Closer Than You Know

by Brad Parks

  And yes, my parents were pretty far from ideal. It would be taking a great leap of faith on my part that they really had changed and that they could keep him safe and loved until I got out.

  The alternative was that Alex would be ripped away from me forever, to be raised by the top bidder in the white-baby auction.

  But would that actually be worse or better? It was possible they were some nice couple, totally unaware they were on the receiving end of a criminal enterprise. They had been told the tens of thousands they had paid was for medical care, or some legitimate expense. I could spin a thousand scenarios in which they were actually loving parents.

  I could spin just as many that ended a lot less nicely.

  As I wrestled with the issue, a memory came to me. I was maybe seven and my father had just come back from Nova Scotia or someplace like that. I was still at an age where I mindlessly aped my mother’s reactions to most things, so I was excited he had returned—because she was excited. After all, it was going to be different this time. She had done up her hair and was wearing a new dress. We had a nice family dinner, and I went to bed feeling warmth and love and optimism.

  I woke to the sound of breaking glass.

  My father was chasing my mother around the house, throwing beer bottles at her, yelling at her about how she was a goddamn cocktease. It seemed (and this is my adult interpretation of the memory coming in) my mother didn’t want to have sex with him because she was on her period. And this had sent my father into a rage.

  I came out of my room in my little bare feet, ready to protect my mother—how, I don’t know. What I got for my bravery was a nasty gash on my heel that required eleven stitches to close up. But that, in retrospect, wasn’t nearly as bad as the four months of foster care that followed when my social worker discovered what happened.

  Those were the parents I knew, the childhood I experienced. And sure, they said they were reborn—clean and right with Jesus and all that—but how many times had I heard variations of that? They ran out of second chances with me several decades ago.

  There was no way I could trust the people who couldn’t be bothered to give me a real childhood to have any role in Alex’s upbringing.

  * * *

  • • •

  In the morning, I called Mr. Honeywell to tell him I wanted to oppose my parents’ petition to be given custody of Alex.

  He listened without much comment. At the end I asked, “Do you think my opinion will even matter?”

  “Well, grandparents don’t have any specific rights over anyone else in this process,” he said. “The judge’ll listen to whatever we have to say. It’ll probably depend on how well your boy is doing in his current placement. He’s going to do what he thinks is best for your son.”

  “Okay, well, thanks. I appreciate—”

  “Hang on, hang on. Don’t run off just yet. I’ve got some news.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, a few things actually. We’ve scheduled your adjudicatory hearing with Social Services for April the tenth. That’s the day after your criminal case, of course. But maybe we’ll have something positive to share with Judge Stone at that point.”

  “Let’s hope so. What else?”

  “I showed that picture you emailed me of that fellow with the scar to a Staunton city detective I’m friendly with.”

  “Oh, great,” I said. That was fast.

  “The detective knew him immediately. Does the name Richard Coduri mean anything to you?”

  It didn’t. Whether he was the mystery plumber, Slash, or Richard Coduri, I had never met the man before.

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. My detective friend had some more colorful terms for this, but Mr. Coduri is what you might call a known commodity to the local police. They’ve pick him up for vagrancy, public intoxication, public urination, you name it.”

  “Oh, lovely,” I said.

  “Well, it might be. The detective says he’s got a rap sheet that practically goes back to kindergarten. Most of it is drug-related, but there’s also a breaking-and-entering and a malicious wounding. He’s on probation right now. He’s got five years hanging over his head for this, that, and the other thing. We can use that at the motion hearing. Plus, there are the visuals of the thing.”

  “What do you mean, ‘the visuals’?” I asked.

  He didn’t immediately answer. Then he came up with: “Well, first I should tell you I think it’s wise for us to ask for a bench trial. That’s where we waive the right to a jury and let the judge decide your innocence or guilt. There’s been so much publicity surrounding your case, I just worry the jury pool is a little too poisoned. Besides, this judge . . .”

  I waited for more, but it didn’t come. I finally said, “What about him?”

  “Ms. Barrick, I have to be careful not to sound like a dirty old man here. But you know how I asked you to wear a dress the other day?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s because in a court of law, appearance matters. That’s why I’m going to keep asking you to wear a dress. You’re a fine-looking young woman, Ms. Barrick. And that will make an impression on this particular judge. I want him to have to consider you sitting there in your nice dress versus this Coduri fellow, with his tattoos and his big scar. If we have Coduri saying one thing and you saying another, and we can force the judge to decide which one of you is more likely to be telling the truth, it’s possible we win. Do you follow me?”

  “I do,” I said.

  I was already thinking of Coduri/Slash/Whatever on the witness stand, sniffling and twitching.

  “That’s good. Okay then, we’ll talk soon.”

  “Wait. Mr. Honeywell?”

  “Yes, Ms. Barrick?”

  “Would it be okay if I asked an impertinent question?”

  “You can ask me anything, Ms. Barrick.”

  “If appearance is so important, why do you dress the way you do?”

  He just chuckled softly.

  “Have a good day, Ms. Barrick,” he said.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Amy Kaye couldn’t remember the last time she had looked forward to Saturday morning this much.

  The end of her week had been like medieval torture, only the headsman was wearing wingtips. She had to insist on a formal inquiry into the missing Mookie Myers drugs, to be conducted by the state police, with oversight from the Attorney General’s Office.

  She ordered it knowing it was both fundamentally necessary and a complete waste of everyone’s time. Kempe had already done an informal inquiry weeks earlier, when he first realized the drugs were gone. Augusta County’s best investigator had talked to everyone with a reason to go near the evidence lockup and scoured the security camera footage.

  His questioning had come up empty. So had the camera, whose hard drive only had room for thirty days’ worth of data.

  Then he had told Sheriff Powers, who tore through the department, pressuring his guys to turn in any fellow deputy they suspected might be responsible. Powers assumed whoever took the drugs was using them recreationally, and he was going to make sure that deputy would find his number had randomly come up for drug testing.

  But even the sheriff’s aggressions accomplished nothing. So, in addition to the state police, Amy had also called for a thorough review of policies and procedures related to the evidence lockup. This was the quintessential closing of the barn door after the horses were already gone. It had to be done all the same.

  Still, it was a grind. And now that Saturday morning was here, she was ready to put it all behind her. The weatherman said the late-winter day would feel like mid-spring, with sunshine, a light breeze, and temperatures in the seventies.

  A perfect day for a hike. Amy’s plan for herself and Butch involved a battered old map, entitled “Trails of Augusta County,” she had found
for $5 in one of Staunton’s myriad antique stores. It had been produced by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936.

  The young men who carved those trails and made that map—young men who had been put to work by FDR in the depths of the Great Depression—were now very old men, or gone altogether. But had their work outlived them? Were the trails still in use?

  Finding out would be Amy’s adventure. After fortifying herself with a breakfast of waffles drenched in real maple syrup, she went into her office and spread out the map in front of her. She was ready to pick out the trail she and Butch would try first.

  And then the words “Mount Solon” caught her eye.

  Mount Solon was where Lilly Pritchett had been attacked.

  Then she saw Weyers Cave. That was where one of the first victims she learned about had lived.

  Desper Hollow Road. That made her think of Melanie Barrick.

  Before she knew what she was even trying to accomplish, Amy found a box of pins. She hung the map on the corkboard near her desk, then placed pins in the places where she could remember assaults had taken place. There were a few where she wasn’t sure of the exact address, so she looked them up in the dog-eared case files she kept in her home office.

  Once she was into the files, she decided she might as well do it systematically and correctly. She started over again, removing pins and putting them in a more precise place when she decided her memory of an address had faltered. She went through each file, making educated guesses at the location when it was on a modern road that did not yet exist when the map had been made.

  Fishersville. Pin. Stuarts Draft. Pin. Middlebrook. Pin.

  She used blue pins, green pins, yellow pins, whatever she pulled out of the box. She wasn’t trying to make art here. And it’s not like she’d ever put something like this—an eighty-odd-year-old trail map that didn’t even have, say, Interstate 81 on it—in front of a jury. But it felt like a good way to informally reboot her investigation.

  When she was done, she walked across the room and looked at the map from that vantage point. There was no discernible pattern. Spottswood in the south. Mount Sidney in the north. Buffalo Gap out west. Sherando in the east. All points on the compass were represented.

  But that wasn’t what really caught Amy’s eye now that she was looking at the geography for the first time.

  It was the big, heart-shaped hole in the middle, representing the City of Staunton.

  There were pins on the outskirts of it, like the one just north of city limits that signified Daphne Hasper’s attack. There just wasn’t a single pin inside it.

  Staunton wasn’t Amy’s jurisdiction, of course. Only Augusta County was. Staunton had its own police force, its own commonwealth’s attorney.

  But seeing the distribution of the attacks, Amy was struck by how strange it was the rapist had never—to the best of her knowledge—struck within city limits. It was surely a target-rich environment: apartment buildings, old houses that would be easy to break into, even a women’s college.

  She had never reached out to any of her colleagues in Staunton to learn if they were also investigating a serial rapist. Dansby wouldn’t allow it.

  Were there other cases she wasn’t aware of? Perhaps with other evidence she could now use? Or had the rapist really never found anyone to his liking inside city limits? Amy had been so focused on where this menace had attacked, she had never thought to learn from where he hadn’t.

  Amy looked down at Butch, napping on the floor. Then she looked out the window. It was as warm and sunny as the forecast had promised.

  But she already knew she wasn’t going on any hike.

  She pulled out her phone and dialed the cell phone number for Staunton City Police Chief Jim Williams. Amy had always liked the man, who paired an easygoing manner with a quick sense of humor. He also readily admitted his mistakes and taught his officers that apologizing for small transgressions often prevented them from becoming big ones. Few things were more endearing on a police chief than humility.

  Once they had dispensed with a small amount of banter, Williams asked, “Anyhow, what can I do for Augusta County today?”

  Mindful of Dansby’s standing order not to divulge her investigation, she kept it vague. “I’m doing some research into a defendant,” she said, which was not untrue. “I was hoping I could get into your file room.”

  “Wait, I’m not the defendant, am I?” he joked.

  “Not yet,” she teased back.

  “Okay,” he said. “Meet me at the station in fifteen minutes.”

  Fifteen minutes later, she was in. Fifteen minutes after that, she was situated at a small desk in their archive room.

  As the day grew old, she plowed through every unsolved sexual-assault file she could find, going as quickly as possible. Staunton had roughly one-third the population of Augusta County, so there were fewer cases. Most of them were easy to rule out: The attacker was the wrong size, shape, or color. In only a few files did she have to delve deeper into the police report to learn a detail that disqualified the case as being a possibility.

  Still, it was nearing midnight before she emerged.

  In all that time, she didn’t find a single instance of a rapist who whispered.

  FORTY

  My parents made three more attempts to contact me, leaving notes on my doorstep on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

  The first note was asking me to reconsider supporting their petition to take custody of Alex. The second suggested maybe we could share a meal, just to talk. It also offered money for a lawyer. The third said they were praying for me and hoped they might hear from me soon.

  They weren’t going to. My anger at their sudden reappearance had abated somewhat over the weekend, but that didn’t mean I was ready to resume a relationship with them.

  By Monday, they had perhaps gotten the hint I needed some time, because there was no note that day. Nor was there one on Tuesday.

  My life had slowly settled into this odd new routine. I had been slotted into the 11-to-7 shift at Waffle House—plus whatever stray shifts I could tack on—hoping that if I could please enough customers and get enough tips, I might be able to keep my house.

  I would then come home bone-weary, ankles pulsing, smelling like grease and burned coffee. I would settle into the nursing chair with Mr. Snuggs the teddy bear on my lap and let thoughts of Alex fill my head while I pumped.

  Marcus came over a few times. Ever since Ben left, he had been checking in on me daily. We ordered takeout (that he paid for), watched movies, played board games, whatever. Kelly was working late seemingly all the time—it felt like forever since I had seen her—so we both needed the company.

  I also hung out with Teddy some. He and Wendy were supposedly trying to take it slow with their rekindling, making a conscious effort not to spend all their time together. I was happy to help with that.

  Then there were nights, when I just didn’t feel like I was fit to be around people, I stayed home by myself and tried to make my mind as empty as possible. That way, I didn’t have to think about the missing baby and absent husband who until recently had filled my life. I would lose myself in brain-rotting television and attempt to drift off to sleep in front of whatever cooking show, HGTV special, or Castle rerun my restless remote control had settled on.

  It didn’t always work. The misery simply overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t even see the images on the screen. I’d find myself crying uncontrollably or screaming into a pillow, unable to fend off the tsunami of sadness that threatened to wash me away.

  At times like that, I was confronting the very real possibility of being convicted of a crime I didn’t commit. It was an offense that came with essentially two punishments. One was serving five years in prison. The other—the far harsher of the two—was losing my child. And the term was life.

  I could already imagine myself, newly released
, harder and sadder, slinking from one playground and elementary school to the next, looking for a baby I might not even recognize as a five- or six-year-old.

  And then? More of the same. Forever. I already knew the ache would never go away. Some part of me would always be yearning for him.

  With Ben, the pain would eventually fade. But that made it no less poignant in the present. It was a mix of missing him—his touch, his companionship, the way he always made things seem better—and being truly angry with him. Just because I had given him permission to leave, it didn’t mean he was supposed to take me up on the offer.

  Twice, I actually did hear from him. Sort of. One time, he called. I nearly answered, then decided I really didn’t want to talk to him. When I listened to the message, it was this nonsensical rambling, delivered at a volume that was barely audible.

  “I just wanted to hear your voice. I’m just . . . I’m so lonely right now. I hope . . . I hope you get this someday and . . . because if you do, it means . . . it means it’s a happier time. But I can’t think about that too much right now. It’ll make me . . . Anyhow, I miss you. I miss you so much. I love you, and I guess I just wanted you to know that.”

  This prompted me to swear at the phone. Then at Ben. I finished my little tirade with: “If you miss me so much, why’d you leave, you dumbass?”

  His other attempt to contact me was via text, which I got when I came out of Waffle House one day.

  Hey, I know I won’t hear back from you. I just want you to know I’m thinking about you. I’m missing you so much right now. Love you.

  It made me feel like I was in college, dating a frat boy who tried to break up, then worm his way back into my bed a week later with insistences that he really loved me all along. I didn’t fall for it back then. And I sure wasn’t going to now, despite one or two weak moments when I nearly gave into the temptation to call him.