The Woodsman (The Jackson Clay & Bear Beauchamp Series Book 1)

by B. C. Lienesch

  “Yeah,” answered the man, “Some guy called right as I got in saying his wife left a ring in here that night. When I told him I hadn’t been working, the guy just up and hung up on me. Asshole.”

  “It takes all kinds,” Jackson said.

  Shortly after 10:30, a couple of guys who’d clearly had a few too many walked into view of the camera. As they seemed to have a conversation, one fell backwards, knocking over a rack of sodas.

  “Either of those knuckleheads the guy you’re looking for,” asked the man.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Jackson replied.

  As the two struggled to right one another a third man came into the frame yelling at them. It was Albert Perry. Jackson watched as he got the two men away from the mess and then pointed to the doors, clearly inviting them to leave. The timestamp on the video read 10:38 p.m. Albert Perry was forty miles away when Sara Beth was taken.

  “Thank you for letting me look,” Jackson said.

  “That it,” the man asked.

  “That’s it,” replied Jackson, “Have a good day.”

  Jackson stepped out of the office and waved as he left the store.

  41

  Jackson returned to Harrisonburg frustrated. He’d cross referenced the list of owners of black vans with the sex registry again. There was nothing. For all intents and purposes, he was back at square one.

  Back in his motel room, he sat at a table with Sara Beth’s missing persons report in front of him, the round, café-style table was up against the window. From his second-floor room, Jackson could see traffic taking turns going through the intersection outside. A random medley of all sizes and colors. He imagined waiting long enough and his patience being rewarded with the sight of the black van and its xenon headlights rolling by.

  One should be so lucky.

  Looking down at the file, Jackson thought about the Parkers. Not Sara Beth so much as her parents, Anne and Scott. Some time ago, Jackson had been Scott Parker. The happy father and husband. He thought about that happiness being taken away without warning and the pain that followed. The dread. The despair in knowing but also not knowing. It was a pain that had almost broken him. He was determined to find Sara Beth before it broke the Parkers.

  Jackson was thinking about this when his phone chirped with a message. He slid it open and looked at it. It was a text message from Detective Cole.

  You look into Perry yet??

  Yes, he thought. It’s been a day. Obviously, I’ve looked into Perry. The question annoyed Jackson. So much so he was tempted not to reply. But Detective Cole didn’t strike him as the type that took silence for a satisfying answer. He texted her back.

  Dead end. He didn’t take her.

  Jackson closed out of the messaging app on his phone and tossed it onto the table where it landed on Jeff Isaacs’ picture. He too must know that pain, Jackson thought. In fact, he could probably relate more to the Parkers than he could, with him also losing a teenage daughter.

  Olivia Isaacs. A thought came to him. Two girls that looked eerily alike taken within maybe an hour’s distance of one another? Seven years apart? The two could be connected. Almost all predators had a type. What if Olivia and Sara Beth were taken by the same person?

  He tried to think. Did Jeff tell him her age? As similar as they looked, did it matter? Probably not if you were the kind of person capable of that kind of evil. Jackson grabbed his phone off the table and called Detective Bailey.

  “It’s me,” he said, “Can you get me the case files on Olivia Isaacs?”

  “What? Why,” asked Detective Bailey, who had clearly been asleep.

  “Just, can you get them,” Jackson asked again.

  “It’s almost midnight, Clay. I’ll see what I can do when I get to the office tomorrow morning.”

  “First thing?”

  “Good night, Clay.”

  The call ended. Jackson put the phone down and looked over at the bed. His help was asleep. He might as well try to get some rest himself. Even if Detective Bailey ignored his request, Jeff Isaacs was probably the only case file he needed. It probably made sense to pay him another visit. He would do just that tomorrow morning.

  42

  Sara Beth sat shivering on the lumpy mattress in the basement. She could hear the man upstairs yelling at someone. There was no other voice, so she guessed he was on the phone. Either way, her captor now suddenly angry made her nervous.

  Tonight marked the third night she’d been held down here, handcuffed to the wall. She’d started using the chains binding her to make indentations on the wall to keep track, fearing the number of days she spent here would grow.

  When the sun rose the first morning, light filled the empty basement and she could see where the smell of paint came from. Someone had hastily painted the corner she was chained to bright pink. An old beat-up bookshelf and dresser sat next to her adorned with random items. Posters lined the wall above her with pictures of bands and famous actors. It was as if someone had tried in vain to make her prison cell feel like some kind of bedroom, except something was off.

  Not the chains and handcuffs – that much was obviously wrong – but the posters and the trinkets on the shelf felt old. The posters were of Nelly, Avril Lavigne, and some young-looking actor she’d seen before but didn’t who he was. She’d heard of stuff by Nelly and Avril Lavigne, sure, but she didn’t actually listen to them. It was as if the so-called bedroom had been put together by someone who didn’t really get what a teenage girl would be into. At least not these days.

  That revelation somehow only further terrified Sara Beth.

  Had it all been put together by the man upstairs? The one with the genteel voice? She hadn’t actually seen him yet – always quickly putting the blindfold back on when the door opened – but he’d seemed strangely nice. At least in their first interactions.

  The night Sara Beth arrived, the man came down shortly after the others had left and brought her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some potato chips. He’d softly grasped her arm and guided it to the plate, encouraging her to eat.

  “You eat, now,” he’d said in a warm tone, “We’ll talk soon.”

  The next morning she’d awoken to find another plate of food – buttered toast and a hard-boiled egg – next to her mattress. She was surprised the man could come and go without waking her, as fretful as her sleeping had been since she’d been taken.

  All of that had given Sara Beth hope that things might get better wherever she was now, but that hope was crushed when the man came down later that night. His steps down the stairs were loud and frantic, unlike the soft steps she’d heard before.

  “Here, eat this,” he’d said.

  “I can’t see,” she’d replied.

  He grabbed her arm like he had the first night, but now he was forceful and unfriendly. His hand was cold and clammy, not warm like it had been before.

  “Here, it’s right here,” he’d said, sounding annoyed.

  The food now was just a can of tuna. The man hadn’t even bothered to open it. As Sara Beth fumbled for the tab on the lid, she heard the man stomp back up the stairs and slam the door behind him.

  Her two encounters since then with the man had been just as cold. Each time another can of tuna practically thrown at her as he said little more than ‘eat’ before he disappeared again. Now he was upstairs yelling at someone on the phone. Sara Beth didn’t know what it all meant, but something inside her told her it didn’t add up to anything good.

  She sat quietly, trying to make out what the man was saying. There was something about a different man. Something was wrong about him. The man upstairs told whoever he was talking to he needed to deal with it.

  The ceiling creaked overhead as the man paced around. As he moved into another part of the upstairs, Sara Beth could more clearly make out what he was saying.

  “I don’t care, I’m done. I’m out,” the man yelled.

  A pause.

  “Keep the money, I don’t give a shit. But
I’m out.”

  Another pause.

  “I’m not going to say shit. But you need to handle this.”

  The next pause was longer. The footsteps stopped. Sara Beth thought the phone call might’ve ended, but a chill rushed over her as the man yelled into the phone one last time.

  “You get her and do it yourself.”

  43

  Jackson was wide awake and staring at the ceiling of his motel room when his alarm went off at 4:30 the following morning. Sleep had eluded him most of the night as he thought about Olivia Isaacs and why no one had considered a possible connection before. Maybe there was something about the Isaacs case he didn’t know that ruled out a connection. Either way, he had to find out.

  It was too early to expect Detective Bailey to have the case files ready for him just as it was probably too early to pay Jeff Isaacs another visit. He rolled out of his bed, started making coffee in the little coffeemaker in the bathroom and sat down at his laptop.

  After double checking that Bailey had not sent him anything, he brought up Google and searched for Olivia Isaacs. A slew of articles came up. Jackson clicked through them one by one and read about her disappearance.

  Olivia Isaacs disappeared some time during the afternoon of May 6, 2012 shortly after her high school had let out for the day. She was 15 years old at the time. According to an article in the Daily News-Record, a Harrisonburg-based newspaper, Olivia regularly walked the mile and a half home from school. On the afternoon of May 6, though, a thunderstorm had blown through, leading some to speculate that she’d accepted an offer of a ride. But it seemed that was pretty much anything anyone had. Suppositions and theories. Without tangible leads, the case must’ve gone cold.

  A separate article in the Daily News-Record focused on Jeff Isaacs, the grieving father who was starting an organization for fellow grieving parents. The article mentioned how he hoped the organization would create more attention for missing kids, starting with Olivia. The article was framed in the light of new hope and optimism for Olivia’s case and others. Reading it with the knowledge of how everything ends made it all the sadder, Jackson thought.

  He spent the better part of the next hour reading articles with largely the same information. Even when he found the website for PACTV, which admittedly hadn’t been kept up very well, the About Us section shared little he hadn’t read somewhere else. It all painted the picture in broad strokes for Jackson. Now he wanted the finer points.

  He checked his watch. It was almost six. Going to the window, he pulled back the curtains and watched the city outside. The sky was just starting to fill with the light of a coming day. He wondered how soon was too soon to visit Jeff Isaacs. Maybe if he took his time grabbing some breakfast, it would be long enough. He was thinking about it as his phone buzzed from across the motel room.

  He expected it to be Bailey calling in with the information, but as he picked up the phone, the Caller ID didn’t say Bailey. It was Detective Cole.

  “Morning, Det—” Jackson began to say before Detective Cole cut him off.

  “Clay,” she said in angry exasperation, “Tell me you did not contact the family.”

  “What, no,” replied Jackson suddenly on the defensive, “Why would I—”

  “Clay, promise you didn’t do something as stupid as make contact with them.”

  “Cole, would you listen to me? I haven’t talked to anyone in the family.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes. Christ, Cole, what the hell is this about?”

  He felt his body tingle with the sensation of a million tiny needle pricks as she answered him.

  “Anne Parker is missing.”

  44

  As Cole and Doherty pulled up to the Parkers’ house, the street was already lined with squad cars. A couple of officers were out with next door neighbors, no doubt asking if they had seen anything or had talked to Anne Parker recently.

  “Pull up right around that cruiser,” Cole said.

  Her door was open and she was climbing out before the car had come to a stop. Marching up the stairs, she nodded to the officers standing by the front door as she walked in.

  Inside, Scott Parker was sitting on the living room couch, his head in his hands, as a half dozen officers surrounded him. Two other detectives from Cole’s unit, Ben Pemberton and Sam Ross, were flanking Scott on opposite sides, scribbling on their steno pads as they asked him questions. Detective Cole slid in through the contingent of officers encircling Scott.

  “Scott, are you okay,” Cole asked.

  Scott nodded, not making eye contact with her or anyone else.

  “Angela, what are you doing here,” Detective Pemberton asked.

  “Their daughter’s been missing over three weeks,” answered Cole, “I’m sure you’ve gotten to that by now.”

  “Yes,” replied Pemberton, “We’re working it.”

  Detective Cole nodded over towards an empty corner of the room, gesturing for the two other detectives to step over for a word.

  “Mr. Parker, just a minute,” said Detective Ross.

  The two of them stood up and followed Cole, forming a small huddle.

  “This is obviously related to their daughter,” Cole said, “Let Doherty and I work it.”

  “We’ve been on the ground here an hour already,” Pemberton replied, “Getting you caught up is time wasted that we could be spending looking for her.”

  “Listen, I know them, okay,” Cole said, “Getting you guys read in would take even more time. At least let us assist.”

  “Okay, fine. We asked him if he knew of any place she’d go to get away. He couldn’t think of anywhere. Can you?”

  “Get away? The call said missing persons. You’re already sure she left on her own?”

  Detectives Pemberton and Ross looked at each other.

  “Scott Parker called 9-1-1 when he went to check on Anne in their bedroom,” Pemberton said, “She was gone and there was a handwritten note on a piece of paper on her pillow saying she was sorry.”

  Cole felt her heart lurch into her throat. Anne Parker had been handling everything worse and worse each time she saw her. Now she had hit her breaking point. Cole went back over to Scott, pulled the coffee table closer to the couch, and sat on it facing him.

  “Scott,” Cole said, “What about Sara Beth? Is there a place she would go?”

  “No, she never ran away,” Scott answered, “I told you that the very first day.”

  “I know, I know,” replied Cole, “What about together? Was there a particular place she enjoyed going? Something that meant a lot to all of you?”

  “I don’t know,” Scott said as tears began to run down his cheeks, “I’m sorry, I just don’t know.”

  Detective Cole patted his hand, comforting him. She stood up and walked back over to Detectives Ross and Pemberton.

  “I assume you have a BOLO out for her,” Cole asked the two detectives.

  “BOLO out for HPD and State Police on her and her car,” Detective Pemberton said.

  “Her car,” Cole echoed, confused.

  “Yeah she took her car. Forgot to mention that. A 2010 Subaru Outback.”

  “Can we track it? What about her phone?”

  “We’re trying to figure that out as we speak.”

  As Pemberton talked, Cole’s eyes looked past him at a uniformed officer suddenly raising his radio to his ear.

  “Detectives,” he said, pausing to listen to the radio a moment longer, “9-1-1 caller reports a woman on Pleasant Valley Road standing on the I-81 overpass. Possible jumper. Description matches Anne Parker.”

  Detective Cole looked at Scott who met her eyes with his, tears streaming from them.

  “I can’t lose her, too,” he said.

  45

  Running down the front walk way, Cole shouted to her partner, Detective Doherty, who was talking to some officers by their car.

  “Pleasant Valley Road at I-81. Let’s go now,” she said.

  The two o
f them slid into their unmarked patrol car. Doherty took a sharp U-turn in front of the Parkers’ house and punched it down the road, their lights and siren waking what parts of the neighborhood remained asleep.

  Cole grabbed her radio from the center console.

  “This is One-David-Twenty responding code three to the possible jumper on Pleasant Valley. Tell arriving units to stay back and not to make contact. We are five minutes out.”

  Cole held onto the overhead handle as if the car might leave her behind. Doherty wove in and out of the light traffic, crossing over to the opposite side of the road when necessary. They raced across town, two patrol cars following, a streaking convoy of red and blue lights.

  Four minutes later – Doherty would brag later about how he shaved time off their ETA – the three police cars arrived at a tangled knot of emergency vehicles. A couple of officers had taped off the area to keep onlookers at bay and were now enforcing that line as a crowd gathered. Cole ducked under the tape and looked for the patrol supervisor. An officer saw her looking and motioned her towards the front of the vehicles.

  “You must be Detective Cole,” said an officer with the chevrons of a sergeant on his sleeve.

  “I am,” answered Cole, “Where are we at?”

  “She’s right there, sitting on the railing,” said the sergeant, “Hasn’t said anything to us, hasn’t even looked our way. No one’s attempted to interact with her per your order.”

  “I appreciate it. Where are we at logistically?”

  “I’ve got the road shut down both ways, clearly. Rescue’s drawing up a plan to intervene.”

  “Let’s see if we can talk her down first. Have State Troopers shut down the interstate at the first exit each way.”

  “Copy that.”

  “I’m going to go talk to her. No one else approaches unless I say to.”

  “You got it.”

  Detective Cole felt her heart begin to beat harder. There was nothing but gray concrete between her and Anne. It couldn’t have been more than a few dozen feet but it felt like it might be miles.