see he is missing at least four teeth in the back.

“May pop! May pop! Ben is wearing may pops!” Brewster sings with glee. “Ben Gooden was so poor, his mom bought him shoes at the A&P. We called them may pops because we said Ben’s toes were going to pop out of those ratty old sneakers at any minute.”

I sit on my hands so I won’t lunge across the table and slug Brewster.

“Yeah, that kid disappeared. As far as I am concerned, he had it coming,” Brewster says and takes another chug of beer. “I remember now. It was right around Labor Day weekend before school started. I don’t think the police ever found out what happened to him.”

“Your cousin was a bus driver, right? A.J. told me how much he loved kids and he used to drive buses back then. Those guys always know what’s going on. Did he ever mention anything to you about Ben?”

Brewster puts his beer down on the table and his brow knits together. Even though Brewster is now beyond drunk, he’s still sober enough to suspect I’m up to something.

“You seem awfully interested in this kid Ben. Why’s that?”

“I told you. I heard about the kid when we were visiting that one summer. I was just curious. I figured if you were from there, you might know what had happened to the boy. It’s just a big coincidence you used to live there.”

“People talked is all,” Brewster slurs as the influx of booze starts to hit him. “There were a lot of stories out there. I heard the dad probably sold the kid to get money. Other people thought Ben ran away to get the hell away from his family. And who could blame him? Poor kids like that don’t amount to anything anyway. Never do. Then the rich people get sucked dry by having to pay extra to be sure those poor bastards get their food stamps and Medicaid and other handouts. Poor people like that deserve to die. It would make things easier for everyone.”

I spot Brewster’s gun still propped up in the corner of the room and calculate how long it would take me to grab it. My escape plan takes a backseat as Brewster pulls out a necklace from underneath his dirty T-shirt. The necklace is a simple silver chain with a charm in the center, a baseball with red stitching and a red, white, and blue hat. In the center is the word Y
ANKEES
. Ben’s necklace. He bought it after he worked an entire summer mowing lawns. Ben was so proud of that necklace, he never took it off. I close my eyes for a second, and my brother’s image sparks clear in my memory. He was wearing the necklace when he went to bed the night he disappeared.

“Where did you get that?” I demand.

“A.J. gave it to me. What’s it to you?”

Everything. I feel a rush of heat creep up my face. I have to force myself not to start pummeling Brewster and snatch my brother’s necklace from his fat neck. That necklace touched my brother’s skin. That bastard Parker stole my brother, took his prized possession, and gave it to this sorry asshole. I’ll be damned if I don’t get it back. I feel the burn of tears begin and a blind fury growing inside me.
Keep it together, Julia
, I tell myself.

“My husband loves the Yankees,” I say, softening my voice. “I haven’t seen one of those charms in a long time. Tell you what, let me buy it from you.”

“It’s not for sale,” Brewster responds coldly, and shoves the necklace inside his T-shirt.

“How about two hundred dollars.”

“Two hundred?”

“Two hundred. I’ll go to my car and get the money. I just came from the bank and left all my cash in the glove compartment. I’d really like to give you one of my business cards for A.J. and I left them in my purse. Tell you what, I’ll get you another beer before I go. Do we have a deal?”

“Two hundred and fifty bucks and you’ve got a deal. Just hand me that beer before you go, sweetheart,” he says and reaches behind his neck to unclasp the necklace.

My heart feels like it is pumping outside of my chest as Brewster holds my brother’s necklace out to me in his grime-stained palm. I take the necklace in one fluid move, forcing myself not to snatch it, and Brewster tries to rise on his wobbly feet. He steadies himself against the thin card table as another wave of liquor kicks in. He stumbles over to the corner of the kitchen by the stove, picks up his rifle, and opens the back screen door. I can hear the quick, staccato rhythm of my heart beating as I watch my childhood bully stagger to the edge of the deck and line up a row of empty beer cans in a drunken, uneven line. I quickly press my brother’s necklace to my lips, shove it in my pocket, and hurry to the back door.

“Always good to do a little target practice,” Brewster says as the screen slams shut behind me. “You never know when you’re going to need it.”

Brewster stumbles in my direction and places his index finger under my chin.

“Maybe we can get to know each other a little better when you get back with the money. What do you say?”

“I’ll be back in just a minute with the cash. Don’t go anywhere. Okay?”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll be waiting for you,” Brewster promises and puckers his lips together as if he is blowing me a kiss.

I walk at a relaxed pace through the backyard until I am sure I am out of Brewster’s line of vision. As soon as I can’t see him anymore, I race past the side of the house just as Brewster starts firing shots at the beer cans. The sound of the gun and my probable panic alert the Rottweiler. The dog begins its vicious, tethered rampage as I sprint past. I don’t turn around to face the angry beast and keep moving until I reach my car. Safely inside, I try and temper my breathing. I snap the locks shut, feeling my only sense of security in the last twenty minutes since Brewster pulled the gun on me, and then accidentally drop the car keys on the floorboard. I bend down to pick them up, jam the key into the ignition, and look through the windshield. Rounding the corner from the backyard is Brewster. He is running straight toward me like a wild hillbilly with his gun pointed at my vehicle. He stops abruptly at the Chevy truck and unclasps the Rottweiler’s leash.

“Come on, come on,” I yell and finally turn the key in the ignition. I jam my foot on the gas pedal just as Brewster opens fire. I instinctively duck down and stay in place as a single bullet pierces the rear passenger door.

“You lying bitch! You took my necklace, and now I’m going to kill you,” Brewster howls as I peel off the gravel shoulder and begin to escape down the dirt country road.

I keep my eyes on Brewster, who continues to pump and shoot in a pretty good rhythm for a drunk guy, until he becomes a tiny speck in my rearview mirror.

When Brewster is finally out of sight, I pull the New York Yankees necklace out of my pocket and hold it tightly in my right hand.

“I didn’t let him beat me, Ben,” I say. “I didn’t let him beat me.”

CHAPTER 12

I
fight a screaming, primal urge to search for the hunting camp myself. But since I have a drunken bully with a gun threatening to kill me, I realize I need to go to the police instead of playing rogue investigative reporter again. I fumble for my phone and punch in Navarro’s number, fully expecting to get his voice mail.

“Navarro here.”

“Thank God,” I say hurriedly. “I need to see you right now. I found a new piece of evidence, and there’s another building on Parker’s property you need to search. Just tell me where you are and I’ll meet you.”

“Did you go to Parker’s place?” Navarro asks. “Holy shit, you did. You’re going to get yourself hurt, or worse, killed if you keep pulling stunts like this.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

“Christ almighty. All right. I’m in Decremer. Meet me downtown. I’m at the Harvest Café.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” I answer and hit the gas hard, forcing the speedometer to leap to the right.

I make it to downtown in three. I bypass the jammed line of parked cars along Main Street and pull up in front of the restaurant loading dock in the rear of the building.

I hustle inside and grab the arm of a young hostess who is trying to ignore the swell of waiting customers crowding around the podium.

“I need to find someone, tall guy, good looking, mid-thirties, with a thick New Jersey accent. He’s got a barbed-wire tattoo on his bicep. You need to take me to him right now.”

The hostess stares down at my hand, which is latched around her wrist, and leads me wordlessly through the double row of cherry-red booths filled to capacity with the late-lunch crowd.

I spot Navarro before he sees me. He’s busy devouring a just-delivered sandwich of boiled meat, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese with so much passion, it looks like he is savoring his very last meal before he goes to the electric chair.

I slide into the booth across from Navarro, grab his plate, and hand it to a passing waiter.

“The detective is all through,” I tell the waiter. “We need to talk.”

“You didn’t have to take my food, for God’s sake. What’ve you got?”

“Parker has a hunting camp on his property. I’ve got something else. I’m sure it belonged to my brother,” I say and carefully pull Ben’s necklace from my pocket.

I place it delicately on the table and arrange the chain so the necklace lies perfectly flat.

“This necklace is extremely important to me, so you have to promise me I’ll get it back.”

“New York Yankees. Where did you get this?” Navarro asks.

“At Parker’s place. I ran into someone I knew from a long time ago. He lives with Parker and says he’s a relative. The guy, his name is Mark Brewster, told me about the hunting camp. Brewster said they’ve got thirty acres there, plenty of land to hide a missing child. He told me the hunting camp is by the old Shaw Mill covered bridge.”

Navarro raises his index finger and grabs his cell phone. “Yeah, we need another search warrant for the entire property this time, including a hunting camp that is down by the old covered bridge. We’ve got another piece of evidence that looks like it belonged to the brother in the ’77 abduction.”

Navarro ends his call and turns his attention back to me.

“You know better than that. What were you thinking breaking into Parker’s house? Not only is it dangerous, it’s illegal. You could get five to ten years in jail for a breaking and entering collar. I should arrest you right now and then at least you’d be out of my hair for a while.”

“But you won’t.”

“Do me a favor and don’t play daredevil reporter again. You’re better alive than dead to your kids,” he says.

“What else did you get from Parker?” I ask.

“His story checks out about his uncle letting him live on the farm after the aunt died. The aunt drowned during an outing on Port Huron, but no body was ever found. According to census records, Parker has been living there for twenty years at least.”

Like most journalists, math was never my strong point. I grab the pen sticking out of Navarro’s shirt pocket and jot down a few numbers on the paper place mat in front of me.

“Something doesn’t seem right,” I realize.

“What are you talking about? Everything is right. We’ve got the guy who kidnapped your brother and son in jail already. All we need is for Parker to tell us where he’s hidden Will.”

“The timeframe isn’t right. You think Parker was keeping an eye on me all these years because he was worried one day I’d be able to remember what happened the night Ben was taken and I’d identify him to the cops. If that’s the case, your theory can’t be right. Parker came to South Lakeport twenty years ago. We bought our lake house three years ago. David and I lived in downtown Detroit and then Rochester Hills before that, and neither of those places are right next door to him.”

“So maybe he lived there already, and one day he picked up the paper and saw your byline. He got spooked,” Navarro says. “It’s too much of a coincidence. He found out about your summer property and thought you were getting too close. Creeping up on him from Detroit to Decremer. You obviously know the cops since that’s your beat, and he couldn’t take any chances. Did you see that stack of newspapers in the kitchen? Every single one had your name circled in red pen. He was obsessing, tracking you. And when he didn’t see your byline anymore after you took your leave of absence from the paper, he got scared and came to find you. Parker knew the walls were closing in on him and he had to take care of you finally. Jesus, Julia, an Indian arrowhead was found under your brother’s bed and now your son’s. What more do you want?”

“If he was worried about me turning him in, why would he take Will instead of trying to kill me?”

“Because he’s a sick guy,” Navarro says. “He broke into your house thinking he was going to kill you, Logan’s hiding under his bed, but he sees Will and can’t help himself. Or maybe he heard something and got scared, grabbed the kid, and ran. Or maybe he wanted to punish you for making him look over his shoulder all these years. It doesn’t matter the reason he did it. He’s our guy. Not to mention the fact Cahill got that letter today that clearly links Ben and Will.”

“It was hand-delivered. It could’ve been from someone who saw the press conference and was trying to screw with us or throw us off their trail. Parker claims he was with his sponsor last night at the time Will was taken. Did his story pan out?”

“Not exactly. The sponsor said he was with Parker until ten p.m., but the time of the abduction was ten-thirty. That would give Parker plenty of time to drive over to your house.”

“What if Parker took Ben but not Will? What if it’s someone else, and money is the motive? David and I aren’t millionaires by far, but with David’s promotion in the firm, we’re doing pretty well.”

“If it was money the kidnapper wanted, you would’ve been hit up for ransom by now. No ransom note, no chance the person who took the kid has any plans to give him back. You know that,” Navarro explains. “We’ve got the guy. Now we just need to find out what he did with Will and then we’ll link him to your brother. You put him before any jury, chances are he’ll get the death penalty, easy.”

“I know how you cops work. When you lock in on a suspect, you don’t look at anyone else. You can’t make a mistake on this. You always said I had good instincts, right?”

“Until lately,” Navarro says.

“I’m just not a hundred percent convinced on Parker. One thing I don’t get—Parker is a pedophile. We know that. But pedophiles target a specific age group. Ben was nine when he went missing and Will is only two. You used to work sex crimes. The pattern doesn’t fit.”

“Typically, most pedophiles are attracted to a certain age group or sex of a child. But there are always exceptions. These guys are all different. Some like girls. Some like boys. And the bisexual pedophiles like both. Like I said, there are a lot of reasons why Parker might have taken Will. But if I had to narrow it down to one, I don’t think sex is the motive.”

“What do you think it is then?” I ask, feeling an odd sense of momentary relief.

“Revenge. Parker wanted to get you back.”

My mind fills with black and crimson ribbons of dread as images of Parker torturing Will begin to choke off my sanity.

“Jesus. We need to move faster. Did you get the handwriting analysis results on the letters Cahill got?”

“Not yet. But Parker is obviously a religious guy. He had a Bible next to his bed and a cross hanging on his wall. Plus, he went to AA meetings at Cahill’s old church. Seems like a no-brainer to me with or without the handwriting match,” Navarro says.

I stare down at the number 1977 I wrote on the place mat.

“Did you get anything on the person I asked you to check out? Sarah Gooden?”

Navarro pulls a pair of square-shaped glasses and a skinny notebook from his jacket pocket. He rests the glasses on the bridge of his nose as his eyes check off the multiple offenses on my sister’s rap sheet.

“You said this Sarah is a relative of yours?” he asks.

“Yes, my sister.”

“Holy shit, Julia. Do you have any more surprises you’re waiting to pull out? I told you before, you have to be honest with me about your past. It’s crucial that I know everything. If you keep holding back, it could make the difference for whether your boy is coming home or not.”

“I understand. I wasn’t trying to cover anything up. Sarah was older, a teenager when Ben disappeared. We were never close. She acted like she couldn’t stand Ben and me when we were kids. When my parents took off, Sarah started to get into trouble and my aunt couldn’t handle her anymore, so Sarah wound up in foster care. I don’t think there is any way she was involved in Ben’s kidnapping though. Sarah was too young and that just wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Well, you have suspicions about her now, otherwise you wouldn’t have called me. Do you think Sarah is tangled up in this somehow? She definitely has a record.”

“I don’t know. She showed up out of the blue, had a sit-down with Cahill at the state penitentiary right after the press conference, and then tried to steal a picture of Will to sell to the tabloids.”

“She’s a grifter. Was and most likely still is,” Navarro says and settles the glasses back in position so he can read his notes. “You may know a lot of this already. It looks like she started early. She ran away from foster homes, caught a couple of shoplifting arrests trying to steal food and jewelry, and wound up in juvenile hall. After she turned eighteen, she got popped for drug possession and burglary. Things got quiet for a while after the courts required her to go to rehab as part of her probation requirement. But then it looks like she fell off the wagon pretty quick. Your sister got arrested for possession of meth and intent to sell. A judge gave her a second chance, and she only got ninety days in prison and then another hundred-and-eighty-day mandatory stay in rehab.”

“There’s credit card theft too,” I say.

“I was getting to that. After rehab, she and a dirt-bag guy . . .”

“Steven Beckerus,” I interrupt.

“Yeah, that’s right, Beckerus. It looks like they had a credit card scam going on. Your sister . . .”

“Just refer to her as Sarah, all right?”

“Fine by me. Beckerus and Sarah had a pretty good sting. She’d target rich guys in bars and make them think they had an easy lay. Once they got to the guy’s place, Beckerus would bust in, pretending to be the jealous boyfriend, and beat the shit out of the guy. Then Sarah swept the house for valuables and credit cards.”

“Sounds about right. Where is Beckerus these days?”

Navarro looks back at his notes.

“He did a stint at the Carson City Correctional Facility.”

“Carson City, Michigan?” I ask.

“The one and only.”

“So he’s here. That’s why Sarah showed up. She said she was living in Florida, but I’m betting she’s been here the whole time.”

“Beckerus has been clean for a while, had a steady gig with Sherman Security for over a decade,” Navarro says.

“That’s a pretty big security guard firm, right? I’ve got a source there.”

“Yeah, the owner is one of those ultra-religious types. He was a former convict himself, found God in prison, and started Sherman Security when he got out. He’s known for hiring ex-cons, trying to give them a second chance. I know a retired cop who did some work there. He said it made his skin crawl when he had to do a job alongside of a guy he collared for drugs five years earlier.”

“I interviewed someone from Sherman Security when I was writing about Cahill. Sherman Security had a contract with Cahill’s church. If my sister’s boyfriend was working for the company, there’s a strong chance he could’ve done work for Cahill. He could be involved in Will’s kidnapping.”

“Bottom line, Parker did it. We’re not going to spin our wheels and waste time looking somewhere else. He’s got a hell of a motive and pictures of you and your brother he’s been hiding away for the past thirty years.”

I look down at Ben’s necklace, and my biggest fear wraps around me and won’t let go.

“I just need to be sure. I’m going to ask you something now, and you need to be honest with me.”

“Shoot,” he says.

“Do you think Will is still alive?”

“Don’t give up, okay? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet,” Navarro answers.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I think we still have time. I’ll call you right after we search Parker’s property.”

I swing back into reporter mode and try and figure a way to outmaneuver Navarro.

“I gave you something with the hunting camp and the necklace. Now you need to give me something. I want to go with you when you search Parker’s property. I can be a huge help and can identify anything that might belong to Will.”

“I don’t know what we’re going to find out there, and there’s always a chance it’s not going to be good.”