Jack pulled her back into her seat. “Keep it down, Captain Obvious.”
Replacement sprang right back up. “There, it’s him!” She almost opened the door as she frantically jabbed the air with her finger.
“What did I just say?” Jack was about ready to abort this mission.
“No, there he is! It’s him!” Replacement yelled, gesturing wildly.
“Where?” Jack scanned the crowd milling around the buses.
“The chicken-headed kid.” She grabbed Jack’s chin and turned his head. Jack saw the teen parking his motorcycle, and atop his helmet, there it was, a five-inch-high gold Mohawk.
Jack double-parked right behind the bike, blocking him in. “Stay here.” He jumped out of the car. The rider, who was being greeted by a group of friends, turned back toward him.
“Excuse me,” Jack called. He wanted to talk to the boy without the friends. “Can you come over here for a second? I need to ask you a quick question.”
The kid has to be close to eighteen. Thinks he’s a tough guy, judging from his helmet and the fact he’s driving a motorcycle in winter.
“You a cop?” The kid laughed, and his friends circled a little closer around him.
“I am. Just a couple of questions, please.”
“Talk to my lawyer.” The teen held up both middle fingers, and his friends laughed.
Replacement pulled herself up so her whole upper body was halfway out the car window. “How about you come and talk to me? I don’t bite… hard.” She gave a sultry wave.
The kid laughed, punched one of his friends in the arm, and sauntered forward. “Sure, I’ll talk to you, babe.” He strutted over to the car.
Jack got right up next to the boy. “You can talk to me and answer a couple of questions now, or I can have your bike towed, impounded, and checked by the MVD, and then I’ll throw you in a cell.”
The teen gulped and the color drained from his face. Jack nodded to the other side of the car, and the boy followed him. Jack spoke in a low voice. “I need to know about the other day, when you and your buddies were out at the reservoir and saw a blue Honda Civic.”
The kid looked back at his friends, and his bravado returned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He might have some peacock DNA, with his gestures and poses.
“Okay.” Jack leaned in, and his voice turned cold. “Listen up. I’m doing you a favor by treating you like a man in front of your friends. If you jerk me around again, let me tell you what I’m going to do. I noticed you swerving when you pulled into the school, and I suspect you’re under the influence of a controlled substance in a school zone. Under paragraph 95 of the 1998 DEA Act, that means I can detain you until the school principal comes and the two of us will escort you down to Ms. Kazikinski’s office.”
Ms. K was the school nurse. She taught a couple self-defense courses at the local Y and was also the wrestling coach for both the boys’ and girls’ teams. She was large, burly, and, at almost six foot two, had the best frame for a linebacker Jack had ever seen on a woman. Jack was making up the DEA code, but he knew Ms. Kazikinski for a fact, and was sure the kid would be dreading whatever Jack might say next.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, any student who’s viewed as being under the influence of or in possession of a controlled substance can and will be subjected to a full-body cavity search by trained medical personnel. That would be Ms. K.” Jack smiled. “So… what’s it going to be?”
“Teddy, Tommy, Brian, Scott, and I were down at the reservoir.”
He just threw everybody under the bus.
Jack took out his notebook. “Your full name?”
“Ricky Matthews.” The kid gulped as Jack wrote it down.
“You saw the car, and then what?”
“We figured we’d just check it out.”
“What did the car look like?” Jack’s voice was still cold.
“I don’t know. Um… blue? It had been there, you know. And—”
“Been there?”
“There was snow on it. It snowed the night before. It was busted up already. There was glass on the front seat, and the window was broken open.”
Jack’s hand paused with the lurch of his heart. “Did you get in the car?”
Ricky looked at his feet and shuffled them awkwardly. “Yeah, but… I just looked.” The boy looked Jack straight in the eyes, then glanced away to the left.
He’s lying. “Did you start the car?” Jack leaned in.
“Yeah, I was just sitting there, and the keys were still there, so I turned it over. It started right up.”
Jack frowned. Ricky was holding something back. “Ricky, have you ever seen Ms. Kazikinski’s hands? She can palm a watermelon.” The teen was squirming, and his eyes went wide.
“You’re leaving something out, and you have one chance to give it up.”
“There was a smartphone. Down between the seats.”
“Where is it now?” Jack’s eyes narrowed.
“I took it but… I lost it.” Ricky looked like a little boy who had to go to the bathroom.
Jack pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
“No, no,” Ricky begged. “Wait a minute—I got it. I got it.” He pulled off his backpack and desperately rifled through it. “Here,” he grunted, handing Jack the phone.
“Is there anything else?” Jack’s eyes bored into the kid.
“No, nothing else.” Ricky waved his hands back and forth.
“Thank you for your time. I’d hurry to class if I were you. Say hello to Ms. K for me.”
Ricky bolted, avoiding his friends, who called after him. Jack watched until he disappeared through the front door.
Replacement reached out and grabbed for the phone, but Jack had to stop her sternly.
“Hold on. Evidence,” he warned, getting into the car. “There should be a plastic evidence bag in the glove box.” It already had his prints and Ricky’s on it; no use confusing things further.
Replacement found a baggie and handed it to him. After he dropped the phone in and sealed it up, he gave it back to her and started the car.
“Yeah, it’s her phone.” She pressed the power button and the excitement on her face melted into disappointment. “It’s dead.”
Jack drove around the buses and headed for the exit. “It might still work, though.” He nodded back toward the school. “Think Ricky will make it to the bathroom?”
“I think he peed himself next to the car.” She laughed.
“The kid’s angle is what I thought really happened. Three people have confirmed the car had been there a while: Sully, Nichols, and now Ricky.”
Jack’s phone rang—an old-fashioned bell, like telephones used to have.
Replacement made a face. “What kind of ringtone is that?”
Jack scowled at her as he answered. “Hello, Jack Stratton… Yeah, thanks for calling back, Sully. Can you tell me where on Reservoir Road you found the car?”
Replacement tried to put her ear up to the phone to listen.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Jack hung up.
“What did he say?”
“Near the sharp curve in the road.”
“Let’s go.”
Jack nodded. It was nice to see Replacement getting some of her bounce back.
17
It Was Me
The day was very warm for January, and they both opened their windows a crack. The smell of pine trees soon filled the car.
They approached the sharp curve in Reservoir Road and scanned up and down the road and the surrounding area. Jack noticed turned-up dirt and deep tire tracks, telling him a car had gotten stuck on the side of the road. He pulled over just past the spot and got out. Replacement fell in behind him.
Bits of plastic and broken glass were still scattered about. Under the sun, the snow had melted into deep, muddy ruts beside the road. The tire tracks and the ruts told Jack where the Civic had come to rest. Deeper tracks made by the tow truck paralleled those of the small
sedan, and a series of thinner ruts showed where the teens had stopped to check out the car.
Replacement walked away, following the debris trail, while Jack examined the tire tracks, not quite sure what he was looking for. Sometimes it helped just to look for a long time at the crime scene.
Possible crime scene. Jack forced himself to calm down, go over his notes. Michelle went missing. The kids found the car here. If the car—
Replacement was following the debris trail on the other side of the road. Jack fell into step with her, examining the scattered bits and pieces of plastic and glass, like bread crumbs, which thinned out at a certain point. The hill beside them was extremely steep for about ten feet and then rose at an easier angle. They couldn’t see over the lip, but it was obvious that the car had come from that direction. Muddy tire tracks came straight down the grass, and he could see where the car’s front end had scraped the asphalt as the car came back onto the road.
Could she have been driving up on Pine Ridge?
He had to pull himself over the lip of the hill, but once he stood, there were more tire marks to confirm it: the Civic veered off the road at Pine Ridge, barreled down the hill, and came to a stop beside Reservoir Road.
Jack looked over at Replacement beside him, muddied from the climb up the slope. “Walk slowly after me to make sure I don’t miss anything,” he told her, but that wasn’t the real reason for the request. Something felt off. Other cops and soldiers had told him to put away gut instincts and go on facts, but his gut had saved his life more times than he could count.
He could tell that this section of the hill had been the scene of a terrible brushfire years back. The living trees were new and small. A few dead, charred trees refused to fall over, and some twisted ones refused to give in. The car had made an obvious trail through the brush as it careened down the slope.
They followed the path up the hill until they reached a spot where the trail veered off at almost a ninety-degree angle and large clumps of grass and dirt stuck up from a slight gully. It wasn’t very low, but it dropped off more sharply after a couple of feet. Jack spotted some bits of shattered glass.
Jack pictured the crash. This was where it rolled over. The car flipped over and then landed back upright on its wheels. It was going straight toward the lake. Instead, it flipped on the rocks and fell off to the road below.
Jack studied the path again. It went almost straight up until that ninety-degree twist in the middle. He looked around the area where the car had flipped over. There was a lot of glass, a soda bottle, and some bits of trash.
They must have been tossed out when the car—
“Replacement.” Jack’s voice was calm, and he forced himself to adopt a neutral expression. He turned around and spoke directly to her. “I need you to go get the camera out of the trunk of my car.”
“Why?”
“It’s very important. I need it now.”
She started to protest, but instead turned and headed back down the hill, slipping, sliding, and cursing under her breath.
Jack watched her for a long time because he didn’t want to look anywhere else. He squeezed his shaking hands into fists and closed his eyes.
Please, God, help me.
His plea was always the same, whether he was in Iraq or making a drug bust.
He opened his eyes and went to the top of the rocks. He tried to picture the car. It wasn’t too smashed—surprising, considering what happened to it—so it couldn’t have rolled more than a couple of times. Where the car had changed direction, the tires had dug deeply into the ground in one spot. It must have landed there. He imagined the car again, and the path it took.
He walked past the spot where it had flipped, moving more toward its original path. He walked a couple of feet and stopped.
No, God, please. Please…
Jack’s eyes involuntarily slammed shut, and his head fell forward. It felt as though someone was crushing his chest. A low, guttural moan exploded from him.
Michelle lay on the grass, partly hidden by some shrubs. Her face was turned away from him, toward the lake. It might be someone just sleeping with her head resting on her arm, but he knew she was dead. He could smell it, that unmistakable, foul odor of death, and her skin was ashen.
He sank to his knees and his vision blurred. He wanted to scream, then immediately thought of Replacement.
He staggered back down the hill. She was back from the car and had almost reached him.
“There was no camera in the…” She trailed off when she saw his face. She shook her head. “No, no, no, no!”
Jack slowly nodded.
She swayed, her feet slipped, and she fell onto her hands and knees.
Jack rushed to her and also slipped. A sob wrenched his body as guilt and pain washed over him. He’d had two real friends, Chandler and Michelle, and they were both dead now.
Images assaulted his mind: Michelle riding her bike, Aunt Haddie holding Michelle’s hand, Michelle at Christmas…
Replacement was wailing and clawing her way up the hill on her hands and knees. He couldn’t let her see Michelle’s body. Not like that. But when he grabbed her by the waist, she turned and exploded at him in a focused rage. Her face twisted in pain, and her hand shot out to smash him across his face. He held on through her punches, the kicking, and the clawing.
“I want to see her!”
Jack just gripped her tighter.
“You were supposed to come back. You were supposed to watch out for us. Why didn’t you? What did we do?”
When she pulled him down, collapsing in the mud, he still didn’t let go, soothing her with empty words until he felt her body slacken and the rough sobbing taper off into hiccups.
He sat up and dug into his pocket for his phone. “Officer Jack Stratton.” It was Cindy, he thought, working dispatch, but he had a hard time making out what she was saying, and his own voice sounded far off to him. “I’m on Reservoir Road. Send a car… and… the coroner.” He hung up even as Cindy was frantically calling out to him.
Replacement was in shock now, breathing raggedly and shaking uncontrollably. He sat with her in the mud and snow and put his arm around her. He closed his eyes, turning to that inner abyss where he felt broken and alone.
It was me. I pushed people away. I wouldn’t leave… but I made them get out of my life.
All the people he loved, and who loved him most, had been buried as he shoveled himself into his hole of self-pity. His parents, brushed aside. Aunt Haddie, his other mother, abandoned when they could have helped each other with their grief.
Michelle, whom he’d truly loved, dead on this hillside for weeks, and he hadn’t even known.
“Jack.” Replacement’s voice was quiet and soft. “Jack, I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her muddy, tear-stained face was strained with fear.
“No, you got it right.” His mouth twitched, and he stared down as he shook. “I’m a rotten bastard. I can’t even remember your real name.” He expected to see a look of disgust, but instead her eyes filled with concern.
“Please tell Aunt Haddie I’m sorry.” Jack felt the cold metal press against his temple as he put his gun to his head to silence the voices, especially Michelle’s, crying out to him...
“Jack!” Replacement held out a trembling hand. “Please give me the gun.”
He heard her voice from a far distance, but she was right beside him, breathing, her panting breaths making puffs of steam in the cold. Twenty-five feet away, another young woman, who would never breathe or laugh or bike or go sledding again or have children…
Jack could hear sirens now. When they came, everything would be over anyway. You can’t have a breakdown as a cop. He heard voices everywhere—Aunt Haddie, Chandler, his father—all telling him to put down the gun, this wasn’t the answer, this would only hurt the people he loved…
His chest hurt. His heart hurt. He was so tired of pain, of failing, of not being in the right place at the right time, of not knowing where his place
or time was. He was truly lost.
A voice was calling his name. It seemed to come nearer and nearer, until he realized Replacement was right beside him. When he turned to her, barely seeing her, not quite sure who she was, she spoke calmly and firmly. “If you do it, I will too.” She looked straight into his eyes.
They stared at each other, the sirens growing louder. Jack couldn’t seem to think. He lowered the gun. “I’m broken,” he whispered.
“Me too, Jack.” Her hand came around to lie softly on his. “Don’t leave me all alone.”
She slid forward and placed her shaking hand over his hand that held the gun. When he realized what he’d just done—and almost done—a fresh wave of shame washed over him and dragged him back toward the abyss.
Two fire trucks, an ambulance, and three cruisers now streamed down Reservoir Road toward them. Cindy had really pulled out all the stops. Again he heard a voice from far, far away, coming closer.
“… Jack. Please. I know we can help each other… Jack…”
When he let go, she pulled the gun away and hid it in her jacket. He let her take his arm and pull him toward the Impala and make him sit beside her on the hood to wait for the final scene to unfold on Reservoir Road—the questions.
Endless questions with no answers.
The fire trucks pulled up, and Jack and Replacement watched the firefighters and policemen pour out of their vehicles and rush toward them. Replacement took Jack’s hand, and he pulled her close and gently rocked her as she cried.
18
Sometimes… We All Do
The next few hours were a blur of cops and firefighters swarming the embankment, covering Michelle’s body and bringing it down to the road, pained looks… Now Jack was sitting in a hospital, a thick blanket over his shoulders, medicine clouding his brain.
How he hated hospitals. They tried to mask the smell of death with cleaners, perfumes, and disinfectants, but he could still smell it. He wondered how many people had died in the bed he now occupied.
Detective Jack Stratton Box Set Page 12