by David Archer
“Thanks. You are about the only person in this whole city I trust at the moment, so that means a lot to me.”
“Glad I can help you feel better,” Karen said. “Now, what is this all about?”
“Right at this moment, telling you would only put you in danger. I know you, Karen, you’d want to do something about it the same way I do, but you have to believe me when I tell you this is too big to handle on our own. I’m not sure what to do with it just yet, but I needed to know that there was someone inside the department I can trust.”
“Well, you can trust me. Can you give me some idea of how I can help?”
“Not just yet. I’m probably going to need information pretty soon, though, things you may need to find out for me. For right at the moment, just don’t let anyone know you’ve spoken to me, okay? The people behind my current situation wouldn’t hesitate to try to use you or your kids against me, or they might just decide they want you out of the way.”
She was silent for a moment. “Okay, we’ll play this your way. I’ll keep all of this between us. But, Sam, if you’re worried about me and my family, what about your own?”
“I’ve already got them out of town, and even I don’t know where they are. You know Indie, nobody’s going to track her down unless she wants them to. They’re safe for the moment.” He thought for a few seconds. “What have you heard about what’s going on?”
“Jerry Lemmons says you were digging around in his missing persons investigation and somehow got crossways with some guy named Fletcher. Story is, you took Fletcher out to some old cabin you own and killed him, then hid his body in the woods. He’s claiming he’s got enough for a murder charge, but the DA hasn’t agreed to it yet.”
“Okay, that’s a relief for the moment, anyway. I’m gonna need to ditch this phone shortly, but I’ll round up another one as quick as I can and call you. Let me know if they decide to make it official, okay?”
“You’ll know as soon as I do, or at least as soon as I talk to you again. Just tell me why Jerry is out to get you, can you do that?”
“Again, the less you know, the better off you are. Let’s leave it at that for now, and I’ll tell you as soon as I possibly can.” He looked up and saw that they were approaching a stop at a shopping center. “Gotta go for now,” he said. “I’ll have a new phone pretty quick, call you then.”
He ended the call and stood as the bus came to a stop, turning off his phone and shoving it under the seat, jamming it into the framework. With any luck, no one would notice it for quite some time. He stepped off the bus and mingled with the milling crowd that was heading into the mall.
It took him only fifteen minutes to find Gadgets, a store that specialized in electronics. A young man with spiky hair smiled at him as he entered.
“Welcome to Gadgets,” he said. “My name is Joel. What can I do for you today?”
Sam gave him a grin and spoke in an accent that sounded like it came from somewhere in the Appalachians. “Hi, there, I’m Wendell. I’m here visiting my sister and my dad gum cell phone broke, can you believe that? I can’t get a new one until I get home, so I thought I’d come see about one of those cheap ones. Y’all sell those?”
Joel squinted one eye. “Uh, yeah. You want something simple, or a smart phone with a data plan?”
“Oh, nothing fancy. With my luck, the phone would be smarter than me. How about one of those easy ones that just make phone calls?”
Sam chose the simplest phone the store kept in stock, and it took another fifteen minutes to get it activated. Within forty minutes of entering the mall, he was making his first call as he walked out a rear entrance.
“Hello?” Indie said.
“It’s me, Babe. Just thought it was time to check in.”
“Sam? I didn’t know the number, what happened to your phone?”
“I decided to get rid of mine for now, too,” he said. “I’ll be using this one for the time being. You guys doing okay?”
“Me? I’m lounging beside a pool while our mothers are splashing in the water with our daughter. How are things on your end?”
“Same old things,” Sam said. “I confronted a killer this morning, and now I’m wanted for murder. Typical day.”
Sam could hear her eyebrows trying to crawl over the top of her scalp. “Wanted for murder? Sam, what on earth have you gotten into?”
“Well, I had stashed Marty Fletcher out at Dad’s old hunting cabin, I thought he’d be safe there. Unfortunately, Lemmons and his boys tracked him down by some GPS thing in his van. Lemmons is claiming he’s dead, and the word is out that I supposedly killed him. Probably be a good idea for you to stay wherever you are for a few more days, at least.”
“Oh, my God, Sam, did Lemmons kill him?”
“Not personally, but he’s definitely involved and it gets even worse than that. I’m not going into detail over the phone, but there is no doubt in my mind he’ll kill me if he gets a chance.”
Indie was quiet for a few seconds, then spoke. “What about Tracy? Have you found anything on her?”
“Not yet, but I think she’s still alive. Marty Fletcher had something Lemmons wanted, and I’m pretty sure he was using Tracy as leverage to get it. Now he knows that I’ve got it, and that he’ll never get it if anything happens to her. I’m hoping that will be enough to keep her alive until I can get to the bottom of this.”
“And just how on earth are you planning to do that, without getting yourself killed in the process?”
“Right now, I’m going to make myself the biggest possible thorn in Jerry Lemmons’s side. I’ve got somebody who’s willing to work with me on it, somebody I trust. The idea is to keep Lemmons and his accomplices hopping until I find out where Tracy is. I’ll give you a call in a few hours, let you know what’s going on, okay?”
Indie sighed. “Sam, this is scary. Beauregard said there were three lives to save, and if Marty is already dead…”
“I know. If that’s one down, who are the other two? I don’t suppose Beauregard has had anything more to say about it?” Sam heard the catch in Indie’s voice, as if she started to say something and then thought better of it. “What? Tell me.”
She let out an even deeper sigh. “I’m not sure it means anything,” she said, “which is why I hadn’t mentioned it. Mom says Beauregard told her a little while ago that you’re going to have to figure out how to solve this case all on your own.”
“All on my own? What on earth is that supposed to mean?”
“Honey, like I said, I don’t know that it means anything. I mean, of course you got to solve it on your own, there’s nobody else who can do it, right?”
It was Sam’s turn to sigh. “None of this is making any sense at all,” he said. “I’ll call you when I can. Love you, Babe.”
“I love you too,” Indie said. “You be careful, okay?” The phone went dead.
His next call was to Karen Parks. “It’s me,” he said. “Keep this number. Any news?”
“Not just yet,” she replied. “I can tell you that every cop out there is keeping an eye out for you, but I bet you already knew that.”
“Standard procedure. Okay, just let me know if anything new develops.”
“Not so fast, there, Buster. Your car was located a few minutes ago, and is being towed in. How are you going to get around while you’re trying to clear your name?”
“Guess I’ll keep riding the bus. No other options, at the moment.”
“Well, I’ve got one for you. My dad’s old pickup truck is sitting behind my house. If you trust me, tell me where you are and I’ll come get you. You can use the truck for a while.”
“I trust you,” Sam said, “but are you sure you want to take the chance? If this goes sour, it won’t look good that you let me use a vehicle.”
“So don’t let it go sour. Tell me where to meet you, and I’ll get there as quick as I can.”
Sam sighed and told her to meet him in the parking lot of one of the big department sto
res at the mall. She said she’d be there in twenty minutes, and hung up the phone.
Sam leaned nervously against a dumpster beside the building until he spotted Karen’s unmarked Charger cruising slowly through the parking lot. He stepped out where she could see him and waited for her to pull alongside, then jumped into the passenger seat.
“Hunker down, would you?” Karen asked. “Last thing I need is for anyone to spot you in here with me at the moment. Damn, Sam, you get yourself into some of the worst messes. We’ve got a few minutes, why don’t you start telling me what the hell is going on?”
Sam slunk down low in the seat and grinned up at her. “Remember I said you weren’t going to like it? Well, here’s the short version. Long time ago, I was engaged to a girl who had been my best friend all the way through school. Things fell apart, for reasons we don’t need to worry about anymore, and the engagement got called off. Well, she disappeared a few days ago and yesterday, her teenage daughter came to see me. The girl says her mom told her that if anything were to happen to her, she was supposed to come and get me to look into it.”
“Missing woman? You’re talking about that Tracy Jensen? Jerry Lemmons has that case, and he’s the one claiming you murdered some guy named Fletcher. I’m guessing this is all connected, then?”
“Like a big jigsaw puzzle,” Sam said. “Marty Fletcher was a video blogger, one of those guys who talks to a camera and then posts it up on YouTube. Apparently, the more followers you get, the more money you can make doing that kind of stuff. Fletcher had a lot of followers, but a couple of weeks ago he made a video and then forgot to turn off his camera. He left his van in a parking lot facing an alley, and a few hours later that camera captured five cops murdering three teenagers.”
Karen’s face spun around to look at him, her eyes wide. “You can’t be serious!”
Sam nodded. “I’m dead serious, I’ve seen the video. There were four uniform cops, including Dave Forsyth who used to be in vice. Two of the others were named Slocum and Driscoll, but I never got a name on the fourth. The last one was none other than Detective Jerry Lemmons.”
Karen kept her eyes on the road, but the set of her jaw told Sam she was having a hard time accepting what he was telling her. “You got some idea why they killed these kids?”
“I think it was just something that got out of control,” Sam said. “Lemmons and some of the others were smacking two boys around, supposedly trying to teach them respect for law enforcement. Another cop was holding a girl that was with the boys, but she started screaming. Lemmons told that cop to shut her up, and I think he just meant to put her to sleep but he didn’t let go quick enough. They suddenly realized she was dead, and then Lemmons said they had to finish the boys off and get rid of the bodies. They strangled the boys as well, then wrapped them up in a tarp and loaded them into the trunk of one of the squads.”
Karen made a turn, then glanced at Sam again. “You think they killed Fletcher and the woman?”
“I’m sure they must’ve killed Fletcher. I tracked him down yesterday, and that’s when he showed me the video. He was scared to death Lemmons and the others were going to kill him, so I took him to my dad’s old cabin to hide him out. I was hoping to keep him safe, but they found him there and killed him, and Jerry wants to pin it on me. I’m still holding out hope that Tracy is alive.”
“Let me guess,” Karen said, “you told Lemmons you saw the video, right?”
“Yep, but it gets even better. I also told him that I’ve got the only copy. My plan was to try to convince him to give up Tracy in exchange for it, but Fletcher had another copy stashed on the Internet somewhere, don’t know where. If he’s dead, the one I’ve got really is the only one that’s accessible. After I escaped from Lemmons at the restaurant, I’m sure he’s telling everyone how dangerous I am, and that they need to shoot first and ask questions later. He’s hoping I hid that video so well no one can find it, so if he can get rid of me, the problem goes away.”
“And did you hide it?”
Sam pulled the tablet out from under the back of his shirt. “Not exactly,” he said. “To be honest, I’m afraid to let it out of my possession.”
12
Sam could see Karen’s mind working hard, trying to make sense of everything she’d been told. Karen Parks was a good cop, and Sam knew that she’d have a hard time dealing with the idea of cold-blooded killers wearing badges.
She suddenly slowed the car down and turned carefully into an alley. A moment later, she pulled into her own backyard and parked next to an old Ford pickup truck.
“We’re good here,” she said. “Nobody can see inside my yard. Bring that damn tablet and follow me.”
She climbed out of the car and Sam followed her into her house. She called out to be sure neither of her kids was home, then motioned for Sam to follow her into the living room. They sat down on the couch and she looked at Sam. “Show me.”
Sam turned on the tablet and poked the icon. A chime went off, and then the image of the alleyway appeared on the screen with a Play Button superimposed over it. Sam touched it to start the video running, then turned it so Karen could also see what was on the screen.
The video played through just as it had before, and Sam realized that he was noticing little details that had escaped him the first time. He hadn’t noticed, for instance, that the girl was wearing clothes that suggested her family was well off, while the boys were dressed in what his mother would have referred to as “Salvation Army rejects.” He couldn’t help wondering how the three of them had ended up in that alley that night, but those were answers he could look for at a later time.
Sam pointed out Forsyth when he arrived, but told Karen he didn’t know his partner’s name. She leaned forward as the man came into view and said, “That’s Mark Wright. He asked me for a date last week, but I turned him down. It’s funny, he and Forsyth just got transferred to the day shift about ten days ago. In fact, so did these other two.” She felt a shiver run down her spine. “Sure glad I didn’t go out with him.”
Sam kept watching and noticed something else. At the point where Jerry Lemmons arrived on the scene, Officer Driscoll’s face broke into a smile, and the man actually winked. He was holding the girl’s right arm in his right hand, but his left arm was already curling around her throat at that point. It almost looked like that he knew what was coming and was excited about it.
Karen sat perfectly still as the video played through, and when it finished she simply stared at the screen for another full minute. When she finally turned her face toward Sam, he could see the tears that were brimming over and beginning to run down her cheeks.
“Dear God, Sam,” she said. “Dear God, they were just kids!”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, they were. I remember a couple of weeks ago, there was mention of a missing girl on the news. Her parents seemed to think she had run away with a couple of boys she was hanging out with. I suspect we’ve just seen the truth of what happened to her. As for the boys, I gather no one thinks much about them going missing.”
Karen shook her head. “I vaguely remember something about the girl disappearing with two teenage boys, but that’s all. From the look of those two, though, they might be the type that don’t get noticed a lot. Boys like that can vanish without anyone raising too big a fuss.”
“The problem is that this really is the only usable copy of the video, now. I need it to get Tracy back, but somehow we also have to get it to a prosecutor. Trouble is, the way he encrypted it, I can’t even make a copy.”
Karen grinned. “Someday when your daughter is a teenager, you’ll learn a few tricks like the one I’m about to show you. Start that video again.” She took out her phone, turned on its video camera app and pointed it at the screen of the tablet. When the video finished running, she saved the recording she had just made and then played part of it back. “It’s a little grainy, but I bet we can find a computer guy who can clean it up pretty good, enough to show the grand jury.”
&n
bsp; Sam shook his head. “I’m married to a computer whiz, but I never would’ve thought of that. What are you going to do with it?”
“Monica Purvis is still bucking to run for governor one of these days,” Karen said. “She’d be all over this. I’ll get it to her and get her started on it. What are you going to be doing in the meantime?”
Sam thought for a moment. “Do me a favor and hold off on going to Purvis for a few hours. As far as Lemmons knows, I have the only existing copy. That’s still the best hope I have of getting Tracy back alive to her family.”
Karen looked up at him and smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s almost eleven, now. I’ll give you until four o’clock, okay? That way I can catch her before she gets out of her office.”
Sam nodded again. “Okay. Hopefully, that will be enough time. Just make sure nobody finds out you’ve got that video until after you talk to her. Lemmons won’t hesitate to kill anyone he thinks is standing in the way of putting this behind him.”
“Yeah,” Karen said. “And at the moment, he figures that’s just you.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a set of keys, then grabbed a baseball cap that was lying on the coffee table. “Put this on and take the truck,” she said. “It’s not the most beautiful thing you’ll ever drive, but it runs great and has plenty of power. Got a plan in mind yet?”
Sam put on the hat, added his own sunglasses and gave her his most evil grin. “The only one that ever really seems to work,” he said. “I’m just going to use myself as bait.”
Karen stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. “You know your wife is going to kill you if you live through this, right?”
Sam chuckled. “Let’s just hope she gets the chance,” he said as he walked out the back door and headed toward the old Ford. He glanced around to be sure no one was looking, then slid in behind the wheel. Lemmons’s gun, still tucked into his waistband in the back, was pressing on his spine. He took it out and put it in the glove box.