The front entrance opened into a quaint living area that felt even smaller with the piles of junk strewn about it. Bookshelves were lined with empty beer cans broken up by the occasional photo or knickknack. Old mail and paperwork littered a desk in the corner. In the center of the room, Jackson saw the top of a man’s head in a dirty plaid recliner facing a television that had to have been from before the turn of the century. Some old movie was on, strobing the room in varying flashes of gray and white.
Slowly, Jackson approached the recliner. He stuck out the M9 Beretta and placed the muzzle against the back of Jeffers’ balding head. The sudden sensation of cold steel against his scalp caused Jeffers to jump in his seat. Jackson noticed the recliner swiveled. He grabbed the edge and spun it, bringing Jeffers around to face him.
“I ain’t got much money,” Jeffers said rather calmly, “What – whatever I have is yours, though.”
“Dale Jeffers,” Jackson said.
“What,” Jeffers replied.
“You are Dale Jeffers, no?”
“Wha – I – What’s this about?”
“This is about something you took from me.”
“Now hold on, I didn’t take nothing from no one.”
Jackson reached into his coat and pulled out a photo, a picture he had taken with Nat and Evan last Christmas. The three of them had big, goofy smiles on their face. Evan smiled through a Santa stocking that was too big for his head. He tossed it to Jeffers.
“His name was Evan Randolph Clay,” Jackson said, “He didn’t do a damn thing to anyone. And you took him from me.”
Jeffers searched for the words to form some sort of denial but Jackson saw the acknowledgement in his eyes. To him it was as good as a confession. He stepped towards Jeffers, cocking the Beretta, as the old man continued to babble indecipherably in his chair.
Jackson debated whether he wanted to say anything more before squeezing the trigger and being done with it when something banged against a door over his shoulder. Jackson stepped back, unsure of now where to point his gun. It hadn’t been an intentional knock, one done with someone’s knuckles, but a clumsy one, as if someone had bumped into the door.
“Who else is here,” Jackson asked.
“No one,” replied Jeffers, “There’s no one else here. Only me.”
Dale Jeffers looked as though he was more nervous now than when he had faced imminent death. Jackson moved towards the door and turned the knob. It was locked.
“You don’t lock your front door, but you keep this locked,” Jackson asked rhetorically.
“It’s nothing. Really,” Jeffers replied, “It’s just storage. Something must’ve fallen down.”
Jackson wasn’t buying it. He turned back to Jeffers, about to demand the man open the door, when he noticed a key around the man’s neck for the first time. It sat, flat on his chest, nestled amongst the man’s patchy chest hair. He aimed the gun at Jeffers, then leaned forward and ripped the key from around his neck. He slid it into the lock on the knob at turned it. The door opened to reveal what was indeed a small closet, but there was nothing stored here. Nothing except for a little boy.
Jackson stepped back, almost breathless. The boy had olive skin and short black hair. He looked up at Jackson expressionless. Not crying, not fighting to get off the soiled mattress he sat on, just innocently inquisitive of this man that had opened the door.
The more Jackson looked at him, the more he realized the boy looked familiar. He’d seen him somewhere. And then it hit him.
A few days earlier there had been a report on the news of a young boy missing. He’d last been seen with his family at Byrd Park in the Fan District of Richmond. Jackson remembered watching the mother and father sobbing on camera. He could relate exactly to what they were going through.
Jackson turned back to Jeffers who now sat silent with his head down. His rage for the man intensified, something he’d previously thought wasn’t possible. How many more boys just like his Evan had there been? How many families torn apart by grief?
A slew of violent reprisals flashed into Jackson’s head like a rotating carousel of possible acts of vengeance. But as he stood in the middle of the living room, the little boy simply staring at him, expressionless, he realized he didn’t have the nerve to do it. Not in front of the boy. This poor boy who’d been taken from the only things he’d known in this world. As much as he wanted Dale Jeffers to hurt and to pay for what he’d done, this boy had been through enough. He couldn’t harm Jeffers. Not in front of the boy.
Jackson scanned the room, looking for something to help him. Over in the corner a roll of duct tape lay around the handle of a hammer sitting upside down. Jackson grabbed it and ordered Dale Jeffers up. Jeffers began to say something, but Jackson rolled the duct tape around his head, covering his mouth and quieting him. He ripped it off and did the same thing around Jeffers’ wrist and ankles.
Finished, he tossed it on to the plaid recliner and grabbed Jeffers underneath his arm.
“Hop,” Jackson ordered.
Jeffers jumped up and down awkwardly, making his way to and then out the front door of his house, where Jackson sat him down on the porch. He then went back inside and retrieved the young boy, picking him up and cradling him in his arms. The boy giggled as Jackson slid a forearm under his bottom and placed him against his chest. He walked out the door and led the boy over to the hood of a white Ford pickup parked in the driveway.
“You do anything other than sit right there and I’ll kill you, you understand,” Jackson barked from the driveway.
Jeffers didn’t say anything back.
Jackson reached into his pocket, fetched his phone, and dialed 9-1-1.
“Yes, hello,” Jackson said, “That boy on the news. The one that disappeared from Byrd Park. I found him. A man named Dale Jeffers had him. We are all at his house now. 5601 Earnhardt Avenue. Can you send the police, please?”
Jackson continued to converse with the operator, cooing the little boy during pauses in the questioning. The little boy would giggle and smile up at Jackson, who smiled back. It wasn’t Evan smiling at him, but it was someone else’s Evan. And in that moment, exhausted from his own hate and anger, that was good enough for Jackson. He knew there’d be tough questions to answer. But in that moment, with that little boy looking at him, the promise of a fulfilling life returned to a young, innocent soul, Jackson didn’t care.
He continued to play with the boy, cooing him. The rest of the world faded from focus. Around him, the darkness slowly became awash in blue and red flashing lights. There were sirens, but Jackson didn’t hear them. All he heard were the giggles of the little boy in front of him. The boy he’d saved.
Jackson Clay opened his eyes not to the image of a little boy but Bear Beauchamp’s front yard cast peacefully in the midnight moonlight. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at the empty Miller High Life bottle sitting on the table next to him. Bear had offered it to him as a four-in-the-afternoon nightcap, and, too exhausted to spurn his offer, Jackson had obliged him.
Not long after that he must’ve dozed off in the Adirondack chair on Bear’s front porch because that’s where he found himself. Without any porch lights on or light coming through the windows from inside, the area was bathed in a peaceful twilight just bright enough to make out the features around him. Jackson paused a moment longer, taking in the night, before getting up and going inside. The sun would be up in a few hours and there was work to be done.
On the coffee table in the living room, Jackson found the yellow mailer he’d asked Bear for before dozing off. He took it over to his bags and fetched one of his prepaid burner phones, then got Silas’ phone.
Jackson knew the first thing Solomon would check is that the SIM card and storage card were still in the phone, so he’d have to leave them there. He wasn’t sure he could copy the information on the cards and he was even less sure he could copy them without it being discovered. Instead, he opted to do things the low-tech way.
First, opening
up the back of the phone, he snapped photos of any and all identification numbers he could find, including on the battery. Then going into the phone’s settings, he pulled up all the identification information he could find. The phone’s serial number, the SIM card’s serial number, the service provider account information, and snapped photos of all of that as well.
After that, Jackson spent the next two hours methodically going through the phone, snapping photos of every damning conversation, email, and photo he could find. When he found photos of what appeared to be abducted people with their faces to the camera, he searched missing persons cases across the state of Virginia and tried to identify anyone he saw in the photos. He was successful on a number of them. The first one he found was Meghan Anderson, a college student who disappeared after last being seen at a bar in the Richmond suburbs. He used the missing persons site he found her on to identify numerous others. Pamela Capp, Lynn O’Hara, Bea Gould, Katie Carter, Danielle Hardy. Jackson documented each of them.
In all, Jackson snapped almost a thousand pictures and typed in thousands of words of notes in the phone’s memo app. It had nearly eaten up all of the cheap little phone’s memory. When he was done, he powered the phone off and removed the battery so the phone wouldn’t inadvertently turn itself on. Then he grabbed a piece of paper and wrapped it around the phone. With a marker, he wrote on the front of it.
CHECK PHOTOS AND MEMO FILES
DO NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS
He put the phone wrapped in the note inside the mailer along with the battery, and sealed it with the adhesive strip. He flipped the mailer onto its front and addressed it.
DELIVER TO DETECTIVE JENNIFER BAILEY
VIRGINIA STATE POLICE DIVISION SEVEN HEADQUARTERS
Below he wrote down the address, then placed more than enough stamps for postage in the upper right-hand corner. All that was left was to write down the return address. He never had any intention of putting his own name and address down in case it never got to Detective Bailey, but now an idea came to him. He uncapped the marker and wrote.
SARA BETH PARKER
Underneath, he wrote down the address of the repair shop parking lot where she had disappeared.
Jackson sat back, looked over his work, and sighed. He didn’t know what was about to happen, but should he not make it out or get Sara Beth back, he figured this was the ace up his sleeve. His measure taken to ensure justice was done should he not be able to do it himself.
He stood gingerly, stretching his legs, when a flicker of light through the back window caught his eye. Curious, he walked into the kitchen to see. Bear was in the backyard, seated at his fire pit, a bottle of beer cupped in between his hands.
Jackson walked out to join him.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he asked as he walked up to Bear.
“Nah, I slept fine for a bit,” Bear answered, “I got my solid seven. No need to overdo it.”
“Sure,” Jackson replied.
The fire popped and crackled, shooting the occasional ember wayward as Jackson took a seat on a log opposite Bear. The two of them didn’t say anything as they stared at the fire. Bear tilted his head back and polished off a beer before reaching behind himself and grabbing another. He extended it to Jackson in invitation, who smiled politely and shook his head. Bear shrugged, opened the beer with his lighter, and slid it into his koozie.
“So, this thing today,” Jackson said, breaking the silence, “I don’t know what it’s going to be like, but chances are it’s going to be rough.”
“Knowing those peckerwoods, I’d bet on it,” Bear replied.
“You know, I couldn’t have gotten this far without your help,” Jackson continued.
“Uh oh.”
“What?”
“Starting off with how nice it’s been and all that. I know how this goes.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re breaking up with me.”
Bear’s whole body shook in jolly pleasure as he laughed, quite literally slapping his knee with his non-beer hand. Jackson couldn’t help but grin and chuckle himself.
“No, all I’m saying is,” Jackson said, “I signed up for this. I took this on.”
“I took this on, too, brother,” Bear replied.
“No, I know you offered your help and all that,” Jackson said, “I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t know how this is going to go down today, but whatever happens, I’m good with it. I decided that a long time ago. But that’s my choice. You’ve got to know you don’t have to go out there today because of choices I’ve made.”
Bear didn’t say anything. He took a long sip of his beer, holding it for a moment in his mouth, before swallowing. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and stared into the fire. Jackson watched him, waiting for him to say something, but Bear didn’t say anything.
“Bear,” Jackson said.
Bear looked up at him.
“I heard ya,” Bear said, “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Jackson smiled and nodded. He’d been doing this sort of thing a while and had gotten used to going it alone. He’d always figured it was a path for him and him only. That first boy he’d found had stopped him from killing a man while he sat watching TV. Regardless of what that man had done or what he did or didn’t deserve, that boy had stopped Jackson from crossing a line he knew he hadn’t been ready to cross. That boy had been his salvation, showing him a way to move on. Moving on had always meant going it alone. But, now, as he sat across from Archibald ‘Bear’ Beauchamp, he was thankful to have him.
“When do we go,” Bear asked.
“Soon,” Jackson replied, “We need to be in position before the Lokos get there and we’ve got work to do before then. I don’t know what they plan to do, but one thing’s for sure: they aren’t going to get the drop on us.”
“Amen to that,” Bear said, “I can bring the Suburban or the D100 around and start loading it.”
“No, we’ll load up my truck,” Jackson said, “But we’ll bring your Suburban and the Ranger and drop them nearby. Give ourselves some options.”
“What do you want me to bring out in terms of firepower?”
“All of it. Last night I brought one pistol to a full-on firefight. That’s not a mistake I plan on making twice.”
Bear gave a boyish, menacing smile.
“When you say all of it,” Bear began.
“I mean that stuff you showed me behind the bookcase,” Jackson said, “.50 Cal and all.”
“Buddy,” Bear said, “Don’t toy with my emotions.”
“I’ve seen what these monsters are doing, what they are capable of,” Jackson replied standing up, “I’m not fucking around anymore.”
71
Cole was the only driver on the highway just after midnight. She’d tried to get some rest, but the thought that something was about to happen plagued her. Slumber never came, and she grew tired of waiting for it.
She’d hopped in her car and decided to head to Bear Beauchamp’s last known address. Maybe Jackson Clay was there, maybe he wasn’t. But she figured the man she had helped out a couple of days ago would know where to find him.
Her GPS had taken her on a series of remote rural highways off of US Route 220, snaking a path towards the north end of the town of Martinsville. The moon, nearly full, flickered in between the passing trees, casting a low light on the sleeping world. It was in this light she saw a trailer being backed down a driveway half a mile ahead. She looked at her GPS. It was the driveway her route ended on.
As she neared the driveway, she slowed down and killed her headlights. Creeping towards the clearing in the trees, she leaned forward, peaking down the asphalt path. A man was driving some sort of all-terrain vehicle onto the trailer she’d seen as another man waved him forward. The man shifted, the headlights of the vehicle briefly flashing across his face. It was Jackson Clay.
Detective Cole turned down the drive way and pulled forward, putting her unmarked police car nose to nose w
ith a red Chevy Suburban the trailer was hitched to. Her arrival startled Jackson, who drew a gun from the small of his back. The other man, who she now saw to be Bear Beauchamp from his DMV photo, came around the front of the truck with an impressive-looking shotgun in hand. As she climbed out of the car, and stood looking at the two of them, Jackson dropped his guard. She heard him tell Bear it was okay.
“Lady, you got some death wish rolling up on a private citizen out here like that,” Bear scolded as he went back to what he’d been working on.
Jackson approached her with the walk of a man not amused to see her there. He grabbed her forearm and pulled her towards the back of her car.
“What the hell are you doing here,” Jackson said, clearly angry.
Cole jerked her arm free.
“I told you before. I’m a detective, Clay,” she replied, “I’m good at what I do.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“Shouldn’t I,” she asked, “Seems a lot’s going on for someone that doesn’t know anything for certain yet.”
Cole turned and waved an open hand at the sight of their two trucks, the all-terrain vehicle, and the guns Bear was working on on the front porch.
“Are you guys going hunting?” she asked rhetorically. “Because this seems a bit overkill for quail if you ask me.”
Jackson looked at her. The determination in her eyes. Trying to keep her in the dark wasn’t going to work anymore.
“Look, what do you want from me,” he asked.
“I want to know what’s going on,” Cole said.
“I’m working on bringing Sara Beth home,” Jackson replied, “That’s the truth.”
“How? By storming the gates of the LOKS place?”
“What?”
“I know about them, Jackson. The Kingdom of Solomon guys. They’re just north of here, right? I had two ATF agents grill me like I might be a part of the whole thing, when actually I knew nothing about it.”
“Why are the ATF asking you about them?”
“Because they’re watching them, Clay. They have photos of Jeff Isaacs meeting with their leader at some marina on Smith Mountain Lake.”
The Woodsman (The Jackson Clay & Bear Beauchamp Series Book 1) Page 26