by Becky Durfee
Darlene shook his hand and quietly nodded, although her attention remained fixed on the uniformed men who were venturing out on the water. Jenny hoped if anything was to happen, it would happen quickly. This wait must have been agonizing for Darlene.
The officers paddled out with Rod guiding them via cell phone. Once they reached the area that Rod had told them to look, they began gently dredging the lakebed with their oars. Darlene turned away.
Her baby may have been under there.
In an attempt to get Darlene’s mind off the search, Jenny began asking her questions. “Brian said he was with Aaron all day that day, right? The day Patricia went missing?” Jenny already knew the answer to that question, but it was as good of a place to start as any.
“Yes, that’s what he says.”
“Did anybody see them? I mean, were they out and about?”
Relaxing a little, Darlene nodded. “And they had receipts to prove it.”
Jenny heard a commotion coming from the pond, although she couldn’t make out what was being said. Soon after, the officers started paddling back toward the nervous crowd, a five-minute trek that seemed to take an eternity.
Once the canoe hit the weed-riddled shore, one of the policemen said, “There’s definitely something out there.”
Jenny wrapped her arm around Darlene, pulling her in tightly for support.
“We’ll have to get a dive team out here,” the officer continued, “but we don’t have a dive team. We’ll have to call around to some other jurisdictions to see if we can use some of their resources.”
Only half an answer, Jenny thought. This was going to be a very long day for Darlene.
Swatting away the bugs, Jenny asked if Darlene wanted to go back and wait in the car. She agreed, and the women headed back up the bank toward the desolate side street on which they’d parked. Once inside the car, Darlene stoically announced, “I want to call my daughter.”
From the passenger seat of Jenny’s car, Darlene dialed her phone. “Hi, Chris, it’s Darlene. I’m wondering if Kathy is around…Thanks…Hey, Kath, it’s mom. Listen, there’ve been some developments in your sister’s case. They may have found…her body.” Darlene’s voice became shaky as she added the words. “At the bottom of this little pond.”
Jenny patted Darlene’s shoulder as Darlene covered her face.
“It turns out there’s a chance Aaron may have done this…I know, I didn’t believe it either, but so far everything’s been pointing in that direction…Do you happen to know if Patricia and Aaron were having any problems?”
Jenny waited nervously as Kathy delivered her long response.
“Okay,” Darlene continued, giving no indication of what Kathy had just said. “Do you have any idea about what was going on with Brian when your sister disappeared?”
Another long silence.
Darlene continued the conversation by explaining that they were waiting for a dive team, assuring she’d call Kathy back as soon as she heard anything. After that Darlene hung up the phone.
“She lives out in Colorado,” Darlene explained. “She must feel so helpless out there.”
“I’m sure she does,” Jenny replied. “So did she know anything about Aaron or Brian?”
“She didn’t know anything about Aaron, but she knew Brian was giving them trouble. He was desperate to avoid school, claiming that he didn’t fit in.” Darlene looked at Jenny. “But don’t all teenagers feel that way?”
“I know I did,” Jenny confessed.
“Exactly. So I don’t know if it was just typical teenage angst or if something bigger was going on. Teenagers can be cryptic when you try to talk to them, so ‘I don’t fit in’ may have just been a code for something else…you know, an answer just to get his parents off his back.”
“You don’t suppose it was drugs or alcohol, do you?”
Darlene shrugged. “I wouldn’t think so, but I also believed Aaron to be a good guy, so what do I know?”
Jenny scratched her head and softened her tone. “So what happened on the day that Brian killed Aaron?”
Placing her elbow on the window sill, Darlene replied, “Only two people know the answer to that question. One is dead and the other’s not talking.”
“He isn’t talking to you, either?”
Darlene flashed Jenny a strange look.
“I tried to talk to him yesterday,” Jenny explained. “I went to visit him at Benning, letting him know that I was aware of Aaron’s abuse. I told him I was there to help him, and he told me not to bother; he almost seemed like he’d rather just spend the rest of his life in jail instead of telling me what’s going on.”
“I got something similar from him when I tried to talk to him a few days ago. He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing at his father’s house that day or what happened once he got there. He just seemed resolved to be found guilty. I couldn’t understand it.”
Darlene went on. “I tried telling the people who worked at the prison that Brian needed antidepressants—that he’s lost his desire to fight. They assured me that was normal for a man facing the charges he was facing.” Darlene shook her head. “Honestly, I think he’s needed antidepressants for the past decade. I can’t help but feel like that was his problem, even before Patricia disappeared. Maybe if he had just gotten treatment, things between Aaron and Brian never would have gone this far, and he wouldn’t even be in that jail cell.” The look on Darlene’s face broke Jenny’s heart. “I mean, imagine being depressed already and having your mother disappear when you’re fifteen years old. That would be enough to put anyone over the edge, let alone someone who was struggling already.”
“Didn’t Aaron get any help for Brian after Patricia disappeared?”
“Not that I know of, but like I said, they became strangers after that. He may have and I just didn’t know about it. But I think the outcome would have been different if he had gotten help, so if I had to guess I would say no.”
Jenny tapped her pointer fingers together in front of her mouth, deep in thought. “What about friends? Do you think Brian may have disclosed his problems to any of his friends? I know teenagers often talk to their peers before they go to adults.”
“He always had a best friend Derrick growing up,” Darlene said. “But he stopped hanging out with Derrick after middle school. That was when I knew things were getting really bad.”
“Do you know Derrick’s last name?”
Darlene closed her eyes and exhaled as she thought. “I do know it; just give me a minute.” After a pause she declared, “Stratton. That was it. Derrick Stratton.”
Jenny texted the name to herself as an awkward silence threatened to ensue. Desperate to keep Darlene talking so she would be distracted from the matter at hand, Jenny turned to her and asked, “Do you know where Patricia’s car was found?”
“I can tell you the exact space she was parked in.”
“Well, since it may be a while before the dive team comes, would you like to visit that parking lot with me? It’s possible that I may get a contact there, and I may get some more insight into what happened.”
“Let’s go,” Darlene said definitively.”I’ll go anywhere that might prove to be helpful.”
“Let me just tell the guys we’re leaving,” Jenny said as she hopped out of the car. After informing the men of her trip, she returned behind the wheel and Darlene directed her where to go. A few minutes later they were at an old gas station parking lot with cracks in the pavement and overgrown weeds surrounding the perimeter. The pumps looked ancient and the building was riddled with graffiti, signaling just how long it had been since this had been a functioning business.
“It’s that space, right there,” Darlene informed her, pointing to a spot far from the building.
Jenny pulled into the space and began to explain. “I’ll need you to be patient with me. I’m going to enter a trance-like state to see if I can get a reading. I have to ask you to stay quiet during that time so I can focus; any distractions
can pull me out of the state I need to be in.”
Darlene silently held up her hands.
Jenny leaned back into the seat of her car, closing her eyes and making herself comfortable. After a few moments she opened up the door, stepped outside and circled the car. She kept her eyes closed as she wandered, oblivious to any obstacles that may have been in her way. Her mind remained free of thought, open to all of the messages Patricia felt inclined to send. After several moments Jenny came back into the car and announced, “Just as I suspected.”
“What?” Darlene asked eagerly.
“I got nothing,” Jenny explained. “And that suggests nothing bad happened here. Usually when I go to a place where a victim had been assaulted, kidnapped, or terrorized in some way I can pick up on their fear, or sometimes even their pain. But there was no indication of anything unpleasant ever taking place here.”
“Did you pick up on any fear or pain at the lake?”
Jenny froze for a moment, realizing she’d inadvertently set herself up for that question. Hanging her head she admitted, “Yeah. I did. I felt fear there.” After giving Darlene a moment to absorb that notion, Jenny continued. “My theory is that she was killed at the pond and then her car was dumped here…you know, made to look like she’d actually been here. But I don’t think she was ever here—at least not on the day she was…” Jenny reconsidered her word choice. “At least not on that day.”
Darlene nodded. “That would make sense. The bloodhounds didn’t pick up on a trail when they came out here. They walked in circles, actually, making the police unsure of whether they had no scent at all or if she had just hopped from one car to another, leaving only a short trail. There was a theory for a while that she had willingly left on her own, running away with someone. I never believed that for a minute, though. She would have never left Brian. And the fact that the driver’s seat was pushed back too far for someone Patricia’s height only proves that, at least in my mind.”
“Did they dust the car for fingerprints?”
“Yes, but the door handle and the steering wheel had been wiped clean, again suggesting that someone else had driven the car here. They did find her fingerprints elsewhere in the car—Aaron’s and Brian’s, too, for that matter—but that wasn’t surprising; it was their car.”
Jenny silently contemplated the information. If Aaron had driven Patricia out to the pond and drowned her, he could have driven the car to the gas station and left it there. But why would he have wiped the prints from his own car? And how would he have gotten home? “Did they have two cars?” Jenny asked. “Patricia and Aaron, I mean.”
“Yes, they did.”
Jenny thought some more. “I think I remember reading that the car was found the day after she went missing. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Darlene confirmed. “That’s right.”
Jenny thought for a moment. “Was the inside of the car wet? Or muddy? I would think if Aaron drowned her and then drove the car here, he would have been dirty from the pond.”
Darlene shook her head. “Nothing looked unusual about the car at all, except for the fact that her purse was on the passenger seat and the keys were still in the ignition.”
Those were things Jenny was going to have to think about.
At that moment Jenny’s phone indicated she had a text. Looking at the screen she noticed Zack had written, A dive team from Chattanooga should be here within the hour.
Jenny turned to Darlene, “It looks like we have an hour or so before the dive team will arrive. There is one other place I’d like to go with you if you don’t mind.”
“Like I said, I’ll go anywhere if there’s a chance it will help Patricia and Brian.”
“I’d like you to show me where Aaron lived…the place where Brian killed him,” Jenny replied. “But this time I’d like to bring my father with us.”
Chapter 9
Jenny, Darlene and Rod stopped in a neighborhood that looked similar to the one she’d visited with her mother earlier. The houses were small and boxy with very little space between them. “That’s the one,” Darlene noted, pointing to a small gray house with a For Sale sign in the front yard. The grass was long and weeds had taken over the flowerbeds.
“Is the house unoccupied?” Jenny asked.
“I believe so,” Darlene replied. “It’s my understanding that Aaron lived alone and his family put the house on the market after he passed away. But that was a while ago. I guess nobody’s bought it.”
Rod chimed in from the back seat. “Patricide is probably not a good selling point for a house.”
Jenny didn’t say a word as she got out of the car and walked through the yard; Rod followed suit. After a few moments Jenny turned to her father and said, “This one might be on you. I’m not getting anything. Since she was never alive here, I’m not sure I’ll get a contact.”
Rod and Jenny returned to Darlene, who stood next to the car. “Darlene, do you happen to have a photograph of Patricia with you?” he posed.
“Of course,” she replied, immediately opening her purse. “I carry one with me everywhere I go, just in case somebody has seen her.” She pulled out a four-by-six picture of a smiling woman who clearly bore a resemblance to her mother. Jenny wondered if their personalities had also been similar.
The notion made her sad.
Rod thanked Darlene as he took the picture and walked back toward the house. Jenny stayed behind with Darlene and whispered, “He has the gift, too, but his is different than mine. He doesn’t get visions, but he picks up on emotions more acutely than I do.”
Jenny studied Rod closely as he worked his magic. She’d never seen him channel a spirit before, and she wasn’t sure just how he did it. He approached the house with Patricia’s picture resting face-up on his palm. He circled his other hand slowly over the picture, widely at first but becoming increasingly narrower until his hand hovered motionlessly above the photo. Without much fanfare, he turned around and walked back to the women.
He handed the picture back to Darlene and said, “She definitely feels anger here. Intense, pointed anger.” Pointing back at the house he added, “Something obviously happened here that made her very upset,” Rod suggested.
“Brian killed his father here,” Darlene noted. “I imagine that would be enough to make anyone upset.”
“But what I feel is more like rage,” Rod explained. “She’s not shocked or saddened; she’s furious.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. “And if we’re theorizing that Brian acted in self-defense, that might imply that Aaron initiated the attack. If I had to guess, I would say that’s what Patricia is angry about.”
Darlene covered her face and released an exhale of frustration. “I just wish I knew what went on that day. I have no idea why Brian isn’t talking. If his father attacked him and he fought back, why won’t he just say so?”
“That’s the million dollar question,” Jenny agreed.
“Darlene, if it makes you feel any better,” Rod began, “I was able to channel some other emotions from Patricia that were more pleasant.”
Darlene uncovered her face to reveal a child-like expression. “You were?”
“Yes, I was.” He looked at her with a kind-hearted smile. “I felt an overwhelming sense of pride and love that I could only assume was directed at Brian.”
Despite her obvious agony, Darlene managed to smile weakly in return. “Oh, I’m sure it was. She loved that boy with all her heart. And rightfully so. He was such a delightful child. I know he found his way into some trouble, but deep down he had a very big heart.”
Rod’s voice remained kind and compassionate. “I get the impression that was a quality he shared with his mother.”
The smile faded from Darlene’s face as she nodded and blinked away tears. “It was. She was such a sweet and loving person. She always did everything she could to make sure that everyone around her was happy.”
“I felt that,” Rod assured her, reaching out his ha
nd and placing it on Darlene’s shoulder. With new-found lightheartedness in his voice he added, “So I know that isn’t just maternal bias talking.”
Darlene managed a little giggle as she wiped her tears.
“Okay, but here’s something,” Jenny said in a professional tone; her thought process had made her oblivious to the sentimentality going on around her. “If Patricia was feeling intense rage, presumably from that horrible day, wouldn’t that imply that there wasn’t premeditation on Brian’s part? Doesn’t that suggest things were heated when the stabbing took place? I would think a premeditated murder would have been more calculated and deliberate…much less emotional.”
“It could be,” Rod surmised. “But either way it isn’t evidence that would hold up in court. We need to find out exactly what happened that day in order to have any chance of clearing Brian’s name.”
Jenny squinted in the sunlight as she looked up at Rod, who stood a good six inches taller than her. “Would it be enough to find evidence that Aaron had been abusive?”
Rod shook his head. “I don’t know. I would be a start, I suppose.” He looked apologetically at Jenny. “But I’m sure the evidence would need to be tangible, not speculative.”
Releasing a frustrated sigh, Jenny hung her head. Raising her eyes to look around, she wondered if Patricia’s spirit lingered imperceptibly nearby. “Tangible evidence,” she repeated, making sure if Patricia was around she could hear the request loud and clear. “We need to get our hands on something indisputable.”
The dive team was already hard at work by the time the trio returned to the pond. Men in SCUBA gear with an underwater camera had filed onto a small boat and were ready to shove off into the murky water. “Great timing,” Zack noted as they approached.
“Has anything exciting happened while we were gone?” Jenny asked.
“Nope. You haven’t missed anything.”
“Thanks for holding down the fort,” Jenny replied.