by Ben Sciacca
Mary Beth nodded.
“There have been a handful of accidents and cars broken down along the interstate tonight,” MarQuan said matter-of-factly, “but no black Lexus. The roads, as you know, are getting bad, but the weather is a lot worse northwest of us.” He cleared his throat. “Where was your husband? Was he coming home from work?”
Mary Beth shook her head. “He was in Edgewood.”
The detective’s eyes widened. “Edgewood! What was he doing over there?”
“Trying to be a Good Samaritan,” the congressman said with a slight growl.
“I don’t understand.”
Mary Beth sighed. “Our Sunday school class has this little ministry for some struggling family over there . . . I don’t know . . . We drop off groceries once a week for an old lady and her grandkids or something like that. Jim and I don’t go. We just give food or whatever. But this time Jim had to go because no one else would.”
“I see.” MarQuan nodded.
“I told him not to go,” Mary Beth continued. “It’s Thanksgiving week, my parents were coming in, and besides, that neighborhood is . . .” Mary Beth looked at Detective Cole for a moment, trying to choose her words carefully.
“It’s full of thugs, drugs, guns, and robbers!” Mary Beth’s mother spun away from the fire. “It’s enough that we have ISIS and Al Qaeda in the world, but now we’ve got our own little Baghdad just twenty minutes down the road! What was he thinking, Mary Beth?”
MarQuan looked over at Mary Beth. She was blotting her eyes with her tissue. “I don’t know, Mama,” she whispered softly.
“Doesn’t he watch the news?” her mother continued as her hands trembled in her lap. “Every night there’s another shooting, another kid getting killed, some crack house burning down. That’s no place for a man like Jim!”
“Jim’s a smart man,” the congressman muttered. “He knows better. Decent folks don’t go to Edgewood—particularly at night. My job used to take me down there years ago, back when I worked for the power company. I used to keep a gun in my glove box just in case.”
MarQuan smiled slightly. “My grandmother still lives in Edgewood. I grew up near there. It’s a pretty tough neighborhood, for sure.” Mary Beth and her parents looked uncomfortably at him for a moment but said nothing.
MarQuan flipped a page on his notepad and continued. “The only leaf that we’ve turned over was an incident at a convenience store down there, about three hours ago. Video footage shows some teenagers arguing about something in the store, and then one of them assaulted the cashier when he tried to call the police. He’s in critical condition. There are no cameras outside, but a witness in the parking lot says she saw one of the teenagers pull a gun and flee in a black Lexus sedan.”
Congressman Lawrey looked aghast. “You don’t think that was Jim? You think a successful attorney like him is going to start knocking over gas stations like some sort of street thug? He’s a good man with a good life, detective. I hope that you have more to go on than that!”
MarQuan shrugged. “I’ve seen stranger things, sir. Anyway, I’m not saying that your son-in-law was involved in the incident. The footage never puts him in the store. Maybe it was a carjacking, or maybe it was someone else altogether.”
“Carjacking?” Mary Beth said with a slight gasp.
“We need to entertain every possibility, ma’am. At this point it’s all that we really have to go on.” MarQuan took a few sharp jabs at his notepad with his pen. “I have to ask,” he said reluctantly. “Were you and Jim having any marital trouble—or was he having any other kind of trouble?”
Mary Beth’s father cleared his throat obnoxiously as his daughter answered. “No. Why?”
“I had to ask. You’ll have to excuse me, but a man from this neighborhood bringing groceries to Edgewood sounds a bit unlikely. Is there anyone in Edgewood that could verify he was there?”
Mary Beth glowered. “We don’t know anyone in Edgewood.” She nodded toward an adjacent room. “There’s a sheet of paper that had the old lady’s name and address on it. Our Sunday school leader gave it to Jim yesterday when he found out Jim was the one going down there. I think it’s on Jim’s desk.”
“I’ll get it, honey,” her father said. He hurried off toward his son-in-law’s office.
“So,” MarQuan continued. “How did you and your husband get to know this . . . old lady?” He shifted his weight in the chair.
Mary Beth pursed her lips and shook her head. “We don’t know her—she works at our church. One of the cleaning ladies, I think.”
“Why do you bring her food?”
Mary Beth sighed. “I guess our Sunday school class has been bringing stuff down there for a couple months now.”
“But you don’t know her?”
“Her name is Wilma Thompson,” Congressman Lawrey said as he stormed back into the room. He was reading off a piece of paper in his hand. “She lives at 917 42nd Street. Eastbrook Apartments . . . Apartment 3G.” He handed the paper to Detective Cole and sat back down by his daughter.
“Wilma Thompson, you say?” MarQuan knew that name.
The congressman pointed at the paper. “That’s what it says.”
MarQuan looked over the paper. “Westside Hope, huh?” He looked up at Mary Beth. “Is that what you call your church’s food dropoffs? Interesting. Do you mind if I keep this?”
Mary Beth shook her head, and MarQuan stood to his feet. “Well, this is helpful. We’ll get over to talk with Ms. Thompson. Do you happen to have a picture of Jim that I could take with me?”
“Sure,” Mary Beth said. She got up and walked over to an oak cabinet by the front door. She rummaged through it for a minute until she found a stack of pictures. She selected one and handed it to MarQuan.
“Thank you,” he said. He gave the picture a quick glance and then tucked it in his jacket pocket. “I really should be going. We’ll find Jim, ma’am. Don’t you worry.” He left his card on the end table. “Call me if you need anything else.”
The congressman rose off the couch and opened the door for him. “Good night, detective.”
Detective Cole stepped outside and shuddered as the cold breeze lashed against his skin. “Y’all stay warm and safe tonight.” The door shut behind him.
9
THE CABIN
9:37 p.m., Monday before Thanksgiving
JIM LOOKED AT THE DASH. It was 9:37 and nineteen degrees outside. He turned off the engine and put the key in a console on his dash. Malik looked out of the window and frowned. “Man, this looks like the home of a serial killer for real!” He pulled his stocking cap back on his head.
Jim looked over at his teenaged captor. This change in plans had suddenly swung the night in his favor. He looked down at the gun that Malik held in his lap and decided to open the car door.
“Come on!” Jim said. The frigid air invaded the inside of the car in a matter of seconds. “You’ll freeze out here in no time.”
Malik inhaled a deep breath, summoning his courage, and opened the passenger door. Jim was already at the back of the cabin. He opened the rickety-screened door, raised his hands, and gave the back door a quick but loud knock.
“Yo, what’re you doing, man?” Malik said. He raised his gun, which was shaking in his cold, nervous hands.
“Look,” Jim said plainly. “The quickest way for us both to get killed tonight is to barge into the middle of a hunting cabin uninvited. Put your gun down—I’m just seeing if anybody is home.”
Malik lowered his weapon slightly, but he remained tense as Jim gave the door one more knock. They waited quietly for a moment.
“I don’t think anyone’s here,” Jim said. “Let’s get inside.” He tried the main door, and to their surprise it was unlocked.
Jim stepped inside first. It smelled like cigarette smoke and dust. “You got a light on that phone of yours?” Jim asked hopefully.
Malik pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and glanced at it with a frown. “I got a l
ight but no signal out here.” He turned his phone on and held it high. The screen provided a faint light. They could make out an old table with three chairs in the middle of the room. Up against the far wall were two bunk beds with a window between them.
Jim suddenly disappeared into the darkness. “Man, hold up,” Malik said loudly. “Where you goin’?”
“Bring that light over here,” Jim said from somewhere to Malik’s right. Malik followed Jim’s voice slowly until he saw him standing next to a fireplace.
“This right here is the key to survival,” Jim said.
“Cool. But how are you going to light a fire?”
“I think I have some matches in the car.”
The air inside the cabin wasn’t much warmer than outside. Jim and Malik could both feel their fingers growing numb. Jim raised his hands to his mouth and fired a few puffs of hot breath into them before rubbing them together. “All right, let’s see here.” He turned slowly. On one of the mattresses was an old newspaper. “Shine that light in the fireplace,” he told Malik as he grabbed the newspaper.
Malik met him in front of the fireplace and stuck his phone out to fill it with light. “Nothing but ashes and some ol’ beer cans,” he said ruefully. Jim started wadding up sheets of the newspaper. “Man,” Malik scoffed, “how long you think that little newspaper is gonna keep us warm? Like maybe one minute . . .”
“This little newspaper is a godsend,” Jim said. He got down on his knees and started arranging the wads of paper in the base of the fireplace.
“How so?” Malik asked.
Jim looked up at Malik. “Didn’t you see the stack of firewood outside? I’ll hopefully have a good fire going here in just a minute. Tell you what, why don’t you get out there and grab some of the smallest logs you can find and bring them back in here?”
“You crazy?” Malik replied. “I ain’t going out there in the dark by myself. It’s cold and scary out there.”
Jim sighed. “Fine. I’ll go get the logs. You keep wadding up newspaper and placing it in there the way I’ve got it.”
Malik mumbled something under his breath, got down on his knees, and grabbed a sheet of newspaper. Jim stood there awkwardly for almost fifteen seconds before he cleared his throat. “You mind if I have the light?” he asked tersely.
“How am I supposed to do what I’m doin’ if you got my light?” Malik retorted over his shoulder.
Jim was getting angry. “I need to see what types of logs to grab so that I can start a fire and stay alive! Now give me the light or let’s go do it together. Either way, I need to see what I’m doing.”
Malik paused for a minute and then jumped to his feet. “Whatever, man. Let’s just go do this together then. I ain’t stayin’ here in the dark. You’ll probably jump in your ride and leave my behind here to freeze.”
Jim said nothing. He turned and started walking back toward the door.
Malik shook his head and followed. He carefully placed his gun back in the waistband of his pants.
Once they were outside Jim pulled back the tarp. “Shine the light right here.”
Malik walked up next to him and placed his phone in front of the log heap. Jim studied the pile for a moment and then snatched some twigs, branches, and a few small pieces of kindling wood. “This will do to get us started.” He turned back to the cabin, with Malik at his heels.
The two of them crouched down at the fireplace. Under the dim light of the cell phone, Jim cracked some of the twigs and arranged them like a teepee around the packed wad of newspapers. He set some of the smaller pieces of wood off to the side. Malik watched curiously. He had never seen anyone build a fire before.
Jim clapped his hands and stood to his feet. “And now for the moment of truth. Time to get those matches.” He looked at Malik for a few moments with an annoyed smile. “I guess we’ll go get that together too, huh?”
Jim struck a match and cupped it in his hands like a precious jewel. The flame flickered precariously as he stretched his arms toward the fireplace. He was able to light a few edges of the crumpled wads of paper. He leaned forward and blew softly. The paper brightened, and suddenly a substantial flame emerged. Some of the twigs started to pop and crackle. Malik let out a quiet whistle.
“Almost in business now,” Jim said. Slowly and carefully he placed some of the smaller pieces of kindling onto the teepee of twigs. The heat from the slight fire rushed against them, and they immediately placed their numbed and desperate fingers just inches from the undulating flames. They crouched there like this until they could feel their hands again.
“Thank God!” Jim said loudly as he got back to his feet. “Now it’s time to get some real logs. I’m going to need that light.”
Malik looked longingly at the fire and then at his phone for a moment. After a pause he sighed and stood up also. “Let’s go.” He led the way this time.
It wasn’t long until they had transitioned all of the logs inside and had a robust fire roaring away. Jim grabbed them each a chair from the table, and they sat there huddled around the flames. The heat cascaded over them with warmth and life. Jim looked Malik over for a moment. It was the first occasion he had really taken a look at his unusual company. Malik was just a kid.
As Malik stared into the flames, he realized that this was the first time in hours that he felt remotely safe. The cold outside could kill him, but it was also a barrier between him and everything else that frightened him. Mike and his gang. The police. The cold was a monster on a bridge: It wouldn’t let him leave, but neither would it allow anything else across to harm him. And for the time being, that gave him peace.
10
THE VISIT
9:55 p.m., Monday before Thanksgiving
MARQUAN PULLED OFF THE INTERSTATE into Edgewood. It was almost 10:00 p.m. The parking lots at the convenience stores were almost all vacant. The storm had pushed west of the city, but it was still below freezing outside. Soft blues music played on his radio as he nursed another cup of coffee and rolled slowly through the neighborhood. He looked at the dilapidated houses along the edge of the street. The bright flashes of televisions danced behind the drawn curtains.
“Nothing like the cold and snow to keep the bad guys indoors,” he mumbled to himself with a slight grin. “Old Edgewood is a ghost town tonight.”
He turned onto 42nd Street and made his way toward the Eastbrook apartment complex. An Edgewood police car was parked out front. He parked his car on the opposite curb. I hope Ms. Thompson is still awake, he thought. He slammed his car door shut and shrugged his way through the cold to apartment 3G.
MarQuan could hear a muffled conversation taking place inside. As he knocked, the voices stopped. Slow, small footsteps approached the door. Someone inside fumbled with the handle. The door opened slightly, and a little boy peered at him through the crack.
“Good evening, son. Is Ms. Thompson here? My name is Detective Cole.” He offered a reassuring smile.
The boy stared at him for a moment and then hollered over his shoulder, “Grandma! There’s a detective man here to see you.”
“Can you let him in, baby?” a woman replied from the back of the apartment.
Detective Cole smiled as the boy opened the door for him to enter. He walked slowly down the short hallway and smiled again when he spotted the picture of a man in military fatigues. As he rounded the corner, he saw an elderly woman seated in the corner of her couch. Two large white policemen towered over her.
“Ms. Thompson?” he said with a slight wave. The woman nodded. The two officers took a step backward and stared at him as he entered the room.
“Good evening, ma’am,” he said. He nodded at the officers and flashed his badge. “I’m Detective MarQuan Cole from the Stone Brook precinct. You probably don’t remember me, but I was friends with your son Keith back in the day.”
Ms. Thompson looked at him for a moment and studied his face, but then she shook her head.
“I’m sorry, hon, I don’t remember you,
” she said regretfully.
“He and I served in Iraq—did two tours together. He was a good soldier and a great man.” Detective Cole’s voice trailed off slightly as he looked at Ms. Thompson. “I heard about his accident a couple of years ago . . . I’m very sorry. How is he?”
She grimaced. “Keith is making it one day at a time, I suppose.”
“I’m Officer Briggs,” one of the policemen interrupted. “This is my partner, Officer Jenkins.”
Detective Cole cleared his throat. “It looks like you’re already having a busy night. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.”
Ms. Thompson’s face furled into some wrinkles, and she shook her head slightly. “I suppose you’re here about Malik also.”
Detective Cole frowned, a look of confusion on his face. “Malik? No ma’am, I’m here about—”
“We’re here about the incident that took place over at the gas station down the road,” Officer Briggs interrupted again. MarQuan’s eyes widened.
“Did I hear you say to Ms. Thompson that you’re from Stone Brook?” Officer Jenkins scratched his nose as he spoke. “This seems a little outside of your stomping grounds, doesn’t it?”
Detective Cole smiled and pulled the picture that Mary Beth had given him out of his pocket. “Ms. Thompson, have you seen this man before?” He handed it to her.
Ms. Thompson put on her glasses and studied the picture. Her face brightened. “Why yes. That’s Jim Dawkins. He brought us some groceries for Thanksgiving tonight. Why?”
MarQuan noticed the three children huddled together on the floor under a blanket, watching cartoons in the corner of the room. “Do you think they could go in another room?” he asked softly. “It would be good for us to talk.”
“Monique, baby, it’s time for bed,” Ms. Thompson called out. “Please help your brother and sister brush their teeth and then go lie down in my room, okay, honey?”
The older girl nodded and clicked off the television. “Come on, y’all.” They exited the room, and MarQuan motioned for the elderly woman to sit down. He sat down beside her and turned his attention to the two policemen, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. “So, what do you have, officers?” he asked.