by David Archer
“We are on it,” Sam said. “I hate to say this, but it looks like it had to be one of the cops we’ve been working with. We don’t know which one yet, but we will find out.”
Steve grunted. “Why the hell would somebody want to shoot me? Don’t make no sense.”
“We have a working theory,” Sam said. “We have reason to believe that Martin Jensen wasn’t working alone when he kidnapped children, particularly those who were taken out of upper rooms. It turns out Jensen was so afraid of heights that he couldn’t climb a ladder, so somebody else had to have done that part for him. Adding that to the fact that you were shot, we’ve come to the conclusion that the accomplice was probably a police officer back then, and he might be afraid that if you and Kenny get to talking, he might remember things they would rather not have come out.”
“I guess that makes as much sense as anything,” Steve said. “Hard to believe this kid is my son, but I guess DNA don’t lie. How is he taking all this?”
“He’s worried about you. He and Edith sat and talked for a long time, while you were in surgery, and they seem to have hit it off. He was pretty upset at the thought that you might—well, that he might not get to know you at all.”
“I’m too damn stubborn to kill,” Steve said. “How is Walter?”
“Last I heard, he was hiding in the men’s room. I think he’s pretty scared of losing you.” Sam hesitated for a second, then decided to plow on through. “He’s also worried about the fact that he hasn’t been able to rule you out as a suspect in Jensen’s murder. Maybe this will do it for him.”
“Harrumph. Did it do it for you? You finally believe I didn’t do that?”
“Pretty much, yeah. I don’t think you would have yourself shot this badly just to try to look innocent.” Sam softened his comment with a grin. “I never really thought you did it, Steve, but you know me, I think like a cop. You had motive, you had the skills to track him down, and you could have easily made opportunity anytime you wanted to. If you honestly thought you knew Jensen was the one who took your son, you would have been a suspect for real.”
“Hell, I know that. Remember, boy, you learned half your investigative skills from me.”
Sam chuckled. “Trust me, I’ll never forget that. How are you honestly feeling?”
“Like somebody hit me in the back with a sledgehammer. That’s what it felt like, Sam, like something big and heavy hit me in the back. Knocked me on my face, I can tell you that.” He blinked. “Next thing I know, I’m laying here with tubes sticking out of me.”
“At least you are alive. When we got you here, nobody was too sure you were going to make it.”
“I told you, I’m too damn stubborn to die.” Steve grimaced suddenly, as if he was in pain. “I’ll be damn glad when I get out of here. And you might as well figure I’m going to take some time off. I need to get to know my son, Edith and I both do.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Sam said. “You’re likely to be on recuperation leave for a few months, anyway. You ready to meet Kenny? He’s out in the hall, waiting for the chance to come in and see you.”
Steve looked Sam in the eye. “You really think he’s handling it all okay?”
“I do. To be honest, I don’t think he was all that surprised to find out that he really isn’t a Givens. He did say that he is excited at the prospect of getting to know you.”
Steve tried to adjust himself in the bed and grimaced again. “Ouch, that hurt. Okay, bring him on in. I really wish I could have met him before this happened, hate to have him think of me as the banged up guy in the hospital.”
“I don’t think he’s all that picky, right now. Be right back.”
Sam stepped out of the room and nodded for Kenny to go on in. Edith was standing beside him and she patted him on the shoulder as he put on his mask and pushed the door open.
“What do you think, Sam? Is he going to be okay?”
“I’m no doctor, Edith, but my money is on Steve. If I’ve ever known anybody who could come back from the brink of death, it’s him.”
“That’s high praise, coming from you. From what I understand, you’ve been there a few times yourself.”
“Once or twice,” Sam said. “I keep trying to break that habit, though.”
“Well, Steve’s going to break it,” Edith said. “Sam, I’m going to put my foot down this time. It’s time for him to retire for good. He’s almost 65, anyway, and it’s not like we need the money he makes. I know he’ll never quit completely, but maybe you could convince him to just work with Walter from now on. Do you think?”
Sam nodded. “I’ll back you up on that,” he said. “Steve is ready to take it easy, but traveling with Walter on his consultations is probably his way of having fun. We’ll talk with him about that when he gets out of the hospital.”
Edith put a hand on his arm and rubbed it. “Thank you, Sam.”
NINETEEN
The young man known as Kenny Givens walked into the hospital room and looked at the man who was lying there. Despite the IV lines and the oxygen tube that was clipped to his nose, there was something vaguely familiar that Kenny felt, and he had a brief mental flash of a younger version of the man before him. In that image, Kenny was looking up at him, and there was a smile on his face.
“Hello, sir,” he said haltingly. “I’m… I’m your son.”
Steve looked up at him and tears began to flow from his eyes. “Scotty,” he said softly. “Sorry, I know that’s not the name you go by, but…”
“It’s okay, sir,” Kenny said. “That’s the name you gave me. It’s not your fault I’m not used to it, but I’ll try.”
A sob escaped Steve, and he forced himself back under control. “I never really believed this day would ever come,” he said. “After so many years, I just thought… You know, the odds say that if a child isn’t found within a fairly short time, they probably…”
“I know,” Kenny said. “This isn’t your fault, sir.”
“Okay, let’s stop with the ‘sir,’ stuff, can we do that? I don’t expect you to call me Dad, but Steve would do.”
Kenny grinned. “Okay, Steve,” he said. “We’ll work our way up to the other one.” He looked at the machines that were connected to Steve, monitoring his heart and respiration. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel like I’ve been shot,” Steve said, trying to grin. “Now I just wish I knew why.”
“Mr. Prichard thinks somebody didn’t want us to talk. He seems to think that they might be afraid you will help me remember things, somehow.”
Steve’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Think there’s any chance of that? I’ve spent an awful lot of years wondering what happened to you, and I would really like to know as much as I can. Feel like talking about it?”
Kenny gave him a wry grin. “I hate talking about it,” he said, “but it seems like I’ve been doing a lot of that the last couple days. Mrs. Beck told me about the day I went missing, from her perspective. I’m really sorry you folks went through all that. I don’t have any kids of my own, yet, but I’m sure it must’ve been horrible.”
“It was, and I pray you never go through it. I was in shock for a long time, because there were no clues, no leads. Nobody seemed to have any idea what happened to you, and in my world, that was just unacceptable. I was a detective, I was the guy who found the clues and broke the case, but this was one I couldn’t even understand. How could somebody come into my house and take my son, and not leave any sign that he’d even been there? That was just too much for me to accept.”
Kenny reached over and picked up a chair, then pulled it close to the side of the bed and sat down. “Mr. Prichard has a theory, now,” he said. “They found out that Jensen was afraid of heights and wouldn’t climb a ladder, so they figured he was working with somebody else. Since it looks like whoever shot you had to have been connected to the police, they think the accomplice might have been a cop. Maybe that’s how he knew how to get in and out and
not leave clues behind.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Most cops know enough about the rules of evidence to figure out some way not to leave any behind.” Steve shook his head. “Bastard! When we find out who it is, I’m going to enjoy watching him in court.” He cocked his head slightly and looked at Kenny, his left hand resting on his chest as if to comfort a painful spot. “Do you remember seeing anyone else with him? Do you remember the night you were taken?”
Kenny shook his head, but then stopped. “I have a really vague memory of two men coming down into the basement where I was held. I wrote a story when I was a kid and described it, and when I read that today, it kind of brought back the memory a bit. One of them was the guy I always saw, the one in the Easter Bunny mask, but the other one wore a gorilla mask. He was—the Bunny man was always pretty polite, but the gorilla man was mean. He acted like he thought everything was funny, and he—oh, God, sir, I mean Steve, he made me do things. Sexual things, but I don’t want to say what it was. Is that okay?” There were tears brimming over his own eyes.
“It’s fine, son,” he said. He reached over with his right hand and held it out, and a moment later, Kenny took it and held it tightly. “What about the night you were taken? Do you have any memories of that?”
Again, Kenny shook his head, but stopped. “I don’t know if it’s real,” he said. “I–I remember waking up and somebody carrying me, but whoever it was had a hand over my mouth. I think I tried to kick and scream, but he held me real tight and—and he said something about if I wasn’t quiet, he would have to kill somebody, so I guess he meant you and Mrs. Beck. I—I don’t think I’ve ever rememebred that before.”
Steve nodded. “That’s what the shooter was worried about, maybe. Think hard about that; do you remember anything about the man who took you?”
Kenny grimaced. “I remember he was big, but I was pretty small back then, so that may be just my point of view. I don’t think I ever saw his face at all, it was covered up. Maybe he was wearing a mask then, too, I don’t know.”
“Close your eyes,” Steve said. “Just relax and think about that time. Don’t try to look at his face, think about other things that you can see or smell or feel. Tell me about those things.”
Kenny closed his eyes and sat there in silence for a moment, then his eyes seemed to tighten as he cocked his head slightly to one side. “There was a smell,” he said. “I can almost remember it, it was something that should be familiar. And I saw his hair, it was dark, but not really black. There was a little bit of light somewhere as he was walking, and I saw it. Brown, maybe? A dark brown, but not super dark.”
“Okay, that’s good. Stay with it, what about after you left the house? Did he put you in a car?”
“Yeah, he did. I really didn’t get a look at the car from the outside, but he put me in the back seat and made me lay down. I remember I was laying there and I could see him between the front seats, but not real well. I could see the lights on the dashboard, but he still kept the mask on. I never got to see his face.”
“That’s very good. So, the car had bucket seats in the front, we got that. I know you like old cars, can you recognize what kind of car it was now, from those memories?”
Kenny’s tongue snaked out from between his lips and licked them. “It wasn’t a big car,” he said. “Pretty small, in fact. It had four doors, I remember that because he opened the back door to put me in. I’m trying to visualize the dashboard, but it’s—it’s kind of blurry. Maybe it was a Honda, or a Mitsubishi? I’m pretty sure it was a foreign car. And there was that smell, again, I can’t place it. It’s just a smell that I know I should recognize, but I can’t.”
“Okay, the smell could be important. Was it a sweet smell? Like candy or something? Or was it more of a smell like meat cooking or something?”
Kenny shook his head, his eyes still tightly closed. “No,” he said, “no, nothing like that. I can’t quite remember it, but it was—when I think about it, I think of leaves burning in the fall. A smoky smell, maybe.”
“Smoky? Like cigarettes?”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t seem to fit. It’s stronger than that, so maybe cigars? Yeah, I think maybe it was the smell of cigars.” He hesitated for a moment. “There was somebody else there,” he said. “Another man, sitting in the passenger seat in the front. He looked back at me, and it was the bunny man. The Easter Bunny mask, I mean.”
“That could be important, son. What else comes to mind?”
“I don’t really know,” Kenny said. “We weren’t in the car very long, I remember that. It was a kinda rough ride, bumpy. That’s about all I can remember at the moment. I think the next thing is when they took me inside somewhere. They covered my eyes then, so I didn’t see anything until they put me down on the dirt floor in the basement, and the gorilla man hooked the chains to my ankles. After that, they both went upstairs and I just remember being scared.” He opened his eyes. “You really think any of that is going to help?”
“Well, we know some things we didn’t know before,” Steve said. “We know that the kidnapper who took you probably smoked cigars, and that he drove a small, probably foreign car. We know that Jensen, assuming we are correct and he was the bunny man, was waiting in the car while his accomplice took you out of the house. If we can get a lead on who Jensen was close to, it could help us find the kidnappers, and he might even be the killer we are looking for.” He pointed toward the door. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Sam to come back and let’s tell him what we just learned. Believe me, he’s going to want to know all of this.”
Kenny looked at him for a couple of seconds, then got up and went to the door to ask Sam to come back in. He let Sam take the chair beside the bed while he stood on the opposite side and looked down at the man he was trying to think of as his father.
“Scotty, I mean Kenny,” Steve began, “has remembered some things. The man who kidnapped him out of my house smelled like cigars, Sam, and he probably drove a small, foreign car. Jensen was waiting in the car while this guy came in and took him, and then they drove back to Jensen’s place. He was covered up as they carried him inside, but then they chained him up and left him in the basement.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Cigars? Kenny, are you sure?”
“I’m not a hundred percent certain it was cigars,” Kenny said. “I know it was a smoky kind of smell, and it reminded me more of burning leaves, but cigars might be pretty close to that. I think it was cigar smoke I smelled.”
“That would make sense,” Sam said. “Cigars tend to permeate everything about the people smoking them, like their clothes and hair. It can be pretty hard to get rid of that smell.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Something about cigars is nagging at the back of my mind, but I can’t place it.” He opened his eyes. “Hopefully it will come to me, but in the meantime, we’ll make sure to share this with everyone helping in the case. It’s possible someone will remember an associate of Jensen who smoked cigars.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Steve said. “I knew him back in Golden, but not all that well. I don’t think I ever met any of his friends, other than the few times we went to his church.”
“If the two of them were involved in this together, I kind of doubt Jensen would be parading the guy around as his BFF,” Sam said. “Most likely, they kept their association fairly quiet, so that if one of them were caught, the other might not be.”
“Good point,” Steve conceded. “Still, there’s a chance somebody saw the two of them together and might have noticed the cigar smell. If we could find someone who might remember, that could help.”
“Yes, absolutely,” Sam said. He turned back to Kenny. “This is good news, Kenny, that you’re starting to remember things. There’s something else I want to ask you about, though. Do you mind?”
“No, not at all,” Kenny said. “Anything I can do to help, Mr. Prichard.”
“From what I understand, at some point Jense
n just decided to let you go. Do you remember anything about that day?”
Kenny looked at him for a moment, then closed his eyes and tried to think. “Well—I remember being in the basement, and the bunny man came down and told me to come upstairs. He did that every once in a while, he’d take me upstairs and give me this box of toys to play with in his living room. I’d always sit there and stare at them for a little while, but eventually I think the urge to play would get the better of me, and I’d pick a few toys and play with them. On those days, he would bring me something to eat in the living room, and we would sit there and watch TV together. He never took off the mask, but he would ask me if I liked the food, or if I thought something on TV was funny, stuff like that.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I remember he took me upstairs this one day, and I was sitting there when somebody rang his doorbell. He told me to sit there and be very quiet, and that if I made any noise I would be in trouble, and then he got up and walked over to the door. He kept his back to me, but he took off the mask and held it behind the door as he opened it.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “Could you tell who was there?”
“It was a woman, that’s all I know. I could hear her voice, and—I think she was crying, now that I’m really thinking about this. I think she was crying and begging him for something, and I remember him telling her that he would—he would try to make a miracle happen. I remember he said those words exactly, that he would try to make a miracle happen. He stepped outside for a minute, and shut the door behind them so I couldn’t hear anything, but he came back after a minute. Then he closed the door and put the mask back on, and he came and sat down beside me again. He kept looking over at me, and he asked me—wow, he asked me who I was.” His eyes opened and he looked at Sam. “I hadn’t ever really remembered that before now, but he did. He asked me who I was, and I said I was Kenny. And then he asked me what my mother’s name was, and I said Mommy.” He swallowed hard, then licked his lips before he went on. “It was just a little after that when he left the room and came back with a big box. He told me to get inside it and that he was going to take me home. I did what he said, and a little while later, I felt him put the box into a car and we drove away. I laid there in the dark, just wondering if I was really going home or if I was going wherever the other boys went.”