Past Prologue: Where are our Children (A Serial Novel) Episode 4 of 9

by Gary Sapp

of these locations.”

  Chris laughed out loud. “And just like that we’re supposed to believe you?”

  “You damned well better if you and your people have any shot whatsoever of finding those four boys that have gone missing in the past few days now.” Clark leaned over the table again, his chains betraying his movements and garnering the unwanted attention of three corrections officers this time. “I’ve never lied about this. I’ve never have lied about the hand full of…young men that I abused and killed. Why should I start now? You said it yourself earlier, Agent Prince, what do I possibly have to gain at this point?”

  “Nothing,” Chris heard Angel saying to him more than to the man who had uttered the words. “You have nothing at all to gain from lying.”

  Chris shot her a warning glance: “Doctor…”

  “Christopher, for 30 years people in both our professions have either been asking the wrong questions about the Atlanta Child Murders or ignoring the right answers.”

  “So what is this right answer you are looking for?”

  Angel almost seemed to ignore Chris altogether and she focused all of her attention to the other man sitting at this table with her. “Some of us have questioned whether you were working under the guidance of Pandora as we’ve learned Keaton was. Were you working for them…or a man who called himself the Caretaker? Or did these people draw their inspiration from you?”

  “I was sick.” Clark said as a response. “I am still sick, Doctor. I have never denied that either. To answer your question, pretty lady, I don’t know whether they were inspired by what I did or not. I just know that it pissed me off real good though. Things were going just fine and dandy for me until Chris here and those younger boys went missing. Nobody had given a damn about those retarded older teenagers I was picking off the streets of Atlanta.”

  Chris watched the older man gather himself.

  “I just know that I’ve never met this Caretaker or anyone else associated with those racist bastards in Pandora. I also never met nor was it my intention to compete with Louis Keaton for victims.” Muhammad Clark stood to his full impressive height. “But most importantly, in light of all the evidence that had presented itself over the years, I want a new trial. I refuse to die in this place with the world thinking I killed all 19 children for which I was wrongly and conveniently convicted.”

  Chris sprung from his seat as well. “Someone had to pay the price, Clark.” Chris spat. “You just admitted that you are far from innocent here.”

  “I didn’t molest those little boys; 12 year olds didn’t harden the rocks for me.” He snatched Chris arm with unbelievable strength and speed and pulled him close enough for the special agent to count the convict’s teeth tooth by rotten tooth. “But it’s not a day that goes by that I don’t envy Louis Keaton. Number one, he is still on the street to this day getting his groove on.” The corrections officers rush to untangle Chris from the other man’s grip. “Secondly, and most importantly, I wish I had Keaton’s taste in boys…because I would have loved to spend some quality time with you, Christopher Prince.”

  Chris escaped the other man’s grip. Half dozen officers have sprinted in their direction, but they won’t arrive in time to save Muhammad Clark for what would come next.

  Chris hopped across the table and dove on top of the chained prisoner driving him to the concrete floor. He then pounded Clark in his face with all of the strength that he could muster and drives his face first onto that same floor. Chris had his hands on Clark’s throat for a count of ten or 12 before the guards tackled him, knocking him off. Even so, Chris managed one kick at Clark and when it connected it drew blood from the other’s mouth which had split open.

  He could hear Angel…barely hear her over the ruckus of humanity…pleading with the guards to release their hold on him, while several more guards jump on Clark adding new bruises to the ones that Chris had already administered. More legions of guards enter the space and have their weapons drawn, careful not to aim them at other visiting civilians.

  In ten more minutes it was all over.

  As four men drag Muhammad Clark back to the cage from which he came, Chris could hear him shouting: “This doesn’t change how I feel you bastards. I only killed three or four of those boys. I had nothing to do with the rest. I had nothing to do with those other murders I say.”

  And then he heard the old man laughing…at him a long time after he could no longer see him.

  “Oh yes, I envy Keaton though…oh how I know I would have enjoyed quite a time with yooooooooooooo…Chris.”

  Roxanne

  Someone was following them on this stretch of highway.

  Roxanne Sanchez licked at the lip gloss on her lips, unlatched the safety off of her Nine, adjusted both of her rear view mirrors, and punched her heel onto the gas pedal. She felt the coldest shiver of fear wash over her shoulder blades but dismissed the emotion just as quickly. Fear is irrelevant, Senorita, Victor had whispered in her ear once between kisses. It is how you function despite that fear that matters when it is time to conquer the night. Tonight she decided somewhere outside White Plains, Georgia, was no different than any other night of her life thus far. Either she would succeed or she would not.

  Either she would die tonight or she would not.

  Roxanne had seen the big black Cadillac swoop out and latch on to their rear like a hungry predator tailing its prey about 45 miles and 30 minutes ago.

  State Road 15 was a lonely road, with a minimum amount of traffic, especially this late in the evening. Whoever was driving that car…rather it was a Pandora Operative, a FBI Agent, or even her old lover Victor Castillo, wasn’t interested in disguising his intentions. The moonlight, the headlights from the few other vehicles they were passing and the Macon skyline in the distance provided all of the light she was getting. This was an ideal place for an ambush.

  She hadn’t told her passenger…Joseph Champion much. He was still marinating in his good feelings that he had gotten out of Carver and the city of Atlanta for a while. He’d been an emotional wreck, sliding from one passionate extreme to another, babbling on and on about his dead wife one minute while biting his nails…to counting how many mistakes he’d made during another.

  One mistake he hadn’t made was when he showed her a picture of Angel’s husband, Seth Dupree, a doctor in his own right. He was a renowned surgeon. He was in Atlanta working alongside the medical staff of Atlanta General with their Emergency Triage Unit. I need to test a theory. She threw her Honda onto a side road for two reasons: Roxanne would pull to the side of the road and let Champion have yet another smoke. He had to have a cigarette about every 20 minutes anyway. Men and their vices, she thought. But more importantly, she wanted to see once and for all, if the bid black Caddy would follow where she led. She knew the area. That was a bonus. She pulled into a neighborhood gas station, made a quick circle back and put on the breaks.

  After Champion filled his lungs and got back into the car he asked: “Did you hear me, Roxanne?” Champion turned down the radio. Their taste in music differed as well, which was no surprise to her. “Where are we? You said we were getting out of the city for a few hours to let the tension die down. It looks more to me that you know exactly where we’re going. Where are you taking me?”

  She suppressed a grin. Champion was no fool after all. She might as well let the cat out of the bag and throw it out of the window and see if it landed on its feet. She was tiring of this man’s company, his vices and his old cologne that he wore anyhow.

  “I spoke to Christopher Prince before sundown. He has business down state not too far from here.” She stole a glance out of the side view mirror and saw the Cadillac still there, though it was maintaining a two car length distance for now. It gave her a moment to measure Champion’s response to her next bit of news. “Dr. Hicks-Dupree is with him. You two have some unfinished business I believe.”

  Champion’s bushy brows rose and he wiped his goatee with the back of his hand. He squirmed in his s
eat as if he’d picked up some red ants when he had got out the last time he smoked. “What’s the matter, Roxanne? I don’t get why you are doing this? I took you to Erica Loving’s body like I said that I would.” He looked out the passenger side window in concentration, a wrinkle forming in his forehead as he worked out what he would say…or do next. “You don’t believe that someone in the Choir Boys killed her do you?”

  The Cadillac fell back to three car lengths behind now…teasing her. She didn’t have long now before the attack came. “Maybe one of them did kill her, Champion. The murder was an act of rage, an act of contempt.” She said and gripped the steering wheel tightly with her left hand placing her free hand on her Nine with the other. She faced danger both in and outside of this Honda. She prepared to defend herself against which ever snake struck first. “What I am saying is that the timing of everything that went down was far too convenient for my taste. I told you this back at Carver. I’m telling you this again tonight.”

  Champion was distracted by the Honda gaining speed. He bit his fingernails. “And you don’t believe in conveniences?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “And I guess you don’t believe what I told you about what happened to me or my wife either?”

  “I believe what happened to your wife clouds your