by Mark Gimenez
“I’m FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux. The FBI is involved in this case at the request of Chief Ryan. Unless the victim is transported across state lines, jurisdiction is solely local. But we have offered our resources to assist Chief Ryan and his investigation.”
Devereaux always maintained the pretense that the locals were in charge of the case. They were legally, but not actually. Locals like Chief Ryan understood that they didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of finding an abducted child without the FBI—and they didn’t mind sharing the failure with the Feds when the child’s body was found.
“The status of our investigation of the abduction of Gracie Ann Brice is as follows: Gracie has been missing for forty-two hours. She was taken from Briarwyck Farms Park here in Post Oak at approximately six P.M. Friday by a white male, twenty to thirty years old, six foot, two hundred pounds, blond hair, wearing a black cap and a plaid shirt. An artist’s sketch of the suspect has been distributed to the media. We are pursuing two parallel investigative tracks: the first is to find Gracie, and that is our primary consideration; the second is to identify and locate possible suspects, starting with registered sex offenders. We urge any citizen who may have seen Gracie or the suspect or who has any information to please contact our hot-line number on the missing child fliers. We need your help. Questions?”
Devereaux pointed to the first reporter.
“Agent Devereaux, do you suspect family involvement?”
“No.”
“Have they taken polygraphs?”
“Not yet.”
The next reporter: “Can you confirm that Gracie’s shorts were found at the park?”
“Blue soccer shorts and a single white soccer shoe were found. We believe them to be Gracie’s.”
And the next, not waiting to be acknowledged: “Do you have any leads?”
“We’re taking calls, reviewing videotapes of the soccer games Friday night, developing a profile of the abductor—”
From the crowd: “Forty-two hours and all you’ve got is a blond man in a black cap?”
Devereaux sighed and felt tired. “Yes.”
Shouted from the back: “Was Gracie sexually assaulted?”
That was the question they always asked. Why? Why did they want to know whether a little ten-year-old girl was raped? What the hell do they think a sexual predator did with her, take her to dinner and a goddamn movie? They know damn well what he did to her, but they wanted him to say it, to provide the fear factor sound bite for the evening news teaser—fear causes more viewers to tune in. But he never played their game. Even if he knew, which he didn’t, at least it wasn’t confirmed, FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux would never tell. Not until the body was located. Until he knew for sure the child was dead.
Gracie Ann Brice deserved that much.
A mile away, Ben Brice stood in the middle of soccer field no. 2, a solitary figure in the vast, vacant park. He had come out before the FBI reopened the park for that night’s candlelight vigil to retrace Gracie’s last known movements Friday afternoon; he had to be where she had been.
He had to know.
If not for ransom, why would someone take Gracie? For sex? Ben Brice had seen the evil in man, so that was a possibility. Perhaps even a probability. But not a certainty, as the FBI seemed to have concluded. Sexual predators work alone, Agent Devereaux had said. But the blond man in a black cap hadn’t been alone; two men had been here at her game.
Ben first had to learn how Gracie had been taken. He now walked toward the low bleachers. According to John, Gracie’s game had ended and she had come to him about here. Ben stopped. The other parents had been in the bleachers and the two men just behind. John had spoken with Gracie, then she and the other girls had gone to the concession stand. John had watched them all the way to the building.
Ben walked that way.
Children abducted by strangers have a life expectancy of three hours, that TV report had said. When Gracie had walked this way Friday night, not forty-eight hours ago, had she only three hours of life left? Something inside Ben said no. Maybe it was the strange way their lives were bonded together: he knew that if Gracie were dead, he surely would be as well. Maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to accept the idea that he would never see her again.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was still alive.
When he was almost to the concession stand, Ben stopped and turned back, just as Gracie had when she had waved to John: an innocent little girl waving to her father, unaware she was walking into an ambush. Ben checked the compass on his watch to get his bearings. He was now facing due south toward the distant soccer and softball fields and the homes that bordered the park beyond the tall brick wall. To the east were tennis courts and the wall bordering that side of the park. To the west was the parking lot a good hundred meters away, too far to drag an abducted child through a crowd of people. The brick walls bordered the south and east sides of the park and the parking lot the west; none were likely escape routes for the abductor. That left only the northern route.
Through the woods.
Ben walked around to the rear of the concession stand. The backside of the building was a solid brick façade with a single service door and no windows. A small clearing separated the building from the woods. Ben got down on his hands and knees and examined the ground. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers through the blades of grass like a blind man reading Braille. And he knew.
The abductor had grabbed her right here.
But how had he gotten her back here alone? And how had he kept her quiet?
Ben stood and walked into the woods. Yesterday, he had been running and his mind had been clouded with fear and thoughts from the past, so he had not focused on his surroundings. Now he stepped slowly; his eyes searched the ground, the underbrush, and the trees for any sign of Gracie. His skills came back to him without conscious recall.
Less than ten meters into the woods, a shiny object highlighted by the sunlight through the canopy caught Ben’s eye. He squatted, moved several leaves, and picked up the object between his thumb and forefinger. He placed it in the palm of his left hand: a silver star attached to a broken silver chain. He recalled the day he had taken Gracie to the silversmith shop in Taos to have this star put on this chain. The proprietor had examined the star and said, “This here’s the real thing.” Gracie had said she would wear it always.
Ben stood, slipped the star and chain into his shirt pocket, and snapped the flap button. He continued deeper into the woods. He soon arrived at the location where her shorts and shoe had been found; yellow crime-scene tape was wrapped around the trees guarding the little clearing.
The abductor had grabbed Gracie behind the concession stand and taken her through the woods to this position. He had stopped here to … Ben fought back his emotions and focused. The abductor had left her shorts and shoe here and had … what? Taken her to his vehicle?
Ben walked through the woods to the nearby road, climbed the low embankment, and stood on the rock shoulder. The road was old, and the asphalt surface was potholed; there were only two narrow lanes, barely wide enough for two cars to pass. It was not a major traffic route.
Did the abductor leave his vehicle here while he went to Gracie’s game? Or did the other man on the tape drive the vehicle to this position while the abductor grabbed Gracie and carried her through the woods? Were they working together?
Ben started to climb down, but he stopped; the shoulder was standing room only, too narrow to park a vehicle without blocking the road. He knelt and examined the shoulder where a car might have pulled over and waited for the abductor to arrive with Gracie. He noticed a rock that glistened. He touched his finger to the shiny rock; it was wet. He put his finger to his nose and sniffed.
Oil.
Little Johnny Brice can taste his own blood that is flowing from his nose and mouth. He is curled up in a fetal position on the ground; his arms are wrapped around his head; he is crying. This is the worst beating yet, and it
isn’t over. Luther Ray is sitting astride him, hitting and taunting, taunting and hitting; his fists feel like iron hammers each time they impact John’s body. Little Johnny Brice is praying to God to let him die so the pain will stop.
John opened his eyes. The carpet beneath his face was wet. He was curled up in a fetal position on the floor of his walk-in closet. He had given his shirt to the FBI then come upstairs to clean up. He had showered and come into his closet to dress. But the images of Gracie and the abductor had returned, and he had started crying again. He could not stop thinking of her pain.
Please, God, let her pain stop.
Kate found John sitting alone in his closet, just as she had found him sitting alone in his room so many times as a boy. Back then, he’d been hurt by the bullies; today, he’d been hurt by his wife. It had been bad back then; it was worse today.
She sat down on the floor next to him. She put her arm around him, and he laid his head in her lap, just as he had so many times. She stroked his hair as she had back then, and she said the same words.
“John, try to have faith. You’ve got to trust that there’s a reason for this, that there’s a reason for everything that happens to us in life, even the bad things. God has—”
John’s head lifted, and he sat up abruptly.
“No, Mom, you’re wrong! You were wrong back then and you’re wrong now! There was no reason for my getting beat up by those bullies, and there’s no reason for Gracie getting kidnapped by some sick pervert. There’s no reason, no plan, no purpose, no grand scheme to all this—it wasn’t meant to be! It’s just random acts of violence. Mean people doing bad things. You go to Mass and you believe all that shit Father Randy says—and that’s all it is, Mom. Shit!”
John stood and walked out. Kate Brice covered her face and cried because she could not help her son now, just as she could not help him back then.
1:07 P.M.
FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux was back in the command post examining the blow-ups of the two men from the videotape and the big man’s tattoo. The large room was quiet—which was exactly wrong. Forty-three hours after an abduction, the phones should be ringing off the hook with hot tips. But the phones were silent.
Where the hell were the calls?
Devereaux removed his reading glasses, closed his eyes, and rubbed his face. When he opened his eyes, Agent Jorgenson was walking his way. She had a muscular build and short brown hair. She was wearing a blue nylon FBI jacket, jeans, and sneakers and carrying brown folders under her arm. He liked Jorgenson. She reminded him of his daughter; she had the same athletic bounce in her step and the same intellectual curiosity. She wanted to learn. She was still in her one-year probationary appointment, but she had already grasped an understanding of the job; it wasn’t about the glory of solving a high-profile case or the ego of apprehending a Most Wanted or Washington’s public relations obsession. It was about the victim. The job was always and only about the victim.
“Why’s it so dead?” Agent Jorgenson said when she arrived; she plopped down in a chair. “Is this normal?”
“No.”
“It’s like she just disappeared.”
“A ten-year-old girl doesn’t just disappear.”
“What are her chances—that she’s still alive?”
“Not good. Statistically, no chance at all.”
“Damn.”
“Just do your job, Agent Jorgenson. Focus on the evidence.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir. You’re good in front of cameras.”
“Too much experience. So, Jorgenson, what do they grow up there in … where in Minnesota are you from?”
“Owatonna. Corn mostly. For the ethanol.”
“Farmer’s daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My grandfather was a farmer. Cotton. Used to help him pick it when I was a kid. It was an uncomplicated life.”
“I wanted excitement.”
“Well, Agent, you’ve found it.” He pointed at her brown folders. “What do you have for me?”
“We took blood samples from the family to compare to the blood on the father’s shirt. DNA tests are underway.”
“Good. What else?”
“Background reports on the family.”
“Proceed.”
Devereaux did not expect the family backgrounds to reveal anything of importance, but he had learned the hard way to never overlook the routine aspects of the investigation.
“Alrighty,” she said, opening the first brown folder. “The father, he’s some kind of genius—Ph.D. from MIT in algorithms, whatever that is, one-ninety IQ … I didn’t know they went that high.”
“They don’t,” Devereaux said. “At least not in the Bureau.”
She gave him a little smile then continued. “He founded BriceWare, going public this week, you know all that. He and the mother married ten years ago. He was at MIT, she was at Justice in D.C., Assistant U.S. Attorney. Five years.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir. Maiden name was Austin. Grew up in New York. Her father was murdered when she was only ten.”
“Same age as Gracie.”
“First in her class at Harvard Law, a rising star at Justice. Then she up and quit, married Brice, moved to Dallas.”
“No accounting for love.”
“They’re an odd couple, aren’t they? And the way she slapped him yesterday, and cut him down this morning …” Jorgenson shook her head. “And how she talks to the local cops, and to us, so angry and ordering everyone around like we all work for her.”
“Her child’s been abducted, Agent. Cut her some slack.”
“You were very, uh, diplomatic with her.”
He nodded. “Two rules, Agent Jorgenson, to keep in mind in abductions. Rule number one: this isn’t actually our case. We’ve got no jurisdiction, not legally anyway. The locals generally defer to us, but technically we’re invited guests. So act like a guest. Rule number two: odds are the child’s already dead by the time we arrive on scene, so if the mother wants to cuss you out, tell you you’re the dumbest cop on the face of the earth, you say, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ You respect the fact that she’s lost her child … and that she’s probably halfway to nuts by the time you meet her. You give the parents free rein with their emotions. They need it more than you need to prove you’re a tough FBI agent in control of the case. Getting into a pissing contest with the parents won’t put you one step closer to finding the victim or apprehending the abductor. And that’s your job, Agent Jorgenson. Don’t let your ego get in the way of doing your job.”
“Yes, sir.” She frowned. “But you’re still going to make her take a polygraph?”
“Absolutely. If FBI resources are committed to a case, we do it by the book— and the book says to polygraph the parents. But I ask. I don’t order. Works just as well.” He gestured at Jorgenson’s file. “Find out who she worked for at Justice. I know some people over there.”
“I did. Her immediate supervisor was named James Kelly.”
“Jimmy?”
“You knew him?”
“Yeah, we came up through the Academy together. He went to law school at night then moved over to Justice. He was out in L.A. last I heard … What do you mean, knew him?”
“He’s dead. Hit and run, three years ago.”
“Damn. He was a good guy.” Devereaux sighed. “The good die young. What else you got?”
Jorgenson opened another brown folder. “The grandfather, he’s a retired Army colonel—West Point, Vietnam. Apparently he was some kind of war hero.”
“No kidding?” Devereaux waited for her to continue. She didn’t. “And …?”
She shrugged. “And nothing, sir. He’s classified.”
Devereaux put on his reading glasses and motioned for the folder. She held it out to him; he took it and flipped open the brown folder labeled BRICE, BEN, and scanned the text.
“Full colonel. Green Beret. Seven tours in Vietnam. Six Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, eig
ht Purple Hearts, two Soldier’s Medals, Distinguished Service Cross, Legion of Merit, the Medal of Honor. Yeah, I’d say he was some kind of hero.”
“Why’s he classified?”
“Green Beret, he was probably in Cambodia and Laos when Johnson and Nixon were swearing on TV we weren’t there.”
“The presidents lied about the war?”
He chuckled. “How old are you, Jorgenson?”
“Twenty-six.”
He shook his head. “I can’t even remember twenty-six. Yeah, Jorgenson, presidents lied about the war, the generals, too. I was ROTC, signed up for the tuition plan. Got a hell of an education in Nam. I went over there just hoping to survive my tour. Guys like Brice, they went over there to free the oppressed, just like the Green Beret motto says. They believed it. All they got for their efforts was spit on when they came home.” Devereaux removed his reading glasses and scratched his chin with the earpiece. “Ben Brice … that name sticks in my head for some reason. Get what you can from the Army and run a database search on all public records on him.”
“You think there might be some connection with Gracie’s abduction?”
“You never know what’s connected.” Jorgenson stood to leave. “I want you at the vigil tonight. Our boy might show.”
“Yes, sir. Oh, the coach is here to look at the blow-ups.”
“Bring him in, don’t call me sir, and have someone find Colonel Brice.”
He carries Gracie through the woods to this location. He’s in a hurry, worried someone will discover she’s missing and come looking, or perhaps has and is. His accomplice is waiting twenty meters away in a vehicle leaking oil. But he stops, removes her clothes, and rapes her right here? With so many people in the park, possibly searchers already in the woods? With Gracie kicking and screaming and putting up one hell of a fight? She’s a strong girl and afraid of no one—the only way she wouldn’t have fought is if she were unconscious or dead. Did he rape an unconscious or dead victim? Did he kill her here?
No.
Gracie Ann Brice did not die here. Ben Brice had been in the killing fields, knee deep in death; death would forever be a part of him—he had seen death, he had heard death, he could touch, taste, smell, and feel death. But not here.