Helpless

by Daniel James Palmer

  What he found was a rough steel mounting, secured to the inside wall by three five-millimeter screws. What he didn’t find was the steel rod and flange he could push to trigger the latch and open the door.

  A pulse of anger swept over him and gave a brief, but pleasant, rush of warmth. He wondered if Roland had used this cooler as a torture chamber before. It would explain the missing safety release, Tom thought. It made sense they pulled this stunt after hours so that no Plenty Market employees would discover him slowly freezing to death inside their refrigerator. A bunch of yelling and banging would only cost him precious degrees of body heat. Any moves he made to escape would have to be well thought through.

  Tom closed his eyes, despite the darkness within, and allowed his body to shiver. Shivering, he knew, would cause the body to produce heat. He was aware it could also produce fatigue, which in turn would lower his body temperature. Still, the air movement from shivering warmed him some and allowed him precious time to think clearly.

  Again moving toward the shut door, Tom felt around the sabotaged inside release handle. The hole where the steel rod should have been was smaller than the tip of his pinkie finger.

  Tom smiled.

  He worked his way over to the shelving unit closest to him and felt three levels of wire shelving fastened to a freestanding structure. Tom removed all food items, making sure he kept the path to the door clear. He removed the top two levels of shelving, leaving the bottom shelf in place. He gripped the sides of the shelf unit and tested its sturdiness.

  Good.

  Settling into position, he set his foot down atop the bottom shelf. He had enough maneuverability with the other shelves removed to generate significant force with a downward thrust of his leg. They had measured how much force his kick generated in the navy, and it exceeded a thousand pounds of pressure, more than the equal of a good martial artist.

  Tom hoisted his foot knee high and brought it down with as much power as he could generate. His body shook from the impact, but he felt the steel rods of the shelf begin to loosen. Again and again he slammed his foot into the shelf, until at last he heard a pleasing snap. Tom removed the broken shelf from the structure holding it in place and felt around the edges for where a rod had separated from the frame. Then he bent that rod back even farther with his hands. He had no doubt the rod he bent would fit inside the hole, but would it be long enough to engage the latch?

  His shivering hands made it difficult to manipulate the unwieldy shelf with its broken wire rod into the tiny hole at the center of the release handle mount. Before long, though, he had the rod inserted and the trigger mechanism engaged.

  Tom emerged from the darkness of the cooler, wearing his Windbreaker on his head. He blinked his eyes to adjust them to the light.

  “Thirteen minutes,” Roland said. “Not bad, Tom. Not bad at all.”

  Tom turned.

  Roland Boyd kept his distance from Tom and held a stopwatch in his hand. Even from twenty paces, Tom could see the welt on Roland’s face—it was red but had subsided some already. Cold air from the open cooler door continued to chill Tom’s skin. Sullivan was there, too, diagonal to Tom.

  Smart move.

  With the three of them forming a ragged triangle, Tom could go after either Sullivan or Roland, but definitely not both. Sullivan now had a suit jacket on, and Roland still wore his. Tom had to believe both men were armed, though neither brandished any weapon.

  Tom shivered as he spoke. “What the hell game are you playing, Roland?”

  “Sorry, Tom,” Roland replied. “But you’re not as easy to frighten as Bob.”

  “You could have just asked me to stay away from your wife.”

  “Not good enough. I needed to be sure.”

  Sullivan shifted his weight, right to left. Tom kept his eyes fixed on Roland, but he was ready to evade Sullivan if the need should arise.

  “Hope you’re satisfied,” Tom said.

  Tom battled back the urge to take down Roland. Sullivan aside, having his bail revoked proved to be a powerful deterrent.

  “Look, Tom,” Roland said. “This whole thing is really unfortunate. I considered you a friend. And I still do.”

  “Can’t say the feeling is mutual,” Tom replied.

  “What choice did I have? You’re a friggin’ Navy SEAL. Guys like you don’t frighten that easy.”

  “Well, I’m not scared now.”

  “But at least you know how far I’m willing to go,” Roland said. “You know if I want to put you back in jail, I can do just that. I hope we’re clear about this.”

  “Crystal.”

  “Keep away from my wife, Tom.”

  “Like I said, you could have just asked.”

  Roland’s smile looked more like a grimace. “Maybe when the dust settles, you and I can go out for drinks, have a little laugh about this. Okay?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Tom said.

  “Never say never,” Roland replied. “Look, I regret it had to come to this, Tom. But a man’s got to protect his castle.”

  Roland opened the stockroom’s rear door, then retreated to his prior position. Sullivan didn’t move. Tom walked between the two men with his gaze fixed forward, but stopped just short of the open door. Tom looked first at Sullivan, then at Roland.

  He walked outside and stood between the yellow painted lines of the loading zone. He took a few steps forward, then stopped. He kept his back to the open door, arms hanging loosely by his sides. He waited there, with his eyes fixed on a shapeless patch of unlit woods before him. He kept perfectly still. Didn’t flinch. Not even when Roland’s shadow appeared within the narrow shaft of light cast outward from the open door behind him, not even when Roland closed that door with a slam.

  Tom had delivered a message of his own: he was not afraid.

  Chapter 37

  “You’ve got to tell us where she is.”

  Irena Kalinowski sat at her kitchen table, looking sheepish and defeated. Vern Kalinowski sat across from his daughter, glaring. Tom tried to keep his composure but found it challenging under these circumstances. Jill, who should have been upstairs in the Kalinowskis’ guest bedroom, was gone.

  Earlier, Tom had called Vern from the Plenty Market parking lot. Vern’s home phone rang several times before his former assistant coach finally answered it. Tom had told Vern he needed to speak with Jill, and that it was urgent. While Vern went to get her, Tom sat in his car and watched Roland and Sullivan drive away.

  He commended his own restraint.

  The purpose of Tom’s phone call to Jill was simple—he needed to tell her that Mitchell Boyd, effective immediately, was officially off-limits.

  Tom’s stomach sank when Vern picked up the phone again. “She’s not there,” he said. “She must have snuck out the window, or something.”

  Tom sent Jill a text message.

  She replied: Green.

  The tightness in Tom’s chest released some. Where are you? he texted her.

  In bed, she sent back.

  You’re lying.

  No response.

  He texted her again: Where are you?

  Still no response.

  Now it was up to Irena, Vern’s oldest by twelve minutes, to tell Tom what he needed to know.

  “Honey, this is a very serious situation,” Vern said to Irena. “You’ll be in big, big trouble if you lie to me. Where did Jill go?”

  Irena let out a loud sigh. Her gaze sank to the table. Tom could see her trembling. “She went to this place called the Spot,” Irena said in a quiet voice.

  Tom and Vern looked at each other.

  “When?” Vern said.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Who’d she go with?” asked Tom.

  Irena paused. She looked at her dad, then to Tom.

  “Mitchell Boyd,” Irena said in an even softer voice. “She’s there with Mitchell Boyd.”

  Tom heard the music long before he saw any of the kids. It was an unseasonably war
m September night, which made the Spot the ideal place for a weekend hangout. The moon stood high and bright in the cloudless sky. Almost full, Tom observed, and from its position, he could tell it was closing in on midnight.

  Tom knew this place well, almost by memory. Each step brought him deeper into his past. The trail markers—yellow triangles painted on trees—were the same as he remembered from his high school days. But Tom didn’t need any markings to guide him back to the Spot. His soul was connected to this place like the deep, flowing roots of the forest trees surrounding him.

  The Spot was nothing more than a large clearing of land tucked inside Willards Woods. Willards Woods occupied hundreds of acres of undeveloped land in Shilo, vigorously protected by conservationists and taxpayer dollars. The Spot had been a favored teen hangout long before Tom’s high school years, and from his work as both a coach and guidance counselor, he knew it remained in vogue to this day. Kids from Shilo and neighboring towns came to the Spot to do what Tom and Roland had done back in their heyday.

  Listen to tunes.

  Drink beers.

  Swim in the cold quarry water.

  Tom emerged from the overgrown trail and into the clearing. When he did, the chatter of teens abruptly stopped, like a hunting tiger silencing the noises of a teaming jungle. A fire burning bright in the stone fire pit cast a flickering yellow light across Tom’s face.

  Teenagers, long and lanky, some with short hair, some not, some fully dressed, some soaking wet, some smoking cigarettes, some smoking something else, turned in the direction of Tom’s bright shining flashlight.

  Somebody shut off the music.

  Tom heard a loud splash.

  Somebody yelled, “Cops!”

  Tom heard another loud splash.

  The frantic scramble to escape capture was in full effect. The teens packed up their illegal pleasures in backpacks and cardboard boxes and made for the woods with great haste. Tom heard branches breaking, leaves crunching. There were panicky voices shouting from within the darkness: “This way!” and “Over here!”

  A flashlight cut through the dark and shone directly on Tom’s face. Somebody yelled, “It’s Coach Hawkins! It’s not the cops. It’s not the cops!”

  Soon, more flashlights were shining in Tom’s eyes, blinding him. He continued to hear the sounds of kids scattering, but no longer could he see them. Movement to Tom’s right pulled his head in that direction. He stepped out of the beams of light and into the path of two boys trying to make their escape. Tom grabbed hold of one boy’s jacket, pulling him to an abrupt stop.

  The other kid kept on running.

  It was every man for himself, same now as it was back in his day.

  Tom recognized the boy—a senior at Shilo High School named Matthew. Matthew was holding a can of beer in his hand.

  “Where’s Jill?” Tom asked.

  Matthew said nothing, probably too scared to speak.

  “Where’s my daughter?” Tom asked again. Tom turned his flashlight to shine it on his own face. He wanted Matthew to see the seriousness of his expression.

  “She was hanging out at the ledge,” Matthew said, with each word wavering.

  “Are you driving?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” Tom said, ripping the beer can from Matthew’s hand before crushing it.

  Tom walked toward the ledge. He heard several more loud splashes. In the moonlight, he saw a silhouetted figure standing near to the quarry’s edge, facing him. As he approached, Tom knew it was his daughter.

  “What are you doing?” Jill shouted.

  Tom shone his flashlight on Jill’s face, fixed in a hateful sneer. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. She didn’t look wet.

  She hadn’t been swimming.

  He got close enough to smell her breath. He didn’t believe she’d been drinking, either.

  Tom shone his flashlight into the impenetrably dark water below. The kids down there were easy to spot. Their white skin glowed brighter than the moon. They were treading water, hoping to avoid detection.

  “Get out of the water and get home!” Tom shouted. He followed their movement with his flashlight beam, knowing they were swimming for the water’s only exit. It was safest to jump from the place where they did—the water here was the deepest, no jutting or shallow rocks, either. Sunken railroad ties represented the only real danger here. A good leap outward ensured any jumper that they’d safely clear the lethal obstacle below. But the twenty-five-foot quarry wall was too sheer to climb back up. With luck, these kids were smart enough to keep towels and dry clothes where they’d be getting out. Tom doubted any of them would return to the Spot to dry off.

  “You are totally embarrassing me,” Jill said. “Please go away. Now!”

  “You need to come with me,” Tom said, keeping his voice calm, but determined. “Now.” Tom put his hand on Jill’s shoulder, but his daughter shrugged it off with a quick and violent jerk.

  “Get your hands off me,” Jill snapped at him. “Leave me alone.”

  “That’s not an option.”

  “You can’t make me come with you.”

  “I’m still your father.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t live with you anymore. Remember?”

  “Where is Mitchell?” asked Tom.

  Jill sighed in disgust. “I don’t know,” she said. “He probably took off when you scared everybody away.”

  “Listen, from now on Mitchell Boyd is off-limits to you. His father’s dangerous, and I don’t want you anywhere near that family.”

  “You can’t make that decision for me,” Jill said, shaking her head. “You can’t.”

  “You have to trust me on this, Jill. It’s not safe for you to be with him.”

  “Why should I trust you?” Jill said in a voice steeped with exasperation. “I don’t even know you. For all I know, you did have something to do with what happened to Mom. And you know what else? I think you are sleeping with Lindsey. I can’t trust you and won’t. Ever!”

  Tom’s thoughts flashed on the whiteboard still in the Oak Street house living room—more specifically on the square around the word trust, which Jill had redrawn.

  It was time, he decided. It was time.

  The Spot was now completely deserted. A symphony of nighttime forest creatures buzzed in a cacophony of sound. Off in the distance, Tom could still hear the sound of kids swimming to get away. Sparks crackled and burst skyward from the fire.

  “You’re right, Jill,” Tom said, nodding his head while biting on his lower lip. “I haven’t given you enough reason to trust me. But if you come with me right now, I’ll tell you why your mother hated me so much, why she tried to come between us.”

  That got her attention. Jill looked as though she might burst into tears.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I need you to trust me,” Tom said, resting his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. This time, she didn’t shrug it away. “For your safety, you’ve got to believe me when I tell you to keep away from Mitchell Boyd. I have good reason.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I’ve been keeping a secret from you, Jill. A secret your mother and I never wanted you to know. It will explain everything. Why Kip Lange was in the woods that night. Why your mother hated me so much. And probably why somebody is out to destroy my reputation.”

  Chapter 38

  Tom pulled the faded yellow armchair in front of the couch where Jill was seated. His stomach spun a few nerve-rattled cartwheels. He knew what had to be done, but that didn’t make it any easier. To keep Jill safe, she had to learn to trust him.

  “What I’m about to tell you is going to shock you. I’m not proud of what I did. But I had my reasons. I’m not expecting you to understand completely. But I need you to listen with an open mind. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Jill said.

  His daughter’s eyes were owl-like, wide, and intently probing.

  “Even though your
mother and I never officially broke up after high school, I didn’t see or hear from her for ten years. I was focused on becoming a Navy SEAL, and that’s all that mattered to me. Then my unit was sent to Germany to conduct a series of training exercises. It was a few years before September eleventh, and our combat deployments were few and far between. Your mother was living on that base. We reconnected and fell back in love, or so I thought.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Jill asked.

  “A shooting took place while I was living on that base. One of the lieutenants, a guy named Stan Greeley, was attacked in his home and shot several times. The military police found Kip Lange inside Greeley’s home. Lange had been shot twice in the leg and once in the shoulder and couldn’t walk or even crawl away. They arrested him on the spot. But the MPs never recovered his gun.”

  “I don’t understand. What does this have to do with Mom?” Jill asked.

  “Be patient. You need to know all this. Lange was deported back to the States, where he was going to face court-martial. Greeley had been gravely injured and was in a drug-induced coma. I had only a few days left before I was scheduled to fly home with my unit, so your mother and I tried to make the most of what little time we had left. On the day I was to leave, your mother showed up at the airport with a crate in the back of a truck she had borrowed. She asked me to bring the crate home for her.”

  “Why?”

  “She had a limit to how much stuff she could bring back, and I didn’t. With rank comes privilege. She opened the top of the crate and showed me a couple bottles of a German beer we both liked, and told me to call her when I got home so we could have a toast together. The rest of the crate was really densely packed, but I caught a glimpse of some of the other things inside—dishes and souvenirs and…”

  Tom pointed to the cuckoo clock mounted on the living room wall.

  “Ugh! I hate that clock,” Jill said.

  “But that wasn’t all she had packed in that crate. Security and customs, even for military transport, weren’t like they are today. The guys working customs knew me. We joked around together. So when my team was getting the plane ready to fly home, they made only a cursory inspection of what we were bringing home with us. Like I said, with rank comes privilege.”