The Paladin's Message

by Richard Crofton

  “Thank you, Detective Harrison,” Dr. Palmer said. “Anything I can do to help.” She smiled at him as she got up from her chair. Harrison rose as well and escorted her to the door. He couldn’t help but notice her attractive, long legs. Not bad, for a white woman, he thought.

  Chapter II

  “Harrison!” the detective heard his name called by a familiar voice down the corridor of the string of offices in the precinct. He looked down the busy hallway to see his old partner approaching, then immediately checked his watch.

  “Where the hell you been, Gibbons? It’s almost eleven!”

  Dante Gibbons raised his palms toward the ceiling in a manner that expressed he was being falsely reprimanded. “Not like I been at home cookin’ up grits, man. I’m workin’ the case, same as you.” He gave Harrison a look. “Man, you look like shit.”

  Harrison made a face as he opened up a manila folder he had been carrying. “Well I don’t know about you, but I’ve been up since the crack of dawn getting statements.”

  Gibbons stepped to the side of Harrison. “Ok. What’ve you got?” He looked down at the contents of the folder in his partner’s hands.

  “Got a sketch from the profile agent here,” he replied as he pointed to a drawing that matched the description of the mysterious vagabond named Cliff. Gibbons studied it for a moment. “Also talked to some of the eye witnesses. They all say the same thing: the girl left the church Wednesday night, a little while after this guy did. The pastor claimed he saw Megan pull her car over to the side of the road near the church to let him in. Boyfriend says she never came home; not answering his calls. She also didn’t show up to work this morning. According to the manager, she’s never once called in sick all during her employment there.” Gibbons continued to study the paperwork that Harrison was showing. Harrison went on. “I was hoping you’d be here so I could send you out to her place with a team.”

  “Team’s out there now,” Gibbons confirmed.

  “News to me. Have you been there?”

  Gibbons shook his head. “I was with CSI out on 30. We found the girl’s car.”

  “You did?” Harrison did not even attempt to hide his surprise or irritation. “Damn-it Gibbons, you could’ve called me.”

  “I did, man. Several times. Went right to voice mail.”

  “You shitting me?” Harrison pulled his wireless from his clip attached to his buckle. To his amazement, it was off. He couldn’t remember shutting it off or even why. He was married to his job; it was why his actual marriage fell apart after only seven years: he never had his phone turned off. He tried to turn it back on, but nothing happened after he held the power button down for several seconds. “Damn battery must be dead. Charged it all night too.”

  “Maybe your charger has a bad connector,” Gibbons suggested.

  “Yeah. Anyway, what’ve you got?”

  “Not much so far.” Gibbons pulled out a steno notepad. “Her apartment’s being searched, but nothing there’s out of the ordinary. The car’s a mystery though.”

  “How so?”

  “They found traces of the girl. Hair strands here and there against the driver’s seat. Same set of fingerprints all over the wheel; most likely hers. But nothing on this guy. No trace of a second set of prints, no hair, DNA, nothing. If this man was homeless, or as dirty as these witnesses say, we should’ve found something. He was out in the rain before she picked him up right?”

  “That’s what the pastor said.”

  “Then he would’ve tracked mud in the car… a footprint on the carpet or something, but the interior was as clean as my mama’s house when she’s expectin’ company. And all doors were shut and locked. No sign of struggle. You’d think if this guy abducted her, he would’ve pulled her from the car. Interesting that he took the time to shut the doors and engage the locks. And the only prints on the “Lock” button were the same as the ones on the wheel.”

  “Maybe he had a gun and told her to get out, shut the doors, and engage the lock herself.”

  “Could be. Still, it just don’t make sense.

  Harrison considered the situation for a moment. “Did CSI find a phone in the car?”

  “No, but they’re searching the vicinity.”

  “If they find it,” Harrison thought aloud, “and if it hasn’t been damaged by the rain, we can use that to get some info; see who she’s talked to, and when. See if she tried to make contact with anyone since that night.”

  “If they don’t find it,” Gibbons added, “we can search her apartment for a phone bill and get the carrier to disclose any recent calls: incoming and outgoing. And it might mean she still has it. If it’s got a GPS…”

  “Maybe,” Harrison nodded, “not holding my breath. We may have better luck asking around. We need to compile a list of everyone the girl associates with; see if anyone’s seen her, or if she somehow contacted them.” He sighed. “Gonna be a long day.”

  “Like old times, partner.”

  “Yeah,” Harrison agreed. “Old times.”

  “So who do we have left to talk to from this Bible Study that she was last seen at?” Gibbons inquired.

  Harrison handed him the list. Several names had been crossed off, but a few names with accompanying numbers remained. “Since I already questioned the others on my own, maybe you can handle the rest. Here’s the information I got from the witnesses. Make sure the rest of their stories match up.”

  “Sure man,” Gibbons complied, taking the paperwork from his old, new partner. “You want me to call the media too? Get this thing public?”

  Harrison looked down at another sheet of information in the manila folder he was still holding onto. “Not yet. First I’ve gotta call the girl’s father.”

  Chapter III

  Megan was sitting upon a dirt floor; her back leaning against a thick, hard, wooden door; one of two within this strange room. She was exhausted; her hands splintered, sore, and bloody, and her voice was burning with rawness from screaming for help for hours. She had awoken from a drugged sleep, with a splitting headache, on a dusty mattress that lay near one of the four corners of the room. There was a dim glow from a single light bulb that hung from the rafters of an unfinished ceiling above her, consisting of rickety, wooden beams. It lacked enough light to enhance her vision adequately, but she could make out her surroundings minimally. The only other item she had found was a tin pail halfway filled with dirt, which she had used to relieve herself when nature called for it.

  She had no idea how long she’d been here. But she had been awake for too many hours to count. It seemed like more than a day’s worth, but she couldn’t be sure because her watch was gone. However, she determined that she must have been here for some time because she was starving, and dreadfully thirsty.

  There were no windows in the room, so she couldn’t even tell if it was currently day or night. All she knew was that she was in a frightful place with walls of dark stone, a floor of dry dirt, and the unfinished ceiling. It was exceptionally cool in the room, and her cries for help produced no echo. Since she had been awake, and after she had allowed for her eyesight to adjust, she had been pounding on both heavy doors with her fists, slamming against them with her weight, and screaming consistently.

  Against the door on which she now leaned, there was a stainless steel handle that was plated to the thick wood, like something one might find on a deep freezer door in the back room of a meat storage facility. The bolted hinges revealed that, if it could open, it would do so inward. The other door, on the opposite side, was just as massive and sturdy. It had no knob with which to turn; only a metal plate where the knob should have been. The hinges being hidden on this side of the door suggested that it would open outward, if she could have gotten it to open. It never even gave the slightest budge when she pushed upon it, for there were thirteen steel bolt locks set in place along the edge; seven above the metal plate, and six below.

  Even if she had the skill to pick a lock, and she had no items on her person to
make the attempt, she doubted she would find success with all thirteen. A rather excessive number of locks; whoever installed that door certainly wanted to keep the contents behind it hidden. She therefore deduced, after her head was less groggy from the anesthetic, that the wooden door on the other side, the one with the handle, was the way out.

  Now however, resting against the door that kept her imprisoned was all she could do. Her screams did not carry in the slightest; it was like trying to scream with her head buried in sand. And the brutal beating she inflicted upon the doors with her fists had only left her with splinters, scrapes, and bruises. With nothing left to do, she managed to crawl back to the mattress, and with a hoarse voice she wept until she could weep no more, and eventually drifted into an uncomfortable sleep filled with nightmares.

  ****

  She did not sleep for long. Aside from the vivid dreams and the constant tossing and turning on the uncomfortable mattress, which did not lack a terrible scent of mildew, the excruciating hunger pains lingered in her stomach with no reprieve. She opened her eyes, and just lay facing up toward the dim light bulb.

  Many, silent minutes passed. She tried to recollect what had happened; how she wound up here, but before she could piece anything together, she suddenly heard the booming sound of a closing door not too far off from where she was imprisoned. She crawled to the door on the other end of the room and placed her ear against it.

  Footsteps. Someone from outside was shuffling along what must have been more dirt, and the fearful sound drew closer. Megan got to her feet and backed up. If the person on the other side meant to open her door from the outside, she would charge full speed in hopes of ramming into and knocking her captor off balance, then fleeing for her life in whatever direction she could. In seconds, she heard the unlatching and the turning of the handle from the other side of the heavy door in front of her. She kicked off her sandals, braced herself in a runner’s stance, and as soon as the door flung open, she pushed off toward the threshold, lowering her shoulder to brace for impact against whoever was keeping her.

  She slammed hard against the figure in the doorway, but he was a large and solid man. In spite of his stance slightly giving from the collision, Megan practically bounced backward off his massive chest, landing on her rear-end in the dirt. Her neck suffered from minor whiplash, her shoulder that connected was in pain, and she was momentarily seeing stars. She was not a large woman by any means, but she wasn’t frail. In fact, she had kept in shape from frequent morning runs, a healthy habit she had developed since her days as a track star in high school. She at least had confidence in her leg power; to have had little effect on the man blocking her path in the doorway came as a surprise to her.

  She tried to clear her blurred vision in order to identify the hulking figure who towered over her while she sat, rubbing her wounded shoulder. When he spoke, she didn’t need to see; she recognized the voice immediately:

  “That was effective.”

  Megan’s unfocused eyes widened. “Sonny?” she called in a dry, raspy voice.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” her boyfriend said tauntingly. “You made me drop this cup of refreshing water I’ve brought you. I guess you’ll have to wait until I find the time to bring you more.”

  Her memory came back immediately. She recalled her last conscious moments before she had awoken in this dark room of dirt, wood, and stone. The moment the love of her life injected her with a needle, holding a malicious grin, the likes she had never seen on him before. “Sonny, what’s going on?”

  “Lucky for you,” he went on, ignoring her question, “I didn’t drop your food.” He extended his hand toward her, which was holding what appeared to be a sandwich. She did not reach up and take it; she only eyed him suspiciously. Sonny grunted a laugh, took a bite out of the sandwich himself, then tossed it onto the floor in front of her. “Peanut butter and jelly,” he informed her. Then he walked past her, toward the far side of the room.

  Megan’s eyes followed him, and she could see that he was retrieving her toilet pail. He picked it up and examined the contents with curiosity. “Not much in here,” he noted. “I suppose the term ‘scared shitless’ really does apply, doesn’t it?” He laughed, amused with himself.

  Megan wasted no more time. She never took Sonny for an idiot, but by going to the pail, he was no longer standing between her and the now open door. With as much strength as her wobbly legs could muster, she sprang to her feet and darted out the doorway. She had a moment to observe that she was now in a dark, narrow corridor. There was just enough lighting to reveal, not ten feet away at the other end, wooden steps that went up into absolute darkness.

  That was her direction then, but she bolted only a few more steps before she felt a firm and forceful yank on her long, straight hair. Her feet kept their momentum forward as she was pulled back, and she lost her footing completely. Like a cavewoman, she was being dragged back toward the prison room. Megan screamed defiantly, ignoring the rawness in her parched and overused vocal cords, and struggled with all her might. But Sonny, the most physically adept man she had ever laid eyes on, held her and pulled her back with ease. Once he forced her backwards through the threshold of her new quarters, he lifted her off her feet and tossed her like a ragdoll into the air.

  Megan landed hard on the old, mildew-scented mattress. There was little padding, and almost no fluff to the old bed piece; more shocks of pain ran up her right shoulder, as it took the brunt of the impact. She cried out in pain, but she immediately got back to her feet. Before she could even begin a second escape attempt, Sonny was standing in front of her, laughing in her face, and with one hand pushed her back down onto the mattress.

  With all the confusion entwined in her mind, the only thing she could presently ponder was how Sonny was fast enough to catch her when she ran. True, he was incredibly strong; she didn’t doubt he could snap her in half if he wanted, but she had a decent lead on him, and she was an experienced runner. Somehow, against all logic and knowledge of time and space, he caught up to her in the blink of an eye, as if the man she just recently considered to be her own Superman was truly faster than a speeding bullet.

  “I was hoping you’d try something like that,” Sonny scoffed condescendingly. “Makes my job more fun.”

  Unable to come up with any reasonable explanation for his demonstration of uncanny quickness, her mind moved on to yet another point of perplexity. “Why, Sonny?” she panted. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because.” He smiled sinisterly back at her as he picked up the toilet pail he had evidently set down before chasing her moments before.

  Megan brought her hands to her temples in order to support her aching head. “Please… just tell me what’s going on. I don’t understand what’s happening!”

  Sonny squatted down to her level on the mattress and leaned in close to her. “Do you really think it would comfort you to have answers?”

  “Yes!” she shouted back in a broken, sobbing voice.

  His smile grew wider, more maniacal. “That’s why I’m not going to tell you,” he answered in a sing-song voice. He broke into more terrible laughter. “I like seeing you this way. So many things just not going your way, babe. Your world has just taken a serious one-eighty: you have no idea where you are, how long you’ve been here, what’s going on… all the horrible things happening to you right now are because of me, the man you were so deeply in love with, and most of all you have absolutely no idea why. I’m sure it’s completely breaking you apart, but if it’s any consolation to you, I’m sure getting off on it.”

  Megan began to bawl in front of her not-so-Superman, unable to think of anything to say. He simply sat and watched, as if entertained by a well-reviewed film. Finally, she managed thoughts aloud: “All that time together… all those intimate moments… everything you’ve said to me. You were so kind and gentle. You were everything to me.” She broke down again into louder sobs.

  “Yeah,” Sonny acknowledged, chuckling ag
ain in complete polar contradiction to her cries, “I guess I got you pretty good. Fooled ya!”

  “It meant nothing?” she nearly spat at him, though she had no spit to fire. “None of it? All these months together was a lie!”

  Sonny stood up. “All the world’s a stage, babe. I had a role to play. Pretty impressed with myself if you don’t mind my saying.”

  “Then what was I to you all that time?”

  With toilet pail in hand, he turned and started heading for the open door. “Just an assignment,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Megan could produce no sound in response to him. Her stunned silence was only broken by the ominous sound of the heavy, wooden door closing behind him as he left, leaving her to dwell alone for another unknown period of solitude.

  Chapter IV

  Friday evening arrived quickly, as if the day had skipped a few hours, and Detective Miles Harrison was feeling the pressure of time press against his temples. He and Gibbons had collected what information they could; cross-referencing the statements of the witnesses, as well as checking backgrounds. Gibbons even concocted a listing of Megan Panco’s known acquaintances and associates, but it was a rather short one compared to most missing persons these days. Though they searched the internet meticulously, they had found no evidence of Megan having an account with any social media networks. Harrison found this peculiar; almost everyone of that generation at least had a Facebook page. As well as other generations. Hell, his ex-wife was practically addicted to virtual communication.

  Nevertheless, they had done well gathering as much as they could, but Harrison felt no closer to finding any leads on the girl’s whereabouts. He knew that the longer it took to find her, the less likely they would do so, or the less likely they would find her alive.