Silenced Girls

by Roger Stelljes

  Tori and Harlow were on a chopper within fifteen minutes, flying from Syracuse to Allentown. Within ten minutes of landing they were parked a block down from the house in a surveillance van with the Allentown police chief.

  At four minutes after eleven, a man matching the description of Leary left the hospital, climbed into a plain navy-blue panel van and drove away. Police tailed the van as it made its way through the streets of Allentown. Fifteen minutes later the radio burped, “He’s signaling to turn left onto Salisbury.”

  Tori peered carefully out the small back window of the surveillance van. A dark-colored panel van turned left onto Salisbury. The van motored past her. She stepped to the front of the van. She watched out the windshield as the van turned left into the driveway for the darkened house a half-block ahead.

  The chief gave the order. “Go! Go! Go!”

  An unmarked police car streaked from behind them. Another police car zoomed in rapidly from the north. The two cars met at the driveway entry at the same time and both hesitated, not wanting to collide.

  “Geez, one of you pull in!” Tori growled as the surveillance van roared down the street toward the house.

  Leary, seeing the police cars at the end of the driveway, took off, running around the far side of the garage.

  “We got a runner!” Harlow exclaimed into his radio as their van pulled to a stop.

  One car finally pulled into the driveway, right behind Leary’s van, followed by the other. Both officers jumped out of their cars and gave chase around the side of the garage.

  Tori was out the sliding door of the van with Harlow right behind her. They both ran around the side of the garage, only to find the two officers lying on the ground. One had been hit by a baseball bat and was lying on his belly, writhing in pain. The other had tripped over a downed garbage can and injured his knee.

  “Shit!” Tori exclaimed as two other uniformed officers arrived behind them.

  “Where is he?” one officer asked.

  “Where did he go?” the second officer demanded.

  “He ran around the outside of the fence,” the cop with the injured knee moaned.

  The Allentown chief radioed in reinforcements. “I have people on the way, I’m setting up a perimeter, three blocks.”

  Tori and Harlow both scanned the immediate area and shared a quick look. A three-block perimeter left Leary a lot of room to maneuver. In his desperation he could attempt to get into a house, maybe take a hostage or just as likely slip through and away into the hills to the south.

  “Chief, I recommend you have residents within the perimeter shelter in place,” Tori suggested.

  “I’m on it.”

  “Let’s move to the left flank,” Harlow suggested with a light pat on her shoulder, seeing lights scanning straight ahead and to the right.

  They both had small flashlights of their own. With their Glock 26s up they scurried left, deeper into the backyards of houses on the wide and deep block, moving their way around swing sets, sandboxes and other obstacles.

  Tori and Harlow spread apart thirty feet, sweeping left to right with their flashlights, moving carefully forward past one house on the left, then another, and then a third before they both trained their flashlights on a large shed thirty feet ahead. Tori moved around the left side and Harlow the right. They met at the front door. Harlow nodded, took four steps back and Tori pulled the sliding door open.

  The shed was empty.

  Tori spun around.

  Flashing red and blue lights illuminated the immediate night sky beyond all the houses. More voices were audible, more officers now joining in the search as evidenced by flashlights scanning distant areas of the same block.

  Harlow stepped over to the right and Tori drifted back to the left and they both moved forward in a combination of careful walking and shuffling, scanning with their flashlights. Another larger flashlight beam was visible perhaps fifty yards ahead, sweeping left to right, approaching them both, the search now intensifying and squeezing the area.

  Tori had her gun up in her right hand and her left hand wrapped underneath with the flashlight. She swept her light to the left, then slowly and steadily back to the right.

  There was a flash of movement to her left.

  “Did you see that?” Harlow exclaimed.

  Tori darted her light back to the left. “There he is!” Leary was running for the narrow gap between two houses.

  She holstered her gun and sprinted, taking a forty-five-degree angle to the gap. Leary was far bigger, but she was quicker, closing on him rapidly. Given his size, she couldn’t tackle him. Instead she went for his knees like a football defensive back, diving low, rolling her right shoulder into his left leg just below the knee, taking his feet out from under him, sending Leary tumbling over her and somersaulting forward.

  Tori rolled through, tumbling over, her back crashing into an air conditioner unit. “Oooff.”

  Leary pushed himself up. He took one limping step before Harlow finished the job, driving Leary hard to the ground. Seconds later two Allentown officers joined in, helping Harlow pin Leary down, pulling the man’s arms behind his back. A fourth officer arrived, handcuffs out. He quickly slammed the bracelets on Leary’s wrists.

  Tori pushed herself up, gave her head a quick shake and stumbled over to the restrained man. Dropping down to her knees, she brought her face down to Leary’s. “Where is she?”

  “Where’s who?” Leary looked back up bitterly.

  “Jenny Welker? Where is she?”

  “I ain’t got nothing to say.”

  Tori stood up and looked over to Harlow, who was brushing himself off. “You alright there, Geno?”

  “Fine. You?”

  “Never better,” she grimaced in response before nodding her head back toward Leary’s house. “Let’s go.”

  “Nice tackle, by the way,” Harlow remarked. “Perfect form.”

  “I watch the Patriots every chance I get.”

  “Belichick would approve.”

  They jogged back to the house to find the Allentown police chief and two uniformed officers.

  “You got him?” the chief asked.

  “Yeah,” Harlow responded. “Let’s get inside the house.”

  “Let’s,” the chief replied and one of his men grabbed a battering ram out of a cruiser, walked up the front steps, swung the ram back and through, breaching the front door.

  Leary had a history as a sex offender but not, Tori had noted in reviewing his file on the flight down, as a murderer.

  They quickly cleared the first and second-floor rooms. In the back of the house, Tori found the stairway down to the basement and flipped the light switch and carefully stepped down the steep flight of steps.

  At the bottom she reached for another light switch, flipped it on and stepped into a spacious open room with checkered tile-covered floor with a ratty gray area rug in the middle. She immediately noticed a white square laundry basket with a few Barbies and some children’s books sitting in it. To the right was the washer and dryer and laundry tub. Behind her under the steps were sets of storage shelves, empty. To her left was a room with a closed door. Tori first put her ear to the door and then gently tried the doorknob, but it was locked. She looked down to the handle on the door. The handle was brushed nickel and new and required a key to open it.

  Tori glanced back to Harlow who mouthed, cover me.

  Following his lead, Tori stepped back, her gun and flashlight up.

  Harlow stepped in front of the door and kicked it just below the door knob. The door gave way. Tori scanned the inside of the room with her gun and flashlight, cautiously stepping forward and into the room. Harlow came in behind and flipped the light switch.

  The room was completely empty. There was a double closet with sliding doors to the right. Tori slid the door open to the left, but it was empty inside. She and Harlow exited the empty room and stepped back into the middle of the basement.

  “I guess she isn’t here,”
Harlow sighed.

  Tori shook her head in dismay as she peered again to the laundry basket and the two small dolls sitting inside it. “So, he just so happens to have two little Barbie dolls here?” Tori asked. She looked back to the empty room. “And why was that door locked if there was nothing in there?”

  “Maybe he had her in there once but not anymore.”

  “Maybe,” Tori answered, “but again, why the need to keep it locked? Why the need to run?”

  She walked back into the room and then out to the main area again, examining the dimensions of both rooms before walking back into the room and then back out to the main area again.

  Something was off.

  “What is it?” Harlow asked.

  “That room seems so small. The dimensions aren’t right.”

  “How so?”

  Tori walked to the wall ahead of her in the main room, “This is the exterior wall to the front of the house. I’m probably under the entryway right here. The front of the house is flat all the way across so this wall should be flat all the way across.” She walked back into the smaller room. “This wall with the closet taking half of it…it doesn’t go as far forward as the exterior wall in the other room.”

  Harlow walked back out into the main room and saw what Tori was seeing. “I think you’re right. In fact—” He turned to the left wall of the bedroom and then stepped back out into the main area. The bedroom ran much of the length of the basement, stopping ten feet short of the northwest corner of the foundation. Tori walked over as well to examine the end wall and their eyes met. They both saw it, walking back into the bedroom and examining the walls.

  “This room is both narrower and…”

  “Shallower,” Harlow finished, his hands on his hips. Then he scrunched his nose and then made a point of sniffing, “You know, I get a slight whiff of…”

  “Fresh paint,” Tori replied, running her hand along the wall by the door. “This room has been painted recently. This house is dingy as heck but there’s fresh paint in here.”

  “If this is a bedroom, or intended to be one, where is the egress window?”

  “Good point,” Tori replied and then she thought back to Leary’s work history, “Leary has been a janitor and—a drywall finisher.”

  “Right,” Harlow replied.

  “He hung all this.”

  They both moved back to the closet. Harlow slid the right closet door open and Tori stepped inside, checking the back wall of the closet. The closet contained a very basic painted particle board shelving system. There was a storage shelf running the full length of the closet, mounted on a wood beam, with a one-inch by one-foot vertical support beam running floor to ceiling in the middle. Moving right to left she pressed up and down against the back wall of the closet. To the left of the center beam there was a seam in the sheetrock that had not been taped and mudded over. With both of her hands Tori pressed on that section and felt some give, a slight rattle. “Huh.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Something.” She looked right and directed her flashlight beam along the center support, moving the beam up toward the shelf. In the nook of the corner between the beam and shelf, there was a small discolored square. Tori pressed on the square, pushed it in and there was a click. The narrow segment of the sheetrock was hinged and swung to the inside to the right and she could see the cinderblock foundation wall.

  She looked back to Harlow before crouching down and directing her flashlight beam inside. To the left of the opening was a two-foot wide crawl space and she could see a dim light emanating from around a corner to the left.

  Tori stepped into the crawl space. Hunched over, she shuffled forward. At the turn to the left, she peered around the corner and could see down the narrow walkway and there was a little more illumination ahead. She could also see what looked like a part of a mattress, a little cooler and a small portable toilet. As she stepped forward, she then saw a chain along the floor. Tori took three more steps forward and emerged into a slightly wider room, in total maybe four feet wide by six feet long. Tori looked right and on the mattress, in the corner was a little cowering blonde-haired girl with a cuff affixed around her skinny left ankle that was attached to the chain that was maybe six feet long in total, long enough so she could reach the toilet. The other end of the chain was bolted to the wall.

  Tori dropped down to one knee in front of the startled little girl, and in the softest sweetest voice she could muster asked, “Hi, are you Jenny?”

  The little girl nodded, curling up in a ball into the corner.

  “Good,” Tori replied with a warm smile, while sitting down on the edge of the girl’s little mattress. “My name is Tori Hunter. I’m an FBI agent.” She looked right to see Harlow peering in at them, grinning. “That smiling man? His name is Geno Harlow, he’s an FBI agent, too.” Tori took out her FBI identification and handed it to the little girl. “We’re like police officers. You know what a police officer is, right?”

  “Y…y…yes.”

  “Good. And I also know your mom and dad. They’ve been really worried about you.”

  “Are they okay?” Jenny asked meekly, but her eyes expressing surprise.

  “Did that man who’s had you here tell you something happened to them?”

  Jenny nodded.

  “I see,” Tori replied with a nod, “Well, Jenny, he lied to you. Your mom and dad are fine, and they are going to be so very happy to see you.”

  “Can you take me to them?”

  “You bet,” Tori replied with a smile. “We’re going to get you out of this cuff around your ankle and then I have helicopter. You ever ride in a helicopter?”

  CHAPTER 3

  “WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM?”

  July 5, 2019, Manchester, Minnesota.

  N ervously tapping his left foot on the car floor, he glanced to his watch, 12:57 a.m. It was finally closing time for the Fourth of July revelers. Small groups as well as the occasional single were slowly trickling out the front door and making their way to one of the now small scattered smattering of vehicles remaining in the long, narrow banana-shaped parking lot. In a couple of cases, for those partiers exercising the appropriate level of late-night caution, a driver arrived to cart them safely away. He’d also seen another large group of people take the long length of steps down to the marina dock and step onto the last remaining boat, a large pontoon, taking a moonlight cruise home.

  Licking his dry lips in anxious anticipation he once again reviewed his mental checklist. He reached for the right pocket of his light black nylon jacket to feel the thin rectangular bulge, assuring it was there. Flipping open the center console, he confirmed the two key items inside ready to go for quick application. He peered to the sports car a hundred feet away across the street and could see the drop in tire pressure, the slightest listing of the vehicle to the right.

  “Ahhh,” he exhaled. “There you are,” he murmured excitedly, his gloved hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, his muscles tensed, his body coiled like a spring.

  Genevieve boisterously exited the bar. She strode her long, lustrous tanned legs as she and her girlfriend, arm-in-arm, noisily made their way to the end of parking lot and her sporty little BMW convertible. The rag top was up now, although it had been down earlier in the evening. Threatening weather was predicted, a prediction soon to be realized as the night sky filled with a pulsating flash and a husky gust of wind swirled the branches and leaves hanging above.

  He glanced down to his cell phone. The weather radar displayed an ever-expanding amoeba of dark green, yellow and red moving north-by-northeast. He estimated the storm’s full arrival to be in fifteen, twenty minutes max. It would bring heavy rain and powerful winds, a good old-fashioned midsummer Minnesota thunderstorm. Long having planned to act on this night, the storm rolling in was a serendipitous benefit.

  He’d methodically studied and tracked her for some time. Genevieve was attractive, with round yet firm breasts, a skinny waist with nicely
swaying hips to go with deep brown eyes, luscious full lips and a radiant smile. She was the type he’d normally be attracted to in his everyday normal life, at least physically. As for her personality and treatment of others, that was less attractive. She came from money, not of her making, but of daddy’s. The family money had given her an unearned sense of entitlement, a trait he loathed more than any other.

  Genevieve started up the BMW, backed out and then speedily pulled away. Knowing where she was going, he gave himself a ten count before clicking on his lights and turning right onto South Shore Drive. This was where he had to trust things would proceed as he’d calculated. Given how Genevieve’s car was swaying from side-to-side as she motored north on the H-Four highway he suspected she wouldn’t notice her tire issue. As he observed her ahead, his only immediate fear was a state trooper lying in wait, hunting drunk drivers. Her erratic driving made her a solid pullover candidate.

  Ten minutes later she pulled into the driveway for her girlfriend, another wealthy party girl-type in town visiting her parents at their expansive lake home on the northeast end of Steamboat Lake. He turned left onto a side dirt road, quickly completed a U-turn, switched off his headlights, parked and waited.

  Five minutes later Genevieve came roaring back down the road. He could tell that the front of the car was riding lower as she zoomed by. She had nearly fifteen miles to go to daddy’s house. He gave her another ten-count before turning on his lights, turning right and following.

  Genevieve turned left back onto the H-Four and motored north for three miles before her right turn signal blinked. Her car slowed, and she turned a sharp right onto the narrow, winding and tree-covered County Road 163.

  Her parent’s home was an expansive compound on the west side of Big Pine Lake, another twelve miles to the east. Strategically trailing her a healthy distance, he sporadically lost sight of her taillights as she went over the small mounds and around the tight bends and hairpin curves of the tight and twisty lightly-used county road.