She felt around in his sweatpants and pulled out something small and sharp. Catching it in her fist, she shook it and then opened her palm. In her palm was a broken piece of metal from a mechanical pencil or something and a couple of leaves. She wondered how on earth the boys collected things in their pants like that. She pulled it all out and dropped it on top of the dryer. As she pushed her bangs off her face, she caught a subtle smell on her hand. It made her flinch.
Eucalyptus. She wondered how long it would be before that smell stopped representing this case. She knew she would never forget it. It was always that way. She turned back to Rob’s laundry and lifted a flannel shirt off the pile. As she did, she caught sight of something on the sleeve. She pulled it closer and saw that the sleeve was ripped. But there was something else. On the rim of the tear, she saw a dark spot. She rubbed it between her fingers and the red stained her skin. Blood. She looked back at the eucalyptus leaves and then down at the blood.
“Holy shit.”
She ran for the phone.
Chapter Forty-one
Things had seemed better for Gerry over the past few days after talking to Sam. He’d called the police and spoken to a woman officer, so he’d known the officer wasn’t the guy who attacked him. She’d pressed him for his name, but he’d refused. He wasn’t that dumb. She’d told him the information he was offering was very valuable, and she’d made him feel very good.
Gerry could feel Jane behind him almost all the time now. He looked forward to the fall when she went back to school. When he spotted her, she’d shriek and run off like it was all a big game. But she would never be gone for long. He’d shooed her away for days, but he longed to talk to her, to talk to anyone, for that matter. Bobby was too busy, and Martha only grunted and growled at him. He knew if he talked to Jane, though, he might as well have died in that alley.
He’d finally gathered the nerve to ask Bobby for some books. Bobby had brought him a whole stack, but most were Martha’s romance novels, and he read through them in no time. He hated to ask for more, so instead he read them again until he could remember each of the seven stories inside and out. He wasn’t sleeping much, despite the warm bed. He still missed Wally and the prison.
He found a stack of playing cards in the pantry and laid them out for a game of solitaire in his room in the barn. He’d been playing for two hours straight when he heard the squeak of the door. He looked up, saw nothing, and returned to his game. A minute later he heard it again. Dropping the cards on the table, he walked to the door and pulled it open. Jane looked up at him wide-eyed, then backed away from the door.
He stepped into the barn and waved her off like a stray dog. “Get on out of here.”
She moved back a few steps and stopped. “Are you a monster?”
The sound of her small voice touched him, and he longed to say no. He pressed the heel of his hand into his chest and nodded. “Yes.”
She shook her head. “You don’t look like a monster.”
“Well, I am.”
“Maybe you’re like the Beast,” she said, rolling on the balls of her feet with her hands tucked behind her back.
She looked so sweet, he had to look away. “I am. I’m like the beast. You should leave.” He felt so pathetic, looking into her wide eyes and telling her to go.
“You’re like the Beast inBeauty and the Beast .” She looked around and then started again. “See, he’s really a prince, but he got turned into a Beast by a wicked queen. All he needs is someone to love him and then he turns back into a prince. Maybe you’re like that.”
He shook his head, but the idea that she thought he might be a prince in disguise brought tears to his eyes. He shook his head again and covered his face. “No. I’m not a prince.”
He felt her hand on his arm. “It’s okay, mister. You don’t gotta cry.”
Her voice made him cry harder and before he knew it, he was wracked with sobs and sinking to the barn floor. She didn’t even know he was her uncle. His own brother was so ashamed, he was hiding the truth from his little girl. He covered his face and sobbed.
She patted his back and rubbed in little circles, and he thought he might die right there. He wished he could will her away, but he couldn’t. “It’s okay,” she whispered, her breath like a feather at his ear.
She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed.
He didn’t move, feeling himself stir and wishing he were stronger. He just cried. God, please help him.
“Shh. It’s okay.” She rocked slightly as she hugged him.
He felt himself melt. Instead of pulling away, he tucked his head against her chest and she continued to hold him, innocent as to the terrible thoughts that were brewing inside him.
She lifted her head and dropped her hands, turning her ear toward the door.
He pulled back. If Martha found them, he was dead. He put his hand over his crotch to hide the bulge. This was his niece. What was he thinking? He wasn’t strong enough to live. He couldn’t be strong around her. “What is it?” he whispered.
“Dunno.” She headed for the door and peered outside. “Wow!”
“What? What do you see?”
“Two police cars.”
Gerry panicked. They knew. He’d barely touched her, and already they knew. He ran out the back door of the barn and through the field and kept running and running. He wondered if they would take him back to Wally. He shook his head. No. They’d take him somewhere new. He couldn’t handle being new again. The lies. The huge men who wanted him. The threats. Without Wally, he’d never survive.
He ran and ran until he came to his oak tree. He sat down beside it to catch his breath and wondered how soon they would find him. He couldn’t be found now. He couldn’t face Bobby when he found out. Couldn’t handle seeing Martha. Couldn’t hurt little Jane with the truth. He thought of her angelic face and started to climb the tree toward the rope, hanging high above. When he reached it, he lay on his back on the branch and tied the rope tight around his neck. He closed it with a knot and wondered if it would stay. He’d never been a Boy Scout, so he wasn’t good with ropes.
He suddenly wished he owned a gun. It would be so much faster with a gun. He could hear voices in the pasture, and his name carried toward him on the wind. He wondered if they would be able to save him. Or if they would even try. He thought about his mother. She was the only person who still loved him, and even she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
Rolling off the limb of the tree, he prayed. The rope tightened around his neck with a wrenching pull, and he felt the back of his head slam against the tree. Then he saw his angel’s face.
Chapter Forty-two
Nick headed down the hall toward his office. The lab was processing Gerry Hecht’s prints, but so far they hadn’t matched anything from either of the crime scenes. Nick hadn’t expected Hecht to be involved, but it was worth a shot. Sam had picked Hecht out from more than one hundred feet away at the funeral. He shook his head. She was good.
“Thomas.”
Nick wiped the smile from his face so he didn’t look like an idiot.
Paul McCafferty ran to catch up with him. “I’ve been looking all over for you. You heading to your office?”
Nick nodded. “I was.”
“I wanted to, uh, warn you.”
“Warn me what?”
“There’s someone waiting in there.”
“In my office?”
He nodded.
“Who?”
“Name’s Marge Allen. She lives down the street from Sandi Walters. Hansen and Bernadini talked to her during the neighborhood sweep. They got nothing back then. She came in today claiming her stepson, who’s back from the Midwest somewhere, knows something about the Walters case. Said he saw a guy who was hanging around on a motorcycle the day she was killed.”
“A motorcycle.” He looked back toward his office. “And?”
“We went through the pictures with the kid, but he didn’t recognize the perp.”
&nbs
p; “What about Williams?”
“First picture I showed him.”
Nick scratched his face. “Damn.” Who the hell had been on that bike if it wasn’t Williams? “Set the kid up with a police artist.”
“I suggested that. The kid’s deaf.”
Nick shrugged. “So what? Have the mother translate. Or get Michelle Halloran to do it. She signs.”
McCafferty nodded but didn’t speak.
“What?”
“She’s in your office.”
“Why?”
“Said she wanted to talk to whoever’s in charge directly. Made a stink.”
“Damn.” Nick rubbed his face. “What’s her name again?”
“Mrs. Allen. The kid’s Randy—Randy Allen.”
“Thanks.” Nick marched toward his office.
From the hall, he could see a woman with red hair too bright to be natural. The curls were pulled into a tidy ponytail with two loose ringlets on either side of her head that gave the look of bright red springs attached to her ears. She wore a button-down striped shirt in teal and pink and cotton stretch pants in a matching aqua. Her feet were in white house sneakers that looked too large for her. Her hands were crossed over her purse in her lap, and she stared blankly across the room. Next to her a little girl mimicked her gestures. The boy sat on the floor, making loud noises that were off pitch. The mother didn’t seem to notice him.
Nick entered the room, stopped beside the woman, and extended his hand. “I’m Detective Nick Thomas. You must be Mrs. Allen. I understand your son had some information for us.”
The woman nodded but didn’t speak.
Nick sat on the edge of the desk and waited.
“Isn’t there someone who needs to interview him?” she finally asked. “You haven’t solved the murder yet, have you? My son is a witness.”
“Actually, we haven’t solved the murder, and we do appreciate your son’s help,” Nick answered, gritting his teeth. “What we do is have him look through some books of faces, see if he recognizes anyone. I believe he did that already, did he not?”
The boy was now driving an imaginary car up Nick’s wall, and the buzzing sound had increased tenfold.
The woman merely spoke louder. “Yes, but Randy didn’t see the man in those pictures.”
Nick nodded and had started to speak when Randy threw his car into high gear. He glanced at the child and then at Mrs. Allen, but she remained silent. “The next step would be for Randy to work with a police artist. Do you think he could describe the man he saw?”
Mrs. Allen looked at Randy for a minute and then nodded. “Of course.”
Randy quieted the car and began to drive behind Nick’s desk and up his chair.
“Great. Let me make a call and we’ll set up a room for him. We certainly appreciate you coming forward with this information.”
Mrs. Allen nodded primly. “Randy is very excited. When we told him he would be identifying a murderer, he could hardly wait to get down here. He really loves the police.”
The little girl nodded, too.
Nick picked up his phone and dialed McCafferty’s desk, trying not to think about what a waste of time this probably was. “We’re set for an artist now,” he said when Paul picked up.
“Got it.”
He put the phone down and turned back to Randy’s mother. “Does Randy need an interpreter?” He knew some parents of deaf children didn’t know sign language.
“I can do it,” she said.
He nodded. “Someone should be down in a few minutes.” As he started to explain the process, Randy let out a piercing scream.
Even Mrs. Allen flinched and stood up.
Nick saw that Randy was holding a picture frame that he had picked up off Nick’s desk. Nick reached for the boy’s hand, sure that he’d cut himself.
Randy’s eyes widened and he dropped the picture.
Nick let the plastic frame fall to the ground and kept his hands on Randy’s. He pulled open the tight fist the boy had clenched and looked for blood. There was none. “What’s wrong with him?”
Mrs. Allen didn’t respond. Instead, she knelt down to Randy’s level and started to speak with her hands.
Nick’s phone rang, but he ignored it, watching instead as Randy picked up the picture again and pointed to something, then set it down in order to explain to his mother. The picture was the one Nick had just gotten of the baseball team he coached. He couldn’t figure out what had interested Randy. Maybe he wanted to learn to play baseball.
Mrs. Allen shook her head and moved her hands again.
Randy nodded and spoke back. His mouth moved, and he made harsh sounds when he signed, as though he was trying to make the words come out of his mouth.
Nick looked over at the little girl, unsure whether to excuse himself. She sat in her chair watching them, and for a moment he wondered if she was mute. He turned his attention to the mother and son again.
Finally Mrs. Allen picked up the picture and waved a finger in the air.
Randy pointed to a face.
Mrs. Allen looked up at Nick.
“What is it?”
“He sees the man.”
Nick frowned. “What man?”
“The one on the bike.”
“Someone who looks like him?” Nick asked.
She shook her head.
Randy was looking back and forth from one of them to the other. When Nick looked at him, he pointed again.
“No, he seesthe man.”
Nick turned the picture so he could see it. “Which one?”
She nodded to Randy, and he pointed to a kid in the back row.
Nick leaned in and studied the face at the end of the little boy’s finger. It was Rob Chase. He felt a strange sucking sensation in his throat as he tried to speak. “He has to mean the man looks like him.”
Mrs. Allen spoke again to Randy.
“He’s sure,” the little girl said, and Nick started at the sound of her voice. “He says it’sthat kid. The blond kid,” the girl repeated.
Nick opened his mouth but found he couldn’t think of a thing to say.
Just then, McCafferty appeared at his door. “Sam Chase is here. She says it’s urgent.”
“I’m in the midd—” Nick started to say.
“It’s about Rob Chase,” McCafferty added.
Nick felt as though he’d been kicked in the head. The gum wrapper, Sam’s flashlight, now the I.D. He saw the pieces fall into place, and yet it was all wrong. It couldn’t be Rob. Sam’s whole life was riding on this, and suddenly he felt he was right there with her. If Rob was guilty . . . He shook his head. He couldn’t even fathom it.
Chapter Forty-three
Whitney Allen kicked her feet against the tall wooden chair while her mother watched the people come into the courtroom. Randy was sitting on the other side of her mother, making low groaning noises like he did when he was bothered. Whitney wished her mother would tell him to shut up. She herself was too far away to punch him or sign for him to stop. Instead, she settled into the rhythmicclack clack of her scuffed patent leather shoes against the legs of the chair. From their third-row seats, Whitney studied the people in the room. Most of them were old and wore dark colors. She thought the people in court on TV never looked like that. Maybe this was a special court for killers and so everyone wore black. She looked down at her frilly pink dress and smoothed it over her knees. She stood out like a candy cane. She wished she got to be the one who got to talk to the lawyer. Randy always got to do all the fun stuff.
Whitney saw a blond woman come in. That was another thing there weren’t a lot of—girls. Except for that lady, Whitney, and her mom, there were only about two or three others that she saw. One of them was a woman sitting at the back of the room with a notepad in her hands. The woman sat with her back perfectly straight. Her hair was pulled up so tight, Whitney wondered if it hurt. Sitting herself up straighter, Whitney put her hands in her lap, wishing she had a notepad.
“Sit
forward,” her mother snapped.
Whitney looked at the blond lady again. She sat down in the front row and started talking to a black man next to her. She looked sad. Whitney wondered if maybe she was one of the dead person’s friends.
She had freckles like Whitney’s but lighter, and Whitney thought how pretty she was. She wished she had blond hair like that. The lady was dressed in a black jacket and pants and a gray sweater. Whitney thought she looked sort of like a movie star. She couldn’t remember the movie star’s name, but she played in a funny movie—something about not sleeping in a city. Whitney had seen part of it over at Jodie’s house. Jodie had cable. But her mom had caught them and changed the channel. Whitney didn’t know what the big deal was. She’d seen one kiss and that was it. It wasn’t even as good as the ones she’d seen watching Jodie’s older brother with his girlfriend.
Anyway, this lady looked like that one. Only, she wasn’t wearing any makeup. When grown-ups were sad, sometimes they didn’t wear makeup. She remembered that from when her mom and dad split up. Her mom had been too sad to wear makeup. She said every time she put it on, she ended up crying it all off. Thankfully, her mom didn’t cry anymore. Now she could wear her makeup just fine.
A man in a black robe came into the courtroom and everybody stood up. Whitney was going to stay seated, but her mother grabbed her by the arm and yanked her up. She put her hand on her heart and waited for them to start saying the national anthem or the pledge of ’legience. She saw the flag in the corner, but no one spoke for a minute. Then, the guy in the robe banged his hammer on his desk and everyone sat. Whitney was surprised no one got mad. When she hit things on her desk at school, the teacher made her sit in the corner. They hadn’t said the anthem, either.
She thought that guy had a good job and wondered if the black robe came in other colors. It would be fun if it was pink.
People started talking and Whitney got bored. She looked around the room again, but no one was moving. Everyone was listening to the robe man talking. Whitney tossed her head back and stared at the ceiling. It was white and plain and very boring. She tugged at her hair, sitting back against the chair and feeling it pull as she lowered her head. When it was loose around her shoulders, she did it again. She’d heard if you pulled on it, it would grow faster.
(2002) Chasing Darkness Page 29