Deadly Webs Omnibus

by James Hunt

  Michelle blushed, and did a poor job of hiding it. Not that she could have. The woman had skin like snow. But it was like fresh snow when the sunlight hit it in the morning. “Going on a date with a man who still wears his wedding ring seems to be a bit of a red flag for me.”

  Grant deflated. “I understand.” But at least now he knew. “I’m sorry to have stopped you in the rain like this. Please, let me help you get back to your car.” He offered his arm, and she took it.

  She wasn’t parked far, and luckily the rain hadn’t picked up any worse. Grant opened her door for her, and she climbed inside. “Thank you again, Detective. And I apologize for what happened earlier.”

  “It’s okay,” Grant said. “Drive safe.”

  She shut the door, and drove off.

  It was probably for the best. If he still wore the ring, that meant he wasn’t ready to let go. And that wouldn’t be fair to anyone he chose to be with right now. Grant swallowed his pride and returned to canvassing the neighborhood.

  A convenience store with bars on the window sat on the street corner. It sat across from a park, which was nothing more than a patch of grass with a bench and swings.

  An electronic bell chimed when Grant stepped inside the store, and the cashier behind the counter didn’t even bother looking up from the magazine he was reading. Grant had to actually knock on the counter to get the man’s attention.

  “What?” The cashier had a scraggly beard and saggy bags under his bloodshot eyes. He was high as a kite, something he immediately tried to hide the moment Grant flashed his badge.

  “Did you work last night?” Grant asked.

  Baggy Eyes cleared his throat and straightened up. “Y-yeah, I did.”

  Grant fished the picture of Mallory he’d copied from the one Ms. Givens gave him out of his pocket and held it up to the man’s face. “Did you see a girl walk by here?”

  The cashier squinted, feigning an attempt to actually look at the picture. “No.” He shook his head adamantly and then added with a stutter, “B-but I wasn’t really paying attention last night. We’re open twenty-four hours, and I’m more concerned about the people who actually come in the store. Lot of crazies around this neighborhood, you know?”

  Grant tucked the picture back in his pocket. “Anyone in particular that gives this place problems?”

  “Drug addicts mostly.” The cashier gestured over to the park, which could barely be seen through the iron bars on the window. “There are a lot of homeless people hopped on some kind of shi—stuff.” He swallowed hard after catching himself. “And they can get violent sometimes.”

  Grant pointed to the park. “A lot of them hang out there?”

  “Yeah,” the cashier answered.

  “Thanks.” Grant left the store, and the rain had picked up even more. His head, pants, and shoes were soaked. It was like ice smacking him in the face, and he was two seconds away from giving up and returning to the warm, dry car when a pink flash caught his peripheral to the left.

  Grant turned in time to see a man with a backpack dart behind a bush in the park and out of sight. Living in Seattle, and pretty much anywhere on the West Coast really, you’re bound to see a lot of strange sights and a lot of people making some questionable fashion choices, but he had a feeling the backpack he just saw wasn’t one of them.

  He broke out into a jog, the rain viciously pelting his face as he easily caught up to the man with the pack who’d tucked himself under a structure made of crates and boxes. He gave Grant a wild look. “What the fuck do you want?”

  Grant flashed his badge and reached for the handle of his pistol. “Sir, I need you to step out of there, right now.”

  The homeless man had a scraggly beard, and black holes appeared where teeth should have been. His clothes were torn and tattered, and the structure he called home had more holes than actual cover. Eventually, the homeless man submitted, and when he did he revealed the cache of hidden gems that he kept in his shambled home.

  Grant reached for his cuffs and then grabbed the soggy sleeve of the homeless man, who gave slight resistance to the arrest. The rain refused to let up and so did the stubbornness of the vagrant, no matter how many times Grant repeated his questions.

  “Where did you get that backpack?” Water dripped from every point on Grant’s body, and despite the long shower the rain provided his suspect, the man still stank. It was hard to wash away years on the street, no matter how hard you scrubbed.

  “If you’re not gonna charge me, just let me go!” The vagrant sat cross-legged on the ground, rocking back and forth. The never-ending twitches told the story of withdrawals. He wanted another fix. And Grant’s presence was the only thing stopping him.

  “I’m deciding,” Grant said. “Possession. Resisting arrest. Maybe kidnapping.”

  The vagrant erupted. “What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t take no kid!”

  Grant crouched to eye level with the Seattle trash. “Where did you get the backpack? I know you didn’t pick it up at the mall. And that color doesn’t seem to go with the rest of your apparel. Start talking now or you’ll spend what’s left of your life in an eight-by-eight box.”

  The vagrant scowled and rocked back and forth. He kept his lips closed tight, and for a moment Grant didn’t think that the man would talk. Finally, the dam burst. “I stole the pack, okay?”

  “From who?”

  Frustration built. “I dunno, man, I was high when I did it. I figured the kid had some food or shit in there that I could sell, maybe there was some money in there. Kids always got money on them from their parents.”

  Grant retrieved the picture from his pocket and held it up in front of the vagrant’s face. “Is this the kid you stole it from?” Grant cupped one hand over the top of the picture to try and shield it from the rain, though with the heavy downpour it wasn’t useful.

  The vagrant studied the photograph for a minute but then shook his head. “I don’t know, man, I told you I was high. I just took the pack and ran, okay? I didn’t hurt anyone, I didn’t kidnap anyone. Just let me go!”

  Grant stuffed the picture back into his pocket. “That’s not gonna happen anytime soon.” He lifted him off the concrete and shouldered the man forward to the car, taking the backpack and every single one of the man’s possessions.

  ***

  The ride back to the station wasn’t a pleasant one. Aside from the screaming and random autism-esque fits the vagrant provided, the smell was unbearable. What made it worse was Grant knew the damp body odor would linger. It was one of the few times he turned the air on.

  Grant tossed the man over to Processing and kept the sack with the backpack and other belongings with him. He found Mocks at her desk, flicking the lighter on and off so quickly that he thought she’d catch fire herself. She tossed a glance to the homeless man he’d brought in and raised her eyebrows.

  “You first. What’d the youth pastor have to say?” Grant asked, dropping the bag and shaking out the rain on his coat, flinging a few drops on Mocks’s desk.

  Mocks threw him a glare as the water droplets soaked in, but quickly resumed her thumb work with the Bic lighter. “Aside from the fact that they love God and pretend to love each other, it seemed that Paley had developed an interest in the girl. He knew about her father. And if Mallory had a crush on him, which I’m pretty sure she did, he could have used that to his advantage.”

  “Yeah, I could see that.” Grant had a younger sister, and Glenn Paley possessed that uncanny mix of classic boyish looks and manly handsomeness that drove young girls wild. He was willing to bet that Mallory had a few boy-band posters on her wall just as his sister did.

  “So who’s the friend?” Mocks asked, not looking up.

  “Vagrant at thirty-fifth park,” Grant answered, then lifted the bag of evidence onto his desk where it landed with a heavy thud. “I think I found Mallory Givens’s backpack.”

  Mocks snapped her head up. “You what?”

  “Yeah,” Grant answ
ered, taking a seat and slicking back his thick mop of wet hair. “Said he stole it off of some kid. I showed him Mallory’s picture, but he didn’t recognize her. Told me he was high when he took it.”

  “Holy shit.” Mocks’s jaw remained slack. “You think we’ll find something in there that can help us?”

  “There’s no telling what the guy had already thrown away and what’s still inside,” Grant said. “I’m gonna find an empty interrogation room and spread this stuff out. Wanna help?”

  Mocks pocketed the lighter and nodded.

  Interrogation room two was open and Grant dumped everything onto the table. All of the vagrant’s possessions amounted to little more than a clearance rack you’d find at Target or Walmart. Grant focused on the pack, while Mocks carefully pulled apart some clothes, both wary of any used needles. The homeless weren’t experts on medical disposal methods.

  There was only one thing that Grant was looking for when he opened the pack, and that was the notebook her teacher had mentioned. He set aside the clothes and small packets of makeup and felt something thick at the bottom. When he pulled out the notebook and set it on the table, Mocks stopped what she was doing.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Mocks asked.

  The bottom half of the notebook was wet from being stuck in the rain for so long, but the pack of clothes had managed to keep the top portion dry.

  Grant opened the first page, and the deepest, darkest, secret inner thoughts of twelve-year-old Mallory Givens appeared on the page. The first thing Grant noticed was the handwriting. It was incredibly legible and beautifully written in cursive, which he didn’t even think was taught in schools anymore. It was handwriting derived from pages and pages of practice. Even Mocks was impressed, and that was no small feat.

  “A lot of short stories in here,” Mocks said, her eyes speeding over the page faster than Grant could turn to the next. “And they’re not half-bad either.”

  “She definitely doesn’t show her age,” Grant said, taking a seat in the chair so he could concentrate. He had to look between the words and what Mallory was trying to say. Most of the stories were romantic, but a few revealed a heroine adventurer, escaping from her ordinary life to travel the world in search of treasures. Grant found it an interesting mix of Lara Croft, Indiana Jones, and Sherlock Holmes. It was one of the longer pieces, but he found it enjoyable.

  By the time they reached the soggy pages, Mocks had lost interest and started rummaging through the rest of the pack. She found a few more interesting items, including a key that wasn’t attached to any ring. She held it up between a pinched glove. “Spare for home?”

  “Maybe,” Grant said, carefully peeling back the wet page and trying not to tear the paper. “With Mom working, it would make sense for her to have her own key.” The pencil faded the deeper he went, and the words on the page grew harder and harder to read.

  “I’m gonna grab some coffee. Do you want another?” Mocks asked.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Alone, Grant tried to make sense of the words on the page. The entries had suddenly shifted from stories to diary. If he could get anything that linked Mallory to Paley, then he could get a judge to provide him a warrant for arrest, or at the very least a search warrant for his place.

  The entries described the bullying at school, the fact that she didn’t know who her father was (though Grant thought that to be a blessing in disguise), and feelings for someone that she’d never felt before, but the individual wasn’t mentioned by name.

  Grant flipped to the next page too eagerly and tore a portion of the paper. He cursed as Mocks returned with two cups of coffee, steam rising from the mouths of both. Grant ignored the cup as he continued to read, forcing himself to slow so as not to rip anything else.

  Mallory described the strange, overwhelming feelings a young girl hitting puberty would experience, though unsure of how to act on those urges. He turned the pages until he finally found the name he hoped to snag. “Got you.”

  Mocks leaned over Grant’s shoulder and slurped from the rim of her cup. “Time to call the judge?”

  “Almost,” Grant said, still scanning the pages. “We’ll need a little more than just—”

  A paragraph caught Grant’s eye, and he paused to reread it. Mocks smacked him on the shoulder, but he still wouldn’t speak. It was the last entry in the journal, and it was also where the water damage was the worst. He held it up for Mocks to see.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Grant asked.

  Mocks carefully took the notebook from Grant and held it closer, directly under the light. She squinted hard, inching her face closer to the actual paper, and then nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

  “I’ll get this over to evidence and have everything logged.” Grant carefully removed the journal from Mocks’s palms and tagged the page. “Get on the phone with Judge Harper. He’ll expedite the warrant for us. I’ll get with the lieutenant to have S.W.A.T. on standby.”

  “On it,” Mocks said, reaching for the phone.

  Grant looked down one last time at the page. A date was circled with hearts drawn all around it and excited phrases of “omg I can’t wait!” and “It’s really happening!” It all told the story of a young girl ready for an adventure of her own instead of just writing about one. The date she was so excited about happened last night. And the person she was excited to meet was Glenn Paley.

  ***

  The sour pit in Grant’s stomach made another appearance, and the multiple hits on his nerves over the course of such a short time was starting to take its toll. The three cups of coffee did little to clear his fatigued mind, its only contribution a random left eye twitch that drove him mad.

  But Grant shoved all of it aside and focused on the task at hand. Mocks drove, and Grant glanced back at the S.W.A.T. van that followed close behind and felt a little better about the encounter. Still, he couldn’t turn off the spigot of his mind pouring out the dozens of scenarios of how this could go down.

  “Unit thirty-five, this is Seattle-One, do you copy?” The radio gargled static after the announcement, and Grant reached for the radio.

  “Go for unit thirty-five,” Grant said.

  “We have officers stationed on the south side of the block to intercept in case of a foot chase, but the closest street is still a few hundred yards away, how do you want us to proceed?”

  “Stay put. I don’t want to spook him. Tell them to hold their position and wait for command over the radio.”

  “Roger that, thirty-five.”

  The neighborhood was middle class filled with small single-family homes that lined the streets. Tiny yards were fenced in by waist-high wooden boards, and a mixture of furniture and fixtures decorated the suburbia. None of them probably would have ever suspected that there was a predator living among them, let alone the conniving youth pastor that lived across the street.

  Mocks parked the car a few houses down from Paley’s residence. Both she and Grant exited the car as the S.W.A.T. van pulled up behind them. The officers spilled out in orderly fashion, and they all huddled near Grant’s trunk.

  “The girl is twelve years old, and we have reason to believe she’s in that house,” Grant said, holding up a picture of Mallory and then pointing behind him. “I want two officers on every exit, and I want two with me and Detective Mullocks near the front. If or when we need backup you will hear it over the radio. Sometimes these guys get desperate, and we don’t want to spook him. Understood?”

  A series of nods answered, and Grant and Mocks led the charge. The S.W.A.T. team followed and then all but two broke off down the side of the house, heading to the back and side doors. Both Grant and Mocks had their weapons out, and Mocks positioned herself on the left side of the door with Grant on the right. The pair raised their pistol and then the two S.W.A.T. officers stepped up with the door knocker; a heavy, flat fronted battering ram that would level any door.

  Grant took a breath and then screamed. “Police Department! Search Warra
nt!”

  The S.W.A.T. officer thrust the ram into the door. The frame cracked and Grant led the charge inside. Subsequent crashes of glass and wood echoed from the other teams around the house as every entrance was infiltrated.

  A frightened Glenn Paley stepped into the front hallway from the kitchen. “What’s going—”

  “Down on the ground!” Grant aimed his weapon at Paley, and the man threw his hands in the air and stumbled backward.

  “What is this?” Paley’s face had drained of color except for a small pink spot on each cheekbone.

  Mocks lowered her weapon while Grant kept his trained on Paley, and she cuffed him. Mocks knocked Paley to his knees after the cuffs were placed on him, and Grant holstered his service weapon.

  “Where is she, Paley?” Grant asked. “Where’s Mallory?”

  Paley’s head swung back and forth like it rested on a swivel. “W-what are you talking about?”

  “The girl, dumbass,” Mocks said, wrenching his arm back so far that it triggered a yelp. “Where is Mallory?”

  Shouts of ‘clear’ echoed through the different rooms along with the sound of heavy boots as the tactical team checked every nook and cranny inside. When the sergeant appeared by the front door with the rest of his team, Grant felt his stomach twinge again.

  “No girl, Detective.”

  Paley was trembling, tears streamed down his face, and snot bubbled from his nose with each uncontrollable, heaving sob. “P-please, I don’t know what’s going on. What are you doing?”

  Grant crouched to eye level with the youth pastor, and a flush of raging heat covered his face. He gripped Paley by the collar and lifted him off the floor and slammed him against the wall. The force of the movement caused a mirror to crash and shatter on the hardwood floor.

  “You were supposed to meet her last night,” Grant said, baring his teeth. “You knew the kind of girl she was, and you knew she was an easy target, so you brainwashed her over the past year, didn’t you, you little creep.”