DEAD GONE a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by T. J. Brearton

  * * *

  Back at the condo, he made up the couch for Alicia and Gwen. It was getting late, going on 11 p.m. Gwen had fallen asleep during the car ride back but was stirring as Alicia lay her down on the couch. Alicia petted the girl’s hair and spoke softly to her. Tom went upstairs to give them some privacy.

  He opened his laptop on the bed and logged onto the NamUs site. He toggled to the Jane Doe case file and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Someone had posted a message.

  The way NamUs worked was similar to classified ads. An unidentified person’s case was considered a “listing.” Anyone on either the law enforcement or public side could post a message beneath a listing. He read what was written by PublicUser22958:

  Hello. Not sure if this is the right way to do this? I saw about this site on tv. I’m looking for a frend who has been missing about a week. She fits the descripshin on your site. She has butterfly tatoo. What do I do??

  Tom felt wide awake now. He hunched over the keyboard and typed a response:

  Thank you for getting in touch. Please privately message me at the following email.

  He left his email address and sent the message. It appeared in the thread beneath the listing, after PublicUser22958’s post. Then he logged onto his email through the FDLE server and sat staring at his inbox, waiting. He could hear Alicia moving around downstairs. It sounded like Gwen was crying.

  Tom switched back to the NamUs site and reread the post a few times, noting the misspelled words. Sometimes people posted maliciously on the listings. Usually they were identified, and almost always they were kids. A searchable database that was open to the public ran such a risk. The penalty for falsely responding to a record could be stiff, but typically the pranksters were given a harsh warning for their offense, and that was it.

  He didn’t think this was a hoax. Maybe it was someone young, or someone whose English wasn’t great. He also noted the time of the post — 10:22 p.m. As he’d been leaving the hospital and returning to his condo with Alicia and her daughter, someone had been sitting somewhere, typing the message.

  He considered the odds. There were an estimated forty thousand unidentified bodies in the United States. They languished in the offices of medical examiners and coroners, or had been buried or cremated as unknowns. NamUs recorded about half of them. And while the demographic search was helpful, there were still a ton of records. It could take someone months to make an identification.

  Whoever had posted about the Jane Doe did so only hours after the initial listing. It was fast, but not unheard of. The user had been able to narrow the search because of the tattoo.

  Cops loved tattoos as an identifying mark.

  He watched his inbox, growing excited, impatient. He flipped back to NamUs one last time and clicked on the link for PublicUser22958.

  He found what he’d already expected — when a user signed up to use the database, personal information was protected. This user hadn’t made their email or telephone number public, preferring discretion, or control, or both.

  * * *

  “Tom?” Alicia’s voice carried softly up the stairs.

  He left the room and went down to the living room. “How we doing?”

  “Good.” She looked over at Gwen, just a lump beneath the couch blankets, long hair fanned over a pillow. “She’s asleep.”

  Tom’s condo was open plan, the kitchen and living room connected without a separating wall. Otherwise, downstairs was a bathroom, a closet, and a screened-in back porch. “Let’s go back here and talk.” He led her down the hallway.

  The backyard abutted on the rough edge of a golf course. Out there was a water trap which doubled as a turtle pond. Over the past months, Tom had seen the turtles come and go while sitting on the porch. He’d also seen a small alligator.

  They each took a chair and looked out over the moonlit greens beyond the pond.

  “You smoke?” Alicia asked. She’d seen the butt-can in the corner.

  “I try not to.” He had the pack he’d bought at the Quick Mart in his pocket and brought it out. He offered her one and she took it. Then he got out his Zippo and lit it for her.

  “I didn’t think you were the type.” Alicia squinted against the smoke. “You seem . . . I don’t know. Like a health nut, or something.”

  He smiled and lit one of his own.

  “That came out wrong,” she said. “Not that you’re unhealthy because you smoke. I mean, I know it’s not healthy, you know it’s not healthy. But, I mean, you have that thing in the corner. That little gym — what is that, a Soloflex or something?”

  “Yeah. Bowflex.”

  “Yeah, so you work out. Have to stay in shape or whatever, for your job, right? Did you have to train, or condition, a lot to become a cop? Or, it’s agent, right? You’re a special agent? Jesus, I’m babbling.”

  She ran a trembling hand through her hair. Tom could see the bruise around her eye even in the darkness. They’d had to put a single stitch in her lip, and the area was stained rusty brown with disinfectant. She touched it self-consciously.

  “You’re not babbling,” he said. “We’re just talking.”

  “You’re not talking. I’m talking. You don’t talk. Last night at your party thing, you hardly said a word.” Alicia quickly switched topics. “That Charlene is something, huh? She’s so sweet. She really likes you.”

  “She’s a nice person.”

  A silence developed, both of them smoking, looking out. The night was fragrant with hyacinth and the air had cooled, but only a little. Tomorrow was going to be another hot one.

  “Do you like Florida?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “We have monsters down here.”

  He gave her a look.

  “For real. The alligators are everywhere. Gwenny is terrified. We’re also the lightning capital of the country. Did anyone tell you that? More people get struck by lightning here than anywhere else.”

  Tom thought about it. “With all the golf courses, people walking around waving iron rods in the air, I’m not surprised.”

  She laughed, maybe a bit louder than she’d intended, but it broke the tension.

  “It’s weird living so close a golf course,” he said. “You have to wonder if there are lawsuits over people getting clocked in the head with flying golf balls. It’s not like where I grew up.”

  “Charlene says you have a brother?” Alicia flicked her ash into the butt-can.

  “I do.”

  “Any other family? Where are your parents? Back where you grew up?”

  He felt the familiar tightening when asked the question. He supposed he should’ve been used to it after all these years. “They passed away. Nick and I were raised in foster care.”

  “Oh, Jeeze. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s alright. We had good foster parents.”

  “What happened?”

  Tom debated whether or not he wanted to get into it. For one thing, there was other stuff on his mind. But he’d gotten an intimate glimpse of Alicia’s life and ought to reciprocate. He decided on the easiest version of the story.

  “Our parents were away for the weekend. Nick hated having a babysitter. He was ten years old and he figured he could take care of himself. He insisted on doing everything — making the dinner, answering the phone. The doorbell rang, and Nick went to get it. Two cops were standing there.”

  “Oh, God. What happened?”

  “They’d died in a fire where they were staying.”

  She put her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t really remember them.” He shifted in his seat. “Listen, I’d like to talk about Josh for a minute. Is that okay? You mind if we talk about him?”

  She finished her smoke, threw it away and clasped her hands together in her lap.

  “Josh grew up in Florida. Lake Mary. He was a conservation officer in Big Cypress for a little while, but he was fired. This is before he met me.”

  �
�How long have you been with him? Or, were you with him?”

  “Three years.”

  “So he’s not Gwen’s father.”

  “No.”

  Alicia didn’t seem to want to offer any more on the subject of her daughter’s biological father. It seemed they both had their uncomfortable subjects.

  “How did you meet him?”

  “Not the most romantic thing in the world. We met at a bar. You know, I’ve had Gwenny all on my own pretty much from the start. And after a while, day in and day out . . . you know, my friends were like, ‘You need to get out. You need to do something for you.’ So, I went out. You know? What do you do? You go to a bar. And I’m not really the Fifth Avenue type, so I went to Ty’s. You know where that is?”

  “I do. Off Davis Boulevard.”

  “That’s the spot. The first night I got a sitter and went out, I met Josh. He was there. He had his own landscaping business. He was very charming. I let him buy me a drink, we talked . . . the rest is history.”

  Tom nodded, absorbing the information, thinking through how to proceed. Blythe was right, of course, there were only tenuous connections between Josh McDermott and the Jane Doe. Now that he had the lead with the NamUs user, he could see it more clearly: he’d been desperate, frustrated by the long day at the morgue, the daunting list of estuarine employees and volunteers, and upset by the altercation with McDermott. Furious at McDermott for what he’d done to Alicia, wanting to link him to something big, put him behind bars.

  Domestic batterers got shit for jail time. Woman-beaters, rapists, they got a slap on the wrist for their brutal crimes.

  But he might as well ask.

  “You think Josh would hurt anyone else? Besides you?”

  She turned toward him, her eyes widening in the gloom. “You mean like your case? I saw on the news that a body was found in the mangrove preserve . . . That’s your case, right?” She seemed to put something together and changed tracks before he could respond. “Oh, shit, Tom. Here I am right in the middle of your work . . .”

  He reached over and put a hand on hers. “Hey, it’s fine.”

  She looked at his hand and he pulled away. Then she said, “I wouldn’t put it past Josh to hurt someone else.” She nodded, pursing her lips. “Yeah, I could see that.”

  Tom felt instant regret, like he had planted the idea. He opened his mouth to correct the situation, but Gwen’s voice floated out onto the porch.

  “Mommy?”

  Alicia jumped like she’d been shot. “She’s been waking up nights. Got to get her back down quick.”

  Tom turned around and saw the girl in the corridor, just her silhouette in the soft living room light. Alicia scooped her up and headed out of sight.

  Tom put his head in his hand. Stupid . . .

  That’s just the old tapes playing, Tommy. Dr. Camden’s familiar refrain.

  Screw you, Dr. Camden.

  He had no business putting ideas in Alicia’s mind about her ex-boyfriend being a murderer. The woman had enough to deal with.

  Feeling guilty, Tom rose from the chair and walked quietly into the condo, up the stairs, and back to bed.

  He sat down and roused the laptop from sleep mode.

  The pages were still up. There were two new messages in his inbox. He felt a little thrill and opened the first email.

  Hello Officer Lange, my name is Sasha. I live in Tampa Bay. My frend Carrie has been missing since last Tuesday. That was her last shift. Me and some girls from Hush went looking for her. We checked her apartmint. What do I do? Do I have to talk to the police? I can give you my number. I have to go to work now but you can leave a messige.

  Tom read it a second time, then glanced at his watch. It was going on midnight. Who went to work at midnight? Sasha had written that she and “some girls from Hush” went looking for their missing friend. Between those details and the spelling mistakes, Tom formed an idea.

  First, he replied to Sasha, then grabbed his phone and dialed the number she’d provided. Her voicemail picked up after the fourth ring. He left a message stating who he was and for her to call him as soon as she could.

  Hush. The name tolled vaguely familiar. Someone had mentioned it once, a while back. Maybe Nick? Between the hunch and a hazy recollection, Tom opened Google, typed in “Hush” and added the search terms “gentlemen’s club.”

  There was a hit. Hush was an exotic dance club in Tampa Bay.

  She was a stripper. Either that or a bartender.

  He checked his email again. The second new email was from the forensic sketch artist. The attachment was a big file, high resolution, and took a few seconds to open on his screen, like a painting unfurling. There she was, the Jane Doe, or, maybe, “Carrie.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tom called Blythe, getting her voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. His thoughts were scattered and he needed to focus — what would he even say to her? There was a chance that Sasha, aka PublicUser22958, was talking about someone else. Butterfly tattoos were quite common. Blythe would advise him to sleep on it and follow up in the morning.

  No way. No way was Tom going to be able to get any sleep now. He’d written Sasha back, asking more questions, looking for specifics, but she wasn’t responding — she’d gone to work.

  Alicia and Gwen were counting on his protection. While his condo was locked up and secure, they might take a psychological comfort in his presence. If anything, he was a friend, and it was good to have friends around in a rough patch. Tom could count on one hand the people he considered friends, and they were mostly far-flung. Jack Vance was becoming a real friend, though.

  Tom called him up, knowing Vance was a night owl. Vance didn’t require much sleep, he’d once told Tom, and had many hours to fill. That was partly why the retiree had a side business checking on peoples’ homes when they flew north during the hot summer, to keep busy. But Tom also thought Vance liked to feel of use.

  The older man answered on the second ring. “Vichyssoise,” Vance said. “I was up making damned soup.”

  “We’ll press charges in the morning, McDermott will get picked up by Everglades County. In the meantime, the girls are here at my place.”

  “Is she alright? What was her name? Alice?”

  “Alicia, yeah, she’s going to be alright, I think. Shaken up a bit.”

  “And the little one?”

  Tom thought for a moment about Gwen. About the way she seemed to have two gears: quiet and withdrawn or bursting with emotion. He didn’t know what four-year-old girls were supposed to be like, but he was sure that Gwen was affected by her mother’s troubles. Kids absorbed everything. He glanced at the picture of himself and Nick over on the dresser and said to Vance, “She’ll be alright.”

  “So what can I do for you?”

  “I need to go to Tampa. Tonight. I’ve got a lead on the case I’m working on.”

  “The body in the bay?”

  Everybody knew about it. The state bureau hadn’t released a statement yet or given their press conference, but things got out. The media had scented blood in the water.

  “Five o’clock news,” Vance said. “Channel 8. They said an unidentified person was found. I saw some aerial footage. You got a lead on who it is?”

  “Yeah.”

  He’d sent the sketch to his phone. He planned to show it to Sasha, confirm Jane Doe’s real identity tonight, in person. It sounded like Jane Doe/Carrie was a stripper, too. He wanted the story on Carrie’s life leading up to her disappearance. Was she happy, was she worried about anything, who might’ve wanted to harm her?

  He rummaged through his closet and found his shoulder holster. He slipped it on over his T-shirt and snapped it in. The blazer concealed it.

  Tampa was normally a two-and-a-half-hour drive, and it was just going on midnight. Florida state law was that bars and clubs like Hush had to shut down by 3 a.m. He had just enough time to make the cut-off if he drove fast.

  “I’m on my way over,” Vance s
aid.

  Vance showed up in under five minutes. Alicia had fallen asleep in the chair in Tom’s living room, a blanket drawn up to her chin. Tom thanked Jack Vance again and left through the side door, stepping into the garage. He hopped in the Jeep, setting his copy of the murder book on the passenger seat.

  Before Tom started the engine he sat, gripping the wheel again, staring at the garage door.

  Was this a rash decision? The state bureau had given him — a brand-new agent — big responsibilities. Now he had to live up to them.

  But it wasn’t enough for Tom to be adequate, Dr. Camden would say — Tom had to be the best. Top of his class, the most physically fit, the quickest to solve a case. Camden would say it wasn’t Tom’s fault — the drive to be perfect came from the loss of his parents and he was overcompensating.

  Tom pressed the button for the garage door and it rolled open. He’d stopped seeing Camden years ago — it was time to stop listening to the man’s voice in his head. There was a dead woman and Tom needed to know who killed her. Anything else was irrelevant.

  CHAPTER NINE

  TUESDAY

  The highway fed into the Jeep’s grill, streetlights flashed over the windshield. He made the drive to Tampa in less than two hours — record time. He had the strip club’s address plugged into his GPS and could view the location of his vehicle, a blinking green dot, on the screen. He was close.

  He found it in a shopping plaza across from a used car lot called Gleason’s.

  Middle of the night, and the humidity was still suffocating. Muffled music pulsed behind the blackened windows of the club, and a bouncer sat on a stool outside the door.

  Tom kept his badge in his pocket. He was just an ordinary guy, here to unwind. He just happened to be strapped beneath his blazer.

  The bouncer was around thirty, with olive skin. He pushed a toothpick around in his mouth and looked Tom up and down.