Don't Ever Forget (Adler and Dwyer)

by Matthew Farrell

  “I don’t have any clothes in my dresser.”

  “You do.”

  James wheeled himself over to the bedroom area, his stomach tying itself in knots. He pulled open drawer after drawer. In each one, a full wardrobe. Underwear, undershirts, pants, shirts, sweaters, socks.

  “I . . . I don’t understand.”

  Cindy stood from the couch. “When you agreed to come live with us, you said you didn’t want any of your old pictures or belongings to come with you. We brought them anyway and stored them in the attic. That’s why none of your stuff is down here. You didn’t want it here. You said it reminded you of too much sadness. I can bring you some pictures.”

  “Would you?”

  “Of course.”

  He could hear her approaching, faint footsteps on the tiled floor. Thin arms wrapped themselves around his chest and neck, and when she leaned in to hug him, he could smell the strawberry from her shampoo. His mind had become a dangerous thing, showing him a reality that he couldn’t trust, tricking him into an alternate universe he had no control over. What was he supposed to do when his mind showed him lies that looked and felt so real?

  “Where’s Rebecca?” he asked quietly.

  “There is no Rebecca,” Cindy replied, her voice muffled in his neck.

  He began to cry. “My name is James. Don’t call me Jim.”

  25

  Trevor got up from the desk in the corner of the dining room that the baby monitor sat atop of. James was on the screen in black and white, sitting in the living room area, unmoving. “The hug was a nice touch.”

  Cindy pulled the refrigerator open and grabbed a can of iced tea. Her hands were shaking and her head throbbed. Touching that man with any sense of affection was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. Playing the role of daughter, or whatever that bastard thought she was to him, was starting to get to her. She could taste blood in her mouth from biting the inside of her cheek. She took a sip of the tea.

  “The hug was a necessity. All part of showing him I care. That’s how I gain his trust. If he trusts me, he’ll start to talk. I can move on to the pictures in the album now. He’s the one who’s asking for his things, so that’ll be the excuse to show him. If I just came down and shoved pictures in his face as soon as we got here, he’d never learn to trust us and we’d never get anywhere. This is how it has to happen.”

  “I don’t know how you can stay so calm after knowing what he did to your sister. It’s impressive. You’re like a professional actress. If it were me, I’d want to slit his throat or choke him or beat the crap out of him.”

  Cindy chuckled. “Believe me, I want to do all of those things, but I know I can’t. I have to get the truth. That’s all I want before Hagen comes to kill him. I just need to know what happened from his own lips.”

  Trevor stopped inside the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. “You got his mind all squirrelly when he saw those clothes in the drawers. That worked good.”

  “I’m not trying to confuse him more, but now he knows he can’t trust his own thoughts. That was a big step, even though we never planned it.”

  “Whatever. I just hope he doesn’t start trying them on. I don’t think too many of my granddad’s things will fit him.”

  Cindy took another sip of her tea and let out a sigh. “Still no word from Hagen today?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m sure he’ll text.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Trevor walked in and hoisted himself up on the counter near the stove. “The cops gave a picture of James to the news to go along with Rebecca and the trooper thing. They made the connection. Knew they would. It’s been leading the hour on all the channels.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Cindy said quickly. “James Darville was never supposed to see life outside that basement again anyway. Hagen’s going to kill him. That was the plan all along.”

  “Yeah, but I’m starting to wonder if we’ve become too much of a liability.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Trevor lowered his voice. “We’ve screwed this up from jump street. At some point we’ll be hurting Hagen more than helping. We have three different police forces out looking for Rebecca, and now they’re looking for James too. That’s too much attention, and if the heat gets turned up too much, Hagen will have to eliminate all the loose ends. That means us. If he needs to clean house in order to get away, we all die.”

  Cindy turned away from him and looked out the window above the sink. The sun was shining. It was a beautiful day. The kind of day that made her second-guess what she was doing. Was her need for the truth that strong?

  “I hate to keep bringing this up, but we’re going to have to do something about your friend.”

  “I know. She’s getting worse.”

  “She wants to see him. Won’t stop crying. Keeps begging me to let her out of the room so she can go down and make sure he’s okay.”

  “We can’t do that. Not when she’s hysterical like this. It’ll just upset him, and we’ll have to start this all over.”

  “I know. That’s what I keep telling her.”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  “I hope so,” Trevor said as he looked behind him and pointed to the baby monitor. “Cause if not, I’ll have to handle it. For the sake of all of us.”

  26

  Most of the time, a case was solved through good police work, an attention to detail, and the small things like knocking on doors, interviewing witnesses, and scouring a suspect’s background to find evidence that was never meant to be discovered. But every once in a while, a little piece of luck came along to make things easier. When that happened, it was like Christmas, New Year’s, and your birthday all rolled into one. This was one of those times.

  They found Rebecca Hill’s silver Honda Civic submerged in a shallow section of Candlewood Lake near Brookfield, Connecticut. One of the men who worked on a dock in the town of Sherman had come down to retrieve a party boat that was being sealed and stored late in the season. As he was towing the boat away from its summer mooring, it ran over something and got stuck. That something ended up being the back end of Rebecca’s Civic. The dockhand called the police, and the match to the BOLO was made.

  By the time Susan arrived on scene, an ambulance, four Brookfield police units, a forensics van from the Connecticut State Police, and a command sergeant were already there. Yellow police tape had been stretched from the road leading to the boat launch, to the tree line that surrounded the back of the parking lot, and around the cluster of emergency vehicles. Candlewood Lake Road had been closed between the Down the Hatch restaurant and Indian Trail.

  Three members of the forensics team milled about the Civic, which had been towed from the water and left on the boat ramp. They worked inside and out, taking samples and bagging everything they could find before they would have the car sent back to their lab for further analysis. It would be hard to pull anything solid with the entire vehicle having been underwater. There would be no prints, no DNA. It was a mess.

  Susan noticed how gray the sky had turned on her ride up from Cortlandt. The chill in the air held the promise of snow, but she couldn’t recall anything being forecast on the news. She climbed out of her sedan and pulled the collar of her jacket closed as Sergeant Triston approached.

  “Hey, Mel,” she said. “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “No problem.”

  “What do we have so far?”

  “The nurse was in the trunk,” Triston replied. “ID was in her purse, which was also in the trunk. Body’s a bit bloated. The forensics team will take prints and a hair sample when she dries off to confirm, but it’s her. Fits the description. She was wrapped in a blanket. Could be from Darville’s bed. All his blankets and sheets were missing. Also looked like she took a bit of a beating.”

  “Might be her blood we found on the wall and floor.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  Susan snapped on her gloves as she mad
e her way over to the car. All four doors were open, as were the trunk and hood.

  “Now we know why they panicked and attacked the trooper,” Susan said. “They had a body in the trunk.”

  “Brookfield PD checked around,” Triston replied. “None of the dockhands or harbormasters saw anything. No one heard a crash. Same with the bars and restaurants in the area. Most of them are already closed for the season.”

  “The parking lot or marinas have any security cameras?”

  “Already requested. The marina has cameras, and so does the dock at the edge of Cadigan Park. We’ll get something.”

  Rebecca Hill had been stuffed into the Civic’s tiny trunk with force. Her body was in a tight fetal position among a workout bag, patient files, and the spare tire, which was not in its proper compartment underneath the trunk mat. Her neck alignment seemed off.

  “The team said they need about ten more minutes, and then the EMTs can extract the body and bring it in for examination and autopsy. Connecticut agreed to let us have her and the car as long as we give them a copy of our reports.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  One of the members of the forensics team moved Susan out of the way and began taking pictures. She and Mel hung back by the tree line. The surface of the expansive lake was as calm as glass, reflecting the cloudy sky.

  “So either Rebecca wasn’t in on what happened at James Darville’s house,” she said, “or she was in deep enough to let someone she thought she could trust double-cross her.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “I saw the trooper’s dashcam. We have a male and female, both white, both fairly young, from what I could tell. No sign of Darville.”

  “Okay, so that’s two or three people, depending on whether Rebecca Hill was in on this, all working together to get into the old man’s house and take whatever he was hiding in the floor.”

  “I figured it was money,” Susan said. “But now I’m thinking it might’ve been something more. This is a lot of carnage for a few bucks.”

  “Could be way more than a few. Could’ve been enough to make it all worthwhile.” Triston pointed to the car. “I want to know where the old man is. I mean, if they killed the trooper and the nurse, they probably killed Darville too. So why not dump his body with the nurse?”

  Susan began pacing as she talked. “Maybe because they didn’t want to kill him. From what we could see on the dashcam footage, Darville wasn’t with the woman in Rebecca’s car.”

  “You think the old man was alive in the other car.”

  “Either that or the divers who’re in the lake are about to discover another body.” Susan stopped pacing and looked at Triston. “Did we ever find out if Darville had a car?”

  “We’re still looking into it with the DMV, but it doesn’t look like he did.”

  “Got something!”

  They turned to find the forensic tech who was taking the pictures raising his hand and backing away from the trunk. They went over.

  “What’s up?” Susan asked.

  The tech pointed. “I was taking interior trunk shots and noticed something in the victim’s hand. Take a look.”

  Susan craned her neck to peek inside. Rebecca’s hands were balled into fists and tucked under her chin as if she was praying. Susan took her phone out of her pocket and engaged the flashlight so she could see better. The edge of the object was stuck between her index and middle fingers, too small and hard to see its details, but Susan knew what it was right away.

  “I’ll be damned,” she muttered.

  “What is it?” Triston asked.

  “We got another tooth.”

  27

  The Hitchcock movie was on again. Kids running out of the school. Seagulls attacking. Screams. Blood. James sat with his hands folded on his lap, trying to focus, but was distracted by the digital clock that was next to the television, flashing 12:00 over and over. He wanted to fix the time but had no idea what time it was. The more he tried to ignore it, the more his eyes found their way back to it. He was certain he could hear a ticking noise every time the numbers flashed.

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .

  The basement door opened, and the woman came down carrying a book tucked under her arm.

  “You,” he said.

  The woman waved.

  “I know you.”

  “Yes, you do. Think. What’s my name?”

  “Rebecca.”

  “No.”

  “Where’s Rebecca? She needs to fix my clock. Something’s wrong with it. I can hear it ticking, and it won’t tell me the time.”

  “There’s no Rebecca,” the woman replied. “And that’s a digital clock. It doesn’t tick.”

  “I can hear it.”

  “Okay.”

  Cindy plopped down on the couch and waited until James wheeled himself over to where she was sitting.

  “Do you remember when you were saying you wanted to see some pictures of your life? You said it was too plain down here.”

  “I think so.”

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .

  “I thought you’d like to look at these.”

  She opened the album and flipped to the first page. She pulled a picture from its pocket. The photo looked old. Not ancient, but not as crisp and clear as a new one would be. The picture was of a young girl with large brown eyes, straight brown hair, and an oval face. Her pink cheeks looked like blush that was too heavy on her pale skin. She was beautiful.

  “Do you recognize this person?” Cindy asked.

  James studied the picture, then slowly shook his head. “No. Who is she?”

  “Think.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Her name is Tiffany.”

  “Tiffany,” James repeated. “How are we related?”

  Cindy ignored the question, put the picture back in its pocket, and turned the page.

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

  The next picture was of another young girl, this one a little older, maybe high school age. James was certain he knew those angelic brown eyes and that wavy red hair.

  “I think I know this one,” he muttered.

  “Good. Take a good look. Who is she?”

  The freckles on her cheeks, her thin lips, the tiny round birthmark just under the right side of her chin. It all seemed so familiar, but he couldn’t find the name.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No guess?”

  He shook his head.

  “You said you knew her.”

  “I think I do, but I don’t know her name.”

  “Her name is Bonnie.”

  “Were we married?”

  Cindy chuckled as she put the photo back. “No, you were not married.”

  “How is she part of the family?”

  She flipped to another page, pulled the photo out, and held it up for him to see. “How about this one?”

  The picture was of a young boy. He had a darker complexion, with brown eyes and an afro. He looked sharp in a dark suit, white shirt, and fluorescent-pink tie.

  “Does he look familiar?”

  “Maybe.”

  James studied his face, his skinny neck, his puffy cheeks, and his pointy chin.

  “What’s his name?”

  “How is he related?”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

  Cindy dropped the picture. “This is Marcus. Look again.” She held the photo up. “Marcus Ruley? You don’t recognize him?”

  “No.”

  Cindy grunted as she stuffed the photo back in the pocket and quickly turned the page. James could feel the tension growing between them and could hear the incessant ticking of the digital clock. He was making her angry. She pulled the next picture out and held it up.

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

  “Take your time with this one and look closely. You can do it. Focus and try to remember her name.”

  James r
eached for the picture, but Cindy pulled it away. He studied it, leaning in, almost willing his mind to come up with a name. This face was even more familiar than the others. It was a girl. Maybe ten? Blonde hair in pigtails, a bright-red ribbon tying off each one. She was smiling with all her might, her crooked teeth showing gaps that braces might be able to fix sometime down the road. She had brown eyes, and her skin was tanned from a summer of playing outside. Like the other pictures, this print seemed to have aged. It was clearly a school picture. The nondescript mottled backdrop was a dead giveaway.

  “Is it you?” he asked, looking from the picture to the woman sitting across from him on the couch. “When you were younger? A school picture?”

  Cindy shook her head. “It’s not me. Look again. Try to remember.”

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

  It was a headshot, but he could see the top of her blouse, white with tiny blue flowers scattered about on a butterfly collar. She was beautiful in her innocence. He was certain he knew the girl. He knew she loved that blouse with the tiny blue flowers. Her name was on the tip of his tongue.

  “Think.”

  “I am.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “What’s my name?”

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

  “Cindy.”

  “Good. What’s your name?”

  “James. My name is James.”

  She squeezed the photo between her thumb and index fingers, shaking it in front of him. “What . . . is . . . her . . . name?”

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

  It was there, but the fog was keeping him from seeing it. He pounded his fists on his thighs. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Cindy sighed. “Look at the picture.”

  “I am!”

  “Try and remember.”

  Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

  “I can’t think with that clock!” he screamed, pulling away from the couch and wheeling toward the television. He let the wheelchair crash into the TV stand as he grabbed the clock with fumbling hands.

  “What are you doing?”

  He ignored the woman, instead focusing all his rage and frustration on the clock that he held above his head.