by Kacey Gene
The only one missing is A Christmas Carol.
Chapter Eight
Captain Sharb Gets Serious (Part I)
Captain Sharb has yelled before, but never quite like this. Jennifer has been “escorted” out to the hallway, and even though Jake and Sharb are in the victim’s bedroom, she can hear Sharb’s words as clear as glass.
Through all of Sharb’s insults and profanities directed at Jake, Jennifer only hangs onto a few words. “Irresponsible” and “unprofessional” and, worst of all, “probation.” She props her boot-covered foot against the wall and looks over at the police officer who is standing guard outside apartment 9N. He returns her look, but while her look is kind and apologetic, his is annoyed. It’s only 7:15 in the morning, and Jennifer presumes he’s not so happy about the work wake-up call he received thanks to her and Jake.
“McCleerey,” Sharb yells. His footsteps stomp against the hardwood floors as he gets closer to them in the hallway. “Get in here, McCleerey. I want you to photograph this entire scene even though it’s already been polluted with amatuer ignorance.”
“Yes, Captain,” the officer says, and Jennifer plots how she can sneak back into the apartment now that Sharb will most likely have it on lockdown. The second she discovered the books in the victim’s closet is the second that Sharb and his team came storming into the place. She barely understood what was happening before two police officers, on Sharb’s command, grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out into the hallway.
“And you,” Sharb says, now fully in the hallway and directing his angry glare straight at Jennifer. His face is blistering red, and there is sweat beading all around his thinning hair line. “I want you out of here.”
“If I could just come in and take a look at one--”
“Out,” Sharb yells, his words are so forceful that Jennifer actually takes a step back. “Or I will have you arrested for obstruction of justice.”
“Alright, Captain,” Jake says, a strength in his voice that’s only covered up by the respect he knows he needs to give Sharb right now. “I’ll get her out of here.”
“And don’t you think you’re coming back either. I mean it, Jake. You’re not on this case. Not after what you and girl-wonder pulled.”
Jake doesn’t say a word, even though Jennifer looks up at him with eyes that beg for an explanation.
“Is he serious?” she asks once they turn the corner and head down the next hallway.
When Jake remains silent and keeps his hand locked around her upper arm, Jennifer fears the worst. Did she get Jake kicked off a case? Did she get him in trouble in a permanent way?
Guilt walks alongside her as she scolds herself for breaking into the victim’s closet. If she would have waited, then eventually Sharb and the other officers would have opened the door and all this drama would have been avoided.
But she couldn’t wait, and she wonders how Sharb expects her to be in a crime scene that has a trail of clues and not follow them. That’s like expecting a starving person to gratefully chew on some ice even though there’s a feast on a table in front of them.
“Jake, talk to me. Please,” Jennifer says when they reach the elevator.
Only when the elevator doors close does he let go of her arm and finally open his mouth. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know how long Sharb was going to watch me, so I had to keep up the act.”
“Are you really off that case?”
Jake lets out a smug sigh. “He wishes,” Jake says, pushing the button for floor 8. “Sharb is mad, but he’ll cool down. I guarantee he’ll be asking for my help by tomorrow.” Jake runs his hands through his hair and leans against the elevator wall. “Polluted with amatuer ignorance,” he says, shaking his head. “I would never compromise a crime scene. Those guys would have done exactly what we did. Sharb is just mad because we were there first, and he hates anything that has him being the receiver, rather than the giver, of information.”
Sensing that Jake is aggravated but not particularly worried about this situation with Sharb, Jennifer playfully asks, “Are you saying he wants to give rather than receive?” She looks over at Jake. “In that case, Sharb has the true Christmas spirit in him.”
Jake meets her gaze and right before he breaks into laughter, he pulls her into him like a loving brother. Jennifer half expects him to give her a noogie when he says, “You’re ridiculous, and I love it,” but she really hopes he doesn’t. She has her long, chestnut hair anchored in a ponytail, and she really doesn’t want to have to redo it. Jake plops a friendly kiss on the top of her head and then lets her go.
Relief comes over Jennifer -- not only because she’s noogie-free but also because they’re out of that apartment. There was a frantic energy that seemed to absorb through her skin when she was in there, and she has this strange feeling that if she stayed there too long, it would have become permanent.
But, she once again missed the opportunity that she wishes she would have taken last night at Fred’s house -- to look inside the books. Because what if both sets of books came from the same seller? Or what if there is a clue or a message or something inside the books? Then she could really start moving and piecing together these killings, which she’s positive are linked.
“I know that look,” Jake says just as the elevator doors open to her floor. “What are you plotting?”
“Fred’s case and this case aren’t connected in Sharb’s mind, right? I mean, you didn’t tell him any of the Marley business did you?”
“I didn’t have a chance,” Jake says, getting to her door and unlocking it. He holds it open for her. “He walked in and immediately started yelling.”
“So Sharb doesn’t connect this murder with Fred’s murder?”
Jake quizzically pushes his eyebrows together as they move into Jennifer’s apartment. He leans against her kitchen island. “No. At least not yet. But once he sees the pudding and the books, he’s going to link them together,” Jake says.
“Well, then,” Jennifer says, grabbing their coats from the rack next to her door. She reaches into her coat pocket and asks, “Do you want to drive or shall I?” She jingles her car keys in the air.
“You want to go back to Fred’s?”
“I want to go back to Fred’s,” she says matter-of-factly and loving that Jake can always keep up with her mental acrobats.
“And you expect to drive your busted, tinker-toy car?”
“Hey, it’s not a tinker-toy,” Jennifer says, defensively, but Jake’s right; it’s really in no shape to drive around town. “I was thinking we could pick your car up and drop mine off at the shop by your house,” Jennifer says, ready to hurdle any obstacle in her way.
Jake walks over to her, takes his coat and her car keys from her, but rather than slipping into his coat like she expected, he throws it over one of the stools at her kitchen island.
“May I?” he asks, requesting her coat with his open hand.
Jennifer reluctantly hands it to him, feeling like he’s going to turn her down -- take her coat away and tell her that they should just lay low for the day.
But as soon as he has her grey peacoat in his hands, he spins her around and slips her arms through the sleeves. Then, he places his mouth right next to her ear and say, “Of course I’m driving.”
Chapter Nine
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Jake parks the car on the street at the base of Fred’s driveway. Even though he hasn’t been banished from this particular crime scene, he doesn’t want to literally leave their tracks in the driveway, and as he told Jennifer, “It’s supposed to snow again at 9:00 AM. That snow can cover our footprints, but I wouldn’t count on it covering tire tracks.”
Jennifer tucks her cold hands in her pockets and squints her eyes against the sun that is reflecting off the newly fallen snow. Looking up, she sees some dark clouds on their way, so she basks in the sun’s warmth, which will be disappearing soon.
“This neighborhood feels like a movie set,” J
ake says, shutting his door and tucking his keys in his pocket.
Jennifer turns her attention to the houses surrounding Fred’s and knows exactly what Jake means. Each house in this sleepy neighborhood looks like a storybook home. They have grey shingles on their peaked roofs, and most of the houses have small gingerbread-like windows with vines that cover and cling to the exterior brick or stone.
All of the houses in her view have a wreath hanging on their front door. One wreath is made of large green, gold, silver, and red jingle bells, while the others burst with vibrant green garland and dark brown pine cones that Jennifer imagines smell like cloves. The house across the street from Fred’s has a wooden Santa sign wishing those who pass “Holiday Blessings,” and the house right next to Fred’s has a vintage sleigh dotted with three small pine trees on the front porch.
All of the cars parked in driveways look like marshmallow igloos, seeing as how the morning snowfall hasn’t been dusted off of them yet.
Jennifer wishes they could talk with the neighbors, but she imagines the majority of them are just waking up. They’re probably in flannel pajama pants and soft sweatshirts. She pictures them snuggling into their cozy socks before heading down to the kitchen to brew their morning coffee or tea as they look out at the glittering snow.
Jennifer loves when the streets are quiet like this. It’s why she loves big snowfalls. Everything gets covered in a glimmering sheen of silence. When she was little she would say, “Sound is still there, but it’s frozen. Don’t worry, it’ll be back in the spring when the ice thaws. That’s when things get noisy.”
Her dad would always laugh and take her by the hand when she said this.
Jake’s phone goes off, pulling her out of that memory. Jake quickly looks at it, shakes his head, and shoves his phone back in his pocket.
“What is it?”
“Walk in my same steps, just to be on the safe side,” Jake says, ignoring Jennifer’s question and turning to move up Fred’s driveway.
“Jake,” Jennifer says, planting her small bootprint inside of Jake’s giant print. “What did the text say?”
“It was my dad. He said Matt Kiley claims that those plates were stolen from him. He had this whole story about vanity plates, the holidays, and some other garbage.”
“Oh,” Jennifer says, seeing Jake’s body tense. “Did your dad believe him? Did his story check out?”
Jake shrugs. “I guess so.” But, there’s no “guessing” when it comes to Police Chief Jefferson Hollow. Jefferson doesn’t make definitives until he’s certain, so if he believes Matt’s story then they should as well. What’s strange to Jennifer is that Jake’s acting like he wanted Matt to be guilty of trying to run them off the road.
Jennifer takes another step inside Jake’s step, and hating the silence barrier that just developed, she says, “You know, I think your feet are bigger than the abominable snowman--” but before she can say another word, she runs directly into Jake’s back.
“What is it?” Jennifer asks, seeing Jake frozen in his own steps.
“Look,” he says, and she follows his finger.
Trailing up to Fred’s house is a fresh set of tracks. They’re not quite as big as Jake’s, but they’re larger than Jennifer’s, and they’re deep and messy-- as if these footprints were eager, focused, and in a hurry.
“They’re only going to the house,” Jennifer says, and Jake unlatches his gun holster when they both come to the same realization: Whomever went into Fred’s house this morning never came out. They’re still in there.
“Go wait in the car,” Jake says.
“That’s not happening,” Jennifer says. “You can’t call for backup since you’re possibly not supposed to be here, so I’m all you got.”
Jake doesn’t feel like he has time to argue with her, and he knows Jennifer. When she says she’s not going to do something, she’s not going to do it.
“Stay behind me, then, you hear me?”
Jennifer nods. Jake’s eyes are round with worry, and she never disagrees with him when his eyes are like that.
They silently make their way to Fred’s front door. It’s unlocked. Unlatched. And only open a crack.
Jake grabs hold of Jennifer’s hand, and they both duck under the caution tape and step into the stone entryway.
The house is even darker than Jennifer remembers, or maybe that has to do with her eyes going from the glaring sun outside to this lightless entryway. She feels a stone beneath her wobble left and right, and since she wouldn’t be able to see a hand waving in front of her face, she decides the best thing to do is take Jake’s arm. Linked together, they both blindly feel their way through the entry hall.
Before they curve around to the kitchen, Jennifer can smell the smoke. Then she hears a sound that shreds her heart -- someone is ripping paper. The books, she thinks, quickly followed by the conclusion: Someone is burning the books. She knows that Fred has an old fire stove in his family room; she remembers seeing it yesterday.
When they turn the corner, the family room is full of smoke that’s creeping into the kitchen like an eerie evening fog, but it doesn’t cover the fact that someone has ransacked the house. Or, more specifically, the kitchen cabinets. In fact, every pudding box is torn open and left strewn across the kitchen floor.
But Jennifer isn’t concerned with those pudding boxes. She’s concerned with the fire that she knows is consuming Fred’s books.
Jake pulls a handkerchief from his back pocket and whispers, “Put this over your nose and mouth and stay low.”
Jennifer covers the bottom of her face as she and Jake once again blindly move through Fred’s house, but this time, they’re blinded by the stinging vapors of smoke. Jennifer’s shaky foot finds the second step down into the family room, and that’s when she sees something move. Jake sees it too; his eyes become focused like a predator. The form is to the left of the fire stove, and it’s against the back wall where Jennifer knows the Dickens books are.
Once again her mind locks in on a single conclusion: Whomever is in here is burning the evidence she is now certain leads to answers.
“Freeze,” Jake yells, but the body does the opposite. With the agility of a gazelle, the form jumps behind the couch and out of sight, and before they know it, the intruder is in a full sprint and dashes straight past them.
“Stay here,” Jake yells at Jennifer, and before she can argue, Jake has taken off after the body, which Jennifer can now see is a man.
She can’t make out much else except that he’s wearing baggy sweats, has a black stocking cap on, and has a handkerchief tied around the lower half of his face. She also sees that Jake is right on his trail.
The smoke from the fire stove keeps billowing out into the room. Jennifer, now very thankful for the handkerchief, moves closer to the stove and sees that its door is fully ajar. Smoke pours out of that door, but that’s not Jennifer’s main concern. Just as she feared, the Dickens books are wrapped inside the hungry flames of the fire.
“No,” Jennifer yells through her handkerchief. She quickly reaches out for the fire poker she remembers seeing next to the stove yesterday. Clumsy in her movements, she haphazardly knocks over the entire set of brass fireplace tools which clang and clink against each other and the stone ground. Bending down, she feels for the poker.
When she finds it, she grips the handle tightly, anchors the pointed end around one of the inflamed books and pulls. The book falls to the floor and embers spring out of it like a mini firework show. Jennifer grabs a nearby blanket and smothers the small flame that is ready to consume the book.
With at least one book partially saved, she drops the poker to the floor, investigates the dark, tube-shaped chimney of the stove, and finds the damper. It’s completely closed, which is why the smog is unrelenting. She fully opens the damper, but getting the smoke to filter through that opening is like trying to empty a bathtub through a straw.
Jennifer’s eyes burn and she coughs when she feels the smoke infiltr
ating her lungs.
She needs clean air.
She heads to the windows that she knows are in Fred’s bedroom and throws them open. Sticking her head out of them, she gulps in the crisp, cold winter air. She stays there for a minute and sees that some of the smoke from the family room is also finding its escape through the windows.
Covering her mouth, she walks back into the main part of the house. The smoke is still heavy, so Jennifer moves toward the front door. She needs to air out this house as soon as possible so she can open that book and finally get to the bottom of this Fred Gailey murder.
When she makes the turn to the entryway, she’s once again greeted with complete darkness. She only takes a few steps before a stone loosens beneath her and sends her completely off her balance. Her ankle rolls, and she falls onto the rock ground.
“Ow,” she says, as she reaches down and cradles her leg that caught all of her weight. She feels around her calf for any injuries. Her tights are ripped and her deep maroon dress is crumpled around her, but she doesn’t feel any cuts or scrapes. There’s just the promise of a very unattractive bruise that her mother is definitely going to comment on.
She anchors her hands against the ground, and her eyes softly adjust to the darkness. The rock that took her down is right next to her -- having loosened itself from its spot. She crawls with the rock in her hand to anchor it back in place, but there’s something where the rock should be. Something thin. Something malleable but with a bit of stiffness to it.
Jennifer pulls it from its hiding spot, and even though she can’t see it, she knows the feel of it.
It’s a photograph.
Remaining on her hands and knees, Jennifer crawls across the floor, jiggling every rock she gets her hands on. When another one rattles under her grip, she pries it up. There’s another photo.
And with every rock she removes, there’s another photo she collects. Until finally she is at the front door with five photos in her hands.