Fear Has a Name: A Novel (The Crittendon Files)

by Creston Mapes

  Pamela could not conceive carrying a child in the womb all those months, then giving birth and loathing that precious life.

  That’s your baby.

  For a split second, she wondered whether it was pity chewing at her stomach.

  One kid from the neighborhood, Tony Givens, said Granger was actually forced to live in the woods, anywhere from a few hours to several days at a time, to serve as punishment for his trespasses. Pamela always dismissed such nonsense without giving it a second thought, because Tony was a bully and a jerk.

  For the first time since her youth, Pamela recalled a cold, sopping wet morning when she was riding the bus to school. She could practically smell the damp Ohio air. Boys were teasing Granger. Crowding around him. Pointing. Jabbing at his ear. Laughing and yelling that he had ticks or lice or some such nonsense. Poor Granger. There he sat, scrunched against the dew-covered bus window, cowering behind his black trombone case.

  Back then she was certain none of those things were true. Certain. Because, when she was a kid—when anyone was a kid—nothing could be that awful, could it? That backward? That sick?

  He was just a shy kid, she figured, like all the other shy kids.

  Now she wondered, what had Granger Meade been through?

  Interestingly, when he did finally speak up, Granger said things that either made uncanny sense or that came across so dryly humorous that Pamela laughed and laughed. When that happened, his head would tilt up and he would smirk, flare his nostrils and kind of look around at everyone else on the bus, proud that he had made Pamela Wagner laugh so hard.

  When she saw Granger in the hallways at school, Pamela said hello and occasionally chatted with him. As he’d said in his note, she may have even walked with him to class. She didn’t remember that, specifically, but what she did recall was that whenever they were together, Granger was on his toes, quick to notice her needs, alert to open a door, always watching out for her. He’d liked her. Pamela knew that. And now that she reflected on it, she may have even sensed that he had a crush on her. But, as did most such things, it simply went unspoken.

  “Hello, hello.” A tall brunette woman swept into the church classroom like a whirlwind, dragging a garbage can on wheels, waving a rubber-glove-covered hand to her long nose. “Whew-whee!” she cackled. “Smells like we had some real party poopers in here today. Don’t mind me.” She stepped on the pedal of a white plastic trash can to pop up the lid, snatched the bag, and replaced it with a new one in a blur. “There, all clean for service tonight. Have a good day, everyone.”

  She was gone.

  “I’ll just be another second.” Jack held up an index finger. “Gonna try Potanski.”

  Pamela didn’t want to leave that hard plastic chair. Cars maneuvered in the parking lot beyond the window, people talked and laughed in the hallway. She was safe where she was and didn’t want to move.

  The time Granger mentioned in the letter—when Pamela had spoken up for him—came creeping back. It had been one of their high school’s last home football games of the season. Pamela was bundled up and on her way to meet several friends somewhere between the bleachers and the concession stand. It was a frigid Ohio night. People were layered in sweatshirts, heavy winter parkas, wool scarves, and winter hats and nestled close together in the packed slant of stands. Their warm breaths hit the cold night air and rose like chimney smoke in the white glow of the stadium lights.

  Pamela walked fast to stay warm along the black-cinder running track that encircled the football field, past the shivering, smiling, pom-poming cheerleaders, past the school’s large-headed patriot mascot (who was really classmate Ricky Bogan). With the smell of winter and cigarettes and hot dogs swirling in the wind off Lake Erie, the announcer’s voice echoed as he reported the plays.

  In the darkest stretch of the walk, beyond the glare of the stadium lights and well before the lines for hot cocoa at the concession stand, where hooligans huddled to sneak swigs of booze and cupped their hands around flickering lighters and joints—she saw Granger Meade. He was down a slope, away from everyone, swaying oddly against the tall chain-link fence, wearing his navy band uniform, boxed in by three dark figures.

  Pamela slowed. Her heart quickened.

  With a playful, sweeping uppercut, the one on the left sent Granger’s white band hat flipping into the air. He did not pick it up. The one in the middle shoved him, and again he wobbled against the sagging fence.

  “Granger!” she shouted, realizing as she headed toward him that it did no good to yell from that distance.

  She set her resolve and hurried her pace.

  They wouldn’t hurt a girl.

  She just hoped they had no weapons and weren’t too drunk.

  The three young men harassing Granger didn’t look familiar until she drew within ten feet of their little party. The one that had knocked his hat off was the infamous Blake Devonshire, who had either dropped out or been expelled soon after the school year began. Pamela did not know the whole story, only that Blake had been accused of flushing another student’s head in one of the school toilets.

  Great.

  She didn’t want to tangle with him or his sidekicks.

  The other two boys wore baggy low-rider jeans. White shoes. Silver chains. Dark hoods and baseball caps. Blake wore a denim jacket, a black conductor’s cap, and steel-toed boots. The collar of his black shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a bony white chest, a silver skull necklace, and a portion of a tattoo.

  Almost simultaneously, the four of them turned to her.

  “Stay away, Pamela,” Granger huffed, hunched over, a trickle of blood glistening from beneath his nose. “Get outta here, now!”

  “Pamela … baby.” Blake stepped toward her, invincibly, as if he knew her. Reeking of booze, he reached for her. “Come ’ere, sweetie …”

  She swatted his filthy hand. “Where’ve you been, Granger? Come on.” She reached out a hand to him, praying her act would work. “Let’s go. Everybody’s waiting.”

  “Wait a minute, baby.” Blake seized her arm. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere—”

  The second Blake’s fingers sank into her arm, Granger detonated.

  With his big head lowered and his blocky shoulder down like a battering ram, he catapulted toward Blake. His massive, chugging, steam-rolling frame struck Blake Devonshire square in the back, smack between the shoulder blades.

  Oooomph.

  The twerp left the ground for an instant and bash, hit the rocks and dirt and grass face first, with Granger crashing down on top of him. The wind left Blake like the last bit of air leaving a wilting balloon.

  The other two squared into the ready-for-battle position with knees bent, arms and hands out stiff, ready to rumble.

  “Come on, Granger.” Pamela scrambled to him and reached a hand out. “Let’s go.”

  Blake looked like a rag doll beneath him.

  Granger rose and examined the other two.

  They were frozen in place, eyeing each other, checking up the hill for onlookers.

  “Take my hand!” Pamela ordered.

  He took it.

  His hand was large and rough.

  She helped him to his feet.

  Blake’s face must have been a mess. It was straight down against the gritty earth. He wasn’t moving.

  Shifting her meanest eyes to the other two, Pamela eased in front of them slowly, over to the fence. She bent down, snatched Granger’s hat, and dashed back to his side. Without a word, without stopping, she lifted his heavy hand in hers and led him up the slope.

  By the time she glanced back, the other two jerks had fled.

  Blake’s crumpled body lay small and still, like an old pile of clothes one might see along the side of a road.

  “You okay?” Pamela looked up at Granger as they walked.

  He looked down at her and nodded. “Thanks.”

  “You got blood right here.” She pointed above his upper lip.

  He wiped it with the sleeve of his ban
d uniform.

  They reached level ground, the cinder track, throngs of people.

  “Why were they hassling you?” She let his hand go, stopped walking, and faced him.

  He put his hat on, tugged at the lapels of his band jacket, and tilted his head back.

  She waited for an answer, but he only dropped his head, as if it was all too much to explain. She dusted his coat off with her hand.

  “You can talk to me, you know,” she said over the announcer’s echoing voice. “I’m your friend. I won’t say anything to anyone. It helps to talk, Granger.”

  “Why are you doing this?” He squinted at her and tilted his head.

  “Doing what? Being your friend?”

  He shook his head, frustrated. Towering at least a foot and a half above her, he turned slowly from the glowing field to the burning lights to the black sky to the crowd. “You don’t understand,” he said. “There’s no way you could.”

  “But I want to understand, Granger. What happened back there?”

  He threw his hands into the air. “What? You think that’s unusual? It happens all the time. That’s my life, right there.”

  “I don’t understand,” Pamela said. “What did you do to get picked on by them?”

  “Trouble finds me,” he said. “I went under the bleachers to try and find a ten-dollar bill Michael Riggler dropped.”

  “You went down there to help Michael?”

  “He didn’t know it. I overheard him tell some other guys he dropped it through the stands. I was gonna find it and give it back to him.”

  “And what? You ran into those creeps?”

  His small mouth sealed shut, his eyes closed, he nodded.

  The outside corner of his left eye glistened, and she knew it wasn’t from the cold.

  Suddenly, Pamela thought she might cry.

  He looked down at her as if pleading for understanding with those tiny eyes. A tainted concoction of cruel emotion seemed to spill over from his troubled soul. She saw hurt and humiliation; she sensed inadequacy and embarrassment.

  Keeping her eyes on his, Pamela reached up and covered his hand in hers. “You are a good person, Granger Meade.”

  She smiled and kind of bounced on her toes in an attempt to lighten things up by shaking his hand and letting it go—but he held on.

  And then she saw something else coming from those small, penetrating eyes. Something desperate. But something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  Until now.

  Now, twenty years later, she knew.

  Now, as her offspring played on the floor at her feet and her soul mate yakked on the phone about the bizarre, twisted monster who was after her, she realized—it had been love.

  The love of Granger Meade.

  Perhaps hers had been all the love he’d ever known.

  And apparently he wasn’t going to let it go.

  Not on his life.

  14

  With the body language of a Secret Service agent, Jack hurriedly and methodically escorted Pam and the girls out of the church, into the hot sun, toward his car. Scanning each person and car in the lot—looking for any figure in black, any brown car—he unlocked the VW, ushered everyone inside, got himself in, and locked the doors.

  “He saw you on our wedding day?” Jack started the car and cranked the air-conditioning. “You held hands with this person? Yet you had no clue it was him? What’s this about, Pam?”

  “Jack.” Pam shot a glance toward the girls in the backseat, then gave him a foul look. “Cool down. We’ll talk at home.”

  “How about some music, girls?” Jack jabbed the button for the stereo and started an upbeat CD the girls had enjoyed that morning. “Why don’t you tell me now?”

  Pam explained who Granger Meade was, how she’d known him as a child … sharing the same bus stop … feeling sorry for him … the incident at the football game. Her speech came in bits and pieces, as if she was doped up on some kind of truth serum.

  “It didn’t dawn on you till now that this might be the guy?” Jack pressed.

  “No, it didn’t.”

  “Never even crossed your mind—”

  “What are you implying, Jack? That I knew who it was and didn’t tell you? Are you sick?”

  “It sounds like it was pretty serious.”

  “I barely knew him. I certainly didn’t recognize him, or I would have said so.”

  “Yet you almost kissed the guy?”

  “Don’t be a jerk! I felt sorry for him.” Pam slipped a trembling hand to her mouth. “Why are you doing this? I can’t believe you. You’re making it harder than it already is!”

  His mind reeled. Dizzyingly, he checked the rearview mirror for the brown car.

  “Daddy, don’t forget pizza,” Rebecca yelled over the music.

  He didn’t answer, but he wasn’t about to stop until they were locked down at home. If the nutcase was brazen enough to wander into their church, he certainly had the gall to make his way back to their house.

  “Campolo’s!” Faye yelled. “Extra cheese, please. I’m a poet and I don’t even know it.”

  Jack ignored her. That afternoon he would go see Amiel, their friend who owned a small gun shop and shooting range on the square in downtown Trenton City. Whatever gun Amiel would recommend, Jack would buy it.

  “Did you hear them?” Pam’s voice brought him back.

  “What?”

  “The girls … pizza.”

  “We’re not stopping,” he said.

  She shook her head and glared out the passenger window. He could tell she was hurt, and he’d been the one to wound her. On the rare occasions they argued, Pam would sometimes cry silently, just like that—her eyes glassy, her chest hitching periodically but barely making a sound. Holding it all inside.

  And it was his fault.

  Idiot.

  The time she needs you most, and you’re driving her away. How can you possibly think she might have known it was him?

  Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d allowed his temper to flare. He knew it was pure poison—one of his ugliest flaws.

  He drove faster than normal, zipping right past Campolo’s, feeling a tinge of meanness for not stopping, yet justifying his robot-like action by reminding himself that he needed to take charge; it was up to him to keep his family safe. He simply needed to get them home, pronto. Pam stared out the window. The music played on.

  “Daddy, did we pass Campolo’s?” Rebecca said.

  You’re not fighting a man. This isn’t flesh and blood you’re up against. This is Satan working through this guy, and he wants you to freak out … He wants to divide you and Pam … consume you with rage.

  “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I’m letting this thing get to me. I apologize, Pam. Forgive me, please.”

  Still holding everything in, staring out at the landscape in the opposite direction, she gave a quick nod and sniff.

  But he realized the damage had been done.

  The people in that car—his bride, his girls—they were his responsibility. But things were getting away from him. It was all happening so fast. He felt weak and inadequate, as if he was battling another suitor for the lives of his girls—and losing. Not just being defeated by a little but getting slaughtered.

  He would have a security system installed as soon as possible. The girls could get away, perhaps to his parents’ house in south Florida. But was that realistic? It was so far. He needed to be close to them, but then again, where would they be safest?

  His phone vibrated, and he answered.

  “Mr. Crittendon, Officer DeVry.”

  “Officer DeVry,” Jack said. “Did you get my message?”

  Pam shot him a watery-eyed glance.

  “I did. Good timing too,” DeVry said. “Turns out our guys were able to lift two stray prints off that picture frame of yours after all, and guess who they belong to?”

  “Granger Meade.”

  “Yes, sir. One and the same. He was arrested in
some sort of brawl outside a miniature golf place in Geauga Lake, but he was never charged.”

  Jack covered the phone and looked at Pam. “Prints on the wedding picture—Granger Meade.”

  Pam’s head dropped.

  “So what now?” Jack said with renewed confidence.

  “Let me tell you what else we’ve found.”

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  “The results from your laptop came back.”

  Jack could almost hear his heart ticking faster, faster.

  “The encryption shows that all the pornography was downloaded to your computer on July 11—the day of your home invasion. So your suspicion was correct.”

  “Thank God.” Jack repeated the news to Pam. Both of her hands covered her nose and mouth. Her eyes glistened with tears.

  “Something else of interest,” DeVry said. “On that same date, same time of day, a number of photographs from your laptop were copied over to some sort of USB device.”

  “Personal photos, like of our family?” Jack sensed Pam watching him.

  “That’s right,” DeVry said. “Fortunately, our guys were able to restore those to your desktop. This Meade character may have thought he deleted them, or stole them, but they were still there under all the layers. Shoot, everything’s still there long after you think it’s been deleted. I don’t understand how it works, but it’s amazing stuff.”

  “That’s probably how he knew what my daughter looked like,” Jack said. “I told you he waved at one of my girls at our church.”

  “Disturbing, I know.”

  Jack’s whole body tightened as he thought of Granger Meade fantasizing over their family photos. He wanted to kill the monster. “So what now?” He swung the VW into their neighborhood.

  “Well, when all this started hitting the fan yesterday and this morning, I put in for a search warrant. Officers Potanski and Nielson are on duty today, so we’re going to pay Granger Meade a visit.”

  “Today? You have an address?” He gritted his teeth, pumped a fist at Pam, and told her the news.

  “Affirmative. We’ll be heading his way within the hour. We’ll let you know—”

  “Where does he live?” Jack eyed Pam, who rubbed her nose with a wadded tissue and stared down at her lap.