Shoeless Child

by J. A. Schneider

  Cute little thing. Soft and light brown, yearning puppy eyes and a little red T-shirt that said HUG ME. The T-shirt was crooked. He reached in to straighten it, sighed, then got back to his feet…

  …hitting his shoulder on the side of the cot. Bump. Just a soft sound it made, but in the dimness he saw Rachel stir; heard her breathing change.

  Silence, then a sleepy, “Jake?”

  “Yeah. Damn, I woke you.”

  “No… I don’t sleep anymore. Maybe drifted off.”

  He stooped, scooped up the teddy again, and showed her. “I brought this.” He put the toy in the crook of her arm, just over Charlie’s head.

  “Ohh…” she breathed, smiling faintly. “I love him. How sweet of you.”

  “I saw him in a store. Couldn’t walk away. Thought Charlie might like him.”

  “Thank you, he’s precious.”

  Jake bent to straighten the teddy’s T-shirt again. His face was close. “It says HUG ME. Makes me want to be a little kid again.”

  “Me too.” In the dimness, he saw Rachel’s sleepy eyes search his. “What time is it?” she whispered.

  “Almost one. I’m kicking myself for waking you.”

  “No…no…” She smiled. “Are you on call?”

  “Just got off. I wanted to check on you, bring this little guy so Charlie would find him. Something told me he might switch to his tent during the night.”

  Jake’s brow dropped closer. “I mean, in bed he has you. In his tent he’s alone, so I put the toy there.”

  Rachel hesitated, then whispered. “You are a loving man. So kind.”

  “Aww…” His breath was warm.

  “Would you like a hug?”

  “I would die and go to heaven.”

  She put her one good arm around his neck. Pulled him closer, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for the teddy bear,” she whispered. “And for caring for us. And helping so much.”

  She felt him smile against her neck. “Keep this up and I’ll move Charlie to his tent now.”

  She let her arm fall back to her blanket. “Will I think this was a dream in the morning?”

  “No. I’ll remind you.” He took her hand in his and kissed it. “Please fall right back to sleep, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Sweet dreams.”

  “The sweetest,” she smiled.

  He patted her cheek, touched Charlie’s soft hair, then turned, lowered a night light, and left.

  54

  Jed Stefan staggered, and caught himself. He should have knocked off earlier, but he was too wired. So two hours in a bar where nobody knew him was good. Go straight from the theater, hide and drink alone, think through the pressure.

  All of it.

  He turned onto Jay Street, dark, narrow little Jay Street. Plenty of cars parked but the sidewalks were empty, with darker shadows under the occasional awning. A good stretch to lurk in, climb a front fire escape, peer in to see humanity doing its thing. Great material, some of his best observations he’d made peering through others’ windows. Never caught, though. They were usually too drunk or high to notice.

  He looked up, liking a second floor window that still had a light on, sounds of two people screaming at each other. It was only one floor up. Should he chance it? Conflict: he was too drunk but he’d done some of his best work drunk, and the new play he was starting to outline would be better than Rear Window. It would be even darker, told from the POV of the creep staring in, seeing couple after couple, loner after loner. Flashback, that’s how he’d structure it. Creep would tell his story – to the cops! – in flashback, describing just how he happened to be the only witness - but wasn’t the killer, nooo, not him and he could prove it, because he’d worked out his alibi ahead and it was brilliant, they’d never-

  A sound behind him, and he turned.

  A dark figure, head hunched down in his long coat, walking too fast for this hour.

  Jed stopped, and the figure stopped. Faked looking into a little storefront like he really cared about Thai fruit carving.

  Jed walked faster, and from the corner of his eye he saw the guy cross the street, walking on the other side but still seeming to follow him.

  Imagination?

  He was jumpy, that’s all. But why had his heart started pounding? Why, when the guy was just behind him, had the hair on the back of his neck stood up as if his skin there feared the sudden whack of an axe?

  He’d been imagining other things too, like dead faces floating before him, garishly made up eyes wide and accusing him for the ropes around their necks. Those things he’d really seen, but at the same time he knew he was imagining…so that meant he wasn’t crazy, right? Well, maybe a little, but he was in good company because the best creative geniuses had suffered from madness. It was okay, he’d never needed visits to James Burke. He’d only gone for the shrink to help him explore his psyche, but it got boring. The guy had no imagination, kept asking cliché questions about his relationships, women, Rachel…

  Footsteps. His eyes darted.

  The dark shape was crossing the street again, heading toward him, hands shoved in his pockets.

  “Well, well, Jed…?”

  Stefan stopped. His heart thudded worse.

  “Great play,” the voice said brightly. It was fake slurred. “I waited outside the bar to tell you. Didn’t come in, I’d already had too much.”

  What the hell?

  The man stepped closer. Faint light from above showed his hateful smirk. “You really shouldn’t be walking the streets like this, so late. There’s been murders, or haven’t you heard?”

  Recognition swept through Jed. Then all at once it came to him, the big picture. It took his breath away.

  “I have something for you,” the man said, pulling his gloved hands out and shoving him into an alley. “Something special.”

  Jed struggled drunkenly, lost his balance. The man flung him against a Dumpster and he fell onto his back, scrabbled, tried to scream as a strong hand gripped his neck. The face leered over him.

  Then a knife, long and glinting.

  “I wanted you to see me. I wanted you to know.”

  “Don’t do this. D-don’t…”

  He felt himself flipped and the knife struck hard in his stomach, a shocking, screaming explosion of pain. He felt his insides split open. His mouth opened wide, but his voice died in his chest. Jesus God, I’m sorry I never, please save-

  The second stab tore open his throat. He tried to gasp, but no breath came. He felt his blood, warm and sticky on his hands clutching his belly. His vision dimmed. His legs felt paralyzed.

  The man had leaped away, but he was talking, hissing, from somewhere behind. “You and they!”… “take everything!”

  Jed gaped desperately up to the night, then closed his eyes, seeing flashes of bright red flare and fizzle, then go black.

  55

  Seconds apart, their phones went off.

  Alex’s first. With a half-awake groan he rolled over and picked up to Dispatch. Kerri listened.

  “Homicide found in an alley,” the female voice said. “Looks like yours. Killer left the same emoji.”

  Same emoji?

  They locked eyes, came awake fast.

  Jeans, sweaters and parkas for the cold, gloomy day. Alex was out the door first. Kerri raced seconds behind to where they parked in a municipal a block away. She saw him tear out with lights flashing, siren wailing.

  Minutes later she pulled up, parking behind patrol cars cordoning off the street. Ahead, a sight she never got used to…the drab, gray stretch flickering sickeningly with emergency lights. Holding her breath, she badged past officers keeping back onlookers, pulled on the crime scene booties, pants, and latex gloves, then ducked under the yellow crime tape.

  The scene was grim. Crime scene techs dressed like white-suited astronauts, more detectives arriving, uniforms fanning out to start canvassing. Alex was gloved and visible in a service alley, talking to Nunez.

 
Kerri pushed in to stand next to him.

  And stare.

  At her feet, Jed Stefan lay on his side in a pool of blood. He’d been wearing an open leather jacket over a blue sweater. Nunez, crouching, was pointing out an oozing-red sweater-puncture.

  “This one to the belly was the first. Looks like the killer hit the abdominal aorta, which would have taken about a minute to hose out.” Nunez looked around; pointed. “Must have been some gusher, but see? Victim’s on his side, blood went that way. I’m guessing his pal cut him from behind, then cut his throat.”

  Alex crouched too over the body, pointing his gloved hand. “Killer avoided the ribs, went for easy stomach and throat stabs.”

  “Like he knows ribs are hard to cut through,” Nunez said queasily.

  “Yeah, he planned.”

  Kerri’s mind raced as she looked around. Dispatch said the killer left the same emoji, but where was it? The alley was full of graffiti.

  Alex glanced up as if reading her, and tilted his head. “You see that?”

  The Dumpster’s front and the side she could see were graffiti-covered too. She peered harder, and felt her breath stop.

  It was on the front.

  In drying blood, crudely smeared, the angry house emoji. The triangle roof dripped red beads onto the square “house” with its scowling eyes, frowning brows, turned-down mouth. Blood still oozed from the side of the mouth. In the cold moist air, the whole alley smelled of blood.

  Kerri looked sickly back to Alex.

  He shook his head as Nunez held up a small plastic bag. “He used this.”

  Inside, what looked like the victim’s middle finger, dipped in his own blood.

  “He’s giving us the finger - subtle, huh?” Nunez managed a disgusted smirk.

  Kerri breathed in and sank to her knees. Now she saw Stefan’s mangled, bloodied right hand. Crime techs were encasing it in an evidence bag.

  This close to the body, the smell of booze was strong. “He sure didn’t go right home after we saw him,” she said, glancing back out to the street. Uniforms were shooing away people trying to break through, take pictures of the body not yet covered.

  Alex got to his feet. “I’ve sent people to canvas the bars. Get their surveillance.”

  Kerri didn’t have a lot of hope there. “More likely the killer waited for him outside, wanted to avoid cameras.”

  “Right, we’ll get sidewalk surveillance, everything. Tapes might not be great. Small stores, old brownstones, victim was off the beaten track.”

  There was commotion as Zienuc and Connor came, announcing that someone had seen Stefan four blocks away in a bar called Jimmy’s.

  “Says he didn’t want to be bothered,” Zienuc reported, then said, “Oh jeez.” The big, usually tough cop took in Nunez holding up his little plastic bag, and looked queasy.

  “Damn, guess Mitch Gilbey isn’t the killer.”

  56

  The Stefan murder changed everything.

  A bold headline in The Post shouted, “MURDERED GRAD STUDENT THOUGHT TO BE THIRD IN TERROR SPREE.” Frenzied media camera crews were back outside the station, clawing for comments. Mitch Gilbey’s lawyer gave them an earful, hauling his dull-eyed client down the steps in a tie and wrong-sized suit, threatening every kind of legal action.

  “False arrest and imprisonment!” he railed, thrilled that he was finally going to be in headlines. “Set up!” he yelled as Gilbey tugged uncomfortably at his shirt collar. “The firm hand of justice shall prevail!”

  The squad watched less than a depressing minute of it on television, then went back to their briefing because Tom Mackey looked so miserable.

  “You were right,” he groaned to Kerri, leaning on a desk near hers. She had never seen his face so tight. “I’m done. I’ve really lost it. This blood pressure thing has affected my brain.”

  He looked so wretched that she gently argued, reminding him how the evidence against Gilbey had seemed strong. “Isn’t hindsight wonderful? Probable cause with its fifty-one percent is the law – and the whole city was frantic.”

  The others shrugged agreement. Mackey seemed comforted for maybe a short two seconds, then went off again.

  “No leaks,” he scowled and paced. “If the press gets wind of that emoji, every creep in the city will be copying it. Kids will be copying it.”

  He needn’t have worried.

  The only good news in the barrage of media calls was that none had clamored about the bloodied drawing. The Dumpster’s emoji had been quickly covered, along with the rest of the crime scene under a CSU tent. The killer had worn cheap, disposable gloves. A scrap of black polyester was found on the Dumpster’s ragged edge. The gloves were probably in some across-town trash can, or the Hudson. Clever bastard.

  They watched the first two surveillance tapes to come in: Jed Stefan in his blue sweater at Jimmy’s Bar – no one there who might be a suspect – and a murky tape of someone following him from the bar, head down in a long dark coat, quality too poor to see more.

  Zilch. A few swears went up.

  They were back to a depressing nothing. No witnesses, lousy surveillance, square one all over again. The atmosphere in the room was grim.

  Mackey let out a deep blast of air; looked expectantly from Kerri to Alex. “Okay, tell me again about Frank Wheat. Little Charlie’s reaction to him sounds…”

  “Not solid but something.” Alex leaned on Kerri’s desk.

  “A big something,” she said. “The question is, what do we do with it?”

  “You can’t find him?”

  “No.”

  Frank Wheat had disappeared. They’d sent his photo to all patrols and the media, had radio cars sitting surveillance on his building, and asked neighbors. Nothing, no sightings. The screen before them lit with Wheat’s photo.

  Kerri had also called Gina.

  “No answer,” she reported. “I’ve left two voice mails, suspect she’s still sleeping it off.”

  “We should send someone over there,” Mackey frowned. “You seem to have made friends with her.”

  “If she isn’t answering her phone, will she come to the door?”

  Oh. The lieutenant seemed embarrassed by the logic. He shrugged his shoulders and rethought it. “Okay, so back up. You said Wheat was violent with her?”

  “And then ran out. He has a history of violence to her, so wait before breaking down the door, she may still call back. In the meantime, I want to see Rachel and Charlie.”

  Mackey paced a little, then gave a reluctant nod. “But go alone, because what else can the child add?”

  Kerri looked at him.

  His sagging eyes looked back at her and changed expression. “On second thought…this is your kind of case, Kerri. Try again with Charlie. You’ve made friends with him too, right?”

  She smiled faintly. “Hope so.”

  “Go then. He may open up more to you.”

  Mackey turned back to the others, next fretting about the new typhoon of paper work, crime scene files of the Stefan murder pouring in. “All hands on deck. Nobody else leaves.”

  Kerri turned away from the tumult and called Rachel. She’d seen it online; was in shock all over again over Jed Stefan’s murder. “I can’t believe it,” she murmured. “First Scott, now…is this my fault?”

  “God no. It’s someone with some sick agenda.”

  “I can’t absorb this…”

  “Would you like a visit?”

  Rachel blurted yes. She and Charlie were on their last hospital day, and even with reconfirmed police protection, she felt newly frantic. “Discharge is tomorrow at nine. I don’t know where we should go. And the police…that wrong arrest doesn’t inspire confidence.”

  Understandable, and oh, how they’d screwed up. “We can talk about it. Around one sound good?”

  “Yes, or anytime after. I have an MRI at twelve.” Rachel hesitated. “But there’s something I want to tell you now.”

  “Okay.”

  “James Burk
e called. He offered to pay for a hotel room for us. Someplace safe. He also reminded me that his apartment has a guest room. Insisted the police don’t know what bleep they’re doing, this could drag on for months - and asked, come to think of it would I really want to be in a hotel with their lousy security?”

  There was fear in her voice.

  “I mean, what if the police arrest someone else who’s wrong and lift our protection? I don’t like Burke, but I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’m not keen on Burke either. We’ll talk,” Kerri said again. Then a thought hit.

  “Your cell phone – who’s your carrier?”

  “What? Oh…Verizon. Why?”

  “Something I’m hatching. Hold tight. I’ll see you at one.”

  57

  The thought had started, unformed, during the briefing. While the others were fretting and acting all gloomy, Kerri started re-visualizing Charlie’s walkie-talkie, its purple cord stretching from the bathroom to the bloodbath by Lauren Huff’s body.

  Charlie loved his walkie-talkie; had doubtless been having huge fun with it before the attack. Had anyone thought to bring it to the hospital? Help him remember safety and a happier time?

  No. It was still marked into evidence, and on second thought, it would only remind him of the nightmare…and on third thought, it was only a toy.

  Halfway down Lexington’s mid-day traffic, Kerri double-parked and ran into a Verizon store. She was in luck; they carried what she wanted. “Sure!” the salesgirl said, putting the small box into a Verizon bag. “This is hot, we sell lots.”

  Kerri paid fast, and whipped back out to where a traffic cop was scrutinizing her Tahoe.

  “Oh sorry,” he said when she identified herself. “Hey, I got the picture of Frank Wheat.”

  “Checking every face?” She got in with her Verizon bag.

  “Every face, every passing car. I even stopped a guy at the intersection who looked like him.” He gave a wave as Kerri pulled out.