The medical records, while illuminating, provided no clue as to anyone who would be seeking justice for what happened to her. Actually, it was quite the opposite since she had apparently gone to great lengths to conceal the crime, whether it was out of shame or fear. She was an only child, her parents were gone, and she made no close friends during her life so far as Sam could tell. What was he missing? Was he barking up the wrong tree? It would seem there was no one who would be her avenger.
“How’s it going?” Agnes asked as she ducked her head in the door. “You’ve been poring over them quite a while.”
Sam finally took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. A slight headache was starting to form in his temples.
“She was one messed up lady,” Sam admitted. “But then who can blame her - poor kid.”
“I agree, sheriff. It’s a crying shame someone didn’t pay for what happened,” Agnes noted. "It's not in the paperwork but many of us kind of knew what happened that triggered her problems. We just didn't know the exact details.
“Oh, they’re paying now,” Sam countered. “It just took a while.”
“I guess it’s true what they say about Karma,” Agnes agreed as she began boxing up the files that covered her desk.
“So tell me, did she have any visitors, anyone who she talked about a lot?” Sam asked.
“No, not really. She spent most of her time alone,” Agnes said. “She was a very quiet woman and kept things to herself. That was probably a lot of her problem.”
Frustrated by the lack of leads, Sam began helping the administrator clean up the files he spread across her desk.
“What about journals, diaries, and things like that?” Sam asked. “Maybe something of that nature would have something in it.”
Agnes placed the last of the files in the box, shaking her head at the sheriff’s question.
“No, we don’t have anything of that nature anymore,” Agnes replied. “All personal items were given to her next of kin.”
“Next of kin?” Sam asked as he recalled reading that her relatives were all deceased.
“Why yes - her son,” Agnes replied as she picked up the box full of records.
“She has a son?” Sam asked with his eyes wide. “I didn’t know she had a son.”
“Neither did we,” Agnes said as she paused. “She didn’t tell anyone, kept it secret like everything else. Then he came walking in one day, nice-looking young man. He looked like he’d been in the service, very well-mannered, polite and clean cut.”
“Did he see her often?” Sam asked.
“Well, no,” Agnes responded. “She died the day after he first came in to see her. He was the one who found her, poor dear. It was horrible, finding his mother like that. I can only imagine what that did to him, a young impressionable boy.”
“Do you know his name or where he is?” Sam asked, excited by the prospect of finally having a suspect.
“Well he gave us an address but it wasn’t legitimate because everything we’ve sent there has come back incorrect address,” Agnes noted. "The last time I saw him was the day his mother was buried."
“What about a name, do you remember a name?” Sam asked.
“I can’t really remember,” Agnes admitted. “I see a lot of family in here so sometimes things slip but maybe Helen will remember. She’s our receptionist you’ve met. As I recall she was kind of sweet on him when he came in. Like I said, he was a rather handsome young man.”
Agnes called the receptionist into her office. The young woman timidly entered.
“Helen, by any chance do you remember the name of Ms. Porter’s son, the one who came in right before, well, you know,” Agnes asked.
“Yes ma’am. Well, I know his first name,” Helen said, looking at the sheriff.
“It’s Ben. His name is Ben”.
SOMETHING ABOUT BEN
The war never ended for Ben. It had simply moved closer to home and became more personal. That was the thing about war. At least over there, most of the time killing was just business, not personal. It was a job, a condition of his employment, an oath he took days after graduating high school.
A bored pizza-faced teen, he was ready to get out from underneath mom’s apron as soon as he was handed his diploma. Easton was no place to live, to spread one’s wings. He spent his teenage years imagining the day he would escape the mind-numbing malaise of his hometown. He knew his destiny was outside the bonds of Castle County. However, he would learn neither fate nor Castle County would be quick to let him go. It was as if both required a favor of him before turning him loose. Actually, it was much more than a favor. Their request was asking him to go above and beyond.
But then he was used to going above and beyond during his relatively short time with the special forces. He had already completed more hazardous missions than most seasoned veterans do in a career. His superiors recognized his special skill set during his training. They directed his career into an area better suited for his abilities. That area was killing. Ben was one of the best. He was a natural despite his youthful looks which earned the nickname Baby Face Ben amongst his squad of specially trained professionals. Anyone can pull a trigger, toss a grenade or push a button on a joystick guiding a drone. However, only the truly gifted in the killing industry, Ben learned early on, can take care of business without depending on the normal tools of the trade, using their hands or whatever is available in arm’s reach. He was trained to adapt.
That training was put to the test early in Ben’s career. It was one of those rare occasions when things crossed from being business to being personal in an instant.
Ben had been in-country for only a couple of weeks. The young soldier was assigned to a special team charged with finding and neutralizing Taliban deep in the mountains of Afghanistan. That’s when it happened, at a time he least expected. His first test wasn’t deep in the Afghani frontier or in some remote mountain pass; it was in the mess hall as he was eating his lasagna. He had just sat down and began to pump ketchup on his lasagna when the yelling started. The voice was in a language he didn’t understand but the tone was unmistakable. A moment later a shot rang out to his right. The head of one of his comrades at arms seemed to explode. Blood splattered across the table where the soldiers were dining. It was a rogue Afghani security officer bent on cashing in on his seventy-two virgins while taking out a few G.I.s along the way.
Ben instinctively reached for his sidearm which he was supposed to carry at all times. It wasn’t there. He had disobeyed the order, leaving it in his arms locker in his rush to enjoy the lasagna. Now, the screaming traitor was taking aim at other soldiers as they dove for cover. His first victim was slumped dead across his plate of food. Ben had to adapt and adapt quick. Taking advantage of the traitor's hesitation in pulling the trigger again, Ben looked around for something to arm himself with. Seeing nothing available, he grabbed the butter knife he was using to cut his lasagna. Ben ran toward the armed man with the dull knife cocked back ready for battle. The Afghani traitor, who was preparing to squeeze off another shot, never heard him coming.
The butter knife sunk deep into his eye socket, the dull metal burying itself to the base of its handle in his skull. His shooting spree was over. The traitor was dead before he hit the floor.
Ben stood over the dead officer like an animal over its kill. His brothers-in-arms looked at the dead gunman with the butter knife protruding from his eye socket trying to understand what had just happened. It wasn’t a story one could read in the local paper even though his actions became lore within the battalion. Many a soldier would tell the tale of Baby Face Ben slaying an armed terrorist with nothing but a butter knife. It got to a point that many believed the story to be only legend. However, Ben and those who witnessed his bravery knew it to be true.
Despite his unique abilities when it came to killing, Ben was the type of person most people naturally liked, that is if they weren’t on the other side of the battle lines. His disposition was one of a mild-manner
ed young gentleman. He was soft spoken and always addressed those his senior as "sir" and "ma’am." It was obvious he was well-raised.
But, perhaps his best quality was one that people never saw except by the product of his actions. It was his sense of justice or the old fashioned idea of good triumphing over evil. It was the whole reason he dreamed of joining the military even as a child. It wasn’t about the killing, it was about setting things right. It was about beating the bad guys. The Golden Rule was at his very core. The philosophy was instilled in him by his mother his whole life.
Now, as he pulled into the snow-covered driveway just outside Easton, Ben was one step closer to setting things right. He aimed to ensure good triumphed over evil. It would all be over, one way or another, in just a few hours.
Ben looked over his shoulder as he tromped through the snow. He walked with purpose onto the porch after assuring himself no prying eyes were watching. He wasted no time knocking on the door.
“Hello,” the man said as he opened the door, a bit surprised to see his visitor. “What can I do for you?”
“You can come with me,” Ben declared.
Without another word, Ben's fist flashed out like a missile, catching the man in the midsection. The vicious blow doubled-over the surprised man right into Ben's knee. The knee-shot caught his chin, knocking him out cold.
Ben quickly threw the unconscious man back on the floor and closed the door behind him in case someone passed by. He then pulled out the duct tape he had in his coat. He bound the man hand and foot with the tape before using a piece to cover his mouth.
“A million and one uses,” Ben mumbled to himself as he surveyed his quarry.
Ben found a bedspread and wrapped the bound man inside it. He didn't want anyone to see him toting the unconscious man to his car.
Returning to the door, Ben peered through the window to make sure no one was traveling down the road. Traffic was sparse given the horrid weather conditions. Convinced no one was looking, Ben threw the man over his shoulder and carried him to his car, laying him in the backseat still wrapped in the bedspread. He then pulled out of the drive less than three minutes after he arrived. His mission, at least this part, was completed with no complications. As for his well-wrapped passenger, his inconvenience would only last a few hours.
Ben navigated the back roads with his mind wandering back to what led him to this point - the point where he had an unconscious hostage in the back of his car. It was still surreal to the soldier, how things had turned out. How fate had brought him back to Castle County.
Just three months before, Ben was on the other side of the world engaging the enemy in their own backyard, seeking out “the bad guys” where they hid deep in the mountains of Afghanistan. However, a call from home put his war abroad on hold, bringing him back to Castle County. It was his mother. Her condition had deteriorated.
Just a week after trekking through Taliban territory, he stood outside his mother’s hospital room in Easton. He dreaded his present mission more than any mission he ever undertook during his three years in the service of his country. His mother’s battle with cancer was coming to an end. She had valiantly fought the disease for nearly a year. Despite his missions around the globe, Ben made time to come back and visit with his ailing mother while she underwent treatments. His last trip home was about four months earlier.
Along with being his mother, Elizabeth was also the only immediate family he had left in the world aside from her ex-husband, Trent. He had left them seeking his fortune in Hollywood when Ben was just seven. Ben called Elizabeth mother. He called Trent, well, Trent.
Elizabeth was the only mother Ben had ever known.
Back during his last visit to Easton, hopes were high she might beat the disease, the prognosis for the forty-four year old somewhat promising after months of chemotherapy. He went back to active duty believing things on the home front were improving. He couldn’t be more wrong.
Word came ten days ago that his mother would not be making a recovery. Her condition was determined to be terminal by her doctors. Hospice had already been called to make her comfortable in her last days. The cancer had come back with a vengeance. Its progress was hopelessly aggressive. Ben was granted extended leave given his status as her only surviving child. He was furloughed from active duty for one hundred days in order to take care of his mother and set her affairs in order after her passing. Ben found it would take nowhere near the hundred days allotted to him. His mother’s condition had deteriorated beyond his worse imagination when he arrived home.
The woman he found when he returned to Easton was not the same woman he left just four months before. Now bed ridden, Elizabeth, who was active and chipper despite her chemo when he last saw her, now was under a hundred pounds. Her frailty left her unable to rise from her bed to give her only son a hug. He barely recognized the woman that it seemed, just yesterday, was teaching him to ride a bike, pushing him in his swing set and even teaching him how to throw a baseball. Elizabeth was both his mother and his father when he was growing up.
It all made him feel so helpless. A feared warrior able to vanquish all enemies, he was powerless to do anything against the horrible disease that had stricken his mother. What if he had stayed in Easton instead of joining the service? Would things have turned out differently? Had he abandoned his mother in her time of need? Ben tried not to blame himself for selfishly following the beat of his own drummer. His departure from Easton came with the blessing of Elizabeth when he enlisted.
“You have to live your own life, Ben,” she told him when he joined the service. “You just go make me proud in whatever you do.”
And Ben had made his mother proud. Elizabeth bragged about her "soldier boy" to all her friends at city hall where she had worked as the mayor’s secretary until her health deteriorated to the point where she had to take an extended leave of absence. She had chosen not to remarry after Trent left. Instead, she dedicated her time to raising Ben, her job at city hall and her involvement in volunteer work - the latter of which she always stressed to her son. The Golden Rule that Elizabeth instilled in Ben as a boy still guided him as a grown man. It had such an influence that he took it as his first tattoo, one of many he planned to get, telling his life story in ink.
He held his mother’s frail hand as he sat at her bedside, the words ‘Unto Others’ emblazoned on his forearm. Sadly, he figured she would never see the tattoo as her time was near. Ben was sent into her hospital room to say his last. But, in the scheme of things, she didn’t need to see a tattoo to know her son was living what she taught him.
However, her focus on the final day of her life was on a secret she had kept. Sure, she could have let Ben find out about it in paperwork she left behind detailing everything but then that would be the coward’s way out. She had taught her son to never be a coward.
“There’s something you need to know,” Elizabeth said in a barely audible voice, her breathing labored as Ben sat at her bedside watching her fight for air to speak. “It’s about your mother.”
“I know. You’ve told me,” Ben interjected.
Ben realized Elizabeth was not his natural mother even though she had raised him from a baby. She had adopted him as an infant after his mother was killed in an accident. He was told before he was even a teenager to spare him the shock of learning he was adopted if he were to find out later in life.
“No, you don’t understand,” Elizabeth continued. “Your mother … she’s alive.”
“What do you mean?” Ben stammered. “Alive? How? I mean, why?”
“She had no choice,” Elizabeth said. “It was something horrible, something she couldn’t tell. She made me promise not to tell you. She wanted me to raise you as my own. And I did that, Ben. You’re my son. You’ll always be my little boy, no matter what.”
“But why are you telling me now?” Ben asked as he still held to his mother’s hand.
“I couldn’t leave with this on me,” Elizabeth said opening her eyes, h
er look sincere as she glanced down seeing her son’s tattoo for the first time, the sight bringing a slight smile. “You have a right to know. What you do with it is up to you.”
“But why wouldn’t she want me to know she was alive all this time?” Ben pressed. “What could be that horrible?”
“Some things are best kept secret,” Elizabeth replied as she squeezed his hand tighter. “She had her reasons. What they are, well, that will be up to her to tell you.”
Elizabeth cast her eyes toward her bedside. She was too weak to raise her hand to point.
“In the music box, the one you used to love to listen to when you were a little thing, there’s a piece of paper with her name and address if you want it,” Elizabeth said. “Just remember son, be careful what you ask because you may just get answers you don’t want to hear.”
The revelation that his birth mother was still alive combined with the terminal illness of the only woman he had ever called mother was overwhelming, even for the battle hardened veteran. How could he live his whole life without even a suspicion that his real mother was alive? What about his father? Was he alive too?
“What about my father?” Ben asked.
His mother sat silently, her eyes closed again. The question was obviously disturbing to her.
“You have no father,” Elizabeth said coolly. “I’ve already said too much, more than I should have.”
“But …” Ben began.
“Enough about these things. I’ve cleared my conscience,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s talk about pleasant things in the time I have left.”
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