Dead Memories (Carol Ann Baker Crime Book 2)

by Lissa Pelzer

  Chad leaned in and took the phone back. ‘Here’s the next one. What do you think that one shows?’

  This time, Tanner leaned into the mike. ‘Same time and date. Officer Randal inside his patrol car. Just to make it clear, the location is unknown, the sky behind the vehicle is dark and there are no landmark features.’

  ‘And this one?’

  Now they both leaned over the image. It was one of Randal getting back out of his car. The image was closer now. His displeasure with being photographed was clear.

  ‘It looks like Officer Randal is asking you not to take his photo.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Chad smiled out of the side of his face. ‘He didn’t want me taking that photo.’

  ‘So why did you? You know, if a police officer asks you not to take their photo you're obliged to desist.’

  ‘But the question should be, why did he want me to stop taking his photo?’

  Caffey shook his head. ‘That’s not the question. The question is, who’s driving caused the accident and injury to Janine Kenny on Monday morning? And the forensic evidence says it was yours.’ Caffey pushed the phone back at him. ‘You’re wasting our time here.’

  Tanner stood up. ‘Interview completed at…’

  ‘No, it’s not complete!’ Chad stood up. ‘This is total B.S! I’ve just shown you evidence that Randal moved his car after he hit me.’

  ‘You haven’t shown us anything.’ Caffey leaned in. ‘Let me do you a favor and tell you, we didn't see anything! You’re damn lucky, we’ve got bigger deals right now. We’ve got the Simon Snell case to bring to court. We’ve got Ryan Bukowski and his imaginary one-armed man to deal with. So, unless that girl takes a turn for the worse, we just don’t care about you, okay?’

  Chad got up. He knew his fists were clenched. He knew his teeth were clenched too, but there was nothing he could do about it. What were you meant to do if the cops wouldn’t hear your side of the story? He would have called Schmidt and made him submit it as evidence, but he knew the guy wasn’t interested either.

  He got it, in two years’ time he could either be the guy who tried and failed to lose Randal his job or he could be the guy who was cool enough to let it go. And probably, Schmidt was right. That kind of attitude served you well in a small town like this.

  ‘I guess, Randal’s a good cop.’ Chad said.

  Tanner looked at the recorder like he wanted to check if the light had gone off.

  ‘Hey, we all have our faults, but all in all, he does his job well. He’s really good with the kids, with the school program.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  Caffey nodded towards the phone. ‘I tell you what, the best thing you can do, is probably to just delete those photos.’

  Chad closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Sure,’ he said, as he scrolled through the photos and hovered over the trash icon.

  ‘Did you do it already?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘I’m about to.’ He pocketed the phone.

  ‘So do it.’

  ‘I will.’ He pushed past to the door, but Tanner had blocked his way.

  ‘Chad, come on? Why make a big deal out of this? Just hand the phone over and I’ll do it.’

  Chad had it in his hand, inside his pocket, and Tanner pulled his elbow out. There was no mistaking that this was no longer a request. Like schoolyard bullies, Tanner held his arm while Caffey took the phone from him.

  ‘Hey! That’s my personal property.’

  The screen was still live and Caffey was soon into the photos, soon deleting the ones they’d just seen.

  ‘You’re destroying evidence.’

  ‘Didn’t I just tell you,’ Tanner said, letting go of his arm and wiping his hand on his chino pants. ‘Evidence is only evidence when we collect it in the right way. There’s no point muddying the waters with this. You’ll not be doing yourself any favors.’

  And as Chad reached for the phone, Caffey threw it back to Tanner just for fun.

  Chad wouldn’t lower himself to be the piggy in the middle and once it had been thrown back one more time he looked away.

  ‘Here.’ Caffey slipped it into his pocket. ‘Don’t worry about it, okay. It’s fine. We’re all cool. Take your slap on the wrist and let’s just forget all about this.’

  Chad went out of the door in silence. There was a throbbing in his ears from the blood pumping around, but he felt a certain power inside that hadn’t been there before. These two cops cared about those photos. They wouldn’t have wrestled him for the phone if they hadn’t cared. So he was just going to wait until he was on the other side of the reception desk before he played his joker.

  The woman with short hair was still out there, as well as the usual bunch of rednecks and teenagers. The officer on the desk was shouting across to an officer on the other side and Caffey placed his pass on the gate to let him through. The gate beeped and Chad turned around with a smile.

  ‘Hey, guys, no hard feelings,’ he shouted, ‘about the photos I mean, I’ve got a back-up on my computer anyway.’ He took his hat out of his back pocket and slapped it on his head until it came down over his eyes. Then he smiled really wide.

  For the next few seconds, the world seemed to go dark. Every cop in the department was on top of him and Chad got rolled over and pinned to the floor.

  ‘What the hell?’ he shouted in disbelief. They couldn’t be arresting him for that, for having a copy of the photos.

  But someone behind had hauled him upright and now Caffey looked him in the eye.

  ‘That’s him,’ the skinny cop behind the desk said, and he began to chortle. ‘Gee whiz.’

  Caffey pulled a sheet of paper off the notice board and held it up to Chad’s face. ‘Mr. Purcell, if you would be so kind…’

  But Chad was out of it, they could have led him into traffic and he wouldn’t have noticed.

  They came back through the gate and he heard Tanner behind him saying, ‘That’s him right, our shooter? It all makes sense, I guess. Someone better give Arnie Schmidt a call. His favorite boy needs him.’

  Janine

  Bryan cleared his throat. ‘How are you? Karl told me yesterday was challenging…’

  Janine picked a hair off her t-shirt and let it fall to the floor. Then she looked for another. She wanted to do anything other than discuss this topic right now. Because what she really felt like doing was telling Bryan that Karl had hypnotized her and put his hand down her pants and that she remembered it. But Karl had her on that point. For a girl with false memories forming left, right and center, who would believe this particular story?

  So she’d let it go. Pick your battles, right? Yes, she did think Karl was a creep, but if she pushed that issue, they might decide she was having a setback and then she’d be back to square one.

  And Bryan nodded. ‘I know it can be tough being here, the waiting, the not knowing. I can only imagine.’ He tucked back an imaginary strand of hair as if he’d worn it long for the longest time and only just got it cut. She knew that feeling. More and more lately, she had these phantoms – long hair, tan skin, and manicured nails.

  ‘Hey, Bryan, let me be straight with you. I’m starting to remember things, real things, but every time I tell that Karl about it, he tells me I’m wrong, that I’m imagining them.’

  ‘He’s not telling you you’re wrong, only that at this stage, it’s common to have different thoughts, not all of which are real memories.’

  ‘But you know… Some things are real.’

  And Bryan held up a hand. ‘A few days ago we had a breakthrough,’ he said, ‘you remembered something, a letter, and we could check you remembered it correctly because we had proof. You remember?’

  ‘I know Cassandra,’ she said quietly. ‘I really do. I can remember her in different clothes, different places and in different makeup.’

  She wouldn’t say the other stuff. That weird things with the old man in some dark and smelly apartment. She wouldn’t mention that she thought of herself in the same situations.


  ‘You mean, you can imagine her in different clothes. Janine, we have to stick to what we know is true and work up from there. We know that you don’t know Cassandra Stephenson. That means that we have to conclude that these memories of yours aren’t real memories. What you’re doing is imagining Cassandra.’

  She felt her cheeks prickle as tears rose up into her eyes, but bit her lip until blood came instead of the waterworks. She knew there had to be a way of convincing him of the truth. There had to be something, which would show him she wasn’t crazy.

  ‘I remember going to the beach, the smell of the ocean, all that, and you said her agent told you, she’d come up from Florida, not the South. So, don’t those things go together, the beach and Cassandra? Isn’t that evidence?’

  ‘Janine…’ He let out a long, exasperated sigh. ‘I’m pretty sure you were never at the beach. I can understand that for someone who never saw the ocean, the idea of the beach must be pretty romantic, but speaking as someone who comes from Southern Florida, believe me, it’s overrated!’ He tried a laugh, but it came out sharp. ‘Karl used the beach theme in your session, right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And Karl said, it is typical at this stage of reestablishing your memories, that the ones you get feel very, very powerful.’

  Janine turned away. She could tell he was getting aggravated. She wasn’t trying to piss him off.

  ‘But listen to me,’ He patted the air with his hands. ‘I need to tell you something. You remember I said the boy who came to see you, might have been a friend?’

  Chad. Janine felt her chest growing larger and all thoughts of Cassandra and the beach floated away.

  ‘His name is Chad Purcell, and it turns out, he’s the person who hit you on the road.’

  ‘Oh.’ As soon as the air was in her, it escaped.

  ‘The reason I’m telling you this now is because he has just been arrested on suspicion of murder.’ Bryan nodded twice as if trying to convince himself that this was true. ‘And if you were to turn on the TV in your room, or see the TV in the lounge here, you might see a picture of him on the news and that might be very confusing for you.’

  ‘And he hit me with his car?’

  ‘Yes. Well, his pickup.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘Okay, okay. So, who did he kill?’

  Bryan’s face turned towards the blinds lowered over the window, as if the answer was written there. ‘We don’t know that he did kill anyone yet, only that he has been arrested.’

  ‘So who did he maybe-kill?’

  ‘It’s not important that you know any of that. It might only confuse you.’ Bryan blinked. ‘But the man was called Simon Snell.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘The Snells? I think I know them.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I know you do not know the Snells. Believe me, you were nowhere around here in the lead up to your accident. No one here has ever heard of you. I’ve been to the bars and hang outs with your photos and no one has ever seen you before.’ He took a big, loud breath. ‘You don’t know them, okay?’

  ‘Maybe I met them at the beach…’

  ‘What beach?’ He grabbed the armrests and almost stood up, but seemed to change his mind.

  ‘Down in Miami.’

  ‘You didn’t. You’ve never been to Miami.’ Bryan pulled at the front of his hair. ‘You know what, we shouldn’t be having this conversation. I should call Karl. Karl should be having this conversation with you. I’m just a caseworker.’

  And Janine watched his skinny hands clawing at his scalp and she felt genuinely sorry for him and the trouble she was giving him. But if she could only convince him that these things were real, then they could start to move on and it would be okay. She reached out and took his hand from his head. And he let her.

  For a moment, she thought she was going to tell him she was sorry, that she knew really that she had never been to the beach, or met Cassandra and that it was all just imaginings, but then she saw his tan wrist, she saw the bleached out, beaded bracelet around it. The beads were painted with tiny pink birds. Something clicked. A laugh bubbled up in her chest like she’d drunk a soda too fast.

  ‘I know where you got that,’ she said, pointing to his wrist.

  Bryan drew his hand back like her finger had burnt him.

  ‘From the store opposite Flamingo Park. The one that sells double priced sun cream, warm candy bars, and those stupid South Beach t-shirts with the plastic decals that stick to your skin when you sweat. I bought one of those for Cassandra once as a friendship bracelet and made her promise never to take it off. But she did. She’s like that.’

  And Bryan stood up and took a hold of the desk. He was staring at her hard and changing color. Janine hoped he wasn’t going to throw up.

  Chad

  ‘I didn’t shoot that kid!’ Chad was half out of his seat, but Caffey lurched at him and he sat back down.

  ‘We’re recording right now. If you’re talking about Snell, you need to say his name.’

  ‘You’re talking about him.’ Chad held his hands up. ‘I don’t want to have nothing to do with this.’

  ‘Okay – okay. We’re waiting for your lawyer. So let’s take it easy. But you said you wanted to talk about Monday morning.’

  ‘Sure, when I thought you meant the accident.’

  Caffey tilted his head. ‘Was it an accident?’

  Chad closed his eyes and pressed his hands over his face. They were recording now. If he told them to stop it would all go on tape and he would look guilty.

  ‘Let’s start with the basics. You were at the trailer park at around 3 AM, correct?’

  Yes, he was there, but if he gave them that small piece of information, it wasn’t going to stop there.

  ‘I told you guys. I want to see my lawyer.’

  ‘And we told you that he is coming. I was just asking because I got the impression you wanted to talk, to cooperate. You know, if you cooperate, we will remember it.’

  ‘This is B.S. What the hell kind of reason do you have for thinking I shot Simon Snell?’

  ‘A witness saw you,’ Tanner said.

  ‘A witness saw you shoot him, Chad.’ Caffey added.

  ‘Impossible! Because I didn’t do it.’

  ‘A witness...’ Tanner smiled, ‘who happened to mention that you were planning on going out for burgers before you shot Snell.

  Chad stuttered his response. ‘I want to see my lawyer.’

  ‘You need to speak more clearly.’ Tanner turned to the mike panel on the desk. ‘I’ve just informed Chad Purcell that witness information, which places him at the scene of the crime connects with a previous statement Mr. Purcell gave concerning his activities on the same night.’ He tilted his head at Chad. ‘Mr. Purcell has reiterated his desire to speak to his lawyer.’

  ‘Oh, real cute,’ Chad murmured, but neither of them replied.

  After that, they left him alone for around an hour. It was just him, the table and nothing to eat or drink. Chad reckoned he’d been there three hours in total and now, he didn’t know when he was going to get to leave.

  Then a face came around the door. ‘You need a bathroom break?’ Tanner asked.

  He wanted to tell him to get fucked, but of course, he needed one. He followed the skinny guy out into the corridor towards the bathroom, but just before they got there, Tanner put his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Hold it just there a second.’

  Chad waited for him to say something, but as he watched his eyes they flickered past Chad’s face to someone down the hall. Chad turned and saw that guy from the trailer, Ryan Bukowski, the one they’d arrested previously. He looked at Chad and he nodded and Chad suddenly got what was going on.

  ‘Hey! What the fuck?’ He took a step, just a step in the direction of Ryan and he wasn’t going to take another, but Tanner had him by the arm and turned him around.

  ‘What about my bathroom break?’
/>
  ‘Privileges suspended,’ Tanner said.

  The interview room door opened and he was shoved back in. Chad let his head sink down onto the table.

  He remembered times like this at school, being pulled in to see his counselor after getting caught up in someone else’s drama. There was this one time when Clay Berger had been spraying lockers in the East Hall and Chad had gone up to his to get a textbook out for American History. Clay had said he was going to spray a dick on Chad’s locker and Chad had ignored him. So Clay came and sprayed the back of his open door and when Chad slammed it closed, there was this cheerleader girl, Missy Somebody standing there and she got it in the face. He got the blame for that on account of Clay being the better talker.

  Chad straightened up and groaned. This was the same thing playing out right now. They had chosen him over the other guy, just because. Except, in this case, neither of them had done it. This time, it was the girl.

  When Caffey and Tanner came back, it was with Arnie Schmidt, his lawyer. The way he was with Caffey and Tanner, the way he held his mouth straight while his eyes danced about, told Chad that Schmidt wanted these guys to like him.

  ‘Okay,’ Schmidt said, sitting down. ‘Before we start, I’m just going to speak to you off the record. Do you mind that the detectives are here while we do this?’

  Chad shrugged. There was no right answer.

  ‘So you realize, you haven’t been charged yet. You’re in for questioning.’

  ‘But why am I here? I don’t get it? I heard last week that Ryan Bukowski did it and now, what are you saying...that Ryan said I did it? That makes no sense!’ And Chad half stood up, he half carried on talking, but what the hell was he going to say?

  Tanner had already jumped in. ‘Bukowski hasn’t been charged. And all he’s said is what he saw. As far as we’re concerned, he’s a witness now.’ He sighed and opened his folder.

  Inside there was a sheet of paper and as Tanner drew it out, Chad saw it was a photo fit, the same one that had been pinned up on the board. Tanner turned it around for him to see.

  ‘This is the fit created from descriptions given by Bukowski. This is the unknown man who he saw shoot Simon Snell.’