Hello, Little Sparrow

by Jordan Jones

  He took a seat slowly. His knees were hurting him much like mine were. He let out a sigh.

  “The girl…Angela Cooper,” he said. “She was gutted in cold-blood in Brimsburg about a month ago.”

  I remembered that The Sparrow had used a name I was very familiar with on the kiosk.

  Tommy Roisman.

  I knew he was involved with that killing somehow, but I couldn’t cloud up our investigation with this knowledge. The victim didn’t meet any of his qualifications. I was afraid to bring it to light.

  I wanted to keep certain secrets hidden.

  “I remember parts of it,” I said. “The part I remember most is that it was in broad daylight.”

  “Yes…yes it was,” he answered. “It was foggy and cloudy, but many people saw what happened. We even have him on the video camera applying for a job in the place only minutes before he killed her. It was in the news. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

  The grainy footage of the man sitting at the kiosk flooded back into my mind. He was using the name as his own.

  “He put Tommy Roisman into the system,” he continued. “Not sure if it’s some sort of anagram or something. Those wacko killer types love playing cat and mouse.”

  LT Anderson poked his head out of his door, but he couldn’t save me. He could hear the conversation as it unfolded.

  “I’m not sure I can help you with that case, Morelli,” I said. “In fact, I will have the FBI here any moment to take all of my evidence away from me so they can finish our own case. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

  He cleared his throat and stared through me.

  “That’s precisely why I’m here, John,” he said. “I think they’re connected. Our cities don’t have these sorts of savage crimes happen that often. I think someone escaped from a loony bin and is going around murdering people.”

  “If you haven’t noticed,” I started. “Our loon focuses on killing sexual predators. Yours killed someone trying to get her life back together.” I tried my best to keep it together.

  Of course Morelli was right. The Sparrow was one slip up from being caught; we couldn’t possibly allow all the information to be leaked.

  The name…Tommy Roisman was especially important. I exchanged glances with LT Anderson, who had inched closer.

  “There’s this guy,” he said, completely ignoring me. “This guy I just want to pin this thing on. I don’t have the evidence, but I just know he’s good for it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean he just has this way about him. He’s creepy. He looks like a loner. Keeps to himself. A type like that. Someone you definitely wouldn’t want your daughter to date because she might end up in a ditch somewhere.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  Morelli situated himself in his seat and continued. “He lives alone here in Lincolnshire. He has…had this cousin…Angela Cooper…the one who was murdered. He visited a few times in prison up at Maine State, but the last time he was booted from the place because they got in some verbal altercation. It wasn’t pleasant. That’s what the guards told me when I went to interview them.”

  “That’s interesting,” I responded.

  “Then she’s released from prison and ends up in Brimsburg at a rehab place for meth only to be stabbed to death a few days later. They were doing yoga of all things.”

  “These are details they left out of the papers,” I said. “That’s cold-blooded.”

  Yeah, but this guy,” he continued. “He’s a real creep and I think he had something to do with it. If their cameras were worth a ham sandwich we’d have the guys face. Dead to rights.”

  “You really think this is him?” LT Anderson said, standing next to us now.

  “Yes, Lieutenant, I do.”

  “And, all of this because of odd behavior?” I asked.

  “It’s more than that, Detective.” He took out a cigarette and lit it in the precinct. “This guy has a real evilness about him. Real weirdo. Doesn’t think like us.”

  “How so?” LT Anderson asked.

  “I went to pay him a visit today and found him lying on his floor in his foyer muttering something under his breath. His door was wide open. He kept hinting around that he had something to do with this.”

  I took a breath and thought for a second that maybe he could be telling the truth. If this man was truly The Sparrow, then we would have to get to the house quickly to question him.

  His voice could jog something in my mind. We had him on recording. It’d be easy to identify.

  “Do you remember his name?” I asked, taking out a notepad.

  “Uh, yeah,” he said, fishing out his own notebook. “Brooks…Brooks Ingram.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Brooks threw down his computer stand and smashed his tower with a stomp of his foot.

  “They’re coming,” Madison shrieked from the darkness of the hall. It was blackened although the sun still shown high above. Her shadow was somehow darker than her surrounding, cascading an aura around her like Brooks had never seen before.

  In his bones, Brooks’ confidence left his body as soon as Detective Morelli left. He was to kill him next, this much he knew, but he was also afraid he would tell the local PD about him and link him to The Sparrow killings. Madison urged him to leave his house, and he was doing so in a fit of rage.

  “Take what you need and get out!” Madison grew angrier and her presence was unavoidable.

  Brooks ran upstairs and grabbed his razor and clippers. He hastily packed a backpack with food from the cupboard, and ran outside.

  He went to throw his bag in his car, but saw his neighbor’s car running in the driveway from across the street. They were nowhere to be found and, without a second thought, Brooks ran across the street and threw his bag in the neighbor’s car.

  He slammed it into reverse and sped down the road towards the city center. He grabbed his face as anxiety took over his limbs. His fingers fumbled around the radio as he turned it to a station playing classical Mozart. With his eyes closed, he allowed his instincts to do most of the driving, as he couldn’t bear to open them.

  “I’m not going to prison,” Brooks said out loud.

  Madison was seated in the middle of the backseat, perfectly aligned with the rearview mirror.

  “Say something!” he implored. His conscience was bleeding through. “Say something, Madison!”

  “You will never go to prison, Brooks,” she said, calmingly. “You still have a lot of work to do.”

  Brooks could feel the ember inside him begin to reignite, forcing a flood of ambiguous emotions to skate across his mind and body. He was all the sudden…not untouchable.

  “They know who I am,” he responded, nervously. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “They know who you are, but not where you are,” she said, smiling slyly in the mirror. Brooks couldn’t understand why she was so calm when he was such a nervous wreck.

  They were supposed to be as one.

  Brooks took a hard right and went through a quiet neighborhood; the same neighborhood Isaac James found his last remaining minutes. The house was on the right as he drove past, but Brooks couldn’t force himself to look over.

  It felt like everyone was looking at him, as if they knew something he didn’t

  An older man was washing his car in the driveway and raised his hand to wave, but Brooks pressed on, going fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit.

  “They all know what I did,” he said, almost in tears now.

  “There’s no way they know. Just go back to the old house like we always planned.”

  Brooks swerved through the neighborhood and found his way down side-roads on his way to familiar territory.

  “There’s nothing I can do to take it back,” he said. “They’ll keep looking until they find me.”

  “You don’t want to take it back.”

  As much as Brooks hated to admit it, Madison was right. Brooks could not wai
t to strike again. The notoriety was something to be feared. He certainly wasn’t feared at work. The animals he killed as a child didn’t fear him because they didn’t know the end was near.

  The vile he killed were definitely afraid.

  He’d gotten their attention. He’d gotten all of their attention.

  “Keep calm, Brooks. This will work out. You will be able to accomplish what you were designed to accomplish.”

  The presence inside the car grew sweeter the closer he got to the house. The neighborhood was worn and battered on this side of town.

  Straight working class.

  “Just pull into the carport, and we’ll take it from there.”

  Brooks pulled in and turned off the car. He saw there was almost a full tank of gas, so if he had to make a run for it, he had the means.

  He slammed his head back on headrest and could feel Madison’s presence leave the vehicle. It was stressful when she was around, so he felt better when she left.

  The old key still unlocked the backdoor and he walked in. The place was un-lived in for nearly twenty years, but it looked like someone bought it just a few years ago and started doing some remodeling.

  The job must’ve been too big and they halted construction. Much of the materials were still around covered in dust and mouse droppings.

  The kitchen was as he remembered it. The tile was half old and half new.

  The window his mother looked out as he played in the backyard still had the signature pane with the slight crack at the top. He turned right and walked into the living room where he used to watch scary movies with his sister, Jody, far past their bedtimes. He closed his eyes and could still hear his mother’s calls from the other room that either they brush their teeth for bed or they wouldn’t be able to get dessert the next night after dinner.

  The wholesomeness of the moment was short-lived as, from the darkness, he saw the outline of his father…Garrett Ingram. He was an imposing figure, hulking over his younger self.

  Brooks imagined slitting his father’s throat many nights in a row…in fact that’s how he got to sleep most nights.

  It comforted him watching his metaphorical father squirm like a fish out of water to keep the gap in his neck closed.

  The doorway brightened back up as the sun refused to fall behind the horizon.

  Through it, his parents’ bedroom was largely untouched from the days of his youth. It was almost as if the construction crew refused to touch it…like they knew the sentimental value it held in Brooks’ heart.

  The outline of the bed frame was still present on the floor, caught in the web of time and marking the death place of Brooks’ mother.

  He remembered that morning very well. He had brought her breakfast in bed and was first to see her ashy white skin in a mass on her skull, sunken into the pillow.

  Something was off about that entire morning. Garret was already gone, and his sister wasn’t in her room where she spent much of her mornings.

  It was the first time Brooks had seen a dead body, and it was the first time he recognized a potential devastating event having absolutely no emotional effect on him.

  He knew fear.

  He knew pain.

  He knew the possibility that he should feel sad.

  But, he wasn’t.

  What he also knew was anger.

  It came back to him as he stood with both feet beneath him on the floor. The ember faded once more and he was overtaken by a complete lack of empathy.

  The phoenix was once again at the forefront, and Madison was in the corner of the room.

  “This is where she died…isn’t it, Brooks?”

  He nodded, not wanting to turn around. The outline of the bed was more pronounced on the side closest to the door, which his mom slept on.

  “This is where she wrote you.”

  He nodded again. A bird chirped from outside and he looked up. The back yard was more inviting in his older age than in his youth. He stepped back into the living room, then the kitchen.

  “She would watch you through that window, wouldn’t she?”

  He nodded yet again and stepped out into the backyard.

  “You and your sister used to play out here.”

  Tears streamed down his face as his legs involuntarily took him farther into the back yard into a dilapidated shed. He stopped and couldn’t control his movements.

  “This is where they hurt those girls.”

  Brooks couldn’t move, he could only recollect what his father and uncle did night after night as his ailing mother lie motionless in her bed.

  Aching from head to toe.

  The shed itself was badly damaged after years of heavy winds and neglect, but inside looked relatively undisturbed by nature. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he could see the setup like it used to be. The bed was in the middle and several pieces of foam were glued to the walls to muffle screams.

  Not one death in all the abuse, but many girls lost their lives.

  Much like Madison.

  The hatred fueled inside of Brooks again as he broke down in front of the shed. The soggy ground gave way to his knees as he wept. He was filled with such rage for the men and such agony for the girls that he began to slip into unconsciousness on the ground.

  As he looked to the sky, he saw Madison’s outline kneeling over him.

  “And this is where you get your revenge.”

  Chapter Fifty

  My foot pressed the brake pedal to the floor and the tires screeched with agonizing pain.

  “The front door is open,” Harlow yelped from the passenger seat. Detective Morelli unfastened his seatbelt and hopped out from the back.

  Other squad cars followed suit, and several officers left their vehicles and drew their weapons.

  The house was a standard one and a half story home. A modest yard and a single car garage. The red sedan in the driveway sat idling, but no one was in sight.

  “Hey! Officers!” A man yelled from directly behind us. “Hey, I think my car’s been stolen!”

  I turned to face him, though he was still several feet away.

  “What kind of car?” I asked.

  “It is a white Chevy Impala,” he answered. “I left it running when I went inside really quick, but I came out a few minutes ago, and it was gone.”

  I turned back around and faced the house. Curtains hung up in each of the windows helped keep the place a low profile, along with the inexplicable blandness of its overall appearance.

  “Excuse me…are you going to look into it? I need to file a report.”

  I waved my hand behind me towards him. “There will be more than just a report on this,” I said.

  Harlow motioned to a group of uniformed officers to approach the house. The front door was open, so getting in was going to be easy; we were just unsure what we’d find inside.

  The first officer opened the door and three followed behind. They shouted in shock and awe fashion as they swept from room to room, eventually coming out and claiming, “All clear!”

  Other officers went to the back yard and into the garage, but Morelli, Harlow, and I went inside the front door.

  The opening was a hallway leading to a modest kitchen to the left, and stairs on the right. An end table in the entrance was knocked over. We took several more steps in before we found a large living room with a computer desk. On the floor, a computer was smashed to bits.

  I knelt down beside it.

  “This looks like it just happened.” I picked up a piece of plastic in the wreckage. “These parts are warm. The fan is still winding around.”

  The items that once sat on top of the mantel were scattered all over the floor.

  “I knew it,” Morelli said under his breath. “I knew there was something off about this guy. I need to call Draper and let him know.”

  An officer yelled from upstairs. “Detectives…we have something up here.” Two other officers reported bloody clothes in the basement, as they covered their mouths wit
h their arms.

  Harlow and I stood up and followed the officer who led us to a spare bedroom. On the far wall was a vanity with the mirror taken off, but it was replaced with pictures.

  I walked closer in disbelief as I did. Harlow was close behind me.

  “What am I looking at, Trotter?” she asked, neither of us taking our eyes off of the photos.

  “This looks like some sort of mural,” I responded…my eyes searching up and down. The pictures surrounded a handcrafted painting of a girl holding a skull with both hands dawning angel wings. The painting encompassed every picture in the mural, but mixed in the pictures were several newspaper clippings.

  The Paducah Kentucky killing of Samuel Ingram.

  There was a picture of Covey Bridge on the day of Madison’s death. I found Abraham and myself among the patrons standing at the railing.

  There were personal photos taking of the Maise residence taken on different days at different times of day.

  There was a newspaper clipping of Abraham’s obituary, and the obituary of each person he killed.

  There were several pictures of unknown family members throughout the mural that looked to be taken in the 90s.

  “That’s Angela Cooper,” Morelli pointed at a picture in the midst of the rest. “He did kill her.”

  Her eyes were full of life and she had her arm around another person around her age. They both looked in their late teens.

  “Possibly a boyfriend,” Harlow said.

  “No…” I said. “That’s him. That’s The Sparrow.”

  Morelli studied the picture closer.

  “That looks like a younger version of the guy who lives here,” he said. “They were cousins. This is them when they were younger.”

  I took a step back and looked over the entire thing. “He was living among us this entire time.”

  “We knew that,” Harlow said.

  “Yeah, but finally coming to terms with this,” I pointed to the mural. “It’s something I never thought possible.”

  “Well, it happened and it’s here,” Morelli said coldly. “Now, we need to find and kill this guy.”

  I radioed Benjamin and his team to come and comb the area and take down the mural. They made quick work of it and I walked down the stairs. Morelli was walking out the door when I stopped him.