Don't Ever Forget (Adler and Dwyer)

by Matthew Farrell

  She hit the wipers and put the car in gear, carefully pulling out of the parking lot and onto the Post Road. The temperature was still dropping, and the sleet made the pavement slick and navigation tricky in the dark. As Susan drove, she could see the orange halo of salt trucks working just beyond the horizon. It was going to be a long night for those guys, but the overtime would be sweet just before the holidays.

  Susan passed the on-ramp for Route 9 that would’ve taken her home, deciding instead to take a ride to Darville’s house. She wanted to walk through it again, alone, without the distraction of a crime scene investigation going on around her or Triston talking in her ear. She wanted to see if anything popped out that they might’ve missed before. She doubted she’d discover anything substantial after the forensics team had done a sweep, but sometimes just feeling the vibe of the place where a crime had happened helped reset her mind.

  Traffic was heavy on the back roads of Verplanck. Headlights blinded her as cars passed by in the opposite lane, most of them coming home from the city or picking up passengers who’d just gotten off the train. No one dared drive above twenty-five miles an hour for fear of sliding off the road or rear-ending the person in front of them. Susan took her place in the long line of traffic and listened to the radio until her turnoff came. She pulled away from the commuters and headed toward the outskirts of town, toward the Hudson River and the old man’s house.

  She was the only one on 9th Street. The tires crunched the sleet that was beginning to accumulate on the road. No salt trucks or plows bothered to work on dead ends while the main roads still needed tending to. She pulled up along the curb and shut her headlights off just before rolling to a stop one house down from Darville’s place.

  The street was quiet. No traffic. No one outside walking pets. No one salting their driveways or shoveling their stoops. Even the streetlight at the end of the block wasn’t working. It was as if life had ceased to exist on this dead-end road. Nothing was moving.

  Except for the light that was on in James Darville’s house.

  Susan grabbed her phone and dialed.

  “Cortlandt SP. This is Trooper Carson.”

  “This is Adler. I need you to roll a unit to 356 9th Street. That address is an active crime scene in an open investigation associated with this morning’s 10-38 upstate. There are lights on inside the house. Could be nothing, but I’m going to check it out and would rather have a unit rolling in case I need it.”

  “Ten-four,” the trooper replied. “Unit rolling.”

  “No lights. No sirens. Come in quiet. I don’t want to spook them.”

  “You got it.”

  She hung up the phone, shut off the engine, and quietly stepped out of the car. The wind coming off the river was biting. She unclipped the snap on her holster and hurried toward the house, extracting her Beretta and holding it down toward the ground.

  Susan peeked through the window next to the porch, but her vision was blocked by dirty blinds. If she remembered correctly, she was looking into the living room, which would make it the kitchen light that was on. She listened for a moment, trying to hear footsteps or talking or movement of any kind, but there was just the quiet of the street and the wind howling off the Hudson.

  The ground was soft and muddy from the rain, but it was beginning to freeze, making her footsteps crunch as she worked her way toward the back of the house. In the silence, each step sounded like a small explosion. The kitchen was in the rear, and as she turned the corner into the backyard, she could see two windows fully illuminated as well as a shadow of movement beyond the shades that had been drawn.

  Someone was definitely inside.

  She carefully climbed the back stairs and studied the back door. Glass had been punched out of the pane closest to the knob and dead bolt. She held her Beretta up at her chest now, poised and ready if the situation warranted such force. She held her breath, turned the filthy brass knob, and pushed.

  The lights went out.

  Blackness.

  Before Susan’s eyes could adjust or she could pull back from her position, the door she was leaning on slammed shut, knocking into her and sending her down the three steps she’d just climbed. The ground was cold and wet as she scrambled to her feet, ran back up the stairs, and burst into the house, gun drawn and ready.

  “State police!” she cried. “Stop right there!”

  She saw a shadow slip through the kitchen doorway and immediately pursued. What had been a quiet, serene setting only moments before was now chaos and mayhem. The person was running, tripping over furniture, and grunting.

  “I said stop!”

  The figure burst through the front door, hopped down the steps, and ran across the street. Susan followed, pushing the front door open in time to see movement disappearing along the shadows of the house on the opposite side of the road. She scurried down the steps as the trooper unit was pulling onto the street.

  “This way!” she cried.

  The unit sped up and came to a stop next to her.

  “We have one suspect on foot. Just ran behind that house. I’ll go around on the north side, and you flank him on the south.”

  “Ten-four.”

  The trooper jumped out and ran around the dark house on the south side. Susan crept around the north end with her back against the siding, her coat sliding along, making too much noise.

  The neighbor’s yard had no light. Susan got into her shooting position and scanned the area as best she could, trying to pick out something, anything, but it was too difficult to see. The wind was all she could hear.

  Movement.

  Running.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bush sway, and as she turned in that direction, she caught a glimpse of her suspect hurdling a small fence and running into an open area that led to the banks of the Hudson River.

  “He’s heading toward the river!” she yelled.

  She could see him now; the lights along this section of the Hudson were lit as part of the perimeter grounds of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. They’d soon be at the restricted area, and Susan knew that if the suspect kept running, he’d trip sensors. Once he did that, she’d no longer have to worry about pursuing. The highly trained plant guards would take him down in a matter of seconds. And inside the perimeter of the plant, the use of deadly force was always authorized.

  “State police!” she screamed as loud as she could over the wind coming off the water. “Last warning. Stop running or I will open fire!”

  She slowed down and got into a shooting position. Behind her, she could hear the trooper approaching, his breath heavy as the cold air stabbed at his lungs. When he reached her, he got down on one knee and aimed his weapon as well.

  “Stop!”

  Spotlights suddenly came on, and Susan pulled her head away before she was blinded by their intensity. She held up her hand and squinted enough to see the side of a building that had been hidden in the darkness. It was the power plant’s warehouse structure.

  The suspect stopped running, caught in the light, confused and panicked.

  “Put your hands up!” Susan instructed as she and the trooper approached.

  The suspect put his hands up.

  “Keep your hands up, and get on your knees!”

  The suspect fell to his knees.

  Susan holstered her weapon while the trooper kept his aimed and ready. She pulled cuffs from her back pocket and opened them.

  “No sudden moves,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  She could hear guards from the plant approaching and pulled her shield out from beneath her coat.

  “What’s going on down there?” a voice asked from behind the lights.

  “State police!” Susan shouted in return. “Suspect in custody. We’re good!”

  She took the man’s wrist and twisted it around, placing it behind his back while fastening the first cuff. She did the same with the second. When he was secure, she frisked him. He was clean. No weapons. No
thing from the house. No ID. But as she turned him around and saw his face, she knew she didn’t need his ID. She recognized him from earlier that day.

  It was David Hill.

  Rebecca’s brother.

  11

  Susan walked David back to her car, a tight grip on his arm, pushing him forward. As was procedure, the trooper walked behind them in case assistance was needed. It was always easier to step up and run forward or draw your weapon at a target in front of you. His position was as much tactical as it was practical.

  They got to the trooper’s patrol car, and she opened the back door, then pushed David inside and immediately shut it.

  “I’m going to need a minute with him,” she said to the trooper. “You can wait out here or go sit in my car if you get cold.”

  The trooper pulled keys from his coat. “I’ll wait here in case you need something. Start the car and run the heat. It gets chilly in there.”

  She nodded, opened the driver’s-side door, and climbed behind the wheel.

  David was in the back seat, his head leaning against the window, a fresh set of tears streaming down his cheeks over the frozen ones that were beginning to thaw. He’d been crying since they caught him, saying nothing more than “I’m sorry” over and over again. He was doing it now, mumbling the words as he looked out toward the house he’d just run from. James Darville’s house. Susan watched him in the rearview mirror, wondering what he was so remorseful for and if this would be the first break in the case.

  “I need you to stop crying so we can talk. Can you do that?”

  David lifted his head off the window and nodded once, short breaths coming sharp as he tried to stop sobbing.

  “I have to read you your Miranda rights so we get this off on the right foot.” She pulled out her phone and began recording as she read David his rights and he acknowledged that he understood them. When she was done, she paused, allowing them to ease into an awkward silence with only the sound of the engine acting as a backdrop.

  “I’m sorry,” David whimpered.

  “You keep saying that. Sorry for what?”

  “I’m sorry I went into his house. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I couldn’t help it. I had to.”

  “Why?” Susan asked. She repositioned herself so she was facing him instead of watching him in the mirror. “Why were you in there? Why did you have to go?”

  “I need to find my sister. There’s no way she killed that cop, and if she didn’t do it and no one can find her, that means something’s happened to her, and I was getting freaked out. I’ve been calling her. My mom’s been calling. After you left, I went to her job and the physical therapy place she takes Mr. James to. I went by her apartment, but the cops wouldn’t let me in. Something’s up. You don’t know her, and I’m telling you, Rebecca is a good person. There’s just no way she would hurt someone. Something’s happened.”

  “You went into a crime scene without permission. That’s serious.”

  David nodded as new tears fell from his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know Mr. James’s house was a crime scene. I came here to see if he’d seen her, and when I showed up, I saw police tape and I panicked. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Then why did you run? I identified myself as state police. Why did you keep running?”

  “Because of this!” David turned to show his cuffed hands. “A black man breaking into a crime scene after his black sister is suspected of killing a cop? You think I should’ve hung around and talked through it once you came in? I got scared and bolted.”

  “Unlawful entry into a building with the intent to commit a crime is bad, but when it’s a residence, it’s considered a felony. Did you know that?”

  “I wasn’t doing no unlawful acts. I didn’t touch nothing. And I had on gloves anyway. I didn’t screw up any evidence.”

  “You broke the back door window to unlock the dead bolt.”

  “I’m sorry. It was stupid.”

  Susan nodded at him. “Take off those gloves.”

  She rolled down the passenger’s-side window and motioned for the trooper.

  “Take his gloves and put them in an evidence bag.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The trooper opened the back door, and David turned around so he could take the gloves off his hands. As quickly as the door was opened, it was shut again.

  “Why is Mr. James’s house a crime scene?” David asked. “Did he do something to my sister? Is he connected to what happened to her? Please, I need answers.”

  Susan shut off her recorder, stuffed her phone in her pocket, and stepped out of the car. “Okay, we’re done for now. We’re going to take you to the barracks to talk some more. Sit tight, and we’ll straighten all this out.”

  “Did Mr. James do something to Rebecca?”

  Susan shut the door. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to answer David’s question. It’s just that she couldn’t. She really didn’t know.

  TRANSCRIPT

  Screaming, yelling, feet stomping the floor, chairs being moved aside, papers and folders falling off the desk. Then, in a matter of seconds, the room went from complete chaos to utter silence. And there was nothing but Noreen’s deep, ragged breaths, in and out.

  The girl’s body was lying on the classroom floor, facedown, her dark hair tangled and flailing out in every direction. I remember her left leg being folded under her right in an awkward angle, and for some reason that’s always haunted me. She didn’t move. Not a twitch or a spasm or a muscle contraction or a jolt. It had become so quiet. A heavy kind of quiet that was trying to crush us under the weight of what Noreen had just done.

  Noreen was staring at the girl, my paperweight still in her right hand. Her breathing was beginning to slow down, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the body. I watched her, waiting for her to say or do something. Anything. A few minutes earlier we’d been in each other’s arms, kissing, touching, caught in the throes of a forbidden affair that was exhilarating and passionate. I swore I’d locked the classroom door, but the knob and lock were old, and sometimes the bolt didn’t properly catch the frame that had warped and been painted over too many times to even guess.

  That one mistake had cost us everything.

  Blood was beginning to pool onto the floor around the girl’s face. Her body was lying between the classroom door and my desk. I forced myself to take one step, then another, until I’d finally worked my way over to the room’s entrance and peeked out into the hall to make sure we were alone. Most of the other staff had left about an hour earlier, which was what allowed Noreen and me to meet up like that at the school. No one other than the maintenance staff should have been around.

  “She was going to tell,” Noreen mumbled as I gently closed the door and locked it, checking that it was really locked this time. “I had to get her to shut up. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I just needed her to stop yelling.”

  I pushed myself off the door and knelt down beside the body. My trembling hands felt for a pulse on her neck and wrists. There was nothing. She hadn’t been more than thirteen.

  Noreen started to cry. “Is she dead?”

  “Lower your voice,” I whispered.

  “Is she dead?”

  “Yes.”

  Noreen fell to the floor, dropping the paperweight. It hit with a heavy thud, and I winced, remembering the sound it had made when it hit Tiffany’s skull. It was an iron sculpture of the Headless Horseman, one of my favorite literary tales. I’d found it at an antiques shop in Vermont and thought it would make for an excellent conversation piece in my classroom.

  “She wouldn’t stop,” Noreen mumbled as I stood back up. Her eyes were glassy, her mascara beginning to run, making her look like a cartoonish version of herself. A bit off. “She was going to tell her parents and my husband and my friends and the people I work with. She was going to ruin me. And you. The school board would run you out of town. Ruin your career. She was going to enjoy ruining our lives. That smile. That stupid grin on
her face when she told me she was going to tell Sonia. I had to make her stop.”

  “You didn’t have to kill her.”

  Noreen held her breath for a moment and stopped crying. She looked at me, and I saw a different woman. Furious. Rageful. “I didn’t mean to kill her,” she said slowly, each word dripping from her mouth like acid. “I just needed her to quiet down.”

  “Well, she did.”

  “And now what?”

  “I don’t know.” I turned in a circle, and that’s when I spotted something. It was a small tooth in the corner by the blackboard. Noreen must’ve knocked it out when she hit Tiffany. I don’t know why, but I picked it up and stuffed it in my pocket. “We have to call the police.”

  “No!” Noreen reached out for me, her eyes wide with terror. “We can’t call the police. We can’t let anyone know what happened. It’ll ruin us. They’ll put me in jail and take my family away. Jackson will take the girls and I’ll never see them again.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “The police won’t see it that way. They’ll put us both behind bars, and we’ll rot there for the rest of our lives. No, we can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.”

  Noreen scrambled to her feet and went to my desk. She grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair and was moving before I knew what she was doing. She was in survival mode.

  “I love you, and I’m not going to hang us out to dry,” she mumbled. “I know this isn’t right or ethical or even halfway sane, but I need you to just trust me here. Can you do that?”

  I looked at her, but I didn’t know what to say. Maybe shock was taking hold.

  She held up my jacket. “I’m going to wrap this around her head to stop the bleeding from getting all over the place. We’re going to put her body in the coat closet in the back of the room, clean up this mess, and you come back later tonight when the janitorial crew is gone. Take her somewhere and bury her. When she doesn’t come home, we’ll act as shocked as everyone else in town, and we’ll volunteer to help look for her. Day and night. As long as it takes. After enough time goes by, the police will stop searching and we can all go about our lives.”