I'm Still Here: A Novel

by Jon Mills

  Kara listened to Noah reel off the conditions. He also mentioned that in the whole time he’d been released Leonard had met every single one and hadn’t been in trouble with the law.

  “Some of them just toe the line. Personally I think he’s trying to earn brownie points with the big man upstairs,” he said as the unmarked cruiser pulled into the driveway. That fact that people like Leonard were able to fit back into society without being killed by anyone was a feat in itself. After pushing out of the car, Noah said that after his release Leonard had moved from Blackmore to Port Angeles in order to avoid public scrutiny. His appearance had changed since he was inside and although he was registered as a sex offender, the families of the victims no longer lived in the area.

  “Crazy to think that families trusted this guy with their kids. He was involved with Big Brothers and with his background in the ministry, no one batted an eye when he invited the kids to go along to a church summer camp.” He shook his head. “You can’t trust anyone.”

  They made their way up a path to the door and Noah gave the storm door a thump with the back of his hand. There was no answer. Kara noticed the mailbox at the end of the driveway was overflowing and some of it had been placed on the ground against the post itself.

  “Mr. Leonard. Detective Goodman from Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.”

  Kara glanced at the windows. All the drapes were closed. That wasn’t uncommon for someone who worked night shift, or lived on a street with heavy traffic, but this was a dead-end road, and Leonard operated a craft store from his home. He carved everything and sold it out front. Adirondack chairs, chests, garden arbors, tables, clothes hangers, anything that could be cut, sawed and joined together.

  “Haven’t seen him in over a week,” a voice said from off to their left. “I was thinking of taking in his mail but he has a tendency to lose his temper if I go anywhere near his property.”

  Kara turned to find an older man, wearing gardening gloves and holding a hoe, looking through two fern trees. He looked to be in his late seventies and was wearing a dress shirt that had several buttons undone, and a pair of cream-colored slacks. It was an odd choice of clothing for someone working in his yard but then again they were from a different generation when men dressed well.

  “And you are?” Kara asked.

  “His neighbor.”

  “Well of course,” Noah said as they made their way over. “What’s your name?”

  “Peter Reed.”

  “So when did you last see him?”

  “About a week ago.”

  “Did he say where he went?” Kara asked.

  “No he didn’t say anything. He was returning from the grocery store.”

  “So you talked to him?” Noah asked.

  “No, I was in the yard when he was carrying in groceries.”

  Kara was curious to know a few things and took the opportunity to ask. “You mind me asking how long he’s lived here?”

  “Well let’s see. I’ve been here since they erected these houses. I was one of the first owners. We had a different family next door until they moved out back in the mid ’80s. That’s when he moved in. Quiet man. Didn’t say much. Kept to himself. But wow could he create some amazing things with wood.”

  “You ever see him bring anyone in here? Kids, I mean?’

  He frowned. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “It’s just a routine check.”

  He nodded. “No, like I said, he kept to himself. He would say hello if I asked him how he was doing but beyond that he really didn’t want to chat like my neighbor on the right here does. Each to their own, though,” he said. Kara turned back and looked at his car.

  “Did he go away often?” she asked.

  “Never. He opened his garage in the morning and closed up around five. He sold wood furniture and carvings.” He made a gesture with the hoe. “He would put them out there on his front lawn. All sizes and colors. It was high quality and he got far less than what it must have cost him to make. I told him to raise his prices but he didn’t.”

  “Did he have another vehicle?” Noah asked.

  “No, that’s it.”

  “And when he went out he always drove, right?”

  The neighbor nodded.

  Kara looked at Noah and they knew he hadn’t gone away. They thanked the man and then circled around the back of the house. The rear was much like the front. Overgrown, unappreciated and left in a state of disarray. Noah tried the rear exit and called out to him again, banging a little harder on the door and the windows. No answer. As all the doors and windows were locked, Kara opted to use her elbow to break a small pane of glass in the rear door. Noah’s mouth opened as if he was about to say something. She reached in and gave the lock a twist and ventured in. From the moment they stepped inside, the smell of death hit them.

  Chapter 21

  It was a smell that both of them were all too familiar with — a rank and pungent odor that was a mix of rotting meat and cheap perfume. They’d entered the mud room. A dusty closet-sized compartment that hadn’t seen a cleaning cloth in years. Hanging up to the left were a variety of jackets, and beneath that a few worn-out shoes and boots in a tray. Off to the right were stacks of old, water-stained newspapers dating back to the ’70s. There had to have been over two hundred crammed up against the wall and used as a makeshift table for a vase of dead flowers and a child’s rattle. Pressing forward into the kitchen, they were greeted by the sight of a single square table with two sea-green leather chairs and an unfinished plate of spaghetti. In front of that was an open pornographic magazine. There were dirty plates in the sink, and flies buzzing around decaying food. It had obviously been there a while as maggots had begun to form. Kara pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and placed it over the lower half of her face. Noah crossed to the window to open the drapes. Dust lifted and fell as he wrenched it back to bathe the cramped home in daylight.

  To the left of the kitchen was the living room. The TV was on, tuned into some cheesy tabloid talk show where couples would yell at each other, and accuse the other of sleeping with their cousin. The walls were covered in ’80s style wallpaper, some of which was peeling in the corners. The single couch and chair were worn to the point that they appeared caved in. The carpeted floors were stained, dated and in one area covered in grime from an overturned ashtray. Below the TV were two old-style VHS recorders. Kara snapped on a pair of blue latex gloves and crouched down eyeing the names he’d scrawled on the sides of the tapes. She hoped to God not to find anything with Charlie’s name on it but there was nothing but porn.

  “Kara.”

  She flashed him a sideways glance. Across the room Noah was flipping through what looked like a photo album. When she took a look she immediately diverted her eyes away. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen it before but it didn’t matter, it still turned her stomach. It was pornographic bondage photos. Noah took one out and felt the material. He flipped it over.

  “My guess is he printed it off from the Internet and laminated it. Sicko.”

  They continued on through into a dining room that wasn’t filled with furniture but had a few blow-up beach balls, the kind that might be found in a swimming pool. Though these had slightly deflated, it was certainly a strange sight, only made stranger by young kids’ clothing mixed among it. Searching now for the source of the stench they slowly made their way to the rear of the home towards the bedroom. Kara eased open the door with her foot and was hit with a foul smell, three times as bad. She pulled back. “Damn it.”

  “Aren’t you glad you haven’t had lunch?” Noah asked with a grin on his face. He brushed past her and without any hesitation crossed to the far side of the room and pulled open the drapes. As soon as the light hit the bed, they had their answer. Below the covers was Seth Leonard. There was no blood. No sign of a crime. Kara approached and pulled back the covers. His skin was dark blue and had green areas over the flesh, his eyes were glazed over as if he had cataracts and they were sunke
n into the eye sockets. Blood had pooled in the lower region, fungus had begun to form around the mouth and nostrils, and parts of the skin on the body had begun to slip. But that wasn’t the worst, it was the maggots squirming around and feeding on the putrid flesh.

  Noah immediately got on the phone to get EMTs and a few officers. While he did that, Kara continued to browse through his home. His closets held a minimal amount of clothing, mostly bland colors, the kind of clothing pulled out of a bargain bin. In the spare room, there was a single bed that didn’t look as though it had been slept in. There was a brown set of drawers pushed against the wall that were empty. Nothing about it would indicate that it was for a guest or that anyone had been staying there. The closet was empty barring one kid’s poster of an old Disney show that was hanging by a single piece of tape.

  After exiting Kara headed for the basement. She flipped the light switch and made her way down. It was fully furnished and carpeted. It smelled musty and large spider webs covered windows that were warped. The white paint had turned cream from the sun and was peeling. There was a wooden workbench off to her right, and a couch facing an old-style TV that must have dated back to the ’90s as it was clunky and heavy looking. On the bench there were multiple painting canvases, and tubes of paint left open on top of old newspaper. Looking at photos wasn’t enough, he had to paint them. She turned her head trying to make sense of what he’d painted of a boy turned upside down in chains.

  She turned away and gazed around what other families might have used for storage, or an entertainment room, but he’d turned the place into a macabre space for his inner fantasies.

  “Kara?”

  “Yes? I’m down here,” she replied.

  Noah stomped down the steps. “Found human hair in the bathroom. Not sure if it’s his. Hope so. The guy also had bondage devices in a bag under his bed. I noticed there were a few hooks in various areas on the ceiling. I figure the guy decided to give in to his inner urges before kicking the bucket. One final hoorah before he went and met his maker.” He gave a nod. “What we got down here?”

  She made a gesture to the paintings.

  “Oh great, our guy considered himself the Picasso of sick porn.”

  “Take a look at this,” Kara said reaching around the back of a chair and pulling out a handful of missing children flyers. There were also news clippings from abductions around the country. She thumbed through them and came across ones related to the four missing boys, and then her eyes locked on to one about Charlie. She stared at it for a second or two.

  “Everyone got the newspaper, Kara. It doesn’t mean anything. Well, other than he was a very sick individual.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything. There were multiple boxes pushed into the far corner of the room. She pulled them open and found more kids’ clothes, and toys that had the names of missing kids scrawled in black marker pen. They continued searching while they waited for Port Angeles police to arrive. The looks on the faces of officers as EMT carted Leonard’s corpse out spoke volumes. How had a man like this managed to hide this from his probation officer? And what had killed him? Not even the EMTs knew.

  “We should have the medical examiner’s report in about four hours.”

  Twenty minutes later, Kara stepped outside to get some fresh air. Her mind was in turmoil. What if this man had been responsible for Charlie’s abduction? She stood by the car bent over slightly trying to get some air into her stressed-out lungs.

  “You okay, Kara?” Noah said walking over.

  She nodded. “I just need a moment.”

  “The EMTs estimate he’s been dead for over seventy-two hours, which would rule him out as responsible for the attempted abduction on Wednesday evening.”

  “But not Charlie. He was out on supervised release before 1991. And if he could get away with all that crap inside and no one knew, makes you wonder what else he got away with.”

  Chapter 22

  Troubled. Disturbed. Strangely satisfied. That best summed up Kara’s mind that morning after leaving Seth Leonard’s home. With Noah buried beneath the responsibility of filling out a police report, processing the scene and updating his chief, she thought it was best to give him some breathing room. The last thing she wanted was to get in the way and have him change his mind about having her work the case with him.

  He dropped her back off so she could pick up her SUV.

  “We’ll meet back up later.”

  “Sure.”

  After he was gone she hit the local café for coffee, and Kara placed a call to her father to check in and keep him abreast of where she was just in case he needed her. After that, she decided to duck into Port Angeles Main Library and see what she could dig up in the archives on the assaults on boys prior to Charlie’s abduction. All she had was a sticky note from her mother listing assaults on boys between the years of 1989 and 1991. Somehow she’d tied them to Charlie’s case, the question was did it have any merit or was it just coincidence? As there was little more information beyond the names and mentions of assaults, Kara figured it was one of the last things her mother did prior to her death.

  She pulled the SUV up in front of the one-story modern structure that crouched at the corner of Peabody Street and E. Lauridsen Boulevard. A large sign displayed the name NOLS North Olympic Library System. Built back in 1998, its red brick looked fresh, like it had been updated since she’d last been there, but that might have been from the recent downpour of rain which always brought out the color in everything. She thought back to the few times she’d brought Ethan there when he was younger. While the county of Clallam had four libraries, this was the largest and contained far more books than the other three. She remembered seeing Ethan running up and down the aisles with Michael while she browsed. It had always reminded her of a department store with its arched glass interior that let in lots of daylight and the aisles spread out across a carpeted floor.

  After chatting briefly at the front desk with a pudgy librarian with a dark bob, she was directed to one of the thirty-two public computers where she could access the NOLS website, database and Internet. For the early afternoon on a Friday there didn’t seem to be many people inside. A few teens peered over the tops of their computers while punching at keys. An older lady turned her computer screen ever so slightly as if to prevent her from seeing what she’d pulled up.

  According to the librarian, most of the Clallam County newspapers had been discontinued over the years and scanned to PDF but full-text articles from Peninsula Daily News, Forks Forum and Sequim Gazette could be viewed on microfilm. The only downside to that was it was time consuming and didn’t allow for searches. Thankfully she didn’t have to go back far in the digital archives and most of it was available through the search feature. She ran a search on the term “assault” in articles across all three papers between 1989 and 1991. Sure enough, it brought up several hits in a 1990 edition of the Forks Forum that covered six different attacks on young boys between the ages of 11 and 14. It was featured on the front page with a headline in bold that read: Local police seek help in sexual assaults in Forks.

  Kara continued reading:

  The Forks Police Department is actively seeking help from the public in identifying and apprehending a man who has attacked young boys in the Forks community. There have been six assaults reported.

  Sergeant Will Barnett of the Forks Police Department said, “We are appealing to the community to assist us in any way they can. If you have seen anyone acting suspicious please contact us.”

  According to Sgt. Barnett, the incidents occurred in the previous summer and then there were three more over the winter, two in the spring and another three weeks later.

  Parents are worried and the police are taking these attacks so seriously, they are even considering imposing a curfew.

  Sgt. Barnett said, “Most of the attacks have been at night with one in the early hours of the morning. In all cases the guy threatens the boy with a knife and forces him into what we believe to b
e a brown and white Pontiac Bonneville. They are driven to a secluded spot where they are then sexually assaulted. After, he drops them off not far from where he collected them and tells them that if they say anything he will kill their family.

  The ages of the young boys range from 11 to 14. “The kids are extremely scared and the parents are worried,” Sgt. Barnett said.

  From what the police have said, the assaults are random and there doesn’t appear to be any pattern beyond the attacker taking some of their clothing as mementos, how he threatens them and the style of vehicle. One of the assaults occurred near a forest, another in the downtown of Forks, another near a playground, two occurred not far from a school and one close to a video arcade.

  The last incident occurred as two friends were walking back from the arcade, and a driver slowed and asked for directions. “It appears that he is watching from a distance before he approaches them which is why we are appealing to the public to be vigilant. If you see anything suspicious, let us know. Tell your kids that if anyone grabs them to scream and run for help,” Sgt. Barnett said.

  Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Forks Police Department at…

  Kara brought up the next article, which came from the Peninsula Daily News. Two more incidents were dated a year apart from the others. The request by Blackmore Police was the same but the incidents had not been linked to the attacks in Forks. The only way anyone might have connected them was because of what the man did, and the vehicle was referred to as a Pontiac though no color had been mentioned.