Everyone Was Left Behind

by Steve Armstrong

  The two became silent, though they continued to stare at one another.

  “I’ve always believed in God. It was the one constant in my life. High school, college, I’ve always thought of myself first and foremost as a follower of Christ. If I’m not that anymore, what am I?” Her even, placid tone juxtaposed the crucial life question she posed.

  “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  He had already asked this question, but her previous answer proved unsatisfactory.

  “Because if I told these things to anyone else in my life, they’d tell me I was wrong and that I should just believe. I didn’t want that; I just wanted someone to listen to me. And I thought you would.”

  “Did you ever try to tell these things to your husband?”

  “I did try. Graham was never the contemplative type, even before the vision. He was more the type to try to push through, regardless of his feelings.”

  “You know, for what it’s worth, we have no evidence that your husband had an affair with Natasha Gregorson. She insists that nothing happened between them. Of course, she might be lying and I can’t guarantee that he didn’t want to have an affair, but it’s possible he only counseled her.”

  Seitzer thought the uncertainty of her husband’s betrayal might offer some comfort to the widow. The detective still struggled to believe nothing amorous had transpired between the two, given the emotional context of their meetings and the intimate hours they spent together.

  Her expression didn’t budge an inch. “Whether he did or he didn’t, I’m not sure it means anything at this point.”

  The energy in Elizabeth Wilcox’s voice dipped lower. Seitzer glanced at his watch—2:30 am. Feeling good about life at such a bleak hour, after her home had been broken into a mere week after her husband was murdered, would have proved difficult for anyone.

  “You sound tired,” Seitzer said, his voice low. “You should go to sleep.”

  “Probably,” she replied, without moving. “Thanks for listening. And thanks for staying.”

  “No problem.”

  Elizabeth Wilcox methodically lifted herself off of the couch. Seitzer watched her tiptoe upstairs, where everyone seemed to be asleep. The detective hoped she could find the same sense of rest. After she left, Seitzer moved into the playroom. He pushed a chair across the floor in front of the cellar door and then laid down on the couch on the other side of the room. Between the obstruction in front of the tunnel and blockade in front of the door, Seitzer would have plenty of warning should the intruder reprise his visit and attempt to come upstairs.

  Thoughts about the case kept Seitzer up for a while longer. In the back of his mind, he waited for a call from Tom Pawlaski alerting him to Ray Browning’s return. Perhaps Browning had been the one lurking in the cellar, which would explain why his landlord hadn’t contacted the detective yet. After further considering Jason Watkins’ whereabouts and their failure to track him down, Seitzer managed to fall asleep. The couch offered just enough comfort to allow a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. He awoke at least once during the night to a very quiet house. The next time his eyes opened, morning had broken the night and Elizabeth Wilcox was standing on the threshold between the kitchen and playroom.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  Seitzer sat up and blinked at her, adjusting to the new day. He stole a glance at a nearby clock and saw it was just past six.

  “Sorry, I know it’s early. You tend to wake up earlier when you have kids.”

  “That’s alright. I should be going anyway.” He peered into the kitchen beyond her and saw a full coffeemaker. “And I’ll take that coffee.”

  She stepped over to the pot and poured some into a mug. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Little bit of cream and a bit of sugar will be fine.” Elizabeth made the coffee to Seitzer’s specification. While she did, the detective moved the barricade away from the cellar door. Once he finished, she handed him the coffee.

  “Thanks again for staying. Although my dad would be upset with me if he knew I talked to you; he thinks I shouldn’t say anything unless I have a lawyer present because you’ll use anything I say as a motive for killing Graham.”

  Seitzer took a sip of the steaming liquid. “Don’t worry; you didn’t say anything incriminating to me last night.”

  “Be that as it may, you can go back to suspecting me if you want,” Wilcox said, taking a drink of her own coffee.

  “Who’s to say I ever stopped?” Seitzer gave her a measured smile. “If your dad feels up to it, he might want to board off that door downstairs in the cellar. If he can’t, let me know and I’ll try to get it done for you tonight.”

  “Thank you, Detective.”

  Seitzer left her so he could resume the investigation. If Elizabeth should have abstained from talking to him, he might have been wise not to talk to her, either. Becoming emotionally proximate to her could cloud his objectivity. But he knew he’d be able to pass judgment on her if he needed to. After all, he had accepted the sins of a woman he spent nearly ten years of marriage with—he could do the same for Elizabeth Wilcox, even if she did exert a certain pull on his heart.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Charity sat downstairs at the kitchen table, soaking in the early morning light. She heard her mom’s footsteps on the stairs and waited for the reaction. She didn’t need to wait long.

  “Were you in your sister’s room this morning?” Glenda Price asked once she entered the kitchen.

  Though her mother didn’t specify, Charity knew which sister she was talking about. She nodded in reply.

  “Please don’t leave that door open, dear.”

  Charity did not respond. She chose this passive aggressive tactic because she couldn’t quite sustain open defiance. The young girl didn’t know what Hope’s strategy of leaving Faith’s door open would accomplish, but she was willing to try it. Either her mom didn’t notice Charity’s lack of verbal compliance or she chose to assume her youngest daughter would toe the line like usual because Glenda shifted the conversation.

  “Did your sister leave yet?”

  “Yes, last night.”

  Charity scrutinized her mom’s reaction to this news. Unfortunately, Glenda Price was more disturbed by the door to her deceased daughter’s room being left open than she was by the absence of her middle child. If anything, her mom seemed relieved by Hope’s departure.

  Her dad emerged from his study into the kitchen. He stared down at his phone while he walked over to the refrigerator.

  “This is strange. I’ve been trying to reach Jason for the entire week to discuss worship this Sunday and he hasn’t gotten back to me.” He frowned at the phone. “I must have called or texted him five times and haven’t heard anything from him.”

  “Did you ask Amanda? Sometimes the two of them work out the music ahead of time,” Glenda said.

  “Amanda hasn’t heard from him, either.”

  “Did you try Theresa? Maybe he lost or broke his phone.”

  “She hasn’t answered, either. I’m starting to get a little concerned.”

  Under normal circumstances, Charity would have been angered by her parents being more concerned over the worship leader’s lack of communication than they were over sending their daughter away. But she knew things about Jason Watkins and where he might be—things she did not volunteer to her parents.

  “You know, he walked out of last Sunday’s rehearsal, he wasn’t at the funeral, and now he doesn’t return our phone calls,” her dad said.

  “What are you going to do about music this Sunday?” Glenda asked.

  “I don’t know. We don’t exactly have a backup, besides what we did at last Sunday—using just Amanda and Charity.”

  “You could ask Hope to come back and play.” Charity’s voice wobbled as she spoke. Glenda ceased washing dishes and Gary Price stared at his youngest daughter. Though at face value her words seemed innocuous, the suggestion was tantamount to rebellion.

  “We’ve been
over this before, Charity. I know how talented a musician your sister is, but it’s just not appropriate for her to play until she’s restored to our fellowship.”

  “But you heard her, Mom; she’s a Christian.”

  “No dear, she calls herself a Christian. If she really was a Christian, she wouldn’t have done what she did.”

  Charity felt a surge of boldness. “That was two years ago, Mom! How can you hold that against her?”

  “I’m sorry, Charity, but some things you just can’t unsee.”

  Now that Charity had begun this argument, she found a surprising resolve to keep fighting. “Is that how this works? One strike and you’re out? Because I thought we were supposed to forgive.”

  “That’s enough, young lady!” Her dad entered the verbal fray with his commanding voice. “You’ll respect your mother! Hope is not fit to lead worship at our church, period.”

  “If Hope isn’t fit to lead worship, then neither am I! Because she’s a better person than I am.”

  Glenda looked shocked. “What are you talking about, Charity? You haven’t done anything like your sister has.”

  “Maybe what I did was worse, Mom.” Charity’s anger began to morph into guilt.

  After she uttered those last words, she fled the room and up the stairs, closing her bedroom door behind her. Her mom gave chase, and for a few moments, knocked on Charity’s door and demanded to be allowed in. Charity placed a pillow over her head, bracing herself for her mom to use a key to unlock her door. But for reasons unknown, Glenda Price retreated, leaving the young girl to struggle with her shame alone.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Did you call me last night?” Harrison asked, who had just joined Seitzer at the station.

  “Yeah, I did.” Seitzer was finishing a report about the previous night and completed his current sentence before he looked up at his partner. “You missed all the fun.”

  “What happened?”

  “Someone was in Elizabeth Wilcox’s basement. I went over there with Glass and Kelly, but the intruder got away through the woods.”

  “Any idea who it was?”

  “Well, Ray Browning is still AWOL. I called his landlord this morning, who told me Browning never came back last night. Now, Browning could have come back and left early and Pawlaski could have slept through that—like you slept through my phone call last night. Of course, Jason Watkins is still AWOL too. Or it could have been someone else.”

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve been there,” Harrison said, looking guilty.

  Seitzer continued working on the report. “Don’t worry about it. Having you there wouldn’t have changed things too much.”

  Harrison still seemed bothered. “So what do we do now?”

  “We’ve got to locate Browning and Watkins. I have everyone we have available out on patrol and if they see either one of them, we’ll bring them into custody.”

  Harrison sat in a chair next to his partner. “Isn’t it weird that we can’t find either one of them?”

  Seitzer stopped typing. “I’m not really surprised that we can’t find Browning. As someone who was homeless, he’s probably used to living off the grid. Plus, he’s paranoid, and if he thinks someone’s after him, his first instinct would be to disappear. Now, Watkins … I’m not sure why we haven’t been able to track him down. And it’s weird that we can’t find our two principal suspects who have no connection to one another. So, yes, I do find the situation strange.”

  “Are we going to spend the day trying to find them, too?”

  “Nope. We will be visiting Stevenson Industries again and see if we can get some more info on Browning and maybe get ahold of his interview.”

  For the second time in a week, Seitzer and Harrison passed through the pharmaceutical company’s modern and ornate headquarters. The security guard at the front desk forced them to endure the same rigmarole. After a call to Research Division B and several minutes of receiving suspicious stares, Harrison and Seitzer were finally ushered to the basement so they could meet with Jack Walton.

  “Detectives, I’m surprised to see you again. I thought we had provided all the information you needed during your last visit,” Walton said, dispensing with the usual pleasantries.

  “New information has come to light. Our investigation has begun to focus on an individual named Ray Browning, who we understand is also associated with your department.”

  Walton frowned. “How did you become aware of that?”

  “Phone records.” Seitzer lied. “Did he come into contact with Graham Wilcox while they were here?”

  “No. I don’t believe so,” Walton said, possibly telling a lie of his own. “We didn’t see any connection between the two and all subjects here are handled individually.”

  “Do you have any logbooks we could check to verify what time they were here?” Harrison asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Walton said. “We often purge unnecessary records so we don’t accumulate much data. It keeps things neater around here, electronically speaking.”

  “Do you have any video of your conversation with Ray Browning?” Seitzer asked.

  Jack Walton shook his head. “Once again, I’m afraid we deleted any files associated with Mr. Browning.”

  Seitzer stared down the balding spokesperson. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes, positive. I deleted them myself earlier today.”

  “You do realize I can get a warrant to search your files, right? And we can probably recover deleted files.”

  “You’re most certainly welcome to try, though I can assure you our lawyers will make that process as difficult as possible for you.” Jack Walton pronounced these words with an annoying sense of entitlement. Even he seemed to find his words too arrogant because he quickly amended them. “Not because we have anything to hide, of course, but because we will do everything we can to keep the work that goes on in our company private.”

  Though Walton talked tough, he failed to intimidate Seitzer. Essentially, the department head was bluffing. If served with a warrant, Stevenson Industries would be forced to comply.

  “I think I’ll take you up on that offer,” Seitzer said. “Can you at least tell me why Ray Browning was here and what you learned about him?”

  “Ray Browning believed he was possessed by demons who gave him supernatural abilities, but he turned out to be your garden variety schizophrenic. Nothing about him interested us.”

  “It’s quite a coincidence that two people of interest in our investigation were both subjects of your research, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I suppose it is. But whatever happened to Graham Wilcox has nothing to do with Stevenson Industries.”

  “Are you sure? Because a man who believes he can detect and cast out demons and a man who believes he is possessed by a demon seems like a pretty volatile mixture. And I can’t find any connection between them before they came here.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Detective, except that maybe you should look a little harder. Now if there are no further questions, I’m quite busy today.”

  “I have one more,” Harrison said. “What kind of supernatural abilities did Ray Browning claim to have?”

  Seitzer flashed his partner a semi-derisive look before he determined it might have been a good question to ask after all.

  “Mr. Browning claimed he was capable of what he considered supernatural strength and the ability to know things he had no natural capacity to know.”

  “Like where a lost object was?”

  Walton’s gaze toward the detective mixed with curiosity. “Actually, yes. He did say that he often knew where people had misplaced objects.” The department head reverted back to his defiant tone. “But all of his claims were unfounded, the product of a diminished sense of perception. Now, is that all?”

  Since Walton seemed loathe to cooperate further unless compelled to do so by the courts, Seitzer gave him a halfhearted word of thanks and dismissed themselves. They did not see Felicia
Monroe on their way out this time, but Seitzer found himself thinking about the reporter nonetheless.

  “I’m such an idiot!” he said after leaving Stevenson Industries.

  Harrison looked at him questioningly. “Why?”

  “Because this was all Felicia Monroe’s doing. Last night, I told her we’d be checking out Research Division B again.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “Truthfully? I was concerned for her wellbeing. There’s something I don’t trust about all of this and I was afraid they’d figure out she had given us the tip.”

  “So you think she tipped off her uncle?”

  “Maybe. It’s a pretty big coincidence that they deleted all of Ray Browning’s records just before we showed up.”

  “You’re assuming Walton was telling you the truth. He might have just told you that in hopes you’d believe him and wouldn’t come back with a warrant.”

  “That’s possible. But that seems like a big risk to take since I could charge him with obstruction if he lied to me.”

  “Maybe he really does believe he’s untouchable because all of the resources he has behind him. Or, maybe there’s something he doesn’t want us to see.”

  “That just makes me want to see it more.” Seitzer and Harrison reached their car. “You know, I was kidding when I said you were contractually obligated to believe in the supernatural, right?”

  Harrison got into the car. “Well, I figured you were probably kidding. But I was interested in what Browning thought he was able to do. I’m not saying I think it’s true, but I at least wanted to know. But doesn’t it make you a little curious—both Oakley and Pawlaski claimed Browning knew where lost objects were hidden?”

  “I’m going to need a little more evidence than one story of a watch turning up in a jacket pocket to believe that.”

  “Fair enough. But it is a strange line of convergence.” Seitzer chose not to react to Harrison’s observation though the elder detective was indeed curious.

  Back at the station, Seitzer attempted to persuade Justin Lansky of the merits of serving a warrant to Stevenson Industries. Lansky seemed unconvinced.