Never Coming Home

by A.R. Wise

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lincoln was late to work, like normal, but not for the usual reasons. He’d gotten up early, made breakfast, and then drove Angel up to Eversprings before heading back. He was on the switchback on Thatcher road, heading down the mountain, when he got a text from Bentley. He almost made the mistake of taking his eyes off the road to read it, but refrained as he approached the dangerous curve. There was a makeshift cross and flowers preceding the rusty guardrail, marking the spot where some other unlucky motorist had met their end. He waited until he was off the mountain and at a stoplight to check his phone.

  ‘Call me back. Klines are coming in.’

  There was a news report on the radio about a murder in Loveland. Lincoln clicked off the radio and called Bentley, excited to hear the update about the Klines.

  “I got your text.”

  “Good,” said Bentley. “I stopped by their bakery this morning and told them what was going on. They weren’t happy, but they agreed to meet with us. Mrs. Kline’s coming in around lunch, after they finish the morning rush.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “It’s hard to say exactly,” said Bentley. “There was something about the way she talked that freaked me out a little.”

  “How so?”

  “She seemed scared, and a little annoyed. It’s probably nothing. When are you going to be here?”

  “I’m on my way in now. It won’t take me too much longer.”

  He hurried the rest of the way and got to the office as soon as he could. Bentley and Hector were there, working on the whiteboard that they’d started the night before.

  “How did things go with Ms. Harcourt?” asked Bentley.

  “They went really well,” said Lincoln as he handed the digital recorder to Hector. “Do me a favor and copy the recording on there. I got her to tell me about the day of the disappearances. She was pretty open about everything. This morning she said that if I had any other questions that I should call her.”

  “This morning?” asked Bentley. “Did she call you?”

  Lincoln hadn’t meant to let it slip that he’d been with Angel this morning, but he didn’t want to lie to them either. “She stayed at my place last night.”

  Both Hector and Bentley stopped what they were doing and stared at him.

  Lincoln was compelled to defend himself. “Nothing happened. She stayed over because I had a few too many drinks, and she lives way the hell up in the mountains, out in Eversprings. The last thing either of us wanted was to take a trip up the mountain in the middle of the night.”

  “A suspect in our case slept over at your place last night and you don’t think that’s a big deal?” asked Hector. “Yeah, all right.”

  “She’s not a suspect. Trust me, I’m a pretty good judge of character and this woman had nothing to do with her son’s murder. She was almost in tears every time we talked about him.”

  “Whatever you say, boss,” said Hector as if the entire situation was humorous to him.

  Bentley wasn’t as quick to dismiss it. “Even if she’s not a suspect, her ex is. I don’t think it’s too smart to get close to someone who…”

  “I said it’s no big deal,” said Lincoln, silencing Bentley. “How about you? Did you have a good night? Did you see Darcy?”

  Bentley turned back to the whiteboard to work on what he’d been doing before Lincoln arrived. “Yeah. Her band’s pretty good.”

  “Did you guys get together after the show?”

  Bentley acted lackadaisical as he said, “Yeah. Some of the band members went out and I tagged along.”

  “Where’d you guys go?” asked Lincoln.

  Hector snickered and said, “He’s got twenty questions for you, kid. Better be careful.”

  “Don’t worry, nothing happened,” said Bentley. “We’re just friends. Let’s focus on the case, so we know what we’re dealing with before Deborah gets here.” He pointed to the section of the board that listed their main suspects, including Trent Kline, Frank Harcourt, Angel Harcourt, and Grant Hedland. “We need to get together the alibis that everyone had. I’ve been thinking about our meeting with Grant, and I’m not sure I’m willing to rule either of them out just yet. I didn’t get the sense that the guy was lying, but it’s still not definitive proof of anything.”

  “I agree,” said Lincoln. “As far as we know, Grant helped Trent out and covered for him.”

  “Then why would Trent throw Grant under the bus for dealing?” asked Hector. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Lincoln nodded and said, “Right, but there’s another possibility here. Trent might’ve known how to turn off the security camera. I know the guy who’s in charge of security at the mall. I could give him a ring to see if it’s possible that Trent snuck back there, turned off the camera, and then headed out through the back entrance.”

  “You might want to hold off on that call,” said Bentley. “We don’t want word to get back to Pettigrew that we’re asking questions about the case. Besides, you’re stretching the timeline pretty thin. Unless Trent knew exactly how to turn the cameras off. I doubt he’d have time to break into the security office and figure out the set up that quick.”

  “Right, I agree. Which leaves me with the feeling that our main suspect is Frank Harcourt,” said Lincoln. “Angel insisted that her ex was innocent, and she said that the police ruled him out right away, but she didn’t explain why. She also said that he took off to Tijuana, which is why we’ve had so much trouble tracking him down.”

  “Let me get the notes,” said Bentley as he walked over to the desk to retrieve a stack of papers. “From what I saw, the only reason they ruled him out was because of the time stamps on his computer logs.”

  “And that could’ve been faked,” said Hector.

  “Is that something that IT guys do a lot?” asked Lincoln. “Are you familiar with it?”

  Hector raised his hands and said, “Hey man, I’ve never done anything like that. I goof off in plain sight. You know that.”

  “I know, but are you familiar with that sort of thing?”

  “Not really, but I can’t imagine it’d be that hard. You can create bots to do damn near anything, and it can be pretty tough to tell the difference. These days more people are aware of it, but ten years ago it would’ve been easier to sneak something like that by everyone.”

  Lincoln walked over to the board and started to wipe away Angel’s name from the suspect list. Bentley stopped him and asked, “What’re you doing?”

  “Angel’s not guilty. Trust me.”

  “How do we know? Just because you got a good feeling about it? No, she’s still a suspect.”

  “A child killer doesn’t usually call the cops on themselves.”

  “Except for all the child killers who’ve done exactly that,” said Bentley as he started to fill in Angel’s name back on the suspect’s list on the whiteboard. “There’ve been lots of mothers who offed their kids and then called the cops claiming it was a kidnapping.”

  “If you’d been there when she was describing what happened you’d agree with me. She’s innocent.”

  Bentley smirked and held up his finger as he said, “But wait.” He walked over to his pile of papers and started sifting through them until he came upon what he was looking for. He handed it to Lincoln. It was a copy of an old yearbook page. “I found that this morning.”

  “What is it?” asked Lincoln as he looked at the pictures.

  “It’s from Angel’s high school. She’s down on the bottom. Her maiden name’s Rosemont.”

  Lincoln saw her picture, a gorgeous young woman with a beaming smile and large hair that’d been stylish at the time. Under the picture was a caption, ‘Most likely to be move to Hollywood – Angel Rosemont.’

  “She was in drama,” said Bentley as if he’d stumbled upon a big revelation.

  “So what? Lots of kids are in plays. I think you’re r
eaching here.”

  “Maybe I am, but it’s got to be taken into consideration.”

  There was a knock on the glass, and the three of them turned to see a chubby, black-haired woman standing at the top of the stairs outside of the office. She waved, and Bentley said, “That’s Mrs. Kline.” He motioned for her to come in as he walked over to greet her. He introduced her to Hector and Lincoln.

  “This is a nice place for an office,” she said as she looked around. “Right here on Pearl Street.”

  “It’s not bad,” said Lincoln. “You can’t beat the food, that’s for sure. Come, sit down. Can we get you anything?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine.”

  Lincoln was struck by how meek and quiet she was. He’d expected her to be a fiery woman, full of passion and zeal about the case, but it appeared as if she wanted to be anywhere but here right now, like a frightened puppy being scolded. She looked older than her age, with streaks of white in her otherwise black hair. She wore glasses that were large and round, the bottoms sitting on her chubby cheeks, and she didn’t appear to have on any make-up. There was a dusting of flour on her sweater, and she wiped it clean when she noticed it.

  “We’re happy that you’re willing to speak with us,” said Lincoln as he pulled a chair over to sit near her. “We’re putting a lot of energy into finding out the truth about…”

  “You won’t. You won’t find the truth.”

  Lincoln was taken aback by her sudden declaration.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I hope you do. I hope you find out who really killed Betty and Devin, but I just…” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “I just don’t have much energy to hope anymore.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” said Lincoln.

  She licked her lips and looked down, cocked her head slightly to the left, and then tried to say something. She only managed to let out a breath and then laughed. She tried again, “This is tough.”

  “I can only imagine,” said Lincoln. “We don’t want to drag you or your husband through all of this again. I know it’s got to be hard, but I was under the impression you paid other investigators to look into the case. I would’ve thought you’d be happy if the case got this sort of attention again.”

  “Careful what you wish for.” She fidgeted in her seat, appearing as uncomfortable as a guilty suspect in an interrogation room. “There was a time when all I could think about was finding out the truth, but now… Now it terrifies me.”

  “Why’s that?” Bentley prodded.

  “When Betty went missing, our whole world turned upside down. She was my light. My sweet angel. Do you have any kids?” she asked of the men around her.

  “I do,” said Lincoln, almost bashfully. “A daughter.”

  “Then you know what I mean. You know how much of your heart belongs to your child.”

  He nodded, a pang of recognition and empathy reverberating through him.

  “Imagine it was your daughter who died.”

  He nodded again, wishing he could express how often that thought had come to him, but he was too ashamed of what his investigation was putting her through to say anything.

  She continued, “I remember before she disappeared, I used to have these moments – I guess all parents do this – I’d think of something happening to one of my babies, and how that would crush me. How it would tear me up. I was positive I’d never make it through something like that, and then it happened. Someone stole my baby. I was living in a nightmare. Oh God, I can’t… I can’t tell you what it was like to wake up.” She opened her purse and took out a crumpled tissue that she wrapped around her index finger and used to blot the corner of her eyes as she continued, “To wake up and forget, for just the briefest moment – just a tiny fraction of happiness before I remembered. Sometimes I’d dream of her. Those were the worst mornings. When I would dream of her and then wake up still thinking she was home. It felt like losing her all over again.”

  No one else dared say a word. The rawness of her pain kept them reverently silent.

  “And then it just got worse. If you can believe it. Everything just kept getting worse. It took a while for the investigation to turn on Trent, but when it did…” She shook her head and sighed. “It was awful. It felt like the whole world turned on us. People hated us. They blamed us. They said it was our fault; that we let our son turn into a monster. We had church folks from all around coming to town with signs – you know, like they were at some union protest or something. They’d be outside our house, calling us devil worshipers, and leaving bloody shoes on our lawn. Who does something like that? What sort of sick person would…” She shook her head and bit her lip. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Trent was terrified. He went from being this distant, grumpy teenager back to being my baby boy so quick. He was so scared. I remember holding him on our couch as he cried and cried, and I kept telling him everything would be okay. I promised him they’d find whoever did it, and they’d clear his name, and that we’d get through this.”

  Deborah looked over at the whiteboard and all of the intricate notes that Bentley had scrawled on it. “Little did I know. Here we are ten years later… Ten awful, awful years.”

  “Maybe we can help,” said Bentley. “I know it won’t bring them back, but if we can find out the truth about what happened then maybe we can clear Trent’s name.”

  “’Maybes’ are a tough thing to hang your hopes on. Trust me. I did it for the better part of a decade. After Trent… after he…” it was a struggle for her to say it. “After he committed suicide, a big chunk of me died with him. We lost both our babies, and you just don’t come back from that. You just don’t. It felt like my whole world was collapsing in on itself. I wanted to die. Oh God, I wanted to die right then and there. I blamed myself for everything. It doesn’t make sense now, but I did. I blamed myself for not being a better parent – for not picking Betty up from school like some of the other parents did. I let her walk home. I blamed myself for not being stricter with Trent. I blamed myself for not taking Betty to karate classes. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s the sort of thing that goes through your head. Why didn’t I take her to self-defense courses? What if I had? Would she still be…” The agony of remembering stole her words away, and she pressed the tissue to her lips as her face contorted in grief. Her pale cheeks turned red, and her eyes welled with tears.

  Lincoln froze, too stunned to offer condolences. Bentley knelt beside Deborah and put his arms around her. She accepted the embrace of a stranger like a drowning victim clinging to a life preserver. She clutched him, and he said, “I’ve got you. It’s all right.”

  This was too much for Lincoln. Something about her grief ripped him apart from the inside out, gutting him and dredging up demons he’d thought had been buried long ago. His hands were shaking. Everything Deborah said rang true in the harshest way. He remembered those blissful moments in the morning when he would wake up forgetting the truth about his baby girl’s rapidly deteriorating health. He remembered holding Darcy as she cried, and promising her it would all be okay even though he had no way of knowing it would be. Deborah’s loss felt too familiar. She was the grieving parent he’d almost become, and the sight of her breaking down like this, even ten years after her loss, crushed him.

  “I know what it’s like to lose someone,” said Bentley, as if giving voice to what Lincoln should’ve been saying. “I know what it’s like to wake up after dreaming that the person you loved is still alive, and how hard it is to realize that it’s not true. I lost my wife. I didn’t think I’d make it through the pain. I almost didn’t, but we keep fighting. We keep fighting because we know it’s what they’d want.”

  “You’re so young,” said Deborah as she looked at Bentley. “You’re just a baby.” She placed her hands on his cheeks and asked, “You lost your wife?”

  “Car accident,” said Bentley.

  “Oh God, honey, I’m so sorry to hear that. I wish I could say it gets easier, but here I am
blubbering ten years later.” She laughed a little and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “It doesn’t get easier. Anyone who tells you that is full of it. You’ll always have that piece of your heart ripped out and missing, but you find a way. You find something to fill that hole up with. You have to. Don’t make the mistake of turning to drugs or alcohol. Don’t you do that.” She clasped Bentley’s hand and squeezed. “Find something else. Something good. For a long time, the only thing that kept me going was trying to prove Trent was innocent. That became my obsession. At first I thought it was a good thing – that I was fighting to clear my boy’s name, and that everything would be better if I did. But it turned into a coping mechanism, and that can be ugly. I let it control my life for a lot of years. This might sound gross, but it was like I had a scab that I kept picking, over and over, day after day. It never had a chance to heal. And it wasn’t just my wounds either. I was dragging my family through it. Every single day, I kept forcing them to live through it all over again. That’s why I came here alone. If I came with Jack…” She shook her head. “I don’t think he’d want to hear me talk about it again. We had to leave that part of our lives behind us, or we’d never get over it.”

  “Listen,” she said as if deciding it was time to move on to a different point to keep from spiraling down into depression. “I’m not trying to tell you guys not to move ahead with your investigation. Nothing in the world would make me happier than being able to prove Trent was innocent. Jack’s going to bring you all the information we got from the other P.I.s we hired. We’ll help you however we can, but I have to warn you that the truth might not be there for you to find anymore. We spent a lot of money, and put a lot of time into trying to find it, and we don’t have anything to show for it but a lot of tears and heartbreak, and a horrific credit score.” She forced a chuckle, as if mocking her own pain before someone else could.

  “Do you think Frank Harcourt did it?” asked Lincoln bluntly.

  “I used to,” said Deborah. “Now I’m not so sure.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Hector.

  “Well, when Jack brings over the files you’ll see what sort of stuff Mr. Harcourt was into. Weird sex stuff. Bondage and that sort of thing. Prostitutes. And then came the stories about how he faked his computer logs. Have you heard about that?”

  Lincoln nodded and said, “Yeah, although we’d love to see what you found out.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” said Deborah. “When the last P.I. found out about how he faked his computer logs, we thought that was the nail in his coffin. It was proof that he lied to the police, and it gave him time to get to Boulder to… you know.” Even after all these years, it was still painful for her to talk about. “The prosecution built their entire case against Trent around a timeline, so we built our own, proving that Arthur could’ve done it.”

  “You mean Frank,” said Bentley.

  “That’s what everyone called him, but it was his middle name. He was the third Arthur in the family.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Bentley. “That might also be why we can’t find him. Everything we’ve got on him uses the name Frank.”

  “If you thought he was guilty, what made you change your mind?” asked Lincoln.

  “The police already knew that he lied to them,” said Deborah. “We spent every cent of our life savings on the last private detective, and he put together a case that proved Frank lied. He tried to interview as many people as he could about the case. He talked to Grant, and to witnesses at the mall; he even got Angel Harcourt to talk to him. He used to be a police officer, and he told us that if we wanted to convince the department to reopen the case then we’d have to go to them with undeniable proof. The last thing a police department wants to do is admit they might’ve been wrong and be forced to reopen a closed case, and the Boulder department was adamant that Trent was guilty. So we paid the investigator every cent we had. It took almost five months, but he was finally convinced we had a strong enough case against Harcourt. We got a meeting with the department, took in the evidence, and in ten minutes they shot us down. Five months of work and our life savings evaporated,” she snapped her fingers, “just like that.”

  “Why wouldn’t they listen to you?” asked Bentley.

  “Like I said, they already knew he’d lied. They confronted him about it and got the truth. Apparently, Frank left work after he got the call from his wife that Devin was missing. He faked his computer logs because he wanted to get paid a full day. He took the toll road to avoid traffic, and they had a photo of him in his car not long after four. That’s why they cleared him. They never released the information because they didn’t see any reason to get a grieving father in trouble with his employer. I had to accept that he was innocent, unless the police department was lying to cover it up, and doctored a photo of Frank driving down the toll road.”

  Deborah stuffed her tissue back into her purse and then said, “That’s why I came by. I thought you might like to know that Mr. Harcourt’s a dead end. A very expensive, time-consuming, heart-breaking dead end.”

  “Did anyone else ever come up as a suspect during the investigation?” asked Bentley.

  “No. There were theories, but no evidence. Heck, there were a million theories. Someone even accused Betty of murdering Devin and then said we were covering it up.”

  “Do you still think Trent’s innocent?” asked Lincoln, and the question came out more accusatory than he’d intended. The moment of silence before her answer wasn’t long, but it was poignant and tense.

  “I like to think so, yes.”

  “But are you sure?” asked Lincoln.

  “I’m not sure of anything anymore. I don’t think my baby boy could do something like that to his own sister.” She shook her head, and grew more confident as she thought about it. “No, he didn’t do it. I don’t know who did, and I don’t know if they’ll ever be caught, but I know my baby didn’t do that. And I don’t want anyone to prove me wrong.” She looked up at the clock on the wall over the whiteboard and said, “I should get going. Jack will be here soon with the notes from the last investigation. If there’s anything else that you need, let us know. Well, let me know anyways. You might want to leave Jack out of it. He’s never really… He doesn’t like to dwell.”

  They thanked her for coming, and walked her to the door. Bentley went with her down to the lobby, leaving Lincoln and Hector behind.

  Hector clicked off the digital recorder and said, “Wow.”

  “No kidding,” said Lincoln as he looked through the glass at the first floor lobby below as Bentley led Deborah to the entrance of the office building. “I feel like the rug just got pulled out from under us.”

  “Me too,” said Hector. “I was starting to lean towards Frank Harcourt as the bad guy. Now she’s got me questioning everything. Who do we look at now?”

  “Arthur Frank Harcourt.”

  Hector looked puzzled. “I’m not following you. You still think he did it?”

  “No, but something about his timeframe doesn’t click. If he left work early, and was on the toll road a little after four, then how come he didn’t show up to help look for his son until after six?”

  “Maybe he did, but he didn’t want his work to find out.”

  “Could be. It still feels like we’re missing something.”