by Grant Pies
“Stepkids.” Carter sensed an annoyance in her voice. Once again, the body and mind were quick to abandon the sadness, return to a more acceptable emotion, a more bearable emotion. “Only every other weekend, thank God. No, another kid of my own would be too much after Jasmine. I don’t have any energy left to go into another child.”
Sam smiled and held out another framed photo. “She was beautiful.” She was in her St. Mary of the Lake uniform. He handed the photo to Carter. Looking back at him was a misshaped pupil, melting into the rest of her right eye. Carter’s heart raced again. But this time Sam spoke up and led the questioning.
“Her eye.” He pointed at his own face. “Interesting. Was that something she had at birth?” Janette nodded. “Did it affect her vision?” She shook her head. “But she didn’t get it from you, I see.”
“No, not from me…” She fidgeted with a balled-up tissue she had been dabbing her nose with.
“Then your ex? Brian?” Sam probed further, knowing the answer, but wanting to see what Janette said. She just nodded. “Did he know what it was that caused that?”
“You know, I really need to get going.” She stood. “I have to pick my step kids up from school soon.”
“It caught my attention because a feature like that would make it easier to identify a missing person.” Sam tried his best to keep on the subject.
“Is today a short day at school?” Carter looked down at his watch. It was noon. He stood and shoved his notepad into his pocket.
“I have things to do before I pick them up.” She took a few steps towards the front door.
“The eye.” Carter paused at the door as Janette ushered them out. “What was the condition that caused that?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Carter,” she said tersely.
“You never asked the doctors? What about your ex? He was never told what the condition was?”
“I don’t know what Brian talked with his doctors about.” She nodded at the door and gripped the knob. “I don’t see what it matters anyway.”
“It…” Carter backed towards the door and Janette pulled it open. Humid air seeped in like a fog, wrapping around and pressing down on everything. “It’s…” Carter looked at Sam, who shook his head and stepped out the front door. “James Miller,” Carter blurted out. “Do you know James Miller?”
She let out a huff and shook her head. “I don’t know anyone by that name. Like I said, I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“Your ex didn’t pass that onto Jasmine, did he?” Carter backed up until he crossed the threshold. Janette clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on the doorknob. “It was someone else.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Bridgeport Cryobank. Did you go there? Did you use a donor? Do you have any contact info for him?”
“It was a pleasure digging up old memories with you two, but I don’t need to discuss my medical history or any other private decisions my ex-husband and I made years ago with two beat-up mall cops! Goodbye.” She slammed the door in Carter’s face and latched the chain lock on the other side.
Stepping off the front porch, Sam said, “That went well.”
Bullets in the Wind
Carter stood in the bathroom of their motel room, splashing cold water over his face. It had been a couple days since he slept, at least slept well. But the scrapes on his face were scabbed and healing. The swelling had gone down, and the bruises faded to a light blue.
He looked better than he did at the hospital, but he couldn’t help but see his face as something that was aging faster than it should. He grabbed a small towel and dried off, then tossed it in the sink.
“Is everyone that touchy talking about their pregnancy?” Carter asked.
“I never found it to be a big deal. Laura and I didn’t have to try at all to get pregnant. Wouldn’t even say we were trying. We just weren’t not trying. You want my opinion, it wasn’t so much the sperm bank. It was you revealing we had information she didn’t give you. Information that might mean we’re onto something, might mean there’s hope of finding out what happened to her daughter.
“Parents need permission to move on. They need someone to tell them that the case is closed, that there really is nothing else they can do. And if we come along, giving them hope, or the impression that the case is reopened, they start grieving all over again. What you saw was her mind rejecting that idea. She couldn’t take any more grieving. There’s only so much of that a person can live through. That’ll make you cynical really quick. Figure you’d understand.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Oh, it’s not a jab or nothing. It’s just … you’re cynical.” Sam sat on the bed opposite Carter. “At the root of any cynic is just someone who’s held onto false hopes for too long.”
“And you think I’m holding onto some false hope? Hope for what?” Carter asked, squinting his eyes at Sam.
“That’s for you to figure out. It’s just the way of things. It naturally happens when life cries wolf too many times.” Sam shrugged, like all of this should have been obvious to Carter. “It’s life tricking you into thinking something good could happen. The key is to stop expecting anything good before you grow too pissed off at life. Let go of the false hopes.” Sam leaned back to rest on the bed, his feet still on the floor and his arms stretched behind his head.
“Sounds like your solution to beating cynicism is to become a cynic on your own, as opposed to traveling the long road of false hopes. But you’re just ending up at the same fucked up place.”
“Now you get it! Finally. It’s realism.”
“That – that might be the most depressing thing you’ve ever said,” Carter said.
“That’s life. It’s all about how you confront false hopes. For Jasmine’s mom, she hoped to find her daughter. But she’s finally let go of that.
“And you think I’m the same way?” Carter asked, not knowing if he should be curious or offended.
“It’s a strong possibility, is all I’m saying.”
Carter looked across the room at the picture of Rose tacked to the wall. Now, Jasmine’s picture was tacked next to it. Both of them looking back. Their eyes melting. Half-sisters gone missing.
“So I assume there’s no way to narrow down the number of James Millers?” Sam asked.
“Nah,” Carter sighed and shook his head, still locking eyes with the two missing girls. “We could narrow them down by age, maybe see if any of them were in prison during the time our James Miller was making deposits at Bridgeport, but that’s assuming he was or is in Chicago. And it always could just be an alias. I’m afraid the name’s a dead end.”
“Then what?” Sam said. “Is it time to throw in the towel?”
“We haven’t found this guy yet.”
“We aren’t going to find him. You just said so yourself.”
“Not this way.”
“We’ve got an office to rebuild, remember?” Sam said. “Look around!” He motioned around the motel room. “This is what exhausting every lead looks like. Two men stuck in a motel room, one of them wanted for robbing a fucking sperm bank!” Sam smiled and chuckled, then quickly snapped himself back to a more serious tone. “We both have some nasty characters coming after us, prepared to do God knows what to us if they ever catch us. We caught Dennis Orcheck. The client is happy, all things considered.” Sam stood from the bed.
“You’re right,” Carter said, scrolling through his phone.
“Thank God,” Sam sighed. “So, we can check out of here?”
“You mentioned the guys following us.” Carter held his phone out towards Sam.
Taking a deep breath and exhaling powerfully, Sam looked at the picture of the van Carter took just before the man torched their office. “MKZ Distributions, LLC,” he read.
“I didn’t write it down!” Carter smacked Sam in the shoulder, sat up from the bed, and opened his computer. “I told you, pictures are no good for me. Fuck, I should have written this down.” He ty
ped frantically. “With the fire, the hospital, and then going to Jasmine’s house. It slipped my mind. But that’s a lead!”
“Fuck,” Sam said softly under his breath. “It never ends with you, does it?”
“And Orcheck,” Carter said. “We gotta talk to him. Maybe he knows something.”
“Hold up.” Sam held his hands out. “You now want to interview the guy who was abusing our missing person? I think the cops can handle that.”
“They’ll only ask him what he did to Rose. You heard him, they were in a relationship.” Sam opened his mouth to speak, but Carter stopped him before he could say anything. “I’m not saying it’s normal. That guy is a horrible person, full stop. He deserves all the punishment he gets, but what if he, in his own twisted way, actually cared for her? And what if he had tricked Rose into thinking they were in a relationship? Boyfriend and girlfriend. She may have said something to him.”
“Like what?” Sam asked but then quickly waved his hand in the air. “You know what, never mind. We are not talking to him. The cops will never allow it. It’s not happening!”
Carter looked up and pointed at the computer screen. “MKZ Distributions. Riley Road.” He jotted the address down and stood up.
“I’ll go,” Sam said, “but only because I know it’s just gonna be another dead end like BioLife was, and at some point you’re gonna have to give up and I want to be there to tell you I told you so. But we are not going to discuss interviewing Orcheck again.”
This part of Chicago was only inhabited by factory workers. Smokestacks and industrial buildings lined every pothole-filled street. There was a constant white noise of machinery humming in the air, and everything was covered in soot.
The two of them ducked behind a metal shipping container. “There.” Carter pointed at a bank of vans, all of them labeled MKZ Distributions. Men in overalls loaded the vans with boxes, and one man stood with a clipboard, making note of what went in each van.
“C’mon, let’s get closer,” Carter moved out from behind the shipping container, not knowing if he should crouch or stand tall like he was supposed to be there. He decided to stand up, but every movement felt forced and fake.
To Carter, Sam looked much more comfortable. Maybe it was his years on the police force, or maybe he just didn’t give a shit since he figured this was all a dead end. Wind kicked dust around the two of them and blew Carter’s coat around his body.
They ducked behind a steel warehouse building. The metal sheeting had holes where the rust had eaten the wall away. Sam peered around the corner at the vans.
“What do you expect to find here?” he asked. “This business. It’s going to be just like the businesses in that apartment building. Or the van was stolen. The name of the game is keep your expectations low.”
“But it’s already different from BioLife. The business is an actual business. It’s right there!” Carter pointed at the bank of vans. “Fuck it. I’m going over there!” He turned the corner and marched towards the man with the clipboard.
“Wait!” Sam sped to catch up. “Carter!”
Carter ignored Sam and continued his way towards the vans. He walked across the graveled parking lot, his coat blowing away from his body and dust brushing against his face. The man with the clipboard looked up when Carter was about twenty feet away. Carter gave a slight nod. The man just looked back and frowned.
He was only a few steps away from the man when another large man carrying a box stepped towards the van closest to Carter. His thick forearms were tattooed, and he wore the same clothes Carter saw on the man who burned his office, a work uniform for MKZ. He looked at Carter, his eyes widened, and he dropped the box. He turned and ran, dust kicking up behind him.
“Go!” Carter yelled towards Sam, blowing past the man with the clipboard. The man sprinted ahead of them dodging other workers carrying boxes. Carter glanced back and saw that Sam was further behind him, barely jogging.
“Move!” Carter waved the workers away. The man ran up a ramp and flung a door to the back of a large factory open. Carter reached the door only a few seconds later. Inside, the place was dark, weak streaks of sunlight coming through dirt-covered windows high up the walls. Large pieces of machinery filled the otherwise empty space.
He paused to listen. The sound of speeding footsteps somewhere in the factory echoed and bounced all around him. He reached his hand around the back of his waistband, but found no gun.
“Shit.”
Something clanged in the distance, and he made his way in that direction. He found a screwdriver sitting near a piece of machinery and gripped it in his hand, slowing to a walk so he could hear any noise. Pain pulsed through his barely recovered ankle, and part of him regretted running after this man.
He caught a glimpse of a man weaving around some large machine. His eyes glistened in the darkness and then his feet shuffled away. Carter took chase and gripped the screwdriver hard in his fist.
His feet pounded in pursuit of the man. In the distance, he saw movement, turning corners and occasionally slipping on oily puddles on the cement floor as he followed. He dodged left and then right, squinting his eyes to catch a glimpse of something. Anything. He stopped, cocking his head and listening. Still nothing.
Carter ran full speed, hoping he didn’t trip or run into anything. He had to catch this man. For the first time in days, an actual answer was within reach. The further he made it through this case, the more he realized Sam was right; maybe people have given up on hoping for a happy ending. Knowledge of what happened, answers, was enough, even if the answers were gruesome or difficult to hear. They didn’t need life to go back to the way it was, they just needed to know what happened, even if they never really know why.
His feet thudded with each speeding step, splashing through puddles or shifting on bits of dirt scattered on the floor. His coat blew behind him. To his right a door burst open, flung with force and purpose, as Sam lunged into the factory. The men collided, Carter’s head snapping back and smashed against the solid concrete floor. Sam fell on top of Carter, the wind rushing out of both of them. Sam coughed and moaned, then rolled off Carter onto the floor. The screwdriver was shoved deep in his stomach.
“Shit! Shit! Sam? Shit!”
“What the fuck?” Sam grunted and clutched his stomach. He looked down and lifted his hands to find his palm covered in blood. “You – you stabbed me!”
Panicked, Carter looked around for something to stop the bleeding. He found a rag, surely dirty, but better than nothing. “Here, press this against your stomach!”
“You stabbed me,” Sam repeated, a look of confusion still plastered on his face.
“Where’d you come from? You just burst through the door out of nowhere!” Carter swiveled his head. No one was around to help. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone. Somewhere in the distance, something crashed to the floor and footsteps pattered off in the darkness. Carter twisted around and tensed his body.
Coughing and wincing, Sam said, “Give me the phone.” He held a bloody hand out.
Carter looked at Sam. “But—"
“Give me the phone!” Sam snatched it from Carter’s hand. “Take this.” He pulled his pistol out from the back of his waistband and handed it to Carter. “Just promise not to shoot me with it.”
Carter looked at Sam’s face, then down at the slowly growing circle of blood around his gut.
“Just go! He’s getting away. I’ll call for help.”
Carter nodded and took off in the direction of the noise. He ran as fast as he could, not looking around or stopping to listen for another noise, just ran through the dark warehouse. Ahead of him a square of light flashed as the man opened a door. The Chicago midday sun shone in, the silhouette of the man caught against it.
“Freeze!” Carter shouted and held Sam’s gun in the air, hoping he would be mistaken for a cop. But the man hesitated only briefly, then took off into the sun. Carter reached the door just behind him. Wind and dust blew i
n his face, and the bright white sun blinded him.
He chased the man down, closing in on him until they were only ten feet apart. “Freeze!” Carter repeated. “I will shoot!”
He fired a single shot, and the man ahead of him jumped. He covered his head and ducked towards the ground.
“Okay! Okay!” He dropped to his knees.
Carter reached him and drove his knee into the man’s back, pushing him into the dust, face to the ground.
“Don’t fucking move! Put your arms out to your side! Palms flat!” he yelled, pressing the barrel of the gun hard against the man’s skull.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
“What’s your name!”
“Wha – uh – Jason – Jason Grimes.”
Shoving his free hand into Grimes’ pockets, Carter said, “Two days ago, you started a fire at my office, didn’t you!”
He pulled the man’s wallet out of his back pocket, flipped it open to reveal Jason’s license. The name matched.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started the fire. Just don’t shoot. Please. I got a wife. A kid.”
“I don’t give a shit! Guy like you, wife and kid are probably better off without you. Do they know you almost killed two people in that fire?”
“I thought it was empty. Please. Plea—"
“Shut up!” Carter pressed the gun until he felt the man’s skull might crack under the pressure. “Why’d you do it? Did someone hire you?”
“Yeah! Yes! I was hired to do it. I’m sorry.”
Grimes’ words were muffled by the ground. In the distance, sirens wailed. Carter looked back at the warehouse. Hang in there Sam.
“Why?”
“Guy said you hurt his wife. Beat her up or something.”
“What?” Carter scrunched his face. “What are you talking about?”
“He said he couldn’t go to the cops cuz you had a bunch of cop friends. He wanted to teach you a lesson. I don’t know man – I – I don’t know. I’m sorry man. He offered good money!”