Don't Ever Forget (Adler and Dwyer)

by Matthew Farrell

  “I had nothing to do with that. I’m married with two young daughters. I know what I did was wrong, but I can’t jeopardize my marriage over a dumb mistake. I love my wife. This was a moment of weakness on my part.”

  “Sounds like more than one moment.”

  “You know what I mean. When she first went missing, I didn’t know what to think. It was crazy. I started driving to all the places we used to go to, but there was no sign of her. I called and texted but never heard anything back. When you came to see me with that copy of her address book, I started to worry about what else you might find out about our affair. I had to wait until the activity around her place died down a bit; then I went to her apartment to get rid of anything that might’ve given you a clue about us. I had nothing to do with why she’s missing, I swear. I just wanted to keep our affair a secret. My wife can’t know. She simply can’t.”

  Susan watched as tears welled in the doctor’s eyes, the same way David had shed tears in the back of the cruiser the night he was caught breaking into Darville’s house. David’s reason for being there had turned out to be a lie. How could she not suspect there was something more here?

  “What’s your cell phone number?” Susan asked.

  Dr. Calib recited it, and Susan wrote it on the inside of the file. When she was done, she traced her finger along the numbers listed on Rebecca’s phone records. Dr. Calib’s cell phone number was there sporadically, both incoming and outgoing.

  “You and Rebecca texted?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And if I were to look at your phone, I’d see those texts, and the nature of those texts would confirm your story about an affair?”

  “Absolutely. She sent me flirty texts and naughty texts. Sometimes she sent me pictures of . . . you know . . . she was naked and whatnot. We were in a relationship, so to speak. That’s what people in relationships do.” He leaned forward. “But I deleted them right away. I couldn’t let my wife find them, and Rebecca knew not to contact me after six. That was the deal.”

  “So then you have no record. This is just another story you’re telling me.”

  “No! I mean, I can’t provide the proof from my phone, but if you contact the phone company and get records or whatever it is you do, you’ll find them. I’ll sign a waiver if you want.”

  Susan closed the file and shook her head in disgust. “I came into your office and asked you three times if you knew Rebecca outside of work,” she sneered. “You told me no, all three times. I even asked a final time, for the record. You still said no. I knew you were lying.”

  “I froze,” Dr. Calib replied. “I didn’t want anyone to know about the affair. I screwed up.”

  “You impeded a police investigation by lying to me, broke into a crime scene with the intent of removing evidence that would shed light on your affair with one of the missing people in question, and you think your cooperation now, at this point, is going to prevent you from being charged with a crime? That’s pretty funny.”

  “I think we can work something out,” Brewer said. His voice was calm, steady. “We’ve brought you up to speed now. There are no more secrets.”

  “So you say.”

  “So I say.”

  Susan looked at her suspect. “You know, you fit the description of one of the suspects we have on tape murdering Trooper Kincaid.”

  “I had nothing to do with that!” Dr. Calib cried. “I’m serious. I was home each night the week Rebecca disappeared. I had a few school things for my kids, and we hosted a dinner with friends one night. You can check with the school. We had to sign in. I had a parent-teacher conference, and my youngest had a clarinet recital. And I’ll give you a list of attendees who came to our dinner, as long as you keep my relationship with Rebecca out of your inquiry.”

  Susan got up from her seat and gathered her file. “Stay here,” she said. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going?” Brewer asked.

  “Across the street to the DA’s office. I need to see which crimes he wants to charge you with.”

  62

  The DA decided to charge Dr. Calib with obstructing a police investigation, breaking and entering, and attempted larceny. He was charged, booked, and sent to a cell to wait until they could confirm his whereabouts the week Darville went missing and the night Trooper Kincaid was killed. If he was cleared, the judge would then determine if he would be released on bail or held. But there was no way to keep his affair with Rebecca a secret any longer. One bad decision, coupled with the randomness of his lover’s disappearance, and the life Phillip Calib knew was over. Regardless of whether his wife could forgive him, their marriage would always be scarred by his infidelity and bruised by the pain of betrayal. Susan knew both the scar and the bruise all too well.

  She turned up the radio and cracked the windows as she drove from White Plains to the Cortlandt barracks. The cold air felt good and helped her stay alert. It wasn’t even noon, and she’d already been awake for nine hours. She felt like she’d put in a full day, while most of the East Coast still wasn’t ready for lunch. Perhaps she could catch a few minutes of sleep when she got back to the barracks. Nothing too long. Maybe just a half hour in one of the interview rooms to recharge.

  Her cell phone, connected to the car’s USB port, began to ring through the speakers. It was loud and piercing. Susan glanced at the screen and saw it was Liam.

  “Hey,” she said, rolling up the windows so she could hear better. “What’s up?”

  “I found her,” Liam replied, his voice crackling. “Noreen Garland. The Sears catalog lady. Called in a second favor, and the boys let me come in and do some digging on their computer. Found a property record for her husband, Jackson Garland, in West Finley and then found tax-filing information and went from there. We got some general DMV data and her social security number.”

  “We were doing the same thing here,” Susan replied. “Looks like you beat us to it.”

  “Good to get the win,” Liam said. “But, unfortunately, she’s dead.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Died in a fire in ’89. Suicide. The husband worked for the post office. He died of colon cancer in ’98.”

  “Damn.”

  “There’s more. They had two daughters, Cynthia and Sonia.” Liam paused. “Sonia went missing back in ’82 on her way home from school.”

  Susan let the words hang in the air. “Darville’s first victim,” she said.

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “He’s been at the scene of each girl who went missing, and we found the teeth from two of the missing kids at his house and in his nurse’s car.” She slammed the wheel with her hand. “The locket!”

  “What locket?”

  “We found a locket at Darville’s house too. It was old. Had the initials SG on it.”

  “Sonia Garland,” Liam said. “There you go.”

  Susan stepped on the accelerator. “Email me everything you have. I’m heading to the barracks now, and I’ll break everything out when I get there.”

  “You got it.”

  “I’m going to call Crosby and brief him on what you found.” She looked down at the phone as if she were looking at Liam himself. “You did great,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  “You need to get back in the field. You were made for this.”

  “I’m a crime scene tech. We’re not in the field.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I’m working on it.”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Wait,” Liam said before she could end the call. “One more thing.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I just keep thinking.” Liam’s voice grew soft. “You found two teeth and a locket at the scene. I’m guessing they were left there by accident. Probably part of whatever was in that hole in the floor you were telling me about.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “So if you found three
random things that belonged to three missing kids, the real question is, How many things did you not find? How many missing kids was this guy responsible for? How many souvenirs are there?”

  TRANSCRIPT

  I woke up, and the first thing I felt was a throbbing in my head, the pain matching the rhythm of my beating heart. I was on the floor, and as my vision came into focus, I could see that Noreen had bound my arms and legs with pieces of an old extension cord. My hands were fastened behind my back, and my legs were tied together at the ankles. I tugged at the cord, and although most of the rubber casing had disintegrated or broken off over time, the wires were still strong and held firm. I pulled with my hands and moved my ankles. There was give in the knots, but not enough to break free right away.

  The girl on the cot was dead. From my angle, I could see the unnatural way her arm hung across her body, and I could also see the filthy pillow covering her face. Noreen had killed her while I was knocked out.

  There was heavy panting coming from behind me. It sounded like an animal growling and whimpering at the same time. I rolled onto my side to find the boy who’d been hiking tied to one of the exposed pipes that ran along the baseboard to the kitchen sink. Like me, his hands were bound with an old extension cord, but not his legs. The side of his head was swollen. Blood matted his hair and stained his cheek. Dirty tears ran down his face.

  Noreen was on the cot, bent over the girl she’d just killed, stroking the blond wig, whispering something I couldn’t hear. She slowly sat up, removed the pillow, then took the wig off the girl.

  “Noreen, let me go,” I said. “Untie me.”

  She ignored me as she got up from the cot, walking slowly into the kitchen area as if she was in a trance. Her gaze was distant, her eyes unfocused. A tiny smile curved the edges of her lips.

  The boy began to thrash about, crying and screaming as she approached him, kicking and pushing himself away, but she straddled him, pinning his legs under her weight so he couldn’t move.

  “Shhhh,” she said as she reached up and slid the wig over the boy’s head. “I need to see.”

  “Leave him alone!” I barked. The cords around my wrists were starting to give a bit, and I continued pulling and yanking them.

  Noreen sat back on the boy’s thighs and studied him.

  Silence between them.

  No one moved.

  I held my breath until she snatched the wig off his head.

  “It’s wrong,” she said. “You’re not Sonia. Your eyes are blue.”

  “Let him go,” I said. I could feel the cord coming undone on my wrists. I was almost free.

  “He can’t go,” Noreen replied. “He’s seen us.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s seen. Let him go, and this ends. Today. We end this. We have to.”

  Noreen was staring at the boy, lost in her own world. She didn’t see me pull my hands free, nor did she hear the extension cord drop to the floor. I watched her as I worked the cord on my ankles, but she never turned around. I carefully got to my feet, snatched the log she’d left on the floor, and swung as hard as I could. She was unconscious before her body hit the floor.

  I knelt down next to the boy and untied his hands from the pipe. We stood up together, and I took him by the shoulders, shaking him so he’d focus on me.

  “Leave here,” I said. “Run. Get home, and don’t ever come back. I’ll make sure she doesn’t bother you again, but you can’t speak about this, ever.”

  I reached into his pockets and came away with a handful of things: a compass, a pack of gum, a folded-up baseball card of Lenny Dykstra, and a small Velcro wallet. I opened the wallet, took the boy’s scout membership card, and held it up in front of his face so he could see it.

  “If you tell anyone about what you saw, I’ll come get you. I know your name, and I know where you live. I’ve memorized it. But if you keep this secret, you’ll never hear from me again. Do you understand?”

  The boy nodded through his tears, and I gave him back his stuff.

  “Go.”

  He ran from the cabin, and I listened to his feet against the dead leaves until they vanished with distance. He was gone. I’d saved him. Now it was time to save me.

  I turned to Noreen and straddled her body, placing my cold, trembling hands around her neck. I was crying and praying and telling her how much I loved her as I squeezed with all the strength that was left in my body. I kept squeezing and sobbing and apologizing, not only to Noreen but to the children I helped bury and the families whose lives I irrevocably changed. I squeezed until I could no longer feel my hands, and then it was over. Just like that. It was done.

  Noreen was dead.

  63

  James had managed to sweep the note from the floor onto the second step, where he could lean from his wheelchair to snag it. He’d slept with the note crumpled into a ball in his clenched fist. When he woke, he read it again, afraid that he might’ve forgotten where he’d found it or what it was telling him, but he remembered everything from the night before.

  WALK

  When the woman brought down his breakfast, he’d hidden the note in his pants, and as soon as she went back upstairs, he took it out and held it. Then when she returned to change him into his day clothes, he’d hidden the note in his cheek like a tiny wad of chewing tobacco, folded so many times it resembled a Chiclet. When she left, he took it out of his mouth, unfolded it, read the message over again, and then returned it to the palm of his hand.

  WALK

  It seemed impossible. He looked down at his legs, sticking out in front of him, each encased in a brace with hard plastic sides and strong leather belts fastening it from thigh to ankle. They’d told him he’d been in a car accident and was paralyzed. He could remember the woman telling him that. But he could also recall the man, who’d asked a very important question.

  “If you’re paralyzed from the waist down, how can you know your legs are freezing? How can you feel the cold or the wetness or anything?”

  He bent forward and knocked on his thigh with his fist. He could feel the thumping of his knuckles, and when he hit them harder, he could feel the pain intensify.

  WALK

  He could walk. And if he could walk, that meant he could make his own breakfast and change his clothes and climb out of the basement they kept him in and go to the bathroom without help or the need of that goddamned bedpan. He could confront the man and the woman and find out why they were lying. He could take his own walks outside. And he could get up and change the channel when he didn’t want to watch the Hitchcock movie anymore.

  WALK

  James wheeled himself back toward his bed. He didn’t know what time it was, but he figured the woman would be down soon to check on him. He positioned the wheelchair next to the bed, parallel so he could use the mattress as something to steady himself on as he tried to stand. And if he fell, hopefully he would be able to fall onto the soft mattress and not hurt himself. That was the plan, anyway.

  He folded the note back into its Chiclet square and placed it in his cheek again. He’d need both hands if this was going to work. His fingers were old and arthritic. He would take it slow and concentrate on each strap, but at the same time, he would try to hurry before anyone came down.

  WALK

  James reached over and, with fumbling hands, grabbed onto the strap that secured the thigh of his left leg. He carefully brought the belt through the loop, pulled back to release the metal clip, then pushed the belt through the second hole and watched as both ends of the strap fell away, displaying a small slit of an opening. He did the same on his right leg, then moved to the strap above his knee on his left leg.

  Perspiration was beginning to form on his forehead as he worked silently, moving his fingers as quickly and as steadily as he could. The clock in his mind told him he had to hurry. When the strap above his knee fell away, he leaned back in his chair, gripped the armrests, and carefully bent his leg up, watching in amazement as he moved his leg on his own.


  The muscles in his thigh ached and the tendons around his knee were taut, but he could move it. Up and down, stretching and bending, all of his own doing. Not paralyzed. Not bound to the wheelchair. This was proof. This was what he needed to find the answers he sought.

  James worked on the strap above his right knee, then did the same exercise, stretching and bending, teaching his muscles how to work again. With both knees being able to bend, reaching for the straps around his shins and ankles was no problem. He worked the straps until the last ones around his ankles fell away and crashed to the floor, making a noise much louder than they should have in the silent space. James held his breath, waiting to hear footsteps above or the basement door open, but after a few minutes he knew no one was coming. He was alone.

  The clock in his head continued counting the seconds. He had no strength in his lower body. His legs hadn’t been used in some time, so he had to lift each one off the wheelchair footrests and place them on the floor. He put the brake on the wheelchair, then gripped the armrests again and readied himself, the message on the paper screaming its encouragement.

  WALK

  He pushed up as hard as he could, the tendons and ligaments and muscles and fibers crying and stretching from hip to ankle as he fought himself into a standing position. He spit the piece of paper out of his mouth and bit the bottom of his lip to keep from screaming. He could hear bones and joints popping into place. The bottoms of his feet were pins and needles as blood rushed back into them. The pain. The sounds. The funny sensations.

  But he was standing. By himself. On his own.

  James let go of the wheelchair and shuffled his feet a few inches in front of him. He kept his balance. The pain was beginning to subside a bit. He lifted his right foot off the ground and placed it back down, then did the same with the left. He began marching in place, lifting his feet only centimeters from the floor to try and get the blood circulating and his muscles used to carrying his weight again. The popping of his joints continued, as did the crackling around both of his knees, but eventually he was able to lift his feet a bit higher off the ground, and still higher after that.