by D. K. Wall
To the right was the entrance to the town park. During a summer Saturday, ballgames would be played on the open fields, walkers hiked the network of paths, and kids played on the swings. But the colder days of winter found the park mostly empty.
Connor looked at the options. The mountain road was too steep. The security guards at the industrial park would chase them out. And the park…. well, the park was a bad idea. He said, “Let’s turn around.”
“Oh. Is it late?”
“No, I just thought…”
Jaxon pointed at the park. “What about in there? Can we ride there?”
Connor looked at his brother. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
Jaxon shrugged. They rode their bikes past the entrance signs and down the main road, swerving around the humps built in the pavement to slow cars. The ballfields on their left were empty, muddy from the snow that had melted off days before. Behind the fields, a nature trail wandered through the woods, but no one ventured into the cold shade. Farther down on their right, they pulled into a nearly empty parking lot in front of a children’s playground. Three kids climbed playsets built over beds made from chunks of recycled tires that provided a soft landing from falls as a mom sat on a bench in the sunshine reading a romance novel. Another child was being pushed in a swing by her mother.
Balancing on one foot, Connor looked around and swallowed hard. “Doesn’t it freak you out to be back here?”
Swiveling his head to scan the area, Jaxon looked perplexed. “Why would it?”
Connor didn’t know what reaction he had expected, but he hadn’t been prepared for a total lack of response. He couldn’t believe Jaxon didn’t even recognize the place. Maybe he had blocked it all from his memory.
“This… it’s the last place I saw you. My friends wanted to race on the bike trails, and we knew you couldn’t keep up, so I told you to stay here on the swings. When I came back, you were gone.”
Jaxon looked around, his eyes glistening in the sunlight. His voice broke. “Oh. That was here?”
“Your bike leaned up against that tree over there.” Connor pointed toward an ancient, spreading oak, its thick branches devoid of leaves in the midst of winter. “You couldn’t see up in there in the summer ’cause of the leaves, and I thought you were hiding in it to scare me. We climbed it all the time.”
Jaxon’s eyes got big as he scanned the towering tree. “Climbed up into that?”
“Yeah, sure. We pretended we were paratroopers and jumped off that low-hanging branch and rolled in the grass when we hit.” He pointed to a thick branch near the base of the tree and shook his head sadly. “But you weren’t there, either.”
“What did you do then?”
They straddled their bicycles and listened to the kids play as memories of paralyzing fear coursed through Connor. “We searched the bathrooms over there then rode around the trails, looking for you, thinking maybe you went wandering down one of them. We debated whether you went home, but it didn’t make sense you would leave your bike.”
Connor couldn’t stop the memories. At first that day, he had been frustrated, convinced Jaxon was hiding to play a joke. As time passed and their search spread out, the frustration turned into worry that he had run into a friend and taken off with him—he wasn’t so much worried about Jaxon’s safety as for his own level of trouble. After all, they weren’t supposed to have left the house, and he, being the older brother, was responsible for taking off to the park and for leaving his brother alone.
But his mind kept picking at the bike. Even if Jax had gone to a friend’s house, he would have taken his bike. He loved that thing. No way he would have risked it getting stolen, unless he forgot. Kids forgot stuff all the time, but that would’ve been a big thing to forget.
As the morning had turned to afternoon and then into evening, the worry grew into a fear and finally a panic. His friends had grown quiet, their own doubts mounting, and he finally knew he had to tell his mother what had happened. He was going to be in so much trouble, but they had to find Jax and figure out what had happened.
His last thought as he rode home to tell her was that he was going to kill his brother if he found him hiding and laughing. But by the time night had fallen and the police were combing the park, he was praying that they would find him hiding and laughing.
Connor asked, “Where did he come from? That man? The woods? The bathroom?”
Jaxon looked around, scanning the perimeter of the playground. “The parking lot, I guess. I don’t really know.”
“His van was parked there?”
He shrugged. “I guess so.”
“You don’t remember?”
Jaxon shook his head and looked down at the ground. He whispered, “I don’t know.”
Connor nodded and stared at the empty parking lot, which had been filled with vehicles that summer day. He couldn’t tell if he remembered a brown-on-brown van with a man sitting in the shadows, cigarette smoke curling out the window, or if the power of suggestion now that he knew the story made him think he did.
His voice was quiet as he wrestled with the memories. “They asked me over and over what I saw. Was there a strange car I didn’t recognize? Maybe someone hanging around I didn’t know? And worse, was I sure Dad hadn’t shown up? Did I see him at all that day?” He squinted into the sunshine. “Now that I finally know what happened, I wonder—did I see that man and not know it? If his van was parked here, I would have ridden right by it. I wouldn’t have thought he looked weird or out of place at all. He would have seen us leave and known we left you alone.”
A hand wrapped around Connor’s elbow. “Even if you’d seen him, you couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”
“But if I hadn’t wasted all afternoon scared to tell anyone I couldn’t find you…”
“They still wouldn’t have found...” Jaxon looked at the playground. “It was too late.”
“The sheriff talked to him. Remembered what he had done and drove out there just to ask him. But he didn’t know about the van. If I had remembered the van, described it to the police…”
“Stop it.” Jaxon’s voice was strong, firmer than Connor had heard since he had come home. He was surprised to see tears welling up in his younger brother’s eyes. “I wasn’t the only one, remember? Lots of kids came through that place. And they disappeared the same way. Not a trace. So don’t beat yourself up, okay? Please.”
Connor reached over and squeezed his brother’s shoulder. Just a few days ago, it was so thin that it had felt skeletal, but muscle mass was already rebuilding. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
“I don’t think I could ever go back inside that house. It’s… evil.” Jaxon squeezed the handlebars and twisted the grips. “But here? An awful thing happened here, and I wish it hadn’t, but it was once. And for me, it’s more a story than a memory.”
He sighed and looked around at kids playing, the tree swaying, and a plastic sandwich wrapper blowing across the grass. His voice was distant and soft. “I don’t remember it, the day I disappeared. Or my life before. I’m sorry, I know everyone expects me to remember stuff, but I don’t.”
Connor nodded as if he understood, though he had to admit to himself that he didn’t. He remembered everything about that day. He didn’t get how he could remember every second, and Jaxon didn’t even recognize the place.
He shook off the confusion. He had made a pledge to his brother to help him remember, so he needed to be patient and strong. “It’s okay, Jax, not to remember everything. But when you do, I’m here for you. No matter what you remember.”
Jaxon wiped his sleeve across his face with a loud sniff, leaving a grease streak on his cheek. “Cool.”
“Still want to trail ride?”
Jaxon nodded. The brothers took off down a muddy path through the woods, laughing as they rode.
47
Stepping into the situation room, David felt the buzz of excitement. Each day, the FBI forensics team
was able to identify more victims, allowing families to understand, after all these years, what had happened to their loved ones. And the sheriff’s department continued to flesh out the background of the McGregors to understand the timeline and ensure all angles had been investigated. Each afternoon, everyone shared information at a roundtable meeting.
That morning, they had identified the lone female victim. Lieutenant Gilman had been digging through her background. But David started the meeting with their primary focus. “I understand we identified two more boys.”
Agent Gonzalez handed across two folders. “Two minor children consistent with our pattern, boys who disappeared when they were six and eight years old, respectively. One was from Abingdon, Virginia and the other from Dalton, Georgia. Both disappeared during summer months without any valuable witnesses or reliable evidence. Lots of leads followed up, but nothing solid ever came of them. One did have a sighting of a van, but the description was vague, and they had so many vehicles to follow up on that it wasn’t of much use. And frankly, we don’t even know if the van spotted was our van or not. Gilman has been coordinating with the local police departments to ensure families are being notified, so at least they will finally have an answer.”
“Not much consolation.”
“No, but it’s something for them.”
David looked at the photos inside each folder, pictures of sweet, innocent boys who should have had carefree childhoods ahead of them. He closed the files and placed his hand on them. After a few minutes of silent prayer, he slid them back across the table. “Okay, update me on the female.”
Agent Gonzalez opened a thicker folder. “Female extracted from grave number two has been positively identified as Bethany Ann Andrews. Born in Morristown, Tennessee. History of petty crimes as a juvenile. Reported as a runaway three separate times. No father listed on birth certificate. Her stepfather has a lengthy record for assaults and drug possession. Mother has a record for drug possession and prostitution. The last contact either had with our subject was shortly before Bethany’s eighteenth birthday, when she left the house for Nashville to be a star.”
Gilman picked up the story. “About a month after she left home, she was arrested by Knoxville PD for prostitution and drug possession. A few weeks later, she was arrested a second time. She was convicted on both and sentenced to community service and a rehab program. I spoke to her probation officer, who said he thought she was going to be one of the few to turn things around. She was passing her drug tests and had enrolled for classes at Pellissippi Community College in Knoxville. And then she started missing her appointments with him. He guessed she had skipped town and reported it. The court issued the standard bench warrant, but it shows as never served because she never crossed anyone’s radar.”
“So she disappeared without a trace?”
“Not exactly. I called a Knoxville vice detective I know, and he dug through the old records. Turns out about six weeks after the warrant was issued for Bethany, a former coworker was arrested in a prostitution sting. The detective on the case thought to ask her about Bethany’s whereabouts. She claimed the last time she saw her, Bethany was getting into a van with a guy. Said she remembered it because Bethany had told her she was out of the life.”
“A van?”
“Even better. The notes describe a two-tone van with North Carolina tags, exact plate unknown. She gave a description of what Bethany was wearing, right down to the navy-blue book bag she was carrying.” Gilman pointed his pen toward a stack of plastic evidence bags.
“Okay, I get what you’re saying. Bethany Ann is last seen in Knoxville, carrying a blue book bag just like the one we found, climbing into a van resembling McGregor’s.” David stood and walked over to the timeline written on the whiteboard. He tapped the board with his hand and spun around. “But this is saying she was kidnapped six months before I last saw Rick.”
“Yep, I pulled the reports to make sure we had the dates right. You wrote him a ticket for running a stop sign.”
“I remember it clear as a bell. Mark had blown himself up in that stupid meth lab. I figured I would find drugs, put Dad in jail, and finally make detective, but I searched the van, and it was clean. Let him go with just the ticket.” David stared at the board. “So we’re saying she was kidnapped six months before I stopped Rick, and she was killed two years after Rick was killed. That means she was alive and being held hostage the night I stopped him.”
Agent Gonzalez said, “Yes. The forensics are clear.”
“But Rick would have known about the house, so where was Matt hiding her from him?”
Gilman answered. “We don’t think Matt was hiding her.”
David spun around. “Rick knew she was kidnapped?”
“More than that.” Gilman gestured at his notes. “The eyewitness describes the driver of the van as a white male in his fifties or sixties.”
“What?” David sat down hard in his chair and cradled his head in his hands. “But why would Rick kidnap her? And if he did, for whatever reason, why would Matt keep her alive for so long after he killed Rick? Unless you think they kidnapped her together?”
David stood and paced the room. “What was her cause of death? Was she killed violently like Rick?”
Gilman pulled out the autopsy report. “No. She appears to have died from malnutrition and illness. Simply put, she was in such a weakened state, a flu virus could easily have killed her. Tissue samples may ultimately answer exactly what, but we don’t have a specific cause yet. Unlike the other victims, she doesn’t appear to have met a specifically violent end.”
“So whether Matt knew or didn’t know Rick kidnapped her at the beginning, he didn’t treat her as violently as the others. And he kept her alive for another couple of years.” He turned to Roxanne. “The profilers must be having a field day. What’re their thoughts?”
Roxanne folded her hands. “They suggested her different treatment was because he viewed her differently, maybe simply because she was a woman and he couldn’t bring himself to murder her. Remember, he didn’t have a lot of experience with women in general.” She turned back to the table and read from a file. “Matt’s mother died of a drug overdose when Matt was two. Mark’s mother left when he was an infant and never returned. We found she died of cancer, years ago in Texas. No sign she ever made any attempt to contact the McGregors after she left, so they may never have known. Rick had a number of girlfriends over the intervening years, but no one special and no indication another woman ever lived in the house long-term, based on neighbor interviews, though everyone is fairly isolated up there.”
“So… Bethany was Rick’s idea of a girlfriend? He just kidnapped a prostitute because he was lonely?”
“Can’t answer that, but it might explain Matt’s behavior toward her after Rick was murdered. In his own sick, twisted way, he might have perceived her as a maternal figure even though she was younger. Or maybe he thought of her as a sister.”
David snorted. “So loving he let her starve to death rather than beat her or club her with an ax.”
Roxanne shrugged. “The worst part is that Rick may have inadvertently taught his son how to satisfy his cravings. He may have given Matt the idea of kidnapping and holding boys at the house.”
“What a sick family.” David looked out the window at Main Street below him. “Okay. Let’s move on for now while I try to puzzle this one out. You said we had four new IDs today. What’s the last one?”
From behind him came the sound of shuffling folders and then Roxanne’s quiet voice. “You’re going to want to sit down for this one.”
48
Heather stood in the driveway with her arms crossed, staring in the direction the boys had gone. Since Jaxon’s return, she had been reluctant to leave him alone. She had dropped in his room night and day at the hospital. And since he had been home, she had been taking vacation days to be near, but had decided to go back to work that night and trust he would be okay. Sure, Connor would be around much of t
he time she wasn’t, but he had been with him back on that fateful day too.
That was the problem. It wasn’t fair—she knew it wasn’t fair—but a small part of her had always struggled with the fact that Connor had left Jaxon alone that day. What an awful thing to think. Her eldest had been all of nine years old. Nine.
But he was still as carefree as ever, easygoing, devil-may-care, doing what fit him. It could happen again. They could get separated riding bikes. Or Connor could run into some friends, some older guys who didn’t want to hang around a damaged sixteen-year-old.
Stop it.
“Well, I better be going.” Harold jangled his car keys in his hands and turned toward his car.
“Wait.” She didn’t want to be alone. When he turned back, she asked, “Why don’t you join us for dinner?”
Harold looked stunned and stuttered a reply. “I’d like that. I mean, if you want me here.”
“As much as it scares me for him to leave the house, you’re right about the bicycle. He needs the exercise as he rebuilds his strength. And he needs to play like a kid should.” She turned and squeezed his elbow. “And he needs his dad around some. Both of them do. So maybe a family dinner sometimes would be good.”
He smiled and nodded. “Excellent. I’ll run to Abe’s Market and get what you need. Just give me a list, ’cause I’m a little rusty in the non-frozen-dinner department.”