The Last Time She Saw Him (21 page)

“If you’re lying, I swear I’ll kill you,” Navarro says and squats down so he’s looking Parker dead in the eye. “What did the man look like?”

“Dark-skinned. Not black. Maybe Hispanic or Indian. I don’t know. It was a long time ago. The only thing I remember, this guy had a big old nasty scar that was sliced down the side of his face. Kind of in the shape of a crescent moon from his cheek to his jaw. The guy was as big as a mountain. He picks up the Ben kid with one hand and throws him in the back of the van, and then it takes off down the street.”

“Nice story. But how’d you get the necklace?” Navarro asks.

“I saw it on the ground. It was shining under the streetlight. I got out of the car and put it in my pocket after the van took off.”

“You’re a lying sack of shit. And if you are telling the truth, you’re a worthless excuse for a life for not calling the police to help save that boy.”

“I didn’t want to get involved,” Parker answers and cowers in his chair, as if Navarro is going to punch him in the face for his response. “You have to understand. I had a record even back then and police would’ve been suspicious if I reported it. I never wanted to hurt the kid. I just wanted to play with him a little bit. I got an alibi if you’re still thinking I did it and it’s air-tight.”

“Air-tight after thirty years, huh? That’s convenient. Memories get pretty fuzzy.”

“You call Joe Brighton down at Lou Ion’s bar. The place is still there and he’s still the owner. I went to Ion’s right after I saw the guy throw the kid in the van. I remember the exact time because I was a little freaked out about what I saw. I mean I ain’t no saint or nothin’ with kids, but I could tell something pretty bad was going down. The time was twelve-fifteen a.m. I got a drink for last call and then I stayed and talked to Joe until about two a.m. He’ll remember. I helped him break up a fight between his son and some loser redneck. The son broke the guy’s nose and the cops came. That’ll spark his memory.”

Navarro studies Ben’s case file and taps the tip of his pen down on the line where the police report lists the time I called 911 after I woke up and discovered Ben was missing: 12:30
AM
.

“We’ll call your alleged alibi. But your story stinks. What are you hiding, Parker? And what about those bones we found underneath your hunting camp? Save us some time and come clean. You’re not getting out of this one.”

Parker taps his teeth together as he considers his options. He then folds his hands across his chest, his decision made.

“This doesn’t come back to me, all right?”

“No guarantees,” Navarro answers.

“My aunt and uncle lived on the farm for years before my uncle let me live there. My aunt was real sick with cancer. She was suffering bad, terminal, and my uncle couldn’t watch her like that anymore. He begged her doctor to do something, but the doctor wouldn’t. So my uncle got his shotgun, slipped her a big old dose of morphine, and shot her through the heart. It was a mercy killing. He buried her under the hunting camp so it wouldn’t come back on him. You ask my uncle. He’ll tell you the truth.”

The interview room door props opens, and Navarro’s partner, Russell, enters.

“Your job is done here, Julia. You can go now,” Navarro says.

I rise slowly to my feet and stare at Parker, sweaty and oozing with desperation. I open my mouth, ready to explode, but Navarro stops me before I can get a word out.

“Keep going.”

I start toward the door and then pivot in the opposite direction. I lean into Parker and whisper in his ear, “I could kill you for what you did,” and then shove my knee into his balls as hard as I can.

Parker lets out a howl and collapses in a fetal position on the floor, cupping his genitals.

I rear my leg back, unable to control myself now, and am about to launch a kick into Parker’s ribs when Navarro yanks me back.

“God damn it. Get out of here!” Navarro yells.

Navarro’s hand stays locked around my waist. He throws the interview room door open with his free hand, gives me a hard shove, and slams the door behind me. I run down the hallway as fast as I can, angry and raw and just needing to find an escape from the scene Parker painted in my mind. I clip around the corner quickly and collide into Pamela, the records clerk, and her files scatter across the floor.

“Sorry, Julia! I should’ve watched where I was going. I was just in a hurry to get back to the office after meeting with Reverend Casey Cahill’s attorney.”

I force myself to focus, get back on my feet, and help Pamela pick up the files. After my breathing steadies, I play what could be my last card.

“Navarro told me about your meeting,” I lie. “What did you find out about my son?”

“Cahill’s lawyer turned over the entire list of parishioners and anyone who ever made a donation to the church. There was a lot to go through. He had more than twenty thousand attendees at each service before he got all weird.”

“Did you find anything?”

“It was inconclusive. It’s not like people signed in at each service, and Parker could’ve watched the reverend on TV or on one of the church’s podcasts. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’ve already got Parker and his accomplice in custody.”

“Can I see a copy of the letters that were sent to Cahill, the ones about me and my son?”

Pamela digs through the reassembled files and hands me a piece of heavy stationery. The handwriting is fluid and perfect. Parker’s handwriting was that of a barely functioning illiterate. There’s no way he could have written the letters to Cahill.

“Thanks for your help. I need to talk to Navarro.”

I hightail it back down the hall to the interview room. I’m almost to the door when my cell phone begins to buzz in my pocket, but I ignore it. I bang my fist against the interview room door for a good minute and continue to pound until Navarro gives and the door finally flies open. Navarro greets me, red-faced and furious.

“What the hell are you doing? Russell and I were going to get him to tell the truth and then you attack him. He’s going to press charges against you. His story was bullshit. I’m trying to get a confession here. He gives up your brother, then he gives up where he has Will.”

“Parker didn’t take Will. I should’ve listened to my gut and pushed you harder, but I didn’t. My sister Sarah and her boyfriend are involved. You need to find them.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Navarro shouts.

“Remember the letters Cahill got, the ones that said I had more than enough and it was my turn to pay? I saw those letters. The handwriting was beautiful and it was pretty, flowery writing, like a woman wrote it. I saw the piece of paper Parker wrote his sponsor’s name and number on. His handwriting is like a five-year-old’s. Parker didn’t write those letters to Cahill. You’ve got the wrong guy. He didn’t take Will.”

“You interrupt my interrogation for this? We don’t even know if those letters are legitimate yet. And if they are, maybe Brewster wrote them. Stop screwing around and let me do my job. You’re pissing me off.”

“Please, we are running out of time. If this bastard killed my brother, believe me, no one wants him caught more than me. But my brother has been gone for thirty years, and as much as I’d like to believe Ben is coming back, he isn’t. You said it yourself. We still have time to save Will. But not much. Please, I beg you. You’re looking at the wrong guy.”

“Get out of here. I’m warning you. Go home and don’t come back.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“If you don’t leave, I’m going to arrest you for attempting to block an investigation. I’m not playing. Understood?”

Navarro spins me around and gives me a hard shove toward the precinct’s front door.

“You’re making a mistake,” I call back to him.

But he’s already gone back inside the interview room with Parker.

I realize I’m in this alone now. I rush back to my car with one focus in mind. I need to find Sarah’s phone number. I start to search through my contacts on my cell phone when I notice three new voice mail messages flash across the screen and hit the play button.

“
Julia, it’s Tony Gowan. I have news on Steven Beckerus. He was scheduled to work backup security at Tiger Stadium last night. He clocked out at eight-thirty p.m. The job was supposed to go through midnight. Apparently, Beckerus left early because he was sick
.”

I save the message and am about to disconnect when the second message begins to play.

“Shit,” I say aloud. Kim shouldn’t confront them without the police or me there.

The third and final voice mail message then begins to play.

“
Mommy, help me! Please, Mommy! Auntie Kim is . . .”

The rest of Logan’s desperate message is suddenly cut off.

CHAPTER 15

I
speed-dial Kim’s home number for the twentieth time as I fly down the highway, but the line is still busy.
Okay, Julia, keep calm
, I try and tell myself. Kim doesn’t have call waiting. She thinks it’s impolite. Kim is probably calling the police. I ignore the gnawing ache growing in my chest and try Kim’s cell again.

“Come on, come on, answer the phone,” I yell and pound my fist against the dashboard.

“
You’ve reached Kim, please leave your name and number and I’ll return your call. Have a nice day
.”

My call goes straight to Kim’s cheery voice mail recording.

“Damn it,” I yell as a swarm of red brake lights flashes ahead and traffic begins to crawl into a single lane for road construction.

I slam on the brakes and replay Logan’s frantic voice message to try and decipher anything I might have missed the first time.

“
Mommy, help me!
” Logan begs.

My cell phone beeps in my ear mid-message.

“Kim, thank God!”

But the beeping sound continues. Kim isn’t trying to call. The incessant beeping is just a reminder my phone charge has dwindled down to less than one percent. I never charged my phone last night and it’s about to die. If I hurry, I may have time to make one more call. I make a split-second decision and dial Navarro’s cell phone.

I made a critical mistake. Navarro is still interrogating Parker, so my only option is to leave a message.

“Navarro, damn it. It’s Julia. I just got a message from Kim and Logan. They’re in danger. I think my sister Sarah is involved. She and her boyfriend stopped by my friend Kim’s house earlier. They know where she lives and Logan is there. I dropped him off at Kim’s house so I could meet you at the police station. Two other people are staying with Kim who may be suspects. Their names are Alice and Leslie. I don’t know their last names. They posed as long lost relatives, but Kim just found out they are not who they claimed to be. She left me a message about half an hour ago saying she was going down to the guesthouse to confront them. You need to send officers down there right away. Kim’s address
is . . .”

My phone makes one last, long beep and then dies. I didn’t have time to leave Kim’s last name, and now Navarro can’t track her address. I can’t afford any more mistakes.

I veer into the shoulder and pass the traffic, which has stalled to a standstill. I pray a police officer will pull me over for my illegal move, but of course there is none in sight. I shoot off the exit ramp and merge onto the lonely country back roads that lead to Kim’s country estate. Kim’s expansive property is a good ten miles away from her nearest neighbor, so Logan won’t be able to find help unless he flags down a car, if he is able to escape.

At the ten-mile mark to Kim’s house, I spot a convenience store in the distance. It’s a one-pump gas station, “The Do Drop In.” The store has to have a phone inside. I jerk the car to a stop and park next to a sign that reads, C
OLD
B
EER
, L
IVE
B
AIT
, B
EEF
J
ERKY, AND
D
EER
P
ROCESSING IN THE
B
ACK
. A tall, elderly man wearing a worn red cardigan sweater and a pair of plaid suspenders is stooped behind the counter. I rush to the front door and give it a strong push, but the glass door doesn’t budge against my weight. A sign taped on the door that has a yellow clock with a smiley face posts the closing time as 6:30
PM
. According to my watch, it’s only 6:25
PM
.

“Come on, open up,” I yell and bang on the door with my fists.

The older gentleman continues to count out his cash drawer, oblivious to my crazed presence on the other side of the glass.

“Hey, out here! I need to use your phone. It’s an emergency.”

Despite my persistence, the old storekeeper doesn’t look up.

But I won’t be ignored. I run back to my car and slam my fist on the horn, which delivers a good twenty-second blast. Finally, the elderly man raises his head up slowly from the cash drawer. The shopkeeper pulls out a pair of wire-framed eyeglasses from his cardigan pocket with a shaky hand and peers in my direction. The old gentleman then leans on his cane and hobbles over to the front door in a pained, arthritic gait.

“I’m getting ready to close, dear,” the elderly shopkeeper says. “I was just counting out the cash drawer. Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m hard of hearing, you know. My wife, Bess, keeps saying I need a new hearing aid, but the old one screeches like all get-out sometimes, so I don’t put it in when she’s not around.”

“Please, it’s an emergency. I need to use your phone,” I plead.

The old man opens the door. As I rush inside, I smell a rank combination of deep fried fish and industrial cleaner.

“What’s that, dear? We usually stay open on Labor Day until eight p.m., but we decided to close at six-thirty tonight. There aren’t as many tourists heading to the lakeshore this year, I’m afraid. Everyone’s hurting from the economy these days. The whole country is going in the toilet, don’t you know.”

“Can you hear me?” I yell.

The shopkeeper walks over to the counter and pulls out a pink pickled egg from a dusty mason jar.

“Would you like one, dear?” he asks, and pops the culinary monstrosity into his mouth. “Only twenty-five cents each. Bess makes the best pickled eggs this side of Chicago.”

Just when I desperately need someone to hear me, the only person I can find is legally deaf. I reach inside my pocketbook and pull out my reporter’s notebook and a pen.

I NEED TO USE YOUR PHONE. IT’S AN EMERGENCY
, I write in giant letters in case the shopkeeper’s vision is as bad as his hearing.

The storekeeper gulps down the egg and wipes his mouth with the back of a leathered hand.

“I’m sorry, dear, but we don’t have a pay phone anymore. The wife said we didn’t need it since everyone uses those cell phones these days. I never understood how those things worked really. And with business down, I had to get rid of our landline. That extra thirty-five dollars a month really added up. Bess likes to use the savings to play keno at the VFW in town, don’t you know.”

I hurriedly scribble down another message.
MY SON IS IN DANGER. HE IS AT KIM SCOTT’S HOUSE ABOUT TEN MILES FROM HERE. I AM GOING THERE NOW. YOU NEED TO LEAVE HERE AND CALL THE POLICE. KIM’S ADDRESS IS
45 WILLOW DRIVE.

“Oh my goodness,” the shopkeeper says. “I know Miss Scott. She’s good people. She always gives us a loaf of her cheese bread every Christmas. Her cousin Leslie stopped by a little while ago to gas up. Leslie filled up her whole tank, she did. We don’t take credit cards here, only cash. Credit cards are too expensive for us. Plus, it’s a nice way to visit with folks. Otherwise they pay at the pump, and we don’t get a chance to chat. When you’re old like me, time goes by slower, don’t you know. It was probably an hour ago when Leslie stopped by. What a pretty girl. She said she was sixteen, but she acted more like a younger girl. Very pleasant though. Leslie said she was about to leave on a trip with her mother.”

“Take this,” I say.

I write down the phone numbers for Navarro and David and tear the sheet of paper out of my notebook and shove it into the old storekeeper’s hand. I’m halfway to the door when something makes me pause. I write down one more message,
PLEASE. I NEED YOUR HELP. DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME.

The older gentleman smiles like a sweet and wise grandpa. “I won’t, dear. My name is George by the way. George Tucker.”

Tucker reaches out his hand to shake mine, but I ignore his gesture and stare at a glass case lined with three rows of gleaming pocketknives.

“I’ll take one of those before I go.”

* * *

P
RIVATE
D
RIVE
. N
O
T
RESPASSING
.

I punch the gas pedal until the speedometer hovers shakily over the ninety marker. Despite my speed, the car feels like it is driving in slow motion as I pass by the thickets of dense woods that surround Kim’s expansive property.

The longest drive of my life finally ends, and I bank the car hard into the circular driveway. Kim’s place looks just as I left it, like an enviable cover shot of
Town and Country
magazine. Kim’s silver Volvo is still parked outside the garage, and the game of croquet is left untouched on the front lawn. I don’t need to worry about breaking in. The front door of the house is wide open.

“Logan, where are you? Just call out to me and I’ll find you,” I plead as I tear through the open door and begin to hunt for my son.

Logan doesn’t answer. The house is deathly silent except for the steady ticking of a grandfather clock coming from somewhere deep inside the house.

I quickly assess the scene. I fully expected the house would be ransacked. But on first glance, everything seems undisturbed and picture perfect, just as Kim likes. The long entryway is lined with carefully hung black-and-white photographs of the mammoth Silver Lake Dunes, and Kim’s purse and keys lie on a table near the open front door. Kim would never go anywhere without her purse.

The sound of a child’s voice, soft and pleading, billows up from the downstairs finished basement.

“Sarah, let Logan go,” I scream and bound down the stairs two at a time.

As my foot hits the landing, I snatch for my pocketknife and flip open the blade.

“That’s all, folks!”

Porky Pig. I stand with a knife clutched in my hand ready to attack a cartoon character, as Porky Pig looms large on Kim’s big-screen TV to an empty audience. Logan’s
Looney Tunes
video case lies on the floor next to Logan’s backpack. Its canvas has been sliced apart, as if someone was searching for something hidden inside.

I turn quickly to continue my search upstairs and slam into an old-fashioned writing desk. The antique shudders against my weight and its roll top recoils with a dull snap like a worn out rubber band. I start to run when something in the center of the desk catches my eye. It’s an envelope addressed to Reverend Casey Cahill at the state penitentiary.

I stare at the envelope, trying to understand why Kim would have it in her possession, when a rhythmic, steady thump hums over my head, followed by a scraping sound, like someone is clawing for their life against the wooden floor as they are being dragged across it against their will. The stairs are a blur as I sprint toward the sound. Just as I reach the first floor, a slight and dark shape of a woman moves quickly away from the second-story landing. I race across the room to the other staircase. Lying on its first step is Logan’s compass necklace.

“Let my boy go. I swear, I’ll kill you!”

One more set of stairs. I scuttle to the top and catch the last second of a silhouette being shoved into a room that Kim uses as a study at the end of the long hallway. The door slams and a steel lock snaps in place. I reach the locked room, ram my shoulder against the heavy door, but quickly realize there’s no way I can break it down by myself.

Kim’s room is at the end of the hallway. I search for anything I can use as a battering ram and snatch a red leather stool from Kim’s dressing table. I look up and catch a glimpse of a reflection in the mirror, my own face choked with panic and desperation staring back at me. I’m about to run when I spot something else in the mirror, a handwritten note on a piece of white stationery lying at the foot of Kim’s bed. The paper has a smudged, bloody fingerprint and three simple words,
I’m sorry, Julia.

Sarah. I knew it was my sister all along. A blinding rage builds up inside of me as I haul the heavy stool toward the locked room.

“Sarah, let Logan go! I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in or what you did, but we can work it out. I’ll give you money. Just tell me how much you want. I won’t go to the police this time. Just let Logan go and everything will be fine. You have to believe me.”

“It’s too late,” a hoarse voice whispers from inside the room. “No one was supposed to find out, and now I must do as I’m told.”

The snap of metal crashing against wood peals down the hallway like a piercing scream. I look down at the stool still unused in my hands. The crash came from inside the room.

“Logan, stay with me!”

On the other side of the door, the person in distress lets out three gasps, wet and sticky and struggling for one last precious breath. Then there is a swishing sound of fabric furiously rubbing together like a runner trying to sprint mid-air. The movement stops abruptly and a door bangs shut inside the room.

And then all goes horribly silent.

I smash the metal legs of the stool against the door over and over until it gives. The lock breaks and the door opens slowly with a bested creak.

I brush past the splinters and run blindly inside, tripping over a ladder that has fallen on its side like a dead horse. I start to pick myself up when something sways back and forth over my head and three drops of something moist and warm land on my arm. I recoil toward the wall and look up at Kim. A stream of blood drips down from her forehead as she swings from a wooden beam. Her lifeless blue eyes bulge from their sockets and stare directly into mine.