FOR MY BROTHER (Det. Jason Strong(CLEAN SUSPENSE Book 3)

by John C. Dalglish

  While he was sitting and watching, he had planned a route he thought would get him up near the buildings without being seen. If he stayed in the tree line until the garage hid him from the house, he might be able to run up without Donnie knowing he was there. He didn’t want another confrontation with the gun.

  Betty Jarvis hadn’t shown up from town, and James was beginning to suspect she didn’t live there at all. That, or something had happened to her.

  He made his mind up it was time to move, but before he left the vehicle, he dialed San Antonio police headquarters.

  “SAPD.”

  “Yes, is this Sergeant Connor?”

  “Yes, sir. Who am I speaking with?”

  “This is Devin James with the San Antonio News.”

  “Afternoon Mr. James, what can I do for you?”

  “I want to leave a message for Detective Strong.”

  “Do you want me to see if he’s in?”

  “No, I don’t have time. Can you just give him a note when you see him?”

  “Sure. Let me get a pen…okay, shoot.”

  “Tell him to pull the file from the Billy Jarvis suicide. It’s from ten years ago.”

  “Okay. Pull the Billy Jarvis file. Anything else?”

  “Yes. Tell him it’s connected with the missing persons.”

  “Got it.”

  James hung up before Sergeant Connor could ask any more questions. He took his binoculars and a small digital camera with him, locked the car door, and crawled under a barbed wire fence. Staying low, and avoiding a small herd of Texas Longhorn cattle, the reporter made his way along the fencerow behind the cover of the trees.

  Five minutes brought him to the spot opposite the garage where he was hidden from the house. He paused and took out his binoculars, searching the property for Donnie. There was still no one moving around, and no sign he’d been spotted.

  He watched for a full ten minutes, catching his breath, before moving again.

  Climbing under the back fence to the Jarvis property, he stayed crouched, and made a run for the back of the garage.

  *******

  Jason and Nina arrived back at the station and walked through the front doors.

  “Jason!”

  He turned to where he heard his name called, and saw his friend Dave Connor holding up a sheet of paper. Nina continued up the stairs while Jason walked over the sergeant’s desk.

  “Hi, Dave. How’s things?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Not bad. What’s the note?”

  The sergeant handed the note to the detective.

  “Your buddy Devin James called around a half-hour ago and left you a message.”

  “Buddy is not how I would normally describe him.”

  Jason read the note and his pulse quickened. He walked away without thanking Dave.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Jason turned. “Sorry. Temporarily distracted. Thanks, and say hi to Vicky for me.”

  “Will do.”

  Instead of going upstairs, Jason went to Records in the basement.

  *******

  Marie Turley had been with SAPD for thirty-eight years. She had moved to Records after three years as a dispatcher, and her memory for cases had made her famous around the precinct. She could track down files and names better than anyone. At sixty-one, she was still sharp, and prided herself on keeping up with as many cases as she could.

  The Records office could be lonely and was usually quiet, except for the country music Marie kept on the radio. Johnny Cash, Mel Tillis, or some other old country star was always filling the empty room.

  Marie was busy with the regular duties of pulling requested files, and re-filing the ones they were finished with. Jason snuck up behind her and leaned over her shoulder.

  “Boo!”

  “Ahhh!” She clutched her heart. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Oh, good. Then I’ve accomplished something today.”

  “Very funny.”

  She smiled up at the detective. Most detectives tended to treat her like their personal librarian, but Jason Strong was not like most detectives. He treated her like family, and she was very fond of him. There wasn’t any piece of information Jason could ask for that wasn’t pushed to top of her list.

  “Whatcha need, or did you just come down to brighten my day?”

  “Not that doing so wasn’t reason enough to visit. However, I do have a request.”

  “Anything for you, Sweet-cheeks.”

  Jason smiled back at her. She had called him that since he first joined the force as a rookie cop.

  “I’m looking for the file on a suicide case. The name is Billy Jarvis.”

  “Oh, I remember that. About ten years ago. Very sad. I believe he was about eighteen.”

  “You’re amazing, Marie. Can you find it for me?”

  “I’ll do my best. Give me some time, and I’ll call you when I locate it.”

  “You’re the best. Thanks.”

  Marie had already turned away as the detective headed out of her office. She loved these kinds of requests. They tested her memory and challenged her ability to locate old files. She was deeply involved in the hunt before the door had even closed behind Jason.

  Chapter 18

  Devin James pressed his back up against the garage wall. At fifty-eight, he was in decent shape, but dashing across an open field while trying to stay low was the kind of physical test he wasn’t used to. He leaned on the building and sucked air, waiting for his pulse to slow. He still hadn’t seen any movement.

  Finally able to focus, the reporter crept to the edge of the garage and peered around the corner. The house was about two hundred feet from where he stood. Backtracking to the other corner, he leaned to where he could see the front yard. The van was still in the same place.

  Devin’s breathing had returned to normal and it was time to move. He made a quick dash to the rear wall, ducking below a window. Again, he stopped and listened. He heard voices, but couldn’t tell where they were coming from.

  Slowly lifting his head, he looked over the edge of the windowsill into a living room. No one was in the room, and the TV wasn’t on. He crouched back down, and tried to make out what was being said. Despite his best efforts, all he could hear were muffled words.

  On his knees now, Devin crawled the length of the house and looked around the corner. From there he could see a window into the basement. The voices had gotten a little louder, but there was no other movement. Staying on his knees, he crawled the fifteen feet to the window well. Looking through, it took him a minute to figure out what he was seeing.

  The reporter found himself staring at some sort of a makeshift prison: cell doors with padlocks. He tested the window, and it gave slightly. A pungent odor wafted from inside, and the talking stopped. Then everything went black.

  *******

  Donnie put down the slab of wood and stared at the reporter.

  This changes everything. He knows where I live and who I am. Billy didn’t say anything about what to do if someone caught on to the plan.

  He reached down and dragged Devin James away from the window. Taking a zip tie, he crossed the man’s hands behind his back, slipped the tie over them, and pulled it tight.

  The reporter gave a slight moan. There was blood oozing from the back of the reporter’s head, but Donnie was relieved to find out he hadn’t killed the man. As James started to come around, Donnie grabbed his tied hands and forced him to his feet.

  “Move!”

  “Where…where are you taking me?”

  “Just move.”

  Donnie steered the reporter into the garage and to the back wall, forced him to sit down, and pulled out another zip tie. He wrapped it around James’s legs and cinched it tight. Satisfied the reporter wasn’t going anywhere, Donnie turned to leave.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Donnie turned and studied Devin James. He found himself longing to tell someone. To talk to someone a
bout the plan beside his brother, but he didn’t think there was anyone he could trust. The reporter already knew who Donnie was and might try to understand.

  “Because I have to.”

  “Why? Does it have to do with Billy?”

  The mention of his brother’s name made him pause. James may have figured things out, and maybe Donnie could share with him. The moment passed, and he realized this was wasting valuable time.

  Donnie walked over to a shelf, picked up a roll of duct tape, and wrapped a strip completely around the reporter’s head, covering his mouth.

  “You ask too many questions for your own good.”

  Donnie left the garage, closing the door behind him, and went to the front porch. Sitting in the same chair where he’d found Momma dead less than a week ago, he weighed his options. He had a decision to make.

  I don’t know who the reporter might have told about me. For all I know, the cops are on their way. There’s two choices. Abandon the plan and get as far away from here as I can. Or go through with it and risk being caught.

  He sat looking out over the farm for a long time, but he knew he had to get moving, and he knew he only had one choice.

  He got up and went into the house.

  *******

  Jason had just got to his desk when the phone rang. He hadn’t even sat down yet. “Strong.”

  “Jason, this is Marie. I found your file.”

  “Fantastic. Be right down.”

  Nina watched him turn and head back toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Records, Marie found my file.”

  “What file?”

  “Back in a minute.”

  With that, he was gone.

  *******

  Donnie cleared off the kitchen table and pulled back the chairs. He had planned to pull the drapes and shut the front door to keep his captives from knowing where they were. With the reporter showing up, there wasn’t any point in trying to hide the location. He still didn’t know if they had figured out who he was, so that would remain secret. Opening the basement door, he headed down the stairs.

  It was time to set things up.

  *******

  Jason returned to the office with a file in his hand and walked around to Nina’s side of the desk. Laying it out in front of her, he pointed at what he’d found.

  “Ed Garland, Suzanne Cooper, Chelsea Burt, and Dexter Hughes.”

  “All four?” She flipped the file closed to look at the name on the front. “What is this?”

  “It’s the report on a suicide from ten years ago involving a kid named Billy Jarvis.”

  “Okay, what’s the connection to our missing persons?”

  “They were all there. They were witnesses. Apparently, they took part in a game of Russian roulette with Jarvis. Jarvis shot himself while these four watched.”

  “How did you find this?”

  “You know the message Dave Connor waved at me when we came in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was from Devin James. He told me to look up this file.”

  “But how did he know?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say he did the story.”

  “So what now?”

  Jason took the file back, sat at his desk, and opened it to a different page.

  “The only names listed in the file besides the four witnesses are the mother, Betty Jarvis, and the younger brother, Donnie. Let’s start there. I’ll try to locate the mother, you see if you can find the son.”

  “You think a family member is responsible?”

  “Isn’t that usually the case?”

  Nina nodded.

  “Usually.”

  *******

  Ed Garland had heard each of the others sharing the basement prison with him being removed from their cells, one by one. First Dexter, followed by Suzanne, and then Chelsea. Each time, a lock would snap open, a door would complain with a grind as it swung wide, followed by the sound of chain dragging on the concrete. He’d heard both girls start to cry, but nobody had said anything to Donnie.

  Within a few minutes, he would hear two sets of footsteps going up the stairs. He knew he was next, and now he heard the lock on his own door snap open.

  The door swung wide, and the bare light bulb on the ceiling temporarily blinded him. He felt something hit his leg, and when he looked down, a set of handcuffs was lying next to him.

  “Put ’em on.”

  Ed was weak, and didn’t have the strength to argue. He clicked one wrist, then the other, into the cuffs. Next, something else was thrown at him. A key.

  “Unlock the chain.”

  He did, fumbling with the lock because of the cuffs. When the lock snapped open, he unwrapped the chain from around his leg to expose raw, bleeding skin. The removal of the chain sent instant pain shooting up his leg as air hit the open wound.

  “Get up, come out here.”

  Ed hadn’t stood fully erect in nearly a week, and it was painful to try. Finally, he made it all the way up, but could only limp on the one good leg. Making his way to the door, he limped out of the cell he’d occupied for nearly seven days.

  Donnie Jarvis stood there, gun in hand, gesturing toward the steps. Ed did his best to keep moving forward. Leaning on the wall as he made his way up the steps, he climbed slowly to the kitchen.

  His captor seemed content to let Ed take his time. Donnie didn’t push him or say anything to hurry Ed up. Just followed with the gun raised toward Ed’s back.

  When Ed got through the door into the kitchen, he started to shake. He didn’t know if it was from the effort of getting up the stairs or from the sight that greeted him when he got there. Probably both.

  Sitting in three chairs were his three cellmates. It was the first time he’d seen any of them, and they didn’t look any better than he did. Both girls had tears running down their faces, and Dexter looked terrified. No one spoke.

  The gun pushed into his back. “Over there, sit.”

  Ed thought about making a run for the door, but he knew he was in no shape to do so. He wouldn’t get ten feet, so he limped around to the chair and sat.

  Donnie came up behind him, put a zip tie around his elbow, and pulled it tight to the chair’s arm. He repeated it on the other arm.

  Donnie then stood back against the cellar doorframe and slowly looked from one person to the next; studying each for something Ed couldn’t guess. When he’d made his way around the table, Donnie opened the gun, and took all the bullets out of the rotary chamber. He then stood them one by one in the center of the table.

  When he was finished, he picked up the first bullet in the line-up, and shoved it back into the gun. He snapped the chamber shut and spun it.

  “Time to play.”

  Chapter 19

  Jason and Nina each started with a criminal records search on their Jarvis, and both came up empty. Nina was the first to move on to a driver’s license search, and she got a hit.

  “Donald Jarvis. Age twenty-two. Gives an address east of the city.”

  Jason shook his head. “Apparently Betty Jarvis doesn’t have a current driver’s license.”

  He grabbed the phone book on the corner of his desk and looked up Betty Jarvis. He flipped the book around so Nina could see it. “Is that the address on the son’s license?”

  Nina compared them. “Yes.”

  Jason was immediately on his feet.

  “Let’s go.”

  *******

  Donnie decided to have the girls play last. He walked around to the back of Dexter Hughes’s chair and spun the chamber of the gun once more. Hughes started to whimper. Donnie did his best to remain detached.

  It had to be done. For his brother.

  “I’ve brought you all together to finish the game you started with Billy Jarvis. Each of you is going to get the turn you didn’t take ten years ago.”

  “Donnie, don’t do this!”

  It was Suzanne, and Donnie was startled to realize th
ey knew who he was.

  “So, you’ve figured out who I am. It doesn’t change anything. Billy can only rest after the four of you have taken your turn.”

  It was his captives’ turn to appear stunned, and Donnie could see it on their faces as the enormity of what was about to happen dawned on each one.

  “You first, Hughes.”

  Donnie spun the chamber on the .38 revolver for a third time, pulled the hammer back, and placed it against the back of Dexter Hughes’s head.

  He pulled the trigger.

  *******

  As Jason and Nina came out of the elevator, Jason saw Dave Connor waving another note at him. He thought about ignoring it, but if it was from Devin, he wanted it. He looked at Nina. “Can you bring the car around? I need to see what Dave has for me.”

  “Sure.”

  She continued out the doors as Jason went over to the sergeant’s desk. “Another note from James?”

  “Not this time. Lieutenant Banks, she wants to see you.”

  Jason stopped short. He didn’t want to lose time explaining everything to Banks. He left the note in Dave’s hands.

  “Tell her you tried to give it to me, but I was in too much of a hurry.”

  “You sure, buddy?”

  “I’m sure. Thanks.”

  Jason turned and hurried out the doors to the waiting car. The lives of four people took priority now. He’d worry about Lieutenant Sarah Banks later.

  *******

  Dexter Hughes sat in his chair shaking. The gun has only clicked.

  “You win, Hughes. You don’t die today.”

  Donnie stepped back from Dexter Hughes and circled the table, every eye fixed on him. When he came around to the back of Ed Garland, he stopped.

  “Don’t do this, Donnie. You won’t get away with it.”

  “At this point, I don’t expect to get away with it, since you know who I am, but I do plan to get away. They won’t find me.”