by Nenny May
Although there was footage linking Ryan Gates to Madison Miller, she still bore the greater burden of the public’s dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. They believed she’d cajoled his involvement in her activities. She hadn’t. They refused to see the victim in her. Hemmings, Lauren and the WBTV had cloaked her in the gown of a killer. Adam knew his neighbour was anything but. For heaven’s sakes she gave a false statement, swallowing the bitter pill of a life sentence and probable death for someone else’s ten-year-old son.
Despite the distance of the aircrafts from the airport windows, the revving, hissing and whistling of their engines still rippled through the barely occupied airport. It was the middle of September, ten-fifteen in the morning, a time when interstate trips had simmered down to its barest minimum. Adam Walker found very little comfort in his situation, alone at the foot of the terminal nearly deafened by the whining of these planes that claimed to be state-of-the-art. And he’d had to bear with that. At least until once more there’d been a moment of calm and he’d offered yet another jittery glimpse at his watch. She should be here! He shoved his hands clammy and cold into his pockets, and rather thought more about his morning conversation with Charlie Wallace.
Adam Walker believed in miracles but not magic, he hadn’t held out a thread of hope that Wallace would give him the light of day at the ripe crack of dawn. In all honesty, Adam had thought at the time, what federal officer wants to be brought down to a police station at 7:30 A.M.? And after minutes outside in that chunked up waiting area of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department - South Division by Corporate Center District listening to the wails of a restless baby, he’d been convinced he’d had to leave, he did later on have to pick up Julia Miller. But not long after Adam had risen from his sticky plastic seat, he’d been called into that tiny grey room and questioned. Charlie Wallace seemed impatient—he wasn’t the only on with places to be. Adam Walker had run him through the phone call he’d received from Alexander Hemmings on Madison Miller’s phone, what he’d caught in the background, and what he’d sat by the edge of his bed theorising. Adam was convinced Hemmings had made a blunder and called Madison’s cell with his. If this were the case, a single phone number could lead the authorities to the breast of the deranged Alexander Hemmings. And although Wallace had been hesitant to buy into Walker’s claims, Adam had been adamant the federal officer collect the number and at his own free will run it through the system. Adam Walker was done boycotting the system. It had never done him right in the past and as he’d sat there, he’d been haunted with the plain as white fact that his friends were detained behind bars in the Mecklenburg County Detention Center because of his resolve to spurn the assistance of the authorities. He had to put it behind him sometime. This was that sometime.
The blare of his phone filtered through the air, loud and splintering. He’d reached for it, his eyes of spring greens still latched onto terminal six entrance, and for some reason, his stomach had been in a knot. A few seconds into the call he knew why. His chest constricted. This couldn’t be happening.
Ryan Gates had passed away in his cell at the detention center from deprivation of his medication. He’d died the same way Rebecca Gates had, from a negligence to remain diligent with their medications. However in Ryan Gate’s case, Adam Walker’s former partner’s death had been induced by police brutality.
“Adam Walker?” Julia Miller curiously called out, materializing from terminal six. A single tear the weight of a thousand ran down his left cheek. Ryan Gates had been killed in police custody.
. . .
Chapter Fifteen
“ Mr. Hemmings, is the boy okay in there?”
Spencer Black strode towards Cotswold Elementary with a calm that was best described as oil in the water of the situation. The evening had faded into a blackness that lit a fire in his gut. It burned away the drabness of the day; clock in, rummage through files and files, sit with report after report of alleged petty crimes committed by the man of the hour—Alexander Hemmings—and as per usual overlook the needy calls of his desperate ex-wife. It was always one thing with Janice, she found an error with the divorce, he wasn’t paying enough child support...And then came the night and a call that ignited the adrenaline that had him flying the streets of Microsoft Way to good old Cotswold Elementary. When his custom black Ford Crown Victoria had pulled to a gradual stop, he’d been met by a swarm of police cars, the evening alive with the slow swirl of red and blue lights from a number of light bars, not overlooking the brisk breeze brushing by, taking with it the last lick of warmth it could. “Agent Black, FBI.” Black called out to an officer that had denied him access into the school. With a nod, the geared up special-operations officer stepped aside.
“We want to know what’s going on in there, Mr. Hemmings.” The closer Spencer Black got to the scene, the louder the reverberation of the Megaphone. He approached the man with the device. It was none other than Officer Todd Wilde. Spencer wasn’t blind to the number of snipers that had crouched low along the ferns and shrubs leading up to the entrance of the elementary school. “If you hurt the boy, it will not end well for you!”
“Special Agent Spencer Black.” Todd Wilde turned and lowered the device from his lips, his eyes running up and down the tired federal officer.
“I know.” Todd returned his attention to the entrance of the school. “Officer Todd Wild.” He introduced.
“Is he talking?” Spencer asked referring to the nut-case they’d stalked to where it all began on the day the eleventh body was supposed to be reported in by a frantic male caller.
“About the boy, no. About his damn childhood, affirmative.”
“Childhood, huh?” Spencer had his hands akimbo on his hips.
“You’ve been briefed?”
“At HQ.”
“He still has the boy?”
“What’s it look like.” Todd Wilde returned his attention to the federal officer, just for a minute.
“I’m not a criminal!” Alexander Hemmings materialized from the doors of the school, not far behind him, seemingly bound by softly clicking and clacking shackles was the teary-eyed ten-year-old-Ethan Daniels. “Every ten-year-old I killed; Tyler Shaw, Jasper Kepper, Chase Maxwell, Sebastian Trey, Grayson Leland, Spencer Brooks, Sheldon Finn, Gibson Knight, Alden Grant and Oliver Weston, all of their deaths were for this little brat!” Hemmings jabbed the barrel of his .38 special at a trembling Ethan Daniels.
“Put the gun down Mr. Hemmings!” Todd Wilde insisted.
“I got justice for him, and I finally have my chance to get justice for myself and you’re all getting in the way of that!” From what Black could tell, Hemmings was getting worked up. He didn’t need that. A cornered suspect was an unstable suspect, especially one with a hostage.
“Lay off him a bit.” Spencer ordered Todd Wilde.
“What do you mean lay off him, are you crazy, he’ll have that boys head rolling out to us if we do.”
“If you make him feel cornered he’ll take it out on the boy. We need him alive.” Spencer explained. Todd seemed hesitant, lost in thought.
“Well what do you want me to do?”
“Reason with him.”
“He has a gun jabbed to the head of a ten-year-old boy who if I might add is gonna’ have nightmares till the day he dies.” Todd grumbled.
“We can get the kid therapy, I know a great guy down on providence, really affordable. Not that his affluent parents would care the price.” Spencer said.
“So what do I tell him, because if by accident that gun goes off on that boys head this is all over. Mission failed.”
“What is this fortnight? Grand Theft Auto? If he kills the boy we’ve got about half a dozen snipers here. His ass is toast.” Spencer thought for a second. “How long has he been here?”
“Nine-hours.”
“I only have one of those men paying for what they did to me, how they humiliated me. There’s nine more. Ricky Fisher was supposed to die next the connin
g bastard!” Alexander Hemmings was the man behind the tremor that Charlotte had been under for eleven long weeks. The detained suspects Madison Miller and the late Ryan Gates were mere victims. Black wasn’t going to hear the end of that when this all blew over.
“Why can’t a sniper take him out?”
“As much as possible we don’t wanna’ scar the kid.”
“For fuck sakes, he’ll recover. Hemmings has had the boy under our damn noses here in Cotswold, he probably murdered Lance in the same room he had the boy hostage.”
“Shoot me!” Hemmings chimed. “What’s the point of keeping me alive if I can’t do what I was meant to do since that god forsaken afternoon on the playground! Kill me!” Alexander Hemmings pressed the gun harder on Ethan’s temple. Spencer Black did not like the way things were escalating.
“We’re not going to shoot you, we just want the boy, and you can go after Ricky Fisher.”
“I don’t wanna’ go after him. I want him here. I want all of them here, one by one, so I can kill them on the same playground they killed my innocence. They humiliated me, slandered my family’s name. They made fun of my Momma! She’d been through enough and they threw it back in my face that she was nothing but a pussy!”
“We will bring these men here, but first, release the boy. It’s non-negotiable.”
“Kill me now, or I will kill him!” Hemmings screamed.
The night came alive with boom of a fired shot; a body slumped onto the floor. It wasn’t the ten-year-old Ethan Daniels body, it was Hemmings. It wasn’t a sniper that had taken him out. He’d done it himself. Silence ran across the sea of officers that lined the entrance to Cotswold elementary. And as the dust settled, they saw his body rise and slump, over and over as the frightened boy trudged pathetically slowly, still cuffed to the dead man, towards the gate of his school. It was all over. But the trauma for the young boy was just beginning.
“Ethan!” A voice chirped. Spencer turned, it was Lauren Daniels, still obstructed by a special operations officer and police tape labelled ‘crime scene, do not cross’. In the eyes of the mother, Black saw sadness on the horizon of a glimmering hope. The woman merely wanted to embrace her son, a little boy who’d been through too much in the span of seven days.
Spencer returned his attention to the boy that was now being released from his bondage to the corpse of Alexander Hemmings by an FBI sniper. He’d almost felt the relief that radiated through the little boy as he ran the remaining distance, pushed through the gated compound, ducked under the neon yellow and black tapes and into his mother’s warm waiting arms.
It was over, in eleven weeks, they’d gotten justice for the eleven boys whose lives were forever shattered by a deranged killer. The silver lining, they had one survivor that lived to tell the story, they had Ethan Daniels. Though Spencer knew there were more people involved in this than just the ten boys that deserved justice. There was the late Pedro Sanchez that according to Miss Miller had merely driven into range of Hemmings .38 special, there was Bert Lance who’d only just been recognized by a unhinged lunatic, and there was Madison Miller and the late Ryan Gates who’d been flung under the bus by Hemmings.
There were too many lives Hemmings had affected, Spencer Blacks only relief was that there wouldn’t be any more kidnappings, murders and wrongful arrests. It was finally over.
Epilogue
T he late nights were the best times to write. Most inmates on her row had settled in. She could hear her own thoughts. She’d spent too long locked up to hold a grudge anymore. She’d been relieved; she’d actually felt the weight lifted from her shoulders when Julia Miller had walked into that tiny grey room and towards that tiny grey table, a shimmering smile on her face and the words he’s free written in her eyes. That was the only reason she’d been comfortable with her sentence. Why she’d worn the stained orange overall jumpsuit with puffed shoulders.
She was in there, in her cell because she’d done what she’d felt was right. And although she didn’t know what awaited her on the outside, she still wrote her letters of application to a number of news stations, and this time she didn’t care the ranking. She’d started her journey as a reporter. Young, jittery, at the time, her only concerns had been what to wear to work and how to keep Tucker from causing any more trouble at his school. As at the time her son had been enrolled in Billingsville Elementary on Skyland Avenue. A stretch since she’d lived in Cotswold, but it seemed to be the best fit. If she’d known she would meet the man that would murder her son at that very job, she would have turned it down despite the ranking and ratings.
Madison Miller had been through hell in her perspective. Charlotte had been through hell, Ethan had looked at the devil in the eyes and he’d survived, and she believed that she could tell this story, his story, Charlotte’s story when she was eventually released in the spring the following year. She didn’t need to get employed while she was detained. That wasn’t going to happen, but she needed to know, to let these stations know that despite her status as an ex-convict when she would be released, she would have what it took to tell a gripping story, because she’d survived one.
She much like Ethan Daniels was a survivor of Alexander Hemmings. And it broke her heart to know Ryan hadn’t made it. He’d lost his life, wrongly detained as a primary suspect in the kidnap of Ethan Daniels.
Adam Walker much like Julia Miller had paid her visits, more than one. He’d been there for the span of her sentence. He’d been there telling her stories of his new position on the force as a patrol officer, a position he’d confided in her he wouldn’t change for the world.
Madison Miller was going to make it as a reporter here in Charlotte, and she wasn’t going to let her status, or what she’d endured stop her. She was going to tell the story she’d lived and it was going to be aired over the finally slumbering city of Charlotte.
The End.