Don't Ever Forget (Adler and Dwyer)

by Matthew Farrell

  Or was it all a trap?

  Susan took a breath and broke free from the cover of the dead cornstalks. She pressed her back against the curved side of the structure and looked out into the darkness, trying to see if anyone was there, beyond the first line of cornstalks. She stood up on her toes again and noticed several beams of light bouncing toward the grain house. She grabbed her radio from her pocket, and something banged against metal in the silo.

  Trevor.

  “This is Adler,” she whispered. “I’m at the silo. Need backup. Going silent.”

  Before anyone could respond, she turned the radio off to keep it from giving away her location and slipped through the door, quickly ascending the spiral staircase as carefully as she could. Her breath came in short clips as she climbed, her thighs aching from moving so fast. She reached the top landing and immediately crouched into a shooting position. A silhouette stood in the middle of the catwalk, trapped, with nowhere else to go.

  “Stay right there,” Susan said, her voice echoing off the metal walls. “State police. You’re under arrest. Put your hands in the air, spread your fingers, and get down on your knees.”

  “No.”

  She couldn’t see if he was armed, so she stayed hidden at the top of the stairs.

  “There’s nowhere for you to go, Trevor. The farm is surrounded, and the only way out of the silo is down these stairs. If you rush me, I’ll shoot you, and that’ll be the end of it. But if you comply, you’ll leave here alive, and then we can all figure out what happened.”

  “James Darville is my father.”

  “We already know that.”

  Silence.

  “I have a gun.” Trevor’s voice sounded hoarse. He was still breathing heavily from running through the cornfield and climbing the stairs. “I could shoot you and take my chances in the fields. I could get off this farm without your guys finding me. I have the cover of night, and I know this place better than anyone. I grew up here. I know every inch of land, every rock and cave and hay bale I can hide behind. I know which trails lead where, and by the time the sun comes up, I could be a state away. All I have to do is pull my trigger and take my chances.”

  You need a partner on this one.

  “If you shoot me and run, who’ll take care of your father?”

  “If I stay and surrender, who’ll take care of my father?”

  “I can help you.”

  “James made his choice back in that basement, and apparently it doesn’t include me. He’s on his own now. Just like I am.”

  Susan tightened her grip on the Beretta.

  Trevor’s silhouette moved.

  “Stay where you are!”

  Trevor hopped over the catwalk and in one motion was gone. Susan stood from her position and heard him hit the grain at the bottom of the bin. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she could faintly make him out, scampering toward the back wall.

  “Stop!”

  He ignored her and kept moving. The sound of screeching metal filled the space, reverberating in the cavernous silo. Susan tucked her Beretta back in its holster and jumped off the catwalk before she could talk herself out of it. It felt like she was falling forever; then she hit the grain hard and rolled against the wall, slamming the side of her head against the metal. It took a moment to realize she hadn’t broken anything, and she scrambled to her feet, working her way toward where she’d heard the sound coming from.

  It was an escape flap. She’d read that, after numerous cases of people being buried and suffocating in grain bins across the country, a lot of silos were required to have escape flaps installed in case someone got trapped down there. The flaps could be used for rescue from the outside or, as in Trevor’s case, for someone from the inside to get out. Susan poked her head through and saw nothing but the darkness of the cornfield ahead of her. She removed her weapon from its holster, slipped out of the escape flap, found a new set of prints in the snow, and began tracking.

  She no longer cared about sneaking through the fields or not being heard. She had to get to Trevor before he had a chance to escape to a section of the farm that she was unfamiliar with and had no backup stationed at.

  She jumped as she ran, trying to see what was up ahead. When she saw the farmhouse in the distance, she knew. Trevor was either heading for the house or his car. She broke away from the tracks she was following and ran as fast as she could in a straight line toward the house, cutting down the distance and time it would take to follow the prints in the snow. The cold air burned her lungs as she pushed herself forward, the dead cornstalks and brittle leaves scratching her skin as she broke through them. When she got to the edge of the cornfield, she stopped and waited. She had a clear line of sight to Trevor’s Jeep and the front door to the house. No way he could make it without her seeing him. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

  “You make too much noise running like that.”

  She froze when she heard him behind her.

  You need a partner on this one.

  “When I stopped to see if you were following me, all I could hear was you crashing through the corn,” Trevor said. He was panting, but calm. “Not the best hunter. I just circled back around and started following you.”

  She felt the barrel of the shotgun press against the base of her neck.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to do this in order to escape. It’s the only way.”

  “Wait,” Susan said, trying to buy some time. “You can’t kill another cop. This has already gone too far.”

  “I’ll do whatever I have to in order to get out of here.”

  Susan folded her arms against her chest and looked straight ahead. “You’re making a mistake,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. You never told me to get my hands up.”

  Before Trevor could react, Susan fired the Beretta that had been tucked under her armpit, pointing behind her. As soon as the first shot was fired, the barrel of the shotgun fell away from her neck. She spun around and fired a second shot, watching as Trevor Foster tumbled backward into the cornstalks and fell to the ground. Susan kicked the shotgun away, then stood over him with her weapon aimed until she heard the shouts of her backup finally arriving.

  “Shot fired!” someone screamed in the darkness.

  “It’s okay,” Susan called. “I’m okay. Suspect down.”

  It was over.

  74

  Saint Peter’s Hospital was about an hour away from Gloversville, but it had the best facilities to treat a patient who’d had some physical injuries and who was also suffering from late-stage dementia. The EMTs on scene at the farm had sedated James, and the decision was made to transport him with a police escort to the Albany hospital. He’d been in and out of consciousness since he’d arrived.

  James was treated for a mild concussion and a broken nose. The doctors also looked at his hip, and it seemed okay. His feet and fingers had a bit of frostbite, but that would heal. Had it been a month later and twenty degrees colder, it would’ve been a different story. In the limited amount of time they’d had with him, the police had tried to get his version of what had happened, but the old man’s Alzheimer’s made any kind of detailed interview impossible. They’d try again when he was more stable, but Susan had her doubts about whether they’d ever get more than what was already on the tapes.

  Cindy Garland survived, with no injuries, and had been taken into custody at the grain house. She confessed to being the driver of the Honda Civic involved in the state trooper’s death, and she confirmed Trevor had been the person who’d attacked the trooper and killed him. She was cooperating and had an audience from three departments collecting every detail of what had happened over the last few months. It was now her turn to offer the truth, and she felt she had no choice but to do so.

  Susan walked down the hospital corridor with a coffee in one hand and her phone in the other. She smiled at the guard who’d been stationed outside Darville’s hospital room door, and she
was about to enter when she heard the nurse’s voice from inside.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Just had to see this for myself,” a man’s voice said. “I can’t believe we finally have him.”

  “And you are?”

  Susan slowly opened the door to find a round man shuffling his feet, hands in his jacket pockets. She recognized him instantly. “Sheriff Brody. Wayne County Sheriff’s Department.”

  Brody looked past the nurse and nodded toward Susan. “Hello.”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “When you called me to let me know what happened, I had to come to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. We’ve been looking for this guy since 1985.”

  “Quite a drive.”

  “Had to be done. Had to see it for myself.”

  The nurse finished her charting and logged off the computer. “Not too long,” she called over her shoulder as she left. “He needs to rest.”

  She slipped out the door, and the room was quiet except for the muted beeping from Darville’s monitors. Brody walked over to the edge of the bed.

  “We got him,” Susan whispered. “All this time. All those innocent kids. We got him.”

  James was asleep. Brody gripped the safety bar and squeezed it, his knuckles turning white.

  Susan walked farther into the room and put her coffee down. “You okay?”

  Brody shrugged. The weariness she’d seen in his eyes in Hawley was still there, but he looked younger, less burdened. Like a weight had been lifted. Yet at the same time, she could also see fear. “I don’t know. All those years, hiding what I’d seen. What I’d been through. Those nights waiting up to see if this madman would come to my house and kill me or kill my parents or my sister.”

  “What are you talking about?” Susan asked.

  Brody was staring at James again. “I lost years of my childhood worrying if he was coming for me. He had my name and address. He knew who I was, but I had no idea who he was. I never knew if he was coming for me.”

  Brody reached into his pocket and came away with a small piece of paper that looked like a business card. He dropped it onto James’s chest.

  It was a Boy Scout membership card.

  Susan took a quick breath. “You’re the Boy Scout at Cross Creek County Park.”

  “You listened to the tapes.”

  “I did. But how do you know about the tapes?”

  Brody offered a small grin. “It’s already been leaked to the press. I told one of the commanders that I was the one who got away, and they let me listen.”

  “You were so brave,” Susan said. “I couldn’t imagine going through that. I mean, Noreen tried to kill you.”

  “The tapes are lies,” Brody replied, shaking his head. “Just a performance. If you listen closely, you can hear someone directing him. Noreen didn’t do what James said she did. It was him. All of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I ran into that cabin to help whoever was screaming, I saw James trying to kill that girl. It was Noreen who was begging him not to. Next thing I know, I was knocked out. I woke up tied to the pipe in the kitchen, and James was in the process of pulling out one of my teeth. Noreen was crying and pleading for him to let me go. Begging him to stop all the killing. He’d cut a piece of an old extension cord to tie my hands around that pipe and left the pair of scissors lying next to me. While I was thrashing around from the pain of having my tooth pulled out of my head, the cord came loose, and I was able to free myself. The first thing I did was pick up the scissors and stab him in the shoulder. He fell, and I scrambled to my feet and ran. I was gone before he could gather himself, and I knew those woods better than anyone. I hid until dark, then made my way home and told my parents I got turned around on the hike. I told them I fell into a ravine and lost a tooth when I hit my head on a rock. I guess James panicked and tried to clean up his mess. He killed Noreen and burned the cabin to the ground. He killed her because he knew I was out there. I’d left my backpack behind, so I knew he’d have my name and address. My mom put my info on everything back then. But he never came after me.” He shook his head. “It was all him, though. Noreen was the one trying to stop him.”

  Susan walked over to the opposite side of the bed and gently pulled James’s hospital gown down from his neck. A small scar on his left shoulder was old but still looked raw. It had never properly healed.

  “I’m the one who put that there,” Brody said, pointing at the scar.

  Susan watched James, still sleeping soundly with the help of the drugs pumping through his IV. He looked so peaceful and still, and for a moment, she had a hard time envisioning the monster hiding within his old and failing body. Sometimes you could look at a person and just never know. A wolf in sheep’s clothing if there ever was one.

  “You think we’ll ever get the complete truth from him?” Brody asked.

  Susan looked up at the sheriff. “We’ll try.”

  “That would be a dream come true. After all this time. The absolute truth.”

  He started to cry, and Susan walked around the bed to hold him as his sobs grew louder in the quiet room. After almost forty years, the case had been solved, and the ghosts of the children could finally rest now.

  In peace.

  Forever.

  75

  Susan walked into the house, locked the door behind her, and leaned against it, eyes closed, pure exhaustion overtaking her. She’d been on the go for days now, and her body was starting to shut down. There was no more fighting it. It felt good to be home, and it would feel even better after a shower and some sleep. But first, she needed to see her mother and the twins.

  “I’m home!”

  Susan pushed herself off the door and made her way into the living room.

  “Hello?”

  Her phone rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket, smiling when she saw it was Liam.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “I heard you solved the case. Congratulations.”

  “Yes, we did. Just got back.”

  “I knew you’d do it.”

  “Had a little help, you know. When you found Noreen Garland, which led to Cindy, all the dominos started falling. That was the string I’d been looking for to pull on.”

  “What can I say? I have friends in high places. A few favors called in, and we had our suspects.”

  “Well, tell them I said thank you.”

  “I will.”

  Susan could hear the back door open and close. “So my boss keeps telling me I need a partner, and now that you’ve demonstrated that you can do some real police work, I wanted to let you know that he thinks you’d be good to have around on a consultative basis.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I am. But just until you’re able to find something more permanent. It’d be a good way for you to get yourself back in the game, and he liked the way you were able to contribute. He thought we made a good team. And I may or may not have slipped him a list of your credentials.”

  Liam laughed. “Like I said. Friends in high places.”

  “So you’re in?”

  “Can’t hurt to talk to your boss, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Mommy!”

  “Hi, Mommy!”

  The twins tackled her with hugs on the couch, almost knocking the phone out of her hand. She kissed each of them as they burrowed into her, showering her with kisses of their own.

  “Sounds like the reunion is complete,” Liam said. “I’ll let you go.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you next week when we come down, and we can talk about the consultant gig a little more. Good?”

  “Count on it.”

  She hung up and tossed the phone onto the table so she had both arms for hugs. Beatrice came into the living room and sat in the chair opposite the couch.

  “We didn’t hear you come in. We were feeding the chickens.”

  “I’m home. Case closed.”

  Beatrice clapped her hands. “That�
��s great news!”

  “Get in here,” Susan said as she waved her mother over. “I got room for one more. I need all the love I can get. I’ve earned it.”

  They huddled in their hugs, laughing and talking all at the same time, Susan taking it in and realizing how much she’d missed it. She was about to suggest they all go out to dinner after she had a chance to take a nap when movement caught the corner of her eye. As soon as she saw it, she heard her mother.

  “Oh my!”

  The twins turned and looked.

  “Mommy!” Casey shouted. “One of the chickens got in the house!”

  “They must’ve climbed up onto the deck again!”

  “Who left the door open?”

  They all piled off her as she got up from the couch. The chicken was trying to fly but kept bumping and crashing into things. It made its way across the floor and flew into the hallway.

  “How are we supposed to catch it?” Tim asked.

  “I have no idea,” Susan replied. “Get a blanket, and we can throw it over him and bring him back outside.”

  Casey screamed with laughter. “Here comes another one!”

  A second chicken walked into the hall.

  “Someone close the back door!”

  “He’s trying to go upstairs!”

  “Get him!”

  Beatrice grabbed a blanket from the couch and handed it to Susan before scurrying into the kitchen to shut the sliding door. Susan took the blanket and spun around as the twins broke from her side and began chasing after the chickens, which had begun to climb the stairs. Time slowed as she watched Tim cross from the living room and run into the hallway, right over the spot he’d been avoiding for the past year. He ran across it without a second thought, focused only on the two crazy chickens that were heading up to the second floor.