October's Children: A Marlowe Gentry Thriller

by Dallas Mullican

  Amanda spun on him, her index finger against his chest. “Let’s get something straight. I’m your boss. I gave you an order. You can’t be carrying out that order because you are here. If I needed or wanted your backup, I would’ve called for it.”

  “I thought…” Troy averted his eyes, staring at his feet.

  “I don’t want to hear it. I’m writing you up. You disobey my orders again, I’ll have your badge.”

  Troy slumped like a child chastised by his mother. When he spoke, the words were plaintive and weak. “You’re losing it, Amanda. I’m on your side, remember?”

  “Just do what I say.” She pointed to his car. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  Head down, he lumbered to the patrol car and drove away. Equal parts anger, inadequacy, and self-hatred warred inside Amanda as she watched him go. All her confidence syphoned, all her authority taken—by Marlowe, Buddy Harmon, Troy. Each wielded influence over others in a way she could not seem to endear or command. She had more in common with Darren Sorrel—helpless, angst ridden. The hollow, unfeeling shell Amanda fought so long to fill with cold, emotionless rage solidified with fear and timidity. Despondency knocked at the door like an invited guest.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Amanda could not go home. She could not face her god staring down from the altar with her worship rendered impotent, at least for the time being. And not the station either. If Marlowe had returned, he was the last person she wanted to see. In her current mood, a confrontation seemed assured with most anyone, especially him. The mere thought of any face looking at her with ever-present pity and doubt…No, she could not stomach it.

  She pulled her cruiser off the road, a graveled turnabout off CR 323, and cut the engine and lights. Black clouds carrying another rain shower hovered over the countryside, gently weeping its first cold drops. They hit the windshield, thuds seeming inordinately loud inside the vehicle, and trailed down in silver rivulets. Amanda watched the streams disappear below the wipers, only for new ones to follow in their wake.

  Everything flowed toward dissolution. The rain would cease and the sun would dry the moisture away. Oh, a portion would find rivers and lakes or nourish plants and animals, but those too, headed toward an inevitable end, albeit on a longer timeline. When did she become so nihilistic and cynical? The answer was not as clear as she once supposed. Did hope die with Tommy? When Gary walked out of the house for the last time? What was the final door slamming shut on her future? When did she set fire to the tattered remnants of her dreams? A bright, colorful universe filled with promise scorched away, the cold embers of hopelessness and loss, grief, and pain, lending an acrid stench to the whole world. Every object and memory tainted with soot, hands ebony and chalky with the residue of ash. Looking up from a pauper’s grave, Amanda viewed nothingness, a swirling dark mass of defeat and despair. A lifetime spread out to black infinity, and the accumulation of pleasant memories fell away to negligible.

  Why go on? The question became harder and harder to answer until Sam Ewing. Witnessing the source of all her angst suffer in equal measure, knowing he would endure the same hell…that could be enough. Enough to quench the rage and salve the gaping wounds. Loneliness might still prevail, and if so, she would find solace in rest, satisfied with no more miles to go and invite blissful, forgetful sleep.

  Lost in a whirlwind of thoughts, her cell ringing on the dash almost went unnoticed. Unknown number. Amanda contemplated allowing the call to go to voice mail, but answered it on the last ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Amanda Beacher?” asked a female voice she did not recognize.

  “This is Sheriff Amanda Beacher. Who’s calling please?”

  “I’m sorry. Sheriff. My name is Meredith Chen. I’m an RN in the emergency room at Tuscaloosa County Hospital. You’re listed as next of kin for April Woods.”

  Amanda’s heart sank. “Did she overdose again? Is she…”

  “Your sister is fine, but she has suffered two broken ribs. Contusions to the left eye and jaw. A laceration along her forehead required several stitches. She claims to have fallen…” the woman paused.

  “Who did this to her?” Amanda’s fist unconsciously clenched, half-moon indentions digging into her palms.

  “Like I said, she claims to have fallen. She won’t say anything more.”

  “You say she’s okay. She can walk?”

  “Yes mam. Her range of motion is satisfactory, though she will be sore for a week or more. Her breathing is normal and no concussion. She’s insisting on leaving the hospital. We’d rather not discharge her on her own. We can’t keep her against her will, but if you could pick her up, it would be better for her.”

  “I’m working. I can’t break away.” Amanda’s breath stuck in her chest. Desire warred with tough love—or perhaps…abdication. She could not tell anymore.

  “Your sister’s really in no shape to care for herself. She may need assistance for a few days.”

  Knots twisted in Amanda’s gut. She clutched the armrest with her free hand, squeezing until her palm stung. “I-I can’t.”

  “I’m not certain you understand…” The nurse’s voice dropped, taking on a pedantic tenor.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t.” Amanda punched the call dead. Her head sank onto the steering wheel, tears coating her eyes.

  How did we get here?

  She knew how. Of course she did, but still the question tore her up inside. The answer—a paltry, insufficient thing—lacked the nuance to explain a complicated, tragic past.

  * * *

  Amanda sat at the dinner table studying for her final college exams when the backdoor opened and April escorted Tommy inside. He bellowed in pain. Amanda shot to her feet, but April grinned and waved her away, mouthing ‘I’ve got it. He’s fine.’ Blood ran from below the knee, a thick crimson line trailing down to saturate the rim of his sock. Amanda’s heart leapt into her throat, yet with her sister’s reassurance, she took a second glance and noticed the cut, no more than a scratch, Tommy in hysterics over the mere sight of blood. She sat back down and watched as April tended to the wound.

  “Come on now, my big boy. It’s nothing. A little blood. Every warrior gets nicked once in a while.” April, seventeen at the time, smiled at Tommy as she dabbed a wet cloth on his shin.

  “It hurts.” Tears ran down his cheeks, snot dribbling over his lips.

  “You’re doing so much better than I would. How come you’re so brave?” asked April.

  His tears ceased like turning off a dripping faucet, and he screwed on a courageous facade, staring at the tiny cut on his leg now devoid of blood. Once the Band-Aid covered the scratch, he lightly touched it and peered up at April.

  “See? All better,” she said.

  The two had been playing hide and seek outdoors. Tommy dashed toward the rear of the lawn while April, with eyes shut, counted to one hundred. Gary had removed a stump and left a gaping hole in the ground—he planned to fill it in, but had not gotten around to it—a good four feet deep. Whether Tommy intended to hide in the hole or simply fell in, April could not say, but the end result—a laceration on the leg and unable to climb out. His screams had terrified her. His little face, so pitiful, when she gazed down at him broke her heart. She got onto her knees, reached down, and hauled him to safety. He clung to her as she carried him to the house, crying against her shoulder.

  “You know, your mom saved me once. And I wasn’t near as brave as you,” said April, once the surgery was complete and they both sat comfortably on the sofa.

  Tommy perked up at this. “Really?”

  “Really. After your grandpa and grandma went to heaven your mom watched out for me.”

  “Your mom and big sister, wasn’t she?” said Tommy.

  “That’s right. Well, there was a huge magnolia tree in our yard. Looked like an octopus laying on its back, thick tentacles reaching up to the sky.” April mimicked the snaking appendages, wiggling her arms. “We played in it all th
e time, but I’d never been brave enough to climb very high. Well, one day I got up my courage. I climbed so high I thought I could see the whole world.”

  Tommy, now transfixed on the story, asked, “You weren’t scared?”

  “Not until it came time to come down.” April snickered. “I couldn’t make myself move. I hugged the limb, my cheek pressed to the bark. I was so scared.” She rotated on the cushion, turning to face him. “Remember when the cat got stuck in the tree, and Ms. Simpson had to call the firemen to get it down?” Tommy bobbed his head. “That was me. A cat stuck in a tree. I screamed and screamed. Your mom came running out of the house. ‘How’d you get up there?’ she asked me. ‘I can’t get down,’ I cried. She started up after me, but halfway a branch snapped, and she fell.”

  Tommy’s mouth and eyes widened. “Did she get an ouchy?”

  “She did. Broke her wrist. But it didn’t stop her. She jumped right to her feet and shimmied up the tree, using her one good arm. Looked like a monkey.”

  Tommy giggled. “Like a one-armed monkey.”

  “Yep, like a one-armed monkey. She put me on her back and climbed down. Safe and sound. I thought she was a superhero or something,” said April.

  Tommy smiled. “So you’re my superhero.”

  She hugged him. “And you’re mine. But let’s leave flying into big holes to Superman, okay?”

  April got Tommy a popsicle from the freezer and parked him in front of the television to watch cartoons before joining Amanda at the table.

  “You’re so good with him. Sometimes, I think he loves you more than me,” said Amanda with a smirk.

  “Not even close, but I do adore him. He’s more little brother to me than nephew.” She rolled a pen under her fingers along the tabletop, a reflective expression coming over her face.

  “What is it?” asked Amanda

  “Talking about your broken wrist made me think of another time broken arms came into the picture.” She grinned.

  “Huh? When was that?” Amanda raised an eyebrow.

  “Remember after mom and dad died, Grandma came down to stay with us? We didn’t know her well. She never visited much. The occasional Christmas.”

  Amanda nodded. “She lived in Pennsylvania, right?”

  “I think so. She moved down to take care of us. I think we were too much for her. She moved back as soon as I hit thirteen, you nineteen and working, and we could take care of ourselves. Anyway, she always made me eat something green at supper—green beans, spinach, turnip greens—God, I hated it. I started getting sick from forcing it down. Well, finally I just couldn’t make myself eat it anymore. Grandma spanked me good with a switch for it. You worked after school, didn’t get home until close to bedtime. That night, you helped me dress for bed and saw the welts on my lower back and butt. You were furious. Your face got all red and you stormed down to the living room where she was watching TV or something. You got right in her face and told her if she ever touched me again you’d break her arms.” April laughed. “She was terrified of you from then on.”

  “I do remember. No wonder she bolted as soon as she could,” Amanda chuckled, shaking her head.

  “You were my hero. You still are.”

  Amanda placed her hand atop April’s. “I’ll always have your back, baby sis.”

  * * *

  A single tear traced down Amanda’s cheek. Outside, the rain fell in earnest, beating a staccato rhythm on the hood and roof, filling the cruiser with a discordant din. April’s face remained in her mind. As so many times before, she thought on her little sister, the precious child to whom she had been both mother and sibling. For a moment, April’s childhood laughter and precocious adolescence drifted through a haze of thoughts. But only for a moment. The image changed, a dark hue tinting the scene—Tommy’s little body strapped to a gurney and placed into an ambulance, Gary’s face, vacuous, unable to accept what had happened, and April’s sobs racking her body as she cried over and over ‘I’m sorry.’ Each muttering, each I’m sorry, drove deep into Amanda’s heart. Her sympathy for April turned like a weathervane in a storm, spinning at ferocious speed, never settling, rotating away from familial love and pointing with steady recurrence on blame.

  Resentment wormed deep overtime. With each memory, each nightmare, the whole world took some measure of blame for Amanda’s loss. Walls and grass, streets and forests, faded to gray, reflecting the dead thing growing inside her, the dead thing buried in the ground, a glistening marble stone etched with her son’s name. Gary, initially bore the brunt of her anger, but the images conjured when she thought of him soon morphed from anger to apathy, the scenes of him and his lover bitter in her mind. April became the symbol of her loss, the cause, or one of them. April’s fall into drugs and depravity seemed evidence of her guilt. Let her rot. That’s what Amanda wanted to feel, that and nothing more. That’s what she wanted…

  “…Sheriff?”

  Troy’s static voice on the radio jarred her out of pained reflections.

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Ewing’s on the move. He left his shack and walked north, cutting into the fields below Harper’s Bend.”

  “Headed toward the river.” Amanda pictured the route in her mind.

  “Looks like.” Troy paused. “We have a problem.”

  “What?”

  “We weren’t the only ones keeping an eye on him. Three vehicles pulled off into the field behind him. Randall Pitt’s Chevy’s one of them. I’m guessing it’s our posse wannabes from Velma’s. Must have known we were watching the shack and waited for him to leave to make their move.”

  “Shit. Just what we need. I’m on my way.” Amanda cranked the cruiser and slammed it into gear, skidded onto the highway, and sped north.

  CHAPTER

  17

  While Amanda avoided Marlowe, Marlowe avoided her. He did not know how to talk to her or what to say. His mere presence seemed to irk her. He got it…well, in part anyway. As sheriff, unaccustomed to taking orders, someone questioning her and shooting down her ideas surely did not sit well. Honestly, he would not enjoy it either. But if she wanted SVCU’s resources, he was part of the deal. Like it or not.

  Marlowe and the team had rented apartments in Carrolton. Nothing fancy, nothing fancy existed in Carrolton. Spence complained about the lack of cable TV, and Koop constantly voiced his displeasure with the untidiness and the furnishings. Regardless to how the case broke, they did not plan to stay long. Even so, driving back and forth to Birmingham was not feasible, too much time lost in transit.

  The alarm clock woke him at 6:00 a.m. sharp. He showered and shaved before laying out his files on the bed. Photos, information on the Baldwin family and the Sorrels, what little they knew of Sam Ewing, laid arranged in neat rows on the bedspread. Something with this case did not add up, but damned if he could figure out what. Three hours later, his eyes strained from staring at the printouts, he felt no closer to an answer.

  At 9:00 a.m., his cell chimed. Marlowe rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. Good timing, he needed a break from the frustration. He eased off the bed, careful not to mess up his ordered arrangement and retrieved his phone from the dresser top. His home landline number showed on the display.

  “Paige?” Marlowe’s spirits elevated with the anticipation of hearing her voice.

  “No, it’s me,” said Becca.

  Anxiousness evident in her tone clued him she was not calling simply to say good morning. “Is something wrong?”

  “A man showed up this morning. Mable didn’t know what to do, so she called me…”

  “What is it, Becca?” Her hesitancy only served to conjure frightening possibilities.

  “Some kind of legal document. T-the Cummings are suing for guardianship of Paige.”

  Marlowe could not have heard her right. “If you’re kidding, it isn’t funny. They can’t do that…can they?”

  “I don’t know. I hope you don’t mind, I called Mom first. I thought maybe she�
��d have some answers I could give you. She doesn’t do family law, but she knows someone who does. The best family law attorney in the city—Megan Casey. She’ll see you as soon as possible. I’m emailing you some papers to sign. They’ll give her permission to get your records.”

  “What kind of records?” Marlowe’s mind spun, Becca’s words garbled and indistinct, their meanings fuzzy.

  “From the department, medical records, financials…”

  “Goddammit, this can’t be happening.” He plopped down on the bed, his tidy array of files scattering. “I thought we settled this. I know they’re worried about Paige, but for fuck’s sake…this is going too goddamned far.”

  “Try to calm down and let the attorney see what’s what. I just can’t believe such a thing is possible. They may be trying to pressure you. I doubt they knew my mom’s one of the most powerful attorneys in the state. You’ll have the very best representation.”

  “I’m coming home now. This case is going nowhere. I hate to say it, but there’s little hope the children are still alive. Spence and Lori can handle the cleanup.” Marlowe moved to the bathroom, tossing toiletries into his bag.

  “No. Don’t do that. Not yet. Nothing you can do here but worry. At least there, you have something else to focus on until we know more. If there is even the slightest chance those girls are alive, and you don’t do all you can to find them, you’d never forgive yourself.”

  Dammit, she knew him too well. Her advice, though perfectly reasonable, did not stop him from continuing to pack. “Does Paige know?”

  “No. We’ve managed to keep it from her. She’s a smart one. She knows something is up. If you come back upset and angry, you’ll only worry her.”

  He paused mid-fold and dropped his shirt into the open drawer. “Okay, you’re right. Get me the number for the attorney.”

  Marlowe went to the station. Amanda had left a few minutes earlier, headed to Red Weed—a bar brawl or something. He printed out the documents Megan Casey sent to his email—HIPPA forms, forms authorizing release of his records from the department and his bank. The whole process made him sick to his stomach, needing to defend himself to keep his own daughter, his life investigated to determine him a fit parent. He called Metro, explained the situation and demanded the department fax everything Casey requested ASAP. Lieutenant McCann, in a rare show of compassion, assured Marlowe he would see to it personally. After similar calls to his doctor’s office and bank to expedite the release of his records, Marlowe headed toward Birmingham with trepidation riding shotgun and sitting too close for comfort.