More Than It Seems

by David Archer

  “Thanks, Charlie,” Franklin said. “I think that’s it for right now. Charlie, this is Mr. Prichard and his team from Windlass Security. Mr. Prichard, Charlie Turner. Charlie’s been on the force even longer than me.”

  Turner extended a hand and Sam shook with him. “I’ve been on the force longer than anybody,” he said. “Everybody else is smart enough to retire, but not me. I just keep showing up and plugging away.”

  Sam grinned. “Every department has somebody like you, Charlie. When I was a rookie, I used to spend all the time I could with the old timers. You learn more from them.”

  “Yeah,” Turner said with a grin. “You learn how to suck up.” He tossed a wave in Franklin’s direction, looked Summer over appreciatively, then left the room.

  Summer leaned forward. “Detective Franklin, you said there were rumors about Jensen and some of the ladies,” she said. “Did you happen to get any names?”

  Franklin chuckled. “About forty of them,” he said, “but I personally doubt that it was true, at least for most of those. I think it was more a case of some of the ladies taking more than a little interest in the widowed pastor. After that, I think there was more fantasy and imagination than anything else.”

  “Well, it’s still worth checking out,” Sam said. “Darren, you and Summer can handle interviewing the church members. Get whatever you can, and we’ll go from there.”

  Franklin provided Summer and Darren with the names and phone numbers of church members from the relevant time period, and had marked off those who were still living in the area. There were about thirty of them, not counting the ones who had been children at the time of the murder. Then he showed them to another office where they could sit down and call each of the people, to schedule a time to come and visit with them.

  “I understand,” Sam said when Franklin returned, “that Jensen’s house has been sitting empty all this time. Is that true?”

  Franklin nodded once more. “Sure has,” he said. “The way I heard it, the church decided to leave it empty and bought a different house to use for the parsonage. Something about the bloodstains, from what I gathered.”

  Sam turned to Steve. “Steve, I want you to take Walter out to Jensen’s house, see what he can pick up out there. Take Eric and Jade along with you. I want all of your opinions on the scene of the murder.”

  “The place has been gone over a thousand times,” Franklin said, digging the keys out of his desk drawer. “I don’t know what you expect to find, but feel free to look.”

  “That’s what we do,” Steve said. “And don’t be surprised if we find something. Walter has been known to find clues that were overlooked for years before he took a shot at it.”

  Franklin shrugged. “Won’t break my heart if you do,” he said. “I hadn’t ever seen anything like that before, and it has haunted me ever since. I still have nightmares about it now and then.”

  Steve motioned for the others to follow him and left, while Sam and Denny worked on setting up the evidence board, tacking up pictures of the victim and the crime scene from back when it happened. Denny was writing out descriptions under the pictures while Sam supplied him with the details for each one.

  Sam started to give him the next bit of information, but his cell phone rang suddenly before he got the chance. He dug it out of his pocket and saw that it was his wife calling, then put it to his ear. "Indie," he said. “You got something?”

  "Babe," Indie said quickly, "do you have me on speakerphone? I'm not sure if you want the others to hear this, so if I’m on speakerphone, I really think you should take me off of it."

  "Indie," Sam said, "slow down. You're not on speakerphone. What have you got?"

  Denny turned his head and looked at him curiously, but Sam ignored him.

  "Well, I did what you said and ran a background check on the pastor, searching for something that could've set the killer off. I didn’t find much, and I’m sending you most of it by email, but there was one thing I thought I should tell you privately. Babe, I decided to take a look at other things that were happening around that time, to see if there might be any kind of connection, and I stumbled across something that—well, it shocked me."

  "Okay, and what was it?" Sam asked when she paused.

  "Well, Pastor Jensen had only moved to Boulder about a year before he was killed, and he had lived and pastored a church in Golden before that. While he was in Golden, he got involved in a case that happened there, trying to help the father of a little boy who had been kidnapped right out of his bedroom. The boy was kidnapped when he was five, and no trace of him was ever found." Indie took a break, breathing in and exhaling in a gust. "Sam, that boy was named Scott Beck. His father was a police detective from Golden named Steven Beck."

  Sam suddenly tightened his grip on the phone, his knuckles going white. Denny looked surprised and glanced at him in concern, but Sam ignored him again. "Are you sure?" he said softly.

  "I know, I know," Indie said quickly, "I couldn't believe it either. You’ve known Steve for years; had you ever heard about this?"

  "No, I hadn’t." Sam sighed, mostly to himself. "I want you to see if there are any similar cases from back then, ones that might be—related. And, Indie, I need you to keep this between us, okay? Don’t say anything to anybody else, not yet."

  "Yeah, I thought you might feel that way," she said. “Don’t worry, babe, my lips are sealed.”

  "Okay, then,” Sam said with a sigh. “Call me if you come up with anything else.”

  “You got it. Love you.” She was gone instantly, so Sam slipped his phone back into his pocket. He tried to relax, but he was obviously tense, and Denny could tell.

  "What was that all about, mate?" Denny finally asked. "What can’t Indie tell us?"

  "Nothing you need to know at the moment," Sam said slowly, between clenched teeth. “If it turns out to be relevant, I’ll tell you all myself.”

  THREE

  "I’m afraid,” Summer said, “we didn’t get much of anything from the church members." She sighed as she settled into a chair at the makeshift operations room in the Boulder station. "Some of them don’t even remember the incident, but those were the really old folks. The rest just say that Jensen was without a doubt the finest man they ever knew. We did learn that he came to Boulder after his wife passed away, apparently just needing a change of scenery to help him get his life back on track."

  Darren was right behind her, pulling up a seat next to Sam. “I got the same kind of thing,” he said. “Those who did remember him said he was probably the greatest preacher they ever heard, and I almost got the impression that he should probably be a candidate for sainthood.”

  "That's to be expected," Denny said from the other side of the table. Both he and Sam had files scattered in front of them. "After all, this was probably pretty painful for them, and nobody likes to speak ill of the dead. After so many years, most of those people probably don’t really remember him at all, so the high opinion they have is likely based on flawed memories and stories they’ve heard. Besides, we didn't really think we were going to get much from them anyway."

  "It was worth a try," Sam said, frowning at the file he was reading.

  * * *

  "Grand Junction Boulevard is just a short drive from here," Jade said from behind the wheel of their SUV. "Should take us around fifteen or twenty minutes."

  Eric nodded absently from the passenger seat, staring out the window with a faintly troubled look before he suddenly sat up in his seat. "Can we make a stop?" he asked suddenly, his face suspiciously blank. "A quick one?"

  Confused but curious, Jade agreed and let Eric give her directions, reading them off his phone. She was a little surprised when she saw where they ended up, but she didn’t offer any comment. She also didn't do anything except wave curtly at the identical SUV that passed her by, slowing down tentatively at the sight of her stopped at the coffee shop. When her phone started to ring, she wasn't surprised.

  "What's up?" Steve as
ked on the other end. "Something wrong?"

  "No, I don't think so," Jade said, smiling into the phone. "I guess Eric just really needed his fix. He didn’t get a chance to grab a cup with the rest of us earlier, and I guess he’s really gotten hooked on it since he came off all the other meds."

  Steve chuckled and took a moment to relay the information to Walter, who was looking at him curiously. "It was bound to happen sometime, I guess," he said, a smile coming through the phone in his voice. "Good for Eric, but I don’t want to be the one who tells Sam. He’s trying to keep the kid off the caffeine as much as he can."

  Jade laughed and hung up as Eric appeared in the parking lot, clutching a large cup of coffee securely in his hand. He hurried back over to the car, ignoring Jade's raised eyebrow. She pulled back out onto the road, waiting until they were well on their way again.

  "So," she said with a grin. "Were you that desperate for a caffeine boost?"

  Eric hesitated for a moment, picking at the label on his coffee. "I'm tired of everyone treating me like a kid," he said finally. "Like nobody wants to let me make my own decisions. I know they mean well, but it’s been like this since I first joined you guys. I'm pretty much used to it, but sometimes it just gets to the point where I feel like I need to remind them I'm a grown-up. Sam’s my boss, but he can’t tell me I can’t have coffee if I want it."

  Nodding, Jade kept her eyes carefully on the road as she answered. "You know that's not what Sam was trying to do, right? He isn’t trying to control you. He just felt like you needed a break from the coffee because you'd zoned out pretty hard and we all know you'd already had a cup or two beforehand."

  Sighing, Eric took a sip of his coffee and made a face. "Yeah," he said. "I just don't like feeling like everyone’s trying to babysit me. I can make my own decisions and take care of myself."

  "Of course you can," Jade agreed. "However, you should bear in mind that you are still only seventeen, at least for a couple more months. And, about zoning out earlier: it seems like something's bothering you. It may not be obvious, but you're working with a team of professional investigators—we can usually tell when something's not right. Do you feel like talking about it?"

  Eric shook his head, and she let the matter rest.

  Eric was glad that Jade decided to drive the rest of the way in silence. He was fully aware that he hadn’t quite been himself since they got the case, but he'd hoped it hadn't been too terribly obvious. If he was going to be perfectly honest with himself, he was a little ashamed of it. There was something about the case that seemed almost familiar to him, but he couldn’t make enough sense out of what he was feeling to speak about it to others. Ever since the initial briefing, he had been having some odd, nagging random thoughts in the back of his mind, and they seemed to be trying to tell him that there was something he needed to know.

  For the life of him, though, he couldn't figure it out. It had just been that, just an uncomfortable feeling, until Jenna had briefed them on the other victims. Then the feeling had become much more intense and even seemed to evolve into vague, short-lived flashes that made no sense.

  The only thing about them that seemed consistent was that he kept thinking of Kenny Givens, and that in itself was strange. He hadn’t thought of Kenny Givens in years.

  "Here we are," Jade said as she pulled the vehicle into the driveway of an old house. "The detective says no one's lived here in years. It certainly does look like it."

  She was right; the house, though in reasonably good condition, had a look that said it had not been lived in for a long time. The roof showed signs of drooping in the middle and all of the windows were dirty and dark. Eric noticed Steve’s SUV already there ahead of them, and realized his stop for coffee had caused a slight delay in their arrival.

  Despite the fact that the paint was faded and the yard was overgrown and in need of attention, Eric could easily imagine how it had looked when Jensen had lived in it. It was almost like he had a photograph of it that he was looking at, comparing it to the ruins that stood before him.

  Jade caught his expression and raised her eyebrows a bit, looking curiously in his direction, but Eric just shrugged and said nothing. He climbed out of the car, waiting for a moment as she got out to follow him.

  “Reverend Martin Jensen," he said, in an attempt to steer her attention away from himself. "What would make someone so angry they’d beat a man to death that way? I don’t know what Sam expects us to find here after all these years."

  “I agree,” Jade said. “Can’t hurt to take a look, though. I don’t think we’re looking for evidence as much as just some sort of insight into who Jensen was, what kind of person he actually was.” She shook her head. “The place is in surprisingly good shape after so many years, so maybe we’ll find some traces of him left behind. Walter will handle looking for any kind of evidence.”

  The front door was standing ajar, so she pushed it open and stepped inside, where she saw Steve standing in the entrance to the kitchen and Walter down on the floor, looking at something across it. Eric followed her in and nodded to Steve, and then the two of them began looking around the living room of the house.

  There were several chairs and a sofa, an old, ornate coffee table and some end tables, a couple of lamps, several bookcases full of books and other items of furniture in the room, all of them covered in a thin film of dust. Eric stood just inside the door and examined it all with his eyes, once again seeing the way it must’ve looked the last time its occupant had seen it. He nodded thoughtfully to himself, then moved toward the sofa.

  “Eric?” Jade asked. “Something catch your attention?”

  “I want to flip the couch over,” he said. “The way it’s sitting against the wall, it may never have been moved before. Let’s see what’s underneath it.”

  He grabbed hold of the back of the sofa on one end and strained for a second as he flipped it over onto its face. Jade walked over beside him and looked down at the floor beneath where it had been, but then she noticed that Eric’s eyes weren’t looking at the floorboards. He was staring at the bottom of the inverted sofa, and then she watched as he reached into the old stuffing and began feeling around in it.

  “Eric?”

  He didn’t answer as he felt around in the stuffing, but then his face took on a look of satisfaction. He withdrew his hand and held out a small toy, a plastic figurine of a horse with a Native American on its back.

  “A toy,” Jade said. “That tells us there were children here at times, even though Jensen never had any. Of course, he was a minister, so people probably came to visit and brought their kids along.”

  Eric nodded. “The couch is a great place for things like this to get lost forever,” he said. “While it’s possible he might have bought it secondhand and it was already there, it’s also possible this belonged to a child from his church.”

  Jade was staring at him, and he carefully avoided meeting her eyes.

  “Okay,” he said, “you’re beginning to spook me a little bit. It was almost like you knew that was going to be there.”

  Eric shook his head. “I didn’t know what was going to be there,” he said. “There’s probably more, besides this.” He reached back into the stuffing, and a moment later, he had four other small toys and a child’s wristwatch. A cartoon character’s hands had once told the time on it.

  Jade shook her head. “I can’t believe the police never searched this thing,” she said. “I’m surprised at that.” She looked at Eric. “I’m also a bit surprised to see so many things that indicate children in a couch that belonged to a childless widower. Does that suggest anything to you, Eric?”

  Eric looked like he was almost afraid to say anything, but he finally spoke. “I don’t know,” he said. “It could mean just about anything.”

  Jade had walked away and was looking into the kitchen, where Walter was now crawling around under the table. “It probably didn’t matter, as far as we are concerned,” she said. “Maybe they just didn’t
bother searching any closer than that because Jensen was already dead by the time they found him. They probably figured the sofa wasn’t related to the crime, so why bother with it?” She turned and looked back toward Eric. “I just can’t help thinking that those things might mean something, but I can’t guess what it would be.”

  Eric didn’t answer, but walked over to where she was standing and stepped through the doorway into the kitchen. Like the living room, it seemed almost perfectly intact, but in desperate need of some cleaning.

  “Jensen was last seen carrying groceries into the house,” he said. “It looks like he must have got them all put away before he was killed.”

  “I had the same thought,” Jade said. She glanced at Steve, who was standing in the middle of the room. “Anything yet?”

  Steve shook his head. “He’s looking,” he said. “Let’s be quiet while he does his thing.”

  Jade nodded, and Eric stood quietly and watched as Walter came out from under the table, following the line where the wall met the floor.

  “We know he was killed here in the kitchen,” Walter said, “because they found blood and brains.” He looked closely at the floor again, inches from his face, then pointed at a particular spot. “Bloodstains,” he said, indicating a brownish mark on the floor. There were spots of brown all over the room, indicating that the blood had splattered as the body was beaten repeatedly.

  Walter kept moving around the perimeter of the room, but suddenly stopped as he got to where the old electric range was sitting. He pushed his face right down to the floor, looking up under it, and then started getting to his feet.

  “Help me move this,” he said, and all three of the others looked at him curiously. Steve and Eric took hold of the big range on one end and pulled, and it swung away from the wall easily. They realized that it was mounted on wheels, and though they were squeaky, they rolled easily.

  “That’s odd,” Jade said, her eyebrows lowered. “Those don’t usually come on wheels.”