by David Archer
“Other boys? You saw other boys, plural, while you were there?” Sam asked.
Without opening his eyes, Kenny nodded. “Yes. I don’t really remember much about them, but there were three or four, I’m pretty sure. They would be there for a few days, and then they would go somewhere else. When they left, they never came back.”
“Okay. What do you remember after he put you in the box and took it for a ride in the car?”
“I remember the car stopped, and he took the box out and set it on the ground. He put it on the grass right at the edge of the road, and then he said, ‘wait a little while and then get out. There’s a house right in front of you. That’s your house, go sit on the front steps until your daddy comes for you.’ A few minutes later, I heard the car start up and drive away again. I laid there for a while, I guess I was afraid to move, but then after a while, I pushed the top of the box open and looked out. There was a house, just like he said, so I went and sat on the front step. A little while later, my dad—Mr. Givens showed up.” He opened his eyes and looked at Sam. “Does that help?”
“I think it might,” Sam said. “It certainly raises a couple of questions in my mind.” He turned to Steve. “Listen, Steve, we had to consider the possibility that Kenny is also going to be in danger, after what happened to you. Summer has called back to the office to arrange for the security detail to protect the two of you, and Edith as well. Until they get here, Denny is going to stay close by. He’s out in the hall with Edith, now.”
“And you’re telling me that because you’re about to leave,” Steve said. “Fine, I know you want to get back to work. Tell Edith and Denny to come on in. We can all visit in here, and Denny can keep watch on us easily that way.”
Sam looked at him askance. “Don’t you think your doctor is going to want you to rest after all this visiting?”
“My doctor can kiss my ass,” Steve said. “My family is about to be back together for the first time in twenty-five years. If you think any doctor is going to take that away from me, you don’t know me half as well as you think.”
Sam grinned, then patted him on the shoulder as he walked out the door. A moment later, Edith and Denny stepped inside as Sam headed for the elevator.
“Well, mate,” Denny said. “Gotcha something of another pickle, did you?”
* * *
Sam called ahead as he was getting into his car and arranged for Lou Givens to be brought back to the police department interrogation room. By the time he got back to the station, Givens had already been brought in and handcuffed to the table once again. Sam wasted no time, walking in and sitting down in the opposite chair, looking Givens in the eye.
“Mr. Prichard,” Givens said. “What’s going on now?”
“I’m just doing some thinking, Lou,” Sam said, “and a couple of things are not ringing true with me. You told me that you found Kenny sitting on the front step of your old house, right?”
Givens’ eyes narrowed. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “Why?”
“You said your wife became quite a fan of Pastor Jensen, is that right?”
Still looking suspicious, Givens nodded. “Yeah, she did. She kept expecting him to produce some kind of miracle.”
“A miracle? Did she use those words specifically?”
Givens’ eyes widened, then. “A couple times, yeah. Why? What’s this all about?”
“I’ve been talking with Kenny, and he’s beginning to remember some things that he had previously suppressed. For instance, he remembers the day he was let go. A woman came to Jensen’s door while Kenny was upstairs with him. Jensen turned his back to Kenny and took off the mask he wore, then opened the door and talked to the woman. Kenny remembers him saying he would ‘try to make a miracle happen.’ Sometime later, Jensen put him in a box and told him to sit on the front step of the house where he got dropped off.”
“You think that was Brenda? You think it was my wife who came to his door that day?”
“I’m wondering about it,” Sam said. “Did she happen to say anything about a miracle that day?”
Givens stared into his eyes for a couple of seconds, then slowly nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “She called me at work that day and told me that she believed there was going to be a miracle. She said that God was going to bring Kenny home, but that he wouldn’t know that we had moved. She wanted me to go by and check our old house on my way home from work.”
“Lou, earlier you told me that it was a man’s voice that called and told you to check your old house. Why didn’t you tell me it was your wife who made that call?”
Givens made a sour face. “You know, at first, I just thought she was having another of her episodes. She was always calling me and saying some crazy things, like she thought she heard Kenny in his room, or she saw some kid walk past the house and she was just sure it was him, stuff like that. I thought it was just another one of those things, but just so I wouldn’t have to lie to her, I decided to go ahead and drive past the old place. I didn’t really expect to find anything, but I wanted to be able to be honest when I told her I did go and check, you understand? I just didn’t want to lie to her. So I drove past the house, and sure as the Dickens, there he was.” He let out a sigh. “At first, I thought maybe it really was a miracle, but then I could see that there were little differences. I knew it wasn’t really Kenny, but—but by that time, I was just as desperate as Brenda was to have him back. He answered to the name Kenny, when I said I was his dad, he threw his arms around my neck and hugged me, and by the time I got to the police station, I knew I wasn’t going to say anything other than I found my son.”
“But you never mentioned that it was your wife who called you,” Sam said. “Why didn’t you tell anybody that, Lou?”
“Isn’t it obvious? It wasn’t any miracle, but somehow Brenda knew that I was going to find him there. I don’t mean she just had faith, I mean she knew. The way she sounded when she called me, she was absolutely certain Kenny was going to be sitting there when I came by, and I got to wondering how she could have known that. And the only thing I can come up with was that, somehow, she knew who had taken him. She had somehow figured out, and must have done something to make him let Kenny go. I figured that Kenny, our Kenny, he must’ve already been dead, so they gave us this other kid instead.” There were tears falling from his eyes, and he tried to wipe them off on the sleeves of his jail jumpsuit. “I didn’t want Brenda to end up in trouble, so I kept my mouth shut. I asked her later if she knew who had taken him, and she kept insisting she didn’t. That’s when she said again that Pastor Jensen said he was going to arrange a miracle.”
TWENTY
Sam stared at him for a moment, then nodded slowly. “And that’s when you figured out that Jensen was the one who had taken him, right?”
Givens’ eyes shot wide again. “What? No! No, he would have been the last person I would suspect. He came by the house several times after Kenny came home, he even brought Kenny presents. It never would have occurred to me that he could have been the one who kidnapped the boy.”
Sam continued looking at him for a moment, but there was something that smelled like truth in Givens’ words. Sam had been ready to accuse him of Jensen’s murder, but now he was certain the man was innocent of at least that crime.
“Did you know any of Jensen’s friends?” he asked. “In particular, did you ever meet anyone with Jensen who might have smelled like cigars?”
“Cigars? No, not that I remember. Is that somehow important?”
“It could be. Kenny remembers that the man who took him from his home smelled like cigars, or cigar smoke, at any rate. We are trying to find out who that might’ve been. We’re pretty certain that Jensen had an accomplice who was working with him during the kidnappings, and it’s possible that’s who killed him.”
Givens nodded. “I thought of that earlier today, while I was sitting in the jail. Maybe somebody got angry that he let our boy go. I mean, it wasn’t long after Kenny came back that h
e was dead, like just a few days.”
“That’s basically what I’m thinking,” Sam said. “The accomplice might have been angry about Kenny being released, or he might have panicked, thinking Kenny could identify Jensen and that Jensen might crack and give him up. We are fairly certain that the accomplice was a police officer, or somehow connected to the police department. We also believe he’s the same person who shot Kenny’s real father a few hours ago.”
Givens’ eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of his head, this time. “Somebody shot him?”
“Yes,” Sam said, nodding. “We think that the accomplice is still around, and might have been worried that Kenny would remember things when he met his real father. We believe he tried to prevent that by attempting to kill Mr. Beck.”
Givens’ face became angry. “Dirty rotten sons of bitches,” he said. “You know, it’s bad enough Kenny had to find out I’m not really his daddy, but he’s bound to be curious about who his real family is. That would be a damn dirty trick, to take them away when he was just getting to meet them.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Givens. “Why do you say them? I only mentioned that Steve Beck was shot, not anyone else.”
“Well, it stands to reason,” Givens said. “If they wanted to keep him from meeting his daddy, they probably want to keep him from meeting his mama, too, wouldn’t you think?”
“I guess that’s possible,” Sam said. “Luckily, we already arranged for them to be protected. Lou, can you think of anything else that you should’ve told me, something else you might’ve held back?”
Givens bit his bottom lip. “Maybe one thing,” he said, “but I don’t know if it’s really important or not. Remember I told you there was a detective who asked me about whether I thought Jensen might have been involved?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “Did you remember who he was?”
“No, I’m afraid not. The thing is, when he came by to talk to us about Kenny being missing, I noticed that he knew his way around my house. This was before we moved, of course. He said he wanted to look at Kenny’s room, and I started to show him where it was, but he passed me up and went straight to it. It was like he knew exactly where it was, and—well, you’d have to know about my old house. It was originally two small houses that got put together, so there was a zig-zaggy hallway in the middle. If you didn’t know which room you were going to, you would find yourself stepping into a closet or a bathroom, but he went straight to Kenny’s room.”
“Like he’d been there before?”
Givens nodded meaningfully. “Yeah. That didn’t really hit me until later, after he was gone, but it was just like he had been there before.”
“Do you remember anything else about him? Who he worked for, maybe?”
“I just assumed he worked for the city,” Givens said. “He showed me a badge, but I didn’t really look at it that closely.”
“Can you tell me what he looked like?”
“Oh, hell, that was a long time ago. He was maybe five ten, stocky. He had brown hair, and I thought it was a little long for a detective, but things were changing around then. And now that I think about it, there was one other thing I remember about him.” His eyes twinkled as he looked directly into Sam’s own. “Mr. Prichard, he smelled like cigars, the expensive kind.”
* * *
Darren, Summer, Jade, Eric and Walter were all sitting in the conference room when Sam came back a few minutes later. The two women were looking through the files once again and sorting them into two separate stacks, Eric was going to one of the stacks as they finished, and Darren was looking over a separate file that contained the duty roster for the police department for the year when Jensen was killed. Walter was sitting by himself over by the window, just looking out at the scenery.
Sam walked over to where Walter was staring out. “Walter? You doing okay?”
“I’m okay,” Walter said. “I’m okay. Steve didn’t do it.”
“Yes, I know he didn’t,” Sam said. “You know, it looks like Steve is going to be okay.”
“That’s good. Steve needs to be okay.”
Sam stood beside him for a moment, then said, “Walter, would you like to go see him? He’s allowed to have visitors now.”
“Yes, I want to go see him. I want to go see Steve.”
Sam grinned and turned to the others. “Keep at it for now,” he said. “I’ll be back in a bit.” Turning back to Walter, he said, “Come on, Walter. Let’s go see Steve.”
The two of them started for the door and then had to wait as a police officer pushed a cart holding several boxes into the room. “Found some more files on the Jensen case,” he said. “Not sure if it’s going to be any help, but I figured you guys would like to see them.”
Sam grinned at him. “No problem,” he said. “You never know where the next lead will come from.”
* * *
“I wonder what they found,” Eric said. “That looks like an awful lot of files for an old unsolved murder case.”
“Yeah, it’s probably nothing but notes,” Darren said. “Any good detective saves all his notes, even if they don’t lead anywhere. If nothing else, when the killer finally gets caught, there’s always the possibility of a book deal. Those notes can come in pretty handy when you need to write a long story.”
“Really?” Jade asked with a smile. “I’ll have to remember that. Maybe if I keep notes on some of our cases, I can finally write a bestseller I keep wanting to write. Make a fortune as a famous author, and I can quit getting up early to come to work.”
Summer chuckled. “You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself,” she said. “You live for the thrill of the chase, and you know it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Jade said. “Besides, what I do with an extra hour of sleep? I’d probably go nuts just from the crazy dreams I would have.”
“Well, I need a shot of coffee if I’m going to go through those boxes,” Summer said. “Anybody else?”
“I’m good,” Jade said. “You guys go ahead, I’ll get started on these.”
Summer turned to walk out of the room, and Eric and Darren followed her. Jade heard the three of them chatting as they walked down the hall toward the break room, but she turned her attention to the first box on the cart and dragged it onto the table. As she opened it, however, she heard the sound of a cell phone ringing, and looked around to see if one of the others had left it behind.
It rang again, and she realized the sound was coming from a box on the bottom shelf of the cart. Her eyes narrowed as she wondered what a phone would be doing there, but that was the last thought she ever had.
* * *
Sam and Walter stepped out into the hall and headed toward the front entrance of the building. They had just reached the parking lot when Walter suddenly stopped, and Sam turned to look at him.
“Walter? What’s the matter?”
“No more files,” Walter said. “Detective Franklin said there were no more files on the Jensen case.”
“Okay, I guess they found some,” Sam said. “Come on, let’s go see…”
“No more files!” Walter said, emphatically. “Detective Franklin said no more files.”
Sam stared at him for a moment. “You think there’s something funny about the new files turning up?”
“Something funny about it. No more files.”
Sam nodded slowly, still staring at Walter. “Okay. Let’s go back and see…”
The blast blew out every window on the east side of the ground floor, and the shockwave knocked Sam and Walter, and others who were standing outside the building, to the ground. Cars all over the parking lot and street were suddenly screaming as their alarms went off, and smoke began to roll from windows near the center of the east wall.
That was where the conference room was, Sam thought groggily. He staggered to his feet and began limping toward the door, his bad hip hurting him even more than usual after the tumble onto the sidewalk. He reached the door and simply ste
pped through it, with all the glass gone, then made his way through the smoke and acrid smells toward where he had just left his friends in the conference room.
People were stumbling around in the hallways and voices were shouting, talking over one another. The lights were out, so the only light available was what came through the doors and broken windows. Sam pushed on toward the conference room, and realized that Walter was suddenly beside him.
The door on the conference room had been blown off, and was actually embedded in the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. Sam’s heart sank as he looked inside the room, but the smoke was so dense he couldn’t really see.
“Sam!” he heard behind him, and turned to look back into the hallway. Darren and Summer were stumbling toward him, coming from the break room where the coffee machine was kept.
“Darren, where is everybody else?” Sam demanded.
Darren shook his head. “Eric is in the break room, he’s unconscious. Jade… Jade asked us to bring her coffee, she wanted to start looking at the new files.”
Sam stared at him for a moment, then turned back into the conference room and started walking into the dense smoke. “Jade?” he shouted. “Jade, where are you?”
Darren and Summer came in with him, and it was Summer who finally found her. She was on the floor, an inverted table laying on top of her.
“Here! She’s over here!” Summer shouted, and both men converged on her voice. Darren flipped the table off of Jade, and all three of them knelt down beside her, taking a good look at her condition. Her left arm was missing completely, gone from the shoulder down, and her face and body were badly burned. Bits of debris were embedded into her flesh, and Sam reached out and placed a hand on her throat, feeling for a pulse, but then he looked up at the others and shook his head.