October's Children: A Marlowe Gentry Thriller

by Dallas Mullican

  Paige bobbed her head. “Got it.”

  “Okay, now find Mr. Zebra a more suitable spot.”

  The relief in Paige’s expression infected Marlowe, and as he returned downstairs, the episode with Ginger and John diminished, taking with it the residue anger and doubts. He filled Becca in on what transpired and appreciated her support and assurance he did the right thing.

  “That’s bullshit. You are a great father, and not the only one who has a demanding, dangerous job, but you make sure Paige has everything she needs. Still, and more importantly, after Paige witnessing her mother die, her father abandoning her would compound any lasting emotional damage. Not something she needs to deal with. She’s still so fragile, even if she seems back to normal.” Becca stroked his face as they sat close on the sofa. “Yes, your job is filled with risks. And not only for you, but those you care about. I know that more than anyone. But abandoning Paige, or me, isn’t the answer.”

  The latent anxiety in her statement was not lost on Marlowe. He had vacillated from commitment to cutting ties more than once in the past. The easy out—I’m doing this for them—rang in his memory as a certain copout. Old versions of Marlowe embodied self-delusion and self-destruction, but cowardice remained the toughest to stomach. All his rage drained away with the Seraphim and the tragic death of Max Bannon. Marlowe witnessed his reflection in the terminally ill man—hopelessness fighting for hope, yet giving in to the deluge of victimization. A new Marlowe emerged in the aftermath and smashed the mirror. He would not allow himself to gaze into those haunted eyes ever again.

  The smell of Becca’s hair as she leaned close, an unspoken plea in the tightness of her body, carried him to a safe place in the midst of the confusion and reminded him of where he had been and where he longed to go. Marlowe’s mind whispered an oath to make this work. Whatever it took. To keep his family together. Safe and sound.

  “I wouldn’t abandon her. And I’m not leaving you.” Marlowe stood, reached down, and pulled Becca to her feet. “Let’s get out of town for a few days. I have a friend with a cabin up in the Smokies near Gatlinburg. It’s beautiful this time of year. I’ve never had a chance to take Paige to the mountains. She’ll love it.”

  Becca smiled. “Perfect timing. We’re doing some year-end inventory. Rachel can handle it without me.”

  “Done deal. Let me call Oscar.” Marlowe retrieved his phone. It chimed in his hand before he could punch in the number.

  Shit.

  SVCU dispatch. As commanding officer of the statewide elite unit investigating serial violent crimes, he could not ignore this call. He held up the phone so Becca could read the display.

  “Goddammit.” She threw up her hands in exasperation.

  CHAPTER

  4

  “Marlowe, it’s Amanda.”

  “Amanda?” Marlowe had not heard that voice in nearly five years. Surprise parted his lips and furled his brows.

  “Amanda Beacher.”

  “I know. I just didn’t expect to hear from you. It’s been a long time.”

  “Yeah, sorry.” Her voice sounded frigid—a call out of necessity rather than desire.

  “If you’re calling me on this number, I’m guessing it’s not to catch up on old times.” Marlowe gave a hesitant chuckle, one not reciprocated, leaving him with a growing sense of unease.

  “I’m afraid not. I need your help. Well, more specifically, I need the Serial Violent Crimes Unit and its resources.”

  “What have you got?”

  “Three girls, six-year-olds, abducted. We tracked them back to one of their homes and found the parents dead. Shot.”

  “That’s awful. You have a search going? Any leads?” Marlowe grabbed pen and paper from the end table and jotted down the information.

  Amanda sighed on the other end. “We’re searching and have all the help we need on that end. But no leads and no suspects.”

  “SVCU investigations are limited to serials, three connected violent crimes, but you’d know that, so I’m guessing there’s more?”

  “Another girl disappeared from the same neighborhood, in the same month, a year ago. And Tommy…also in October.”

  An intake of breath in his ear, he knew she feared his reaction to the last link. “Amanda—”

  “I know what you’re going to say. Save it. Are you going to help me or not? You owe me, Marlowe.”

  His head tilted to the side, the phone reflexively parting from his ear at the bite in her voice. “I know I owe you. I haven’t forgotten. Listen, I’ll come and take a look. If I can justify placing the investigation under SVCU jurisdiction, I will. Either way, I’ll help all I can. Okay? Lock the sites down. Make sure all evidence is preserved.”

  The tension in the air lessened, and her voice softened. “Done. No one is getting near the scenes. And thank you, Marlowe. I mean it.”

  He placed the phone on the table. A voice from another life, one that seemed eons ago. A thousand memories rushed into his mind, most good, but a bittersweet nostalgia enveloped the images—a time past, never to return.

  * * *

  The way Katy gazed at him sent Marlowe’s heart racing. They had been dating for two weeks, every free second of that time spent together. Such a brief span, but he knew from the moment they met, she was the one. In her rare absences, his hand felt strange and empty without hers pressed against it. He constantly lifted his shirt to fill his nostrils with her scent still lingering on the fabric and flicked his tongue along his lips imagining he could taste her kiss. She occupied his waking thoughts and dominated his dreams. Every cliché about love at first sight proved true—the sky bluer, the birds’ songs sweeter.

  Today, a warm spring sun lit up the University’s Quad, a cool breeze blowing Katy’s golden hair into her face. As many butterflies stirred in Marlowe’s belly as among the green grass and bright yellow daisies dotting the lawn. Katy, a sophomore, and Marlowe a senior getting ready to begin law school, planned this outing as a study session, but so far, they had done little to advance their scholarly endeavors, instead touching hands with caressing fingers and ogling each other like love struck teens. They fed each other grapes from a plastic container and made cursory passes at bland textbooks. A perfect day…until Janice passed by.

  “Hey Marlowe. Looking scrumptious, Doll.” Janice wore a short denim skirt barely covering the essentials and a tank top fighting to contain oversized fake breasts.

  “Friend of yours?” Katy’s eyes narrowed to slits as she glared at the other girl.

  “She wishes. I think Janice has more than enough friends.” Marlowe laughed, but Katy did not appear to appreciate the humor.

  She bit her lip and averted her eyes, a blush rising to her cheeks. In a whisper she asked, “Are we exclusive?”

  Marlowe gave her a sheepish grin. “Are you asking me to go steady?”

  Her blush deepened as she pretended to find something interesting in the Biology book lying open in her lap.

  Marlowe did not make her squirm for long. “I have no desire to see anyone but you.”

  Katy smiled, relief evident in her expression. A tightness returned to her jaw, and she nodded toward Janice. “I can forgive almost anything…almost. And I try hard not to hold grudges. But if you ever cheat on me we’re done.”

  Marlowe did not doubt for a second she meant it. He resolved that day never to let her down, always remain faithful, and place her above everything else.

  He failed.

  A year later, Marlowe stood on the dais of a small church near the campus. Katy, beautiful in a flowing white bridal gown, appeared angelic. Candles flickered in his periphery, flowers arrayed in a colorful mosaic. The pastor’s voice registered as little more than a drone in his ears, his attention focused on the radiance of this woman who in minutes would be his wife. Movement behind Katy drew his attention. Amanda Beacher smiled with a wink, and he could not help but return it. In that moment, slipping the ring onto Katy’s finger and Amanda looking on, the full weight o
f just how close this day came to never taking place fell on him. Gratitude swelled inside him. Not only for his new bride, but for a friend who intervened on his behalf and saved what would become the most precious thing in his life.

  * * *

  The memory faded, leaving behind a dark place from where icy tendrils snaked out to slither through his thoughts. Katy’s face smiled back at him, youthful and full of life, and dissolved to mist before his eyes. This family, together and happy, morphed into a scene of blood, terror, and loss. One life could not exist without the other. His every desire to remember the pleasant times and omit the tragic eluded his efforts. They would always be with him, both the good and the evil, just as they would remain inside Paige. Marlowe shook the morbid reflections from his mind and plopped down on the sofa, his stare a million miles away.

  He was glad he had not told Paige about the trip to the mountains. The disappointment on Becca’s face, coupled with his own, dampened spirits quite enough. Becca’s hand rested on his thigh, her voice soft, always sensitive to others’ moods.

  “No Gatlinburg, I take it,” said Becca, trying to muster a conciliatory grin.

  “Nope. Not right now anyway. I’ve got to head down and meet with the sheriff in Rosser County. Three children taken, two adults dead.”

  “I heard. That’s terrible. Sounds like you have a history with the sheriff.” Becca tilted her head.

  “I do. Or did. She dated my college roommate, and her future husband, Gary Beacher. She was a couple of years behind us, same class as Katy. They were best friends. Amanda introduced me to Katy.” Marlowe’s gaze fell on the fire simmering in the hearth. “We spent a lot of time together—double dates or just hanging out. Even after college, when we had our own lives, families, we still managed to meet up once or twice a month. Until Katy died, and I went AWOL from everyone. Matters worsened when their son died. He wandered off one day and drowned in a lake a little ways behind their house.”

  “Oh god. I can’t imagine.” Becca gently squeezed his leg.

  “I can. And I guess that’s why I didn’t go around. I wanted to. They were there for me after Katy, but mired in my own hell I just couldn’t. I did talk with Gary a few times. He took it really hard, as you might expect, but he went through the grieving process and eventually moved on. Amanda, on the other hand…”

  “She didn’t deal with it well? Was he their only child?”

  “Yes. Amanda became obsessed. The evidence indicated Tommy followed a dog into the woods—prints of child and dog ran tandem for about five hundred yards, down near a river behind the house.” Marlowe took a deep breath. “Amanda found him. His body had been in the water a good thirty-six hours. Not a pretty sight. Even so, she wouldn’t accept Tommy wandered off on his own. She was certain someone took him and killed him.” He stood and walked to the fire, his hands hovering amidst the heat.

  “Makes sense. So long as she focused on his killer, it kept her son alive. In a way. And being a policeman I’m sure added to the need for justice. It must have felt so unfair to her.”

  Marlowe nodded. “Yeah. I get that. But it drove a wedge between her and Gary. He lives with the loss, same as Amanda, and has his bad days. Still, he’s trying. Amanda can’t, or won’t. Last I heard, they were separated.”

  “Everyone deals with loss in their own way. Her way isn’t healthy, though.”

  “No. Crawling in a hole, or masking the pain with obsession, leads to a bad place. I should have been there for her.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and finger, the twinge of a headache pricking behind his eyes.

  “You were in no condition. Putting two people hurting that way together is like the blind leading the blind. Not a great idea.”

  Marlowe managed a grin. “It worked for us.”

  “Touch and go there for a while.” She returned the smirk. “But losing your wife, her losing her son…a different mix of suffering there. Combustible.”

  “Yeah.” He raked his fingers through a head full of dark brown hair. He needed a cut, and soon.

  “What did you mean, ‘you owe her’?”

  Marlowe winced. “You heard that too, huh?”

  “Oh, something juicy?” Becca took his hand as he paced by and tugged him down beside her onto the sofa. “Stop that. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Sorry. I think better when I’m moving.” He hoped the subject change might buy some clemency, but no such luck.

  “So, are you going to tell me?”

  Becca’s inquisitive stare made him chuckle uncomfortably, even as his stomach tightened with awkwardness. “I suppose I have to now.”

  “Yep. Spill it.” She poked him in the ribs.

  Marlowe cleared his throat and sighed. “I fucked up once. Royally.”

  Becca scooted back, wiggling comfortably into the cushions. “Oh, this could get good.”

  “Don’t push it.” Marlowe wagged his finger at her. “Anyway, finals week and exams were a bitch. Kicked my ass. Katy finished up a day earlier and had gone home to Ohio. Her mother was having some kind of surgery. My friends twisted my arm, though not very hard, and talked me into going out to blow off some steam. We found a party on fraternity row.”

  “Oh, boy. Nothing good happens at a frat party.” Becca laughed, sipping her coffee and enthralled with the story.

  “Not normally. And certainly not this time.” He took a swig of his own drink and collected his thoughts. “An hour in, I was already buzzing like a chainsaw. Janice Miller, a lawyer groupie, if there is such a thing, hit on me constantly, came sashaying through.”

  Becca snickered. “Lawyer groupie?”

  “Yeah. Every occupation that stands to make a lot of money or garners prestige seems to attract a handful of women looking to marry up.” Marlowe gave her a wink. “Of course, all the women in my circle of friends were like you—independent, smart, strong.”

  “Nice save.” Becca playfully shoved him.

  “Amanda and Gary encouraged me to leave after I consumed enough liquor to sink a ship of sailors, but I was having too good a time.” Marlowe’s expression darkened. “To this day, I can’t remember what happened. It’s all fuzzy. Bottom line, I woke up in a bedroom, in my birthday suit, with Janice walking out the door.”

  “Uh oh. Let me guess, Katy found out.”

  “Yep. Someone told her. And no words yet invented can describe her reaction.” Marlowe’s head dropped toward the floor.

  “Well, you may not have done anything.” Becca could not hide the doubt in her statement.

  “Didn’t matter. I shouldn’t have been there. Shouldn’t have put myself in that situation. And no excuses mattered to Katy. We were done. The best thing in my life, ever, gone with one stupid act.”

  “But you did get married, so she must have changed her mind.”

  Marlowe smiled, though it lacked any humor. “Amanda. She stepped in and saved my ass. She told Katy she knew for a fact nothing happened.”

  “Katy believed her?” Becca’s eyes popped wide.

  “Yes. Amanda was her best friend. She convinced Katy that Janice was a slut who liked to talk. She said she had chaperoned me and made sure I behaved myself.” The memory brought the shame and regret back, and Marlowe waved it away with an irritated swipe of his hand. “I came so close to costing myself the wonderful years I had with Katy. Costing myself Paige.”

  “Okay, I see why you owe Amanda.”

  He nodded. “I owe her more than I can ever repay. Now’s as good a time as any to start paying down the tab.”

  Marlowe called Spence, Lori, and Koop, informing them to meet him at Metro, packed a bag, kissed Becca and Paige goodbye, and headed toward the city to pick up the team. As he drove, he concentrated on the autumn leaves clinging to oaks and maples along the roadside in brown, orange, and gold. For a second, a too brief precious second, he imagined he was on his way into the mountains.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Though Rosser County was less than two
hours south of Birmingham, the new Escalade with its four sharply dressed occupants drew stares as if it were a DeLorean gliding through the Old West. Red Weed, Alabama, locale of the Baldwin home, barely warranted the term town. Predominantly, a collection of small homes and farms scattered over a few square miles. A Baptist church sat on one end, a Methodist church and a Church of God on the other. Children bused to school in neighboring Gordo, also the location of the closest gas station. Anything more required a thirty-minute drive to Carrolton. The single subdivision where the park and the Sorrel family resided was as close to modernization as the town came, each home less than two decades old.

  Marlowe and team arrived in late afternoon, the sun slipping toward the horizon, leaving streaks of maroon and purple across the sky. Several deputies meandered in the yard alongside men in overalls and hunting garb.

  “Looks like a freaking Deliverance sequel.” Sergeant Spencer Murray chuckled. Spence served as Marlowe’s partner at Metro Homicide, his second in command in SVCU, and best friend.

  “I’m sure you’ll be quite popular. I doubt they’ve had a proper lynching in years.” Dr. Fredrick “Koop” Koopman tilted his head and squinted at Spence over the rim of his glasses. The odd couple—a cantankerous, sixty-something forensics expert, and a brash, young detective—Koop and Spence held deep affection for one another, but for the casual listener, it could often be difficult to tell.

  “Screw you. They hang carpetbagger, commies like you down here just as fast as us black folk.”

  “I’m from Virginia,” said Koop with an air of indignation.

  Spence smirked. “That’s north of here isn’t it? Plus, they’ll think you talk funny.”

  “How so?” Koop arched a brow.

  “You enunciate.”

  “Ease up, you two. You’re in their world, show a little respect.” Marlowe glanced at them in the rearview mirror. “Better yet…don’t speak to anyone.”

  “Always an adventure,” said Lori Kline with a smile. A recent addition to the inner circle, Lori had earned her spot. Saving his life would do that for a person.