Shoeless Child

by J. A. Schneider

  “My God.” Kerri felt a new wave of sorrow sweep through her. “That poor little…he’ll be traumatized.”

  “Already is,” they heard behind them, and turned.

  4

  Alex Brand’s navy parka was open, his longish brown hair and gray shirt were damp from the rain, and he stood, grimly eyeing Lauren Huff.

  “Just talked with a doctor,” he said, entering, pulling on gloves. “The child’s okay physically but has gone mute. In the ambulance was still screaming, ‘Chased me, chased me’… now he’s in a fetal position, barely blinking.”

  Alex’s large, soulful gray eyes met Kerri’s, then swept the others. “He’d run out barefoot. His pajamas were covered in blood not his.”

  For heart-breaking seconds they fell silent, appalled at the thought of a terrified, shoeless child fleeing a killer.

  Connor handed Alex Lauren Huff’s purse. “Phone, cash, credit cards all there.” He filled Alex in on what they had, which was nothing: no sign of burglary or sex assault, no apparent motive, no witnesses. “Canvasses report that neighbors – the ones home – heard nothing. A loud party was going on in the apartment below.”

  “Just shot and ran,” Alex muttered, shaking his head, going through everything in Lauren Huff’s purse. “Sparkes is the same age, twenty-four.” He glanced gravely again at Lauren’s body, bunched his lips and said, “Damned sad.”

  Kerri pointed to a photo of both women hugging the little boy. “Close friends,” she said, then asked, “How old is Charlie?”

  “Five.” Alex pulled an envelope from Lauren’s purse.

  Kerri looked around, her mind burrowing into hints of evidence not there. “Wait. If Charlie had blood not his on him and the killer chased him…” She shook her head. “That doesn’t figure. Rachel was shot how?”

  “Through the shoulder. She’s in surgery.”

  The mind was suddenly racing and Kerri paced a little. “So for Charlie to have blood on him…” she said again, more slowly and frowning, “he must have rushed to hug his mom and - what? The killer let him and then gave chase?”

  Alex looked up; with the others watched Kerri peer across the room and then crouch to the floor. Toys and books were strewn everywhere. Her gloved fingers poked at them, then started tugging at a cord. It was long and got longer, bright purple-colored and half buried under action figures, a spread of child’s drawings and crayons, and the feet of a working crime scene photographer.

  “S’cuse?” Kerri called to him. The photographer moved; she tugged and lifted the purple cord. It disappeared into the small bathroom.

  She followed it. Alex, Connor and Zienuc followed her.

  On the floor, at the end of the cord near the tub, was a child’s blue plastic walkie-talkie. Kerri picked it up, studied its push-button control. “Looks new.”

  “Gift paper,” Alex said, turning. “I saw gift paper.”

  He went back to Lauren Huff’s body. Behind Nunez, kneeling and click-closing a heavy case, he found a second walkie-talkie and some colored gift wrap pushed into more toys.

  “Lauren brought this as a present,” he said, holding up the second of the pair, tugging at its purple cord which grew taut with Kerri tugging at the other end. Connor and Zienuc watched them, a bit open-mouthed. Fingerprint brushes stopped and the crime photographer looked over.

  Kerri’s heart pounded. “Charlie was in the bathroom with the door closed! They were playing with his present when the killer burst in.”

  Alex looked surprised and then almost smiled, sending her a look that she recognized. I sometimes feel like I’m being led around by a Geiger counter…how many times had he said that? She’d protest that she only got lucky sometimes; but he listened, admired her ability to read a crime scene like she read people…and only hollered when he had big misgivings about her hunches.

  He turned to the bloodied rug where Rachel Sparkes had lain. “So Charlie heard, peeked – and then what? He had to be terrified.”

  Kerri was still standing in the bathroom doorway. She looked down. “I see a little pool here. Looks like pee. Yeah, he was petrified.”

  Connor went to look as she started walking to Alex, tensely coiling the purple cord. “Maybe the killer spotted this too, knew he’d been seen and faked leaving. Charlie came running to mommy - then the creep grabbed him.”

  “Tried to,” Alex breathed in, his hands on his hips as he squinted around more, re-calibrating his thoughts. “Charlie broke free, now he’s traumatized. Rachel may or may not be able to talk. She’ll be on pain meds when she’s out of surgery.”

  “When will that be?”

  Commotion in the hall. Zienuc was talking to morgue attendants who’d arrived for Lauren Huff.

  “Forty minutes.” Alex checked the time and grimly watched the gurney push in. “Rachel must have seen the killer. With Charlie, that makes two potential eyewitnesses.”

  Make that one, Kerri thought. A child so traumatized…

  She shook her head.

  They’d done all they could in this sad little apartment. She looked back out the door and exhaled.

  “The super’s daughter. We should talk to her.”

  5

  They crossed the foyer, milling with fewer police, and walked the first floor hall to a door behind the stairway. It was open. Gina Wheat was leaning sorrowfully on its jamb, talking to a heavyset woman. “It’s not your fault,” they heard her say as they approached. She saw them and straightened.

  “This is Nan Regan,” she said, introducing the woman who looked miserable. “Nan’s party was last night, her apartment below Rachel’s…”

  “Too loud,” Nan groaned. She had long, wild hair and wore chandelier earrings. “It was a birthday party for a friend. The police told me Rachel’s little boy was banging for help. I’m so sorry.”

  Coming down, Alex had consulted canvass notes he’d been getting on his phone. “You gave Detective Betts a list of your guests?” he asked.

  “Yes, but no one ever left. They came at eight and just stayed and stayed.” Nan wiped a tear, then pointed up. “The Detective took my tape from my cheapie little surveillance. It just watches my door, but you’ll see for yourself.”

  They thanked Nan, told Gina Wheat they had questions, and she invited them in.

  It was a shabby apartment. A pinched, sour-smelling foyer led to a small living room of balding carpet, sagging couch, a plaid Barcalounger, and a television. No books, no sense of artistic, community busyness like at Rachel’s. Gina gestured for them to sit, looking both shaken and embarrassed.

  “My father gets to live here free because he’s the super. Me, I’m saving up for a nicer place.” She glanced out the room’s front window to the wet street. Lights glistened from the morgue van, traffic finally allowed back. “Nice view of the sidewalk, huh?” she winced.

  Kerri leaned forward. Working as a tag team, she often started with females. “We have to ask everyone…where were you between eight-thirty and nine-thirty?”

  A tearful shrug. Gina was cameo-faced with large, dark eyes, tumbling curls. “Out. Got bored here, it’s my night off so I went to some bars. Got worse bored so I came back.”

  “You’ll give us a list of where you were?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks. Now…what do you know of people in Rachel’s life? You said no one would have wanted to harm her.”

  Gina furrowed her tweezed brows. “What I meant was, now she’s in a better place. But two years ago she came here from Boston fleeing an abusive husband. She divorced him before she left.”

  “Where is he now?” Alex asked.

  “Last I heard, in detox someplace. Hooked on oxy, messed up a life that started well. Rachel said he’d gone from abusive to pathetic, thinks he’s disappeared from the face of the earth.”

  “His name?”

  “Last name Sparkes, that’s all I know. Rachel doesn’t like to talk about him – or her past.” Gina heaved in a breath. “She just wanted to come here with
little Charlie and start a new life.”

  So they’d be looking at the ex. Marital and drug records made researching him easy.

  Alex asked about Rachel’s life now. “Friends, acquaintances, job?”

  Gina looked uncomfortable again. Her hands clasped each other. “Understand,” she said, “that Rachel includes me, is incredibly supportive, introduces me to her friends who I see at her apartment…but they’ve all been to college, which I haven’t. Some of them are even in grad school, they come from more well-off backgrounds and I don’t really know them, see them separately. All I know is they seem to adore her.”

  She was picking shakily at pink nail polish on her index finger. Her skimpy V-neck showed cleavage. “I was her first friend when she moved in. She was still distraught and I was her shoulder. Since then she’s struggled through depression, forced herself out of her rut to get a job, and gone back to school to finish the degree she interrupted during her troubles. She’s…I mean, was, an incredibly brave survivor.”

  Gina’ eyes filled again, and she leaned forward. “My God, what is this going to do to her? To Charlie? How are they? I got home just as the ambulance pulled away.”

  Alex said something vague about waiting to hear from the hospital, and asked about Rachel’s’ job.

  “Receptionist for some psychiatrist. I don’t think she likes him.”

  “Name?”

  “Uh…last name…starts with a B. Baker or Brown, something like that.”

  The name didn’t matter. The I don’t think she likes him did.

  In Kerri’s chest burned the same fierce anger she’d felt looking at Lauren Huff’s body. She swallowed and asked, “Who are those friends you mentioned earlier?”

  Gina inhaled. “Well, Lauren…” She glanced at the ceiling, shuddered. “And Terry Mercer who works for the same finance company where Lauren…did.” A hesitation. “Rachel had just started to date again, some guy…”

  “Name?”

  “Don’t think I ever caught it and my head’s exploding. Oh…she’s also sort of friends with a guy named Jed Stefan. He’s obnoxious, a theater grad type who thinks he’s going to be a great director, write the next great American play. I only know him because Rachel took me to two auditions for something he’s putting on. I made it to the second cut.”

  “Got turned down?” Alex asked.

  A wistful nod. “I audition for other plays, too. Want to be an actress.”

  “How do you support yourself in the meantime?”

  Gina’s color rose. “Exotic dancer in a club five nights a week. It pays well. The rest of the time I help…around here.” She threw her manicured hands out theatrically, as if describing a magic garden. “I can fix radiators, mend basement pipes, build shelves, operate the boiler-”

  The door opened, and a man in a wet rain slicker came in. Late forties, long dark hair in a ponytail, a large nose, a disappointed mouth. The bottoms of his rumpled trousers looked like he’d been standing in a bathtub.

  “Hi Dad,” Gina said.

  6

  She introduced the two detectives.

  He pulled off a grimy dark glove, extended his hand to Alex who stood. “Frank Wheat,” he grunted. “This is a hell of thing, isn’t it?”

  “Mr Wheat,” Alex said. “We’re asking everyone - where were you tonight between eight-thirty and nine-thirty?”

  Frank Wheat threw his wet slicker onto the back of a chair and looked disgusted. “On the roof. It’s leaking.”

  “The whole hour?” Kerri asked. “Up there in the freezing rain?” Wheat was avoiding eye contact.

  “Up, down, up, down. It’s leaking into a fourth floor apartment so I was in there too.”

  “That tenant can vouch for you?”

  Wheat snickered. “She’s on drugs and can’t vouch for gravity, but you can try.” He turned to Gina. “Did you bring up that carton of electrical tape?”

  Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh God, I forgot. With this nightmare I just-”

  “I need that tape. Now.”

  Gina was out of her chair. “Maybe don’t store every delivery in the basement?” Her features crumpled. “Dad, it’s eleven-thirty.”

  “Where else am I gonna store ‘em? I’ve got an exposed wire up in 4C, and a head case who’s gonna kill herself on it and it’ll be my fault. Now get the goddamn tape!”

  Gina was so fast out the door, she seemed to be running from her father. Kerri and Alex followed her, thanking Frank Wheat who’d already turned and stormed toward their little kitchen.

  They’d seen enough; caught up to Gina in the foyer. She was wiping new tears.

  “Getting your own place would be good,” Kerri said soothingly. Frank Wheat gave her the creeps and her heart pounded.

  “You’ve seen nothing, he gets worse.”

  “What, if any, was his relationship with Rachel?”

  “Admired her class, couldn’t stand little Charlie. He’s smart and curious, into everything. See that fire extinguisher?” Gina touched it as they passed. “Daddy Dearest caught him trying to play with it, gave him hell and made him cry. Poor little guy. Please tell me he’s okay.”

  They’d come to an arch, and a sign next to it reading BASEMENT LAUNDRY STORAGE. Gina looked down wide, ill-lit stairs, then turned back.

  “I wish you could have seen my room,” she said mournfully. “It’s nothing like that bleak front room. I’ve got books about theater and piles of scripts, pictures of me dancing…okay, twirling around my stupid pole but they’re nice pictures. I’ve memorized the whole script of Sweet Bird of Youth, read Tennessee Williams’s biography twice, taught myself Shakespeare…”

  She started clumping down the ugly stairs. “And now I have to go for a ten pound box of electrical tape,” she wept over her shoulder.

  “Gina,” Kerri called.

  “What?” From three steps down she blinked back.

  “Describe Charlie, please?”

  Something she’d said - He’s smart and curious, into everything. In Kerri’s mind flashed Charlie’s loved-looking books and drawings scattered everywhere - and his walkie-talkie. She wanted to know what Charlie was like…before this. The little boy they’d be seeing was mute, traumatized.

  Gina came back up, getting out her cell phone. “I’ve got pictures, some tapes…”

  She scrolled and swiped. Found a photo of Charlie beaming, missing his two front teeth and holding up an orange popsicle. Another photo showed him happily charging down the sidewalk on his scooter.

  “A couple of tapes.” Gina flicked on Charlie with a young blond dog walker, both of them crouched on the sidewalk, smooching wagging doggies. “I love ’em all!” Charlie piped happily. A loveable child. Another tape showed him laughing and horsing around with preschool friends at his birthday party.

  “That first picture of Charlie?” Gina said sadly. “He was four. Kept wanting to know what made the popsicle melt. Rachel kept saying, ‘Because it’s hot, honey’ – and he was still ‘Why why why does heat make ice melt?’”

  Gina shook her head. “So smart…”

  Alex asked her to send her tapes and pictures to them, and gave her an email address.

  “Facebook and Instagram, lots there too.” She sighed heavily, put her phone back in her jeans pocket, and started back down the stairs. “Gotta get that damn box,” she groaned, “or I’ll be the next one dead. It’s been a great day, huh?”

  They stood there, waiting till her echoing footsteps stopped and she was out of earshot.

  Kerri pulled in a breath. “Let’s arrest Frank Wheat.”

  “Because he’s nasty, crude and controlling?” Alex said.

  “Yeah, that’s grounds. Can we bring him in?”

  He gave a crooked smile, checking his phone. “Rachel Sparkes is out of surgery, groggy but wants to talk. We have to go to Bellevue.”

  7

  “My car.” He took her arm. “We have to talk.”

  “You’ll drop me off after?”

&
nbsp; “No, I’m going to leave you in the rain with a paddle.”

  “Not funny!”

  He led her to his Jeep, parked a block away behind a squad car. The street looked eerie. Back to shabbily empty with the emergency lights gone and the crowd long gone, excitement over and minding the cold. Alex unlocked, Kerri opened the passenger side door and slid in. He put his key in the ignition, stopped, then glanced over to her.

  “Thoughts?” he asked quietly.

  “Besides feeling drained and thoroughly depressed?” Kerri turned her body to him; rested her head on the headrest and closed her eyes. “Five minute timeout,” she whispered.

  He sat, his wrist on the steering wheel, staring out at the night. Rain drummed the car’s roof and windshield. It was a soothing sound, like being tucked away from the world.

  Kerri finally asked, “How groggy is Rachel Sparkes?”

  “Very. We still have to go.”

  They took their moments like this. Brief lulls away from prying eyes to catch their breaths, recharge each other’s emotional batteries. Several friends in their squad knew of their relationship; only the brass and their lieutenant didn’t. It was a huge Don’t. Can’t have romance between detective pairs! Too dangerous! Emotional involvement clouds judgment, threatens legal trouble with defense lawyers yelling collusion.

  They knew it and struggled with it. If discovered they’d be separated. Kerri would doubtless be the one sent to a different precinct and schedule, and they’d never see each other. Oh, the irony: marriage would pull them apart; sneaking around would keep them together.

  And Alex wanted marriage. Kerri did, too…but she’d been through loss and feared more. On the other hand, they were thirty-four and thirty-eight. They’d learned from previous unhappy marriages…in Kerri’s case, very unhappy. Truth be told she felt gun-shy; the whole conflict made her feel helpless, and she’d sigh a lot…

  …like she was doing now. “This star-crossed lovers thing. It wears me out…”

  Alex turned and drew her to him, wrapped his arms around her. She sank into him. He pulled the elastic band from her pony tail, and her hair shook out down to her shoulders. They kissed, long and lovingly. Then she demanded the return of her elastic band.