Purgatory Creek

by C. E. Nelson

  Three more ketchup-laden fries entered Palm’s mouth followed by some Dr. Pepper. “We can’t wait until Monday to check out those kids and talk to the school about Austin. Call the district office and tell them we need to talk to the principal of the school, Austin’s teachers, and probably his bus driver.”

  “Did he take the bus?”

  “I don’t know. We can ask the Newmans. And we need to find out more about this Arnold guy. We need to get in touch with him.”

  “So, what did you find out?” asked Grace.

  Palm told him about his conversation with the former park manager and Volk.

  “Volk sounds like a nice guy.”

  “I don’t know. I got this weird feeling when I was talking to him. Like it was all for show. I got Cindy checking him out.”

  “Amber alert get anything besides our media buddies?”

  “A few possible sightings but nothing with any substance.”

  Both men were quiet while they finished their meals. Grace slid out and Palm did the same.

  “I’ll follow you back to the Newmans. How far away are we going to have to park?” asked Palm.

  “A ways.”

  “Shit. Just what I need, more walking in this heat.” They cleared their trays, and had just stepped outside, when Palm’s phone buzzed.

  “Palm.”

  “I got something on Volk. When did he say his family was killed?”

  Palm thought back to the conversation. “He didn’t say, but it couldn’t have been that long ago. He said they liked to go to Purgatory Park.”

  “Well, I have Volk owning his house for the last twelve years. There is only his name on the mortgage.”

  “OK, but it’s possible.”

  “Well, I looked at his tax returns and it’s only him. There are no dependents. And there is no record of any accident, at least in Minnesota.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “Works for a local accounting firm.”

  “Thanks, Cindy. Good work. Anything else?” Palm listened for a moment more and then disconnected. He looked at Grace. “Volk lied to me.”

  Chapter 26

  Palm and Grace waved off the media outside of the Newman’s home and knocked. A woman neither man recognized opened the door and told them to leave.

  “Police, mam,” said Palm digging for his credentials and then holding them out. “We need to speak to the Newmans.”

  The bony woman was in her thirties but looked older, with sunken eyes and protruding cheeks, like she was malnourished. She looked nervously behind her before stepping back to allow them to enter.

  “And you would be?” asked Palm.

  “Jennifer. Jennifer Freeman. I’m Laura’s sister. They’re in the kitchen.”

  The detectives moved down the hallway and into the kitchen to find three people sitting at the bar – the Newmans, Laura and Scott, and another man who looked about their age. All had coffee cups sitting in front of them, heads down, silent, like they were in a trance. All of them looked tired and lost. At the sound of footsteps on the oak floor, they looked up in unison.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Newman,” said Palm. A look of fright filled Laura Newman’s face as her eyes went wide causing Palm to quickly add, “We’d like to update you on the investigation and ask you a few questions, if that’s OK?”

  His comment did not seem to bring any change to Laura’s demeanor.

  “I’ll leave you alone,” said the man Palm didn’t know. He picked up his coffee cup and moved to the living room. The detectives watched him go.

  “My brother-in-law,” said Laura. “Married to my sister Jennifer who you met at the door.”

  “We have no news for you at this time,” said Palm. Both of the Newmans’ heads bowed, and Palm wasn’t sure if it was relief at not getting news their son was dead or dejection. He went over everything that they were doing to find Austin. “We’ve got every available person on this as well as the BCA helping out.” The Newmans looked up but were expressionless. Their eyes were red, Scott unshaven, both looking like they hadn’t slept, which he assumed they hadn’t.

  “It’s Saturday. We should be at the park,” said Laura.

  “How often did you go to the park?” asked Grace.

  “Just about every weekend and a lot of evenings in the summer when he was smaller,” replied Scott. “Laura used to take him during the day when he was just a baby, and she hadn’t gone back to work. Not as much now that he is bigger and has some friends around, but we still make it a couple of times a week. We don’t have a swing set in the yard, and he likes to swing.”

  “Notice anyone who seemed out of place or suspicious when you were there?”

  Scott looked at Laura. “Not really. I mean that Little boy, what’s his name, Michael, is about the only one I’d say looked out of place. But he’d look out-of-place anywhere he’s so big.”

  “Did Austin know him?”

  “I remember they might have talked a few times. He was just like one of the kids, you know.”

  Grace waited for more but that appeared to be all Scott was going to say about the park and Michael Little. “Did Austin take the bus to school?”

  “Sure. It’s not far, but we thought it would be good for him to get used to it for when he goes to middle school.”

  Grace could see Scott was engaged, but Laura was staring out the back window. “Has he had any problems with kids at school or on the bus?”

  “There are a couple of bigger kids down the block that have picked on the smaller kids. I think someone at the school spoke their parents to about it.”

  “Nothing at school?”

  “No. He likes school.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know the name of those bigger kids would you?”

  “Mike and Blake Cousins. Another parent and I tried to talk to their father, but he refused to listen. I don’t think they have a mother at home.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just every time we would bike or walk that way during the week we’d see the kids, but there was never any adult. Like they were home alone.”

  Grace glanced at Palm and made a note.

  “You ever run into a neighbor named Arnold?”

  “Did he take my boy?” said Laura.

  “No mam. We just want to talk to all of your neighbors, and he hasn’t been available yet.”

  “No. We don’t know him,” said Scott.

  “What about a man named John Volk?” asked Palm.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Small guy, about forty, wire-rimmed glasses. You may have seen him at the park?”

  “OK. I noticed a guy like that at the picnic tables a few times. Never said anything to him or thought much about him.”

  “How about you, Mrs. Newman? You ever see a man like that?”

  “Yes. He was there a lot. Eating lunch from his brown paper bag.”

  Palm glanced to Grace and then thanked the Newmans for their time, promising to keep them informed. They let themselves out and stood for a moment on the front step, the media taking notice.

  “I’m going back to the office to look at what Cindy has on Volk and the prior child disappearances. I want to take a glance at the amber alert leads too.”

  “OK. I’m going to check out the Cousins a little more and talk to the school.”

  “Good. I’ll call the BCA and see what they know. We need to get a look in the Little home and maybe the Cousins’ place too.”

  “And Volk and Arnold?”

  Palm sighed. “I don’t know. It would be good. We need something to give us cause for a warrant though. It’s been a day. We got to find this kid.”

  The men fought their way back to their vehicles. Palm started his car and watched Grace pull away, but he didn’t move. He was thinking about the fact that the Newmans had both seen Volk at the park. Thinking about the fact that Volk had lied to him. Suddenly there was a rap on his window. Palm turned to see a reporter
next to his car. Palm shifted into drive and pulled away.

  Larry Stoxon went back to his office and put in another call.

  “Dean? It’s Larry Stoxon.”

  “Hello, Larry. I hear your boss is in a lot of trouble.” Dean Kline worked in the investigative arm of the Internal Revenue Service in Minneapolis.

  “Yes, and that’s why I’m calling. I’m wondering if you would do me a favor?”

  “Anything! I am so tired of trying to catch someone who may be trying to cheat Uncle Sam out of $50.”

  “I’m wondering if you can take a look at my boss’s credit card transactions? For like the last month?”

  “Do you have the account numbers?”

  “I do.”

  “Piece of cake. Just email me the account numbers. And speaking of cake I still want the recipe for that marvelous chocolate cake you made last month. It was yummy.”

  “Right. I’ll email that over at the same time. Thanks, Dean.”

  Stoxon sent along the information to Kline and then leaned back in his chair. He was certain someone had set Trask up and felt like he was getting somewhere in clearing Trask of the charges. He’d have to find some way to get the information to the right people without implicating his sources, but he didn’t think that would be a problem. The problem was why would someone do this, and who did it? He knew Trask had amassed a number of enemies just in the few years he had worked for him, but there had to be a better way to hunt than to go through all of those files. He supposed he could give the job to one of the agents, but then, he wasn’t really sure he could do that without Trask’s approval.

  Stoxon walked into Trask’s office and sat in his boss’s chair. Stacked on the desk just to his left were the files he had pulled on the missing children. The desk pad that Trask kept under his office laptop showed an outline of the computer surrounded by scribbles. Numbers, letters, doodles, and a few words and names. ‘DANIEL’ was easy to pick out. Trask had traced the name so many times that it had gone through the top sheet in the pad.

  He stared at the name as he pondered what he could do to find out more about Daniel. But each time Stoxon would start to organize his approach he found himself distracted, his mind wandering. This was a rare occurrence for Larry. He was a very decisive person, the path he would take clear. But not now. This had happened to him a few times, and what he had discovered was that he shouldn’t push the wanderings out of his mind. Each time there had been a reason for his inability to focus, a good reason, and he trusted that based on the past, that reason would surface.

  Leaning back in the chair, he decided that the stack of files next to the pad was possibly distracting him, and so he stood up, picked up the files, and moved them to the side table in Trask’s office. As he set the files down, he couldn’t help but see the picture of the child clipped to the outside of the folder. He picked it up.

  “Oh God!”

  It had struck him that while there was some urgency to find who had set up his boss, that was something that could wait, at least until Trask was cleared. He would want to be involved. But what couldn’t wait was the fact that a child was missing. Stoxon sat at the table and opened the top file.

  Chapter 27

  Michael Little was taking an afternoon nap. He had done so every day since he was a baby. His parents had assumed that the naps would stop as he got older but it was something the boy seemed to need. They had talked to his doctors about it but had been told it was nothing to worry about. One had told them that it may be important for him to have his nap. Michael always seemed to sleep well at night despite the naps, so his parents had let them continue.

  Cheryl and Mark stood in the kitchen on opposite sides of the bar.

  “You screwed up, Cheryl. You screwed up big time.” Mark Little held up the dinosaur in one hand, a half-empty bottle of beer in the other. “All you had to do was get rid of this thing and keep your big mouth shut and none of this would have happened.”

  Cheryl’s cheeks were wet with tears, her right cheek a bright red that would turn darker as it swelled from her husband’s backhand only moments earlier.

  “I’m sorry. I just thought – "

  “That’s the trouble with you, Cheryl. The fact is that you don’t think. You open your fat mouth and say stupid things before you ever even bother to think. Now we’ve got the cops in our backyard, and I have no doubt they will be searching through our house before long, tearing it apart. What are they going to find, Cheryl?”

  “I don’t know. I mean – "

  “What the hell has that stupid kid of yours been doing, Cheryl? We should have put him in an institution like I wanted to and none of this would have happened.”

  “But the doctors said – "

  “The fucking doctors don’t know shit! And I don’t even want to think about all the money we’ve spent on them. My God! We’ve pissed away a small fortune. And all the times we’ve had to sit and watch him when we could have been out enjoying ourselves.”

  “I was the one who stayed home – "

  “Oh sure. Let me hear that again. Well, I was the one who had to work his butt off so you could stay home. You ruined my life.” Mark took a swig from the bottle, set it on the counter behind him, and wiped the face with the back of his hand feeling the sting. He looked at his hand to see it was red, the skin on two knuckles broken, dried blood forming a scab. He held out his hand for his wife to see. “Look at this! How the hell am I supposed to hold a golf club with this? Every time I grip it these cuts are going to break open.”

  “I’m sorry. But if – "

  Mark Little took a step forward and raised his hand. “I ought to – "

  Cheryl turned away from the blow she expected, covering her face with her hands, when there was a noise behind her. Michael.

  “Mine!”

  Michael was pointing at the dinosaur.

  “Oh geez! Well here he is now. You and your stupid dinosaur. Is this what you want?” Mark raised the toy in the air as he grabbed a knife off the counter. “I think I’ll just cut the head off this stupid thing. How about that?”

  “Mark! Don’t tease him.”

  “What’s the matter? The big baby can’t come and get his little toy? Maybe I’ll cut the tail off too. It’ll fit down the disposal better that way.”

  “Mark – "

  “Noooo!” shouted Michael as he pushed his mother out of the way.

  Cheryl’s head hit the edge of the bar as she fell. Sharp pain shot through her head, and she fell hard to the floor, knocking over a barstool as she fell. Michael rushed his father. Mark saw panic and hatred in the boy’s eyes that he had not seen before. He backed into the counter as the boy came on, his head banging the cabinet behind, his arms outstretched in front of him.

  “Michael! Stop!”

  But Michael didn’t stop. He simultaneously grabbed the dinosaur and the knife, jerking them from Mark’s hands. Michael looked at the toy to see that it was unharmed and then at the knife. When he had pulled the knife from his father’s hands he had contacted the blade, and now he watched the blood flow from his palm. The movement of Michael’s eyes revealed his chain of thought move from the blood to the knife to the man cowering in front of him.

  “No!”

  Michael plunged the knife into his father’s chest and watched the man slide to the floor. The boy cradled the dinosaur in his large hands and walked past his just stirring mother and down the stairs to his room.

  Cheryl made it to her hands and knees. There was a searing pain in the side of her head. She winced as she touched it, her fingers coming off wet and sticky with blood. Looking up, she grabbed the edge of the bar and pulled herself to a standing position. The pain in her head surged. She leaned on the bar with both hands, her eyes closed, her teeth locked tight. The pain lessened slightly, and she released a breath, opening her eyes to see the open eyes of her husband staring up from the floor.

  Palm and Grace both heard the call about possible domestic violence at the Li
ttle’s, arriving before the paramedics. Palm was racing up to the front door, drawing his gun, when Grace slammed his brakes on behind Palm’s car. As soon as Grace was behind him on the step, Palm pulled open the screen door and moved inside. He had only taken a step when Cheryl appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, blood running down the side of her head.

  “In here.”

  The detectives moved past her into the kitchen, spotting Mark on the floor behind the bar, eyes scanning the kitchen as they moved to him. The chest of Mark Little’s baby blue polo was now crimson. His eyes blank. Both men put on gloves. There was no pulse. Sirens screamed outside. Cheryl moved as if drunk to the bar and sat.

  “You OK, Mrs. Little?” asked Grace.

  “I…I guess.”

  “What happened?”

  Cheryl leaned an elbow on the bar, holding her head. There was a knock at the door.

  Grace took a step into the hall and shouted, “In here.”

  They all watched as the two men quickly attended to Mark Grace, all knowing there was nothing to be done.

  “You need to take a look at her,” said Palm.

  The paramedics hadn’t noticed Cheryl and now hastened to her. Grace called in details and requested the coroner and crime scene techs. The paramedics cleaned her wound and applied a bandage, saying she had lost a good deal of blood and could have a concussion. She needed to get to the hospital.

  As they gingerly assisted her to a standing position Grace asked again, “Mrs. Little, can you give us any idea what happened? Where is your son?”

  Her eyes got big. “Oh God! Michael. I don’t know where he is!”

  Grace looked at Palm. “We’ll take care of him, Mrs. Little. You need to go.”

  Cheryl tried to struggle but had little strength. The detectives watched as they led her out the front door and then stepped back in the kitchen.

  Palm looked at the floor and pointed. “Blood. This way.”

  They followed the dark marks on the beige carpet to the top of the stairs. Palm flicked on the light, peering down, listening for any sound. He was about to reach for the railing when Grace grabbed his arm. Palm looked back at him.