Hunting Michael Underwood

by L V Gaudet

  He gets up and walks to the door. “I’ll be back later.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to clean up his mess. I’m going to take David home.”

  With that he’s gone, leaving Elaine reeling in confusion.

  Elaine stares at the closed door. He didn’t tell her his name. He didn’t need to. He is famous; Jason T. McAllister, the McAllister Farm serial killer. His face and name were plastered all over the news for months.

  She feels sick. Her whole world has turned upside down and she doesn’t know where to be. She suffers through the day, her stress building. Finally, she looks at the clock for the thousandth time and it’s late afternoon. Close enough. Too close. She picks up the phone and dials. It is answered on the second ring.

  “Hi,” she says in a small voice. “I need you.Hurry, he’ll be home soon.”

  She hangs up and waits, feeling the world rushing around her at breakneck speed while she is trapped in this little bubble of time that won’t move.

  When it comes, the knock on the door makes her jump.

  Elaine almost changes her mind.

  If I don’t answer, he’ll go away. She gives in and answers the door. She looks up at Trevor uncertainly.

  “You don’t look so good. Are you all right?” he asks, looking concerned.

  “I… It’s,” she falters. “I have to get out of here. I have to go somewhere. I don’t know. Anywhere.”

  “Come on.” He puts an arm around her shoulders, leading her out the door.

  Elaine looks back as they drive away, wracked with guilt and torn by mixed feelings and confusion.

  Ryan, I’m sorry. I just need a little time to think before I can face you.

  He should already be home. She keeps expecting to pass his truck as they drive away.

  Ryan is driving home and looking forward to relaxing his sore muscles after a hard day and feeling wrung out by Cassie’s nonstop taunting him while he worked. There were a few moments he imagined the bolt gun pressed up against her forehead, her large round eyes staring back at him instead of the woeful eyes of the cow as he pulls the trigger, shooting bolts into the animal’s brain with a dull triple thock.

  On a whim, he turns off course, driving to the next town where there is a motel and a cold beer store. He purchases his beer and is walking back to his truck when he freezes. He is staring so hard at a woman who just walked out of the restaurant with a man that he almost drops his case of beer. He recovers it just as it slips from his grip.

  The couple walk on, oblivious to his stare.

  “Cassie.” He almost cries out the name, but it comes out a constricted whisper instead. “It’s her, Cassie. She’s here, and just in the next town.” He starts walking forward, about to break into a jog to catch up, and stops. “No, don’t scare her off. She might not remember you.”

  The woman has a resemblance to Jane Doe, like a cousin might have.

  He jogs back to his truck, gets in and starts it, waiting. The couple pull out of the parking lot in their car and he follows, keeping a distance behind.

  Ryan follows them home. He watches them get out of the car. He sits there watching the house. She comes out again twenty minutes later wearing different clothes and gardening gloves. She starts weeding the garden.

  The more he watches, the more convinced he becomes.

  “I found you again.”

  Bursting with joy, Ryan wants to get out of the truck and run to her, scoop her up in his arms and hold her tight. I will take you someplace safe. I will protect you.

  That uneasy feeling of being watched creeps up the woman’s back. She stands and looks around. She sees the strange man sitting in a truck staring at her.

  She’s looking at me. She’s looking right at me. She sees me, he thinks.

  But there is no recognition in her eyes, only a sense of unease. She hurries into the house to tell her husband about the strange man staring at her, making her feel uncomfortable.

  Her husband runs out of the house in time to see the truck’s taillights driving away.

  “It’s her, Cassie! So close! I can’t believe it was so easy to find her. I have to tell Elaine before I do anything.”

  Ryan pulls up in front of the house, barely closing the truck door in his eagerness, and bursts into the house.

  “Sorry I’m late. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I’ve showered.” He rushes through his shower, coming out almost giddy.

  “I found her!”

  Elaine isn’t waiting for him.

  “Elaine?” He is met by silence.

  He moves from room to room quickly, stopping in the living room, looking lost. She’s gone.

  “Where?”

  His face hardens.

  “Trevor.”

  Ryan charges out of the house, the image of Trevor trying to kiss Elaine at this very door the other day burning a hot rage through his skull. He feels the curtain closing in, the world growing darker like a black cloud just blocked out the entire sky.

  “No!” He pushes the darkness away, focusing on walking out the door, to the truck, climbing in, closing the truck door.

  He reaches to jam the key in the ignition and is interrupted by knocking on the driver’s door window. Ryan turns to look. Jason is standing there.

  After he leaves Elaine reeling with the new information about Ryan, Jason sits in his truck watching the house. He watches the other truck pull up hours later and the man get out. He recognizes both him and his truck. He saw them at the slaughterhouse, arriving for work at the same time as David.

  I was right. There is definitely some serious animosity between the two. Now I know why.

  He watches Kathy leave with him, the tortured look of confusion marring her face. Soon after David, Ryan, comes home looking excited about something.

  “She’s not there,” Jason taunts although he can’t hear him.

  Ryan comes barrelling out of the house twenty minutes later, his face twisted with rage.

  Jason leaps out of his truck, racing for Ryan’s truck. He makes it just as Ryan is putting the keys in the ignition, knocking on the window.

  The face that turns to look at him makes his blood run cold. Ryan’s face is a stony mask of dark rage.

  “David, Ryan,” Jason starts.

  Ryan turns his attention back to his keys, turning them and firing up the truck.

  “David, stop! Talk to me!”

  Ryan puts the truck in gear.

  “I know where she is!”

  Ryan turns to look at him, his expression still locked in that stony cold anger.

  “Talk to me.”

  Ryan puts the truck back into park and shuts off the ignition, getting out.

  Jason instinctively steps back, keeping a distance between them.

  The moment he saw Jason standing at his driver’s door window, the dark veil of rage that was closing in dropped away. A surge of fear flushed through his veins and he struggled to keep his expression cold, hard. “Show no fear,” he told himself.

  Now, as he gets out, his legs feel like rubber and his mind is reeling with one frantic thought. How did he find me?

  “Can we go inside and talk?” Jason asks.

  Ryan doesn’t trust his voice yet and simply nods, leading the way back inside the house.

  Inside, Ryan doesn’t offer his guest anything but a hard stare.

  “Why are you here?”

  “David,” Jason starts. He stops.

  “Don’t call me that,” Ryan says. “It’s not my name.”

  Jason nods. “Okay, Ryan if you prefer. That detective, Jim McNelly, he isn’t letting this go. He’s asking too many questions, talking to people who might let something slip. This has to end before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Ryan’s lips turn up in a slow smile as realization dawns. “Too late for who?”

  “They want this mess cleaned up. They-”

  “You don’t have to explain. I know what it me
ans. Who exactly are you worried about?”

  “My moth-“

  Ryan laughs, cutting him off.

  “Your mother? You? You killed my mother. You took her away from me, and from Cassie. You took everything away from us; our mother, our home, who we were. Who were we? What are our real names? Did you even know or have you refused to tell me all these years out of some twisted joke? And what about Cassie? Are you worried about her? Or have you already killed her?”

  His face twists into an angry sneer, his voice rising. “Where is she? Where is Cassie? Where. Is. Cassie?” He shouts the last three words

  “You know where she is.” Jason can’t keep the slight tremor out of his voice. “You know what you did to her. She’s gone. You killed her.”

  “No. I found her. She was alive. You took her from me. You stole her from her family again, from me. Is she alive? Did you kill her?”

  “That Jane Doe? She’s not your sister. She didn’t remember you, did she? That’s because she doesn’t know you. Let it go. For yourself and for everyone this mess touches. What, do you think you can just kidnap someone and go on your merry way and live happily ever after?”

  Jason can’t fight the chuckle that rises up.

  “I guess you did that, sitting here playing house with one of your victims.”

  Ryan scowls at the use of the word ‘victim’.

  “It’s already falling apart,” Jason continues. “You’ve as good as lost your girlfriend.”

  Ryan steps forward, clenching his fists. “What have you done with her? If you’ve hurt her…”

  Jason puts up his hands, placating.

  “I only talked to her, that’s all. She told me some things, I told her some things.”

  Ryan is on the defensive.

  “Elaine knows enough of my past. I don’t have to hide anything from her.”

  “Does she know you haven’t given up looking for Cassie? Does she know you will kill again?”

  Jason pulls out the article he showed Elaine, handing it to Ryan.

  “What’s this?” The headline screams loud. Ryan looks at the picture of the missing woman, scans the small print of the article. “Why are you showing me this?”

  “I showed it to her.”

  Ryan’s head snaps up, staring at Jason, the color draining from his face. His mind whirls, grasping for what to say.

  “I know it wasn’t you,” Jason says. “And the authorities don’t know about you. No one is looking at you for this.”

  “Why? Why did you show it to her?” The answer hits Ryan. “You told her it was me.”

  “It served its purpose. I needed to make her trust me.”

  He looks at Ryan thoughtfully. “How much have you told her? About us, the farm, what we do?”

  “Nothing. I haven’t told her anything.”

  “You did that right, at least.” Jason pauses. “She told me about you. That you are going crazy, talking to someone who isn’t there.”

  “You are lying. Why are you here? Really, why did you come?” Ryan glares him down.

  Jason presses on, pushing him. He doesn’t want to push him over the edge into the black mindless rage. He needs to know how far gone he is. How manageable he will be.

  “She’s scared of you,” Jason says. “She says you are talking to Cassie. You are talking to the ghost, the memory, of your sister when she was a child. That is not your sister Ryan. It’s nothing but a memory. You know that. Your sister lived, grew up, and I kept her hidden from you, keeping you from finding her all these years. You won’t find her now.”

  The growing heat of Ryan’s anger suddenly burns out, its dying ashes riding on a wave of shock.

  The words replay in his head.

  I kept her hidden from you, keeping you from finding her all these years.

  She’s alive. He didn’t kill her.

  Ryan stares at Jason hard, fighting the disorientation of shock.

  I can find her.

  He sees little Cassie standing behind Jason, frightened and so small.

  He won’t hurt you anymore. I will protect you. I’ll find you Cassie.

  “What do you want?” he asks, unsteadily.

  “I have to clean up this mess,” Jason says. “I have to stop all this, the police poking around, you. I’m here to take you home David.”

  35Michael’s Father

  Jim and Lawrence sit across from Donald Downey, the man who lost his family years ago. Donald seems somehow shrunken into himself. He fidgets with his spoon, not stirring the murky coffee he had just poured cream and sugar into.

  “Donald Downey, this is Jim McNelly, the detective I told you about,” Lawrence says.

  Donald looks up at the fat detective.

  “After all these years.” He breathes a heavy sigh, starting again. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear it. They’re gone, buried. That part of my life is over and in the past where it belongs.”

  He finally puts his spoon into the coffee, stirring it slowly and deliberately taking it out and laying it on the table.

  “I went through hell when they vanished and now you want to bring that all up again. For what? Because you want to rehash some cold case? They are dead. I don’t know where they are, where their mother took them. They are dead as far as I’m concerned.

  It sounds cold, but I don’t want them back. I am a weak man. I can’t do it.”

  Jim is studying the man, weighing him, his slouched shoulders, drooping demeanour.

  Any other parent would have fought for their kids. They would have never stopped pushing to find them. But you just rolled over and gave up, didn’t you? He thinks.

  “If we are right, they are alive; one of your kids anyway,” Jim says.

  “So you found her.” Donald wants to look away. He wants to get up and walk out, but he can’t help the curiosity burning low in his gut.

  “So, how is she? I can’t really blame her, taking the kids and taking off like that. That’s what they said she did, the ones who weren’t accusing me of killing them and hiding the bodies. Even the detectives investigating their disappearance said she ran off. I know I hurt her.”

  He gives a depressed ironic huff of a laugh.

  “I had every intention of giving her everything; the house, everything in it. I wasn’t going to fight for any of it. I found someone I thought I loved more, who was more fun, not always with her hands in something to do with kids. She punished me by taking the kids and running away. I got everything. Everything. Except my kids.

  She left me too, you know, my girlfriend. Being in the spotlight was too much for her, the media hounding her, calling her a home-wrecker. The woman I broke my wife’s heart over left me before the mess could die down.”

  “She didn’t run away,” Jim says.

  “What do you mean? But, you found her.” Donald hangs his head, rubbing the top of it as if to keep whatever is in there from coming out.

  “We didn’t find her, we found who we think had your kids.” Jim studies him as he says this.

  Donald almost looks like he cares for a moment. It is quickly replaced with his bland expression.

  “So, she found a new man to support her and the kids.”

  He looks at them curiously. A fat detective who does not look like he is fit enough to be a police officer, and a tall ugly reporter whose odd resemblance to a vulture seems fitting.

  “It seems odd to me, the two of you working together, a cop and a reporter.”

  “I’m an investigative reporter, I investigate,” Lawrence says. “Sometimes I dig up something I think I should let them know.” He thumbs towards Jim.

  “Hawkworth already filled me in on your conversation,” Jim says, “but I’m going to treat this like it’s all new. I read the file. There’s not much there.”

  Jim plops copies of the file photos on the table between them. The smiling faces of a little boy and toddler girl stare up at them next to the photo of a young woman whose smile is already too tired for her
years.

  “That’s a real asshole move,” Donald complains. He tries to not look at the photos, but as Jim intended, it is impossible. It is impossible not to feel that surge of loss stir deep down too.

  “Brian and Stephanie.” Jim levels his gaze at Donald. “Madelaine.” He pauses to let the photos have the emotional impact he is expecting. “You were having an affair and told your wife you were leaving her. Tell me about the day they disappeared.”

  “I don’t know when they disappeared. I only know the last time I saw them. I gave her some time to cool down before trying to talk to her about seeing the kids. It was a few weeks before I tried. A few more before anyone knew they were gone.”

  “Then tell me about the last day you saw them.”

  Donald looks down at this coffee, fidgeting with it. Finally, he looks up again.

  “We went to the zoo, kind of a last thing as a family. She wanted to give the kids one last good memory. I didn’t see the point. Stephanie was so young she’d never remember that day anyway. Brian probably wouldn’t either.

  At the end of the zoo trip we were supposed to break the news to the kids together. Madelaine insisted on that. I didn’t want to. Brian might understand a little, probably not much. Stephanie was too young to understand.

  It was very awkward, wandering the zoo, pretending to be a happy family. The day couldn’t end fast enough. Madelaine was angry with me the whole time. It was very strained.

  I didn’t tell Madelaine until the end that Betty was picking me up at the zoo. I had already decided before we left home that I couldn’t do it. I’m a coward, weak. I know. I’ve never been good with confrontations. She was furious with me for leaving her to break the news to the kids that we were separating alone.

  That’s the last time I saw them.”

  “Do you remember anything unusual about that day? Anyone showing interest in you, your wife, or the kids? Was anyone following you at the zoo?”

  “No. It’s a long time ago. I don’t really remember, but no, I don’t think so.” Donald looks at Jim McNelly suspiciously. “What are you getting at?”

  “We think your wife and kids were kidnapped. Although, we suspect that the kids may have been unintentional.