Cricket Hunters

by Jeremy Hepler

  “Can you turn down the A/C? It’s freezing in here.”

  “Sorry, I can’t. Out of my control. One thermostat controls the entire building.”

  Hart made eye contact and spoke sympathetically, but Cel thought the excuse sounded rehearsed—Oak Mott PD protocol for suspects undergoing questioning. When he offered her his suit jacket a moment later, she knew. She’d seen more than one Dateline episode where interrogators explained how they would create an uncomfortable environment for suspects on a basic, primal level (thirst, hunger, cold, etc.) and then offer relief in order to build trust. She accepted the jacket, laid it across her legs, and thanked him.

  Hart opened the manila folder on the table in front of him and proceeded to flip through the sheets of paper as if he’d never seen them before, as if he’d been ordered to bring Cel in and the folder held the reason why. When he finished scanning the pages, he pulled out his cell phone and examined it for a moment. “Sorry,” he eventually offered. “Just looking over my notes from our talk the other day.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Still not a fan of using the cell phone. I know it may be faster for some people, but it just seems like twice the work to me since I still have to fill out paperwork later.” He sat the phone down. “Okay. So, you said the other day that you and Parker argued about him spending a lot of extra time with Lauren Page, correct?”

  “Yeah, that was part of it. Why?”

  “How well do you know her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you say you’re friends, acquaintances, enemies?”

  “Acquaintances, I guess. She’s Parker’s mentee. I talked to her a few times when I went to the school to have lunch with him, and maybe once or twice more, but that’s about it.” Cel straightened her back when Hart shuffled through the papers again. When he plucked a pen out of his pant pocket and jotted something down, she shoved her hands under his jacket, wedging them between her thighs.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Nervous about where Hart was headed, Cel crinkled her nose and shook her head. “What’s this about?”

  He laid the pen down and met eyes with her. “You’ve been cooperative with us, so I’m going to be straight forward with you.” He propped his elbows on the table and locked his hands together. “Lauren Page is missing, and we have good reason to believe foul play is involved.”

  Cel’s eyes bulged with shock. “What? That’s crazy. Do you think it has something to do with Parker?”

  “We’re looking into that, which is why I wanted to talk to you. And I’m just going to be blunt. Where were you last night at around eleven?”

  “You think I had something to do with it?” A hard swallow. “I didn’t.”

  “I don’t know what to think, yet, Cel. I just know that this morning when she didn’t show up for work, a co-worker went to check on and found her front door unlocked and wide open, and there appeared to have been a struggle just inside the doorway. Her keys, cell phone, purse, and Jeep were all still there, but not her.”

  “Oh my God,” Cel said. “I swear, I didn’t…I was at my abuela’s all night. Officer Wilson drove me over there, remember? I didn’t even have my car?”

  He wrote something down. “Have you ever been to her apartment?”

  The question caught Cel off guard. How much did he know? As she held Hart’s gaze, struggling to find the right words, a way to make her reasoning sound rational, she nodded.

  “Thank you for being honest.” Hart flashed a closed-lip smile. “Because when I was talking to some of Lauren’s neighbors this morning about an argument they heard around eleven last night, they said they saw you there yesterday around noon, and that you two got into an argument that turned physical on the sidewalk. Is that true?”

  Cel nodded again. “We argued, but we didn’t physically fight.”

  “You didn’t shove her, or slap her, or anything aggressive like that?”

  “It was a heated argument, but I didn’t hurt her.”

  “Did you threaten her?” He raised his brow in a submissive way, as if to imply Cel could’ve been a victim. “Or vice versa?”

  “No. We argued about Parker. That’s all.”

  “Why did you go there in the first place?”

  Cel pushed out a shaky breath. “I was freaked out about Parker’s disappearance, and I wanted to see if he was there. I thought maybe he was hiding out over there. I never expected her to show up, and when she did, I asked her if she knew where he was, and she said no.” Cel rolled her eyes in self-disgust at the memory. “Then I called her a liar and she called me crazy, and then I accused her of sleeping with him, and she told me she’d call the cops if I didn’t leave, so I left.”

  “Had you ever been to her apartment before yesterday?”

  Cel lied, shook her head.

  “So you’re saying you’ve never been inside her apartment, and our crime scene detectives gathering evidence over there right now won’t find your fingerprints or anything inside where it appears an altercation took place, right?”

  Cel’s bowels constricted. She’d been inside, all right. To place the doll under the bed and perform the blocking ritual. Then again to remove it. Thank God she’d worn gloves. Thank God she hadn’t touched anything in the living room by the front door. But she also had a key to the front door. She’d instinctively taken it out of her back pocket when she got home from Lauren’s and tossed it and her Envoy keys in the brass bowl on the runner table in the entry room, the bowl she and Parker kept all their spare change and keys in. Shit. How could she explain that without looking guilty? “Right,” she answered as confidently as her conscience allowed.

  “And how did you know exactly where she lived?”

  “Parker told me. He had a key to her apartment,” she said, in case Hart had found the key and was trying to paint her into a corner. “He fed her fish when she went out of town once.”

  “And you were okay with that? Him having a key to her apartment?”

  “Honestly, no. That was one of the reasons for our argument the day he…” She glanced up at the camera, fighting back the swell of emotion collecting in her eyes.

  “You believe they were having an affair?”

  She did. Maybe not a full on fuck-fest physical one yet, but an emotional one, no doubt. The calls and texts and lunches. The key. The note Parker had written about meeting her son Sammy. “I can’t be sure exactly how close they were. They both denied it, but…” She shrugged in surrender to the full truth.

  Hart pinched his lips and nodded, his deep-set eyes doing a convincing job relaying the message that he understood the pain and heartache of uncertainty. He wrote on the paper in front of him, then pointed at Cel’s cheek with his eyes and the pen. “Out of curiosity, how’d you get those scratches?” He glanced at her arms and swiped the pen back and forth. “And those? You didn’t have them when we talked the other day.”

  Cel fingered the two scrapes on her cheek. She knew what it looked like, but she had nothing to hide. None of her DNA would be found under anyone’s fingernails. “I went for a walk in Hunter’s Haven yesterday evening to collect my thoughts and stumbled across an angry wasp nest.” Not a ghost. “And some branches got the better of me when I took off running.”

  “I see.” As Hart wrote down her response, the door opened and Chief Sterling lumbered into the room. He wore boots and jeans and his tan-tinted glasses. His chief badge hung from the left pocket of his long sleeve button-up shirt as always. He greeted Cel, shaking her hand over the table, and sat across from her.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said to Hart, which sounded even more contrived than when Hart claimed the inability to lower the thermostat. Cel assumed Sterling, Beverly Lundy’s lifelong friend and rumored lover, had probably been watching the interview in a separate room, and Hart probably knew exactly when he’d walk in the room, exactly what he’d say. “What did I miss?”

  “We’re just wrapping everything up,” Hart said. “She admit
s to arguing with Lauren yesterday afternoon but says she was at her grandma’s all night and has no idea where Lauren is.”

  “Okay.” Sterling turned his attention to Cel and smoothed his mustache. “Are you willing to turn over your cell phone, take a polygraph test, and give us fingerprint and DNA samples?”

  He spoke the request so soft and gentle, like a grandpa telling a folktale to a grandkid perched on his lap, that it took a second for the severity of it to sink in and ignite a flame of indignation in Cel’s chest. She narrowed her eyes. “That sounds a little bit overboard.”

  “Don’t take it personally,” Hart said, holding up a hand like a small shield. “It’s just a formality.”

  “How can I not take it personally when it seems like you think I might’ve done something to her?”

  “Then let us prove you didn’t,” Sterling answered. He shifted in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, his comfortable demeanor matching his dulcet tone. “You need to help us if you’re innocent because right now your husband, who was probably having an affair with Lauren Page, a situation which caused problems between you and him, went missing two days ago, and now she, a woman you admit to having an altercation with outside her apartment yesterday, goes missing, too. You’re a smart girl, Cel. You have to know how bad this looks not only to us but everyone else involved.”

  Unable to see more than a vague outline of his eyes through his tinted lenses, Cel focused her attention on the center of the glass. “Involved? You mean Beverly Lundy?” She shook her head. “She’s always had it out for me, and you know it.”

  “We’re just doing our job,” Hart said. “Not the bidding of anyone else, I assure you.” He twirled his pen, looked at Sterling, back at Cel. “But like both of us, you grew up in Oak Mott. You know how fast suspicions can spread and damage people’s lives. If you continue cooperating with us on all levels, it’ll help you just as much as it does us.”

  “We’ll be able to eliminate you as a suspect in everyone’s eyes,” Sterling added.

  “Fine.” Cel jerked Hart’s jacket off her legs and tossed it at him. Then she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and slid it across the table so hard it flew into Sterling’s lap. “But not because I give a shit about what anyone else thinks. I just want to clear my name so you can get back to looking for what really happened to my husband and Lauren.”

  In the booking area, freckle-faced Officer Wilson fingerprinted Cel, photographed the scratches on her face, arms, and legs, swabbed the inside of her cheek, then led her to a white room that was a twin of the first one save for the polygraph machine and laptop sitting on the faux-wood table. Wilson had Cel sit in the bucket chair closest to the door, facing the camera in the corner, away from the table, and said Detective Langmore would be there shortly.

  Sitting with her legs folded crisscross like when she meditated in the afternoons, Cel closed her eyes, recited a calming spell, and focused on her breathing while she waited. When Langmore arrived five minutes later, she felt centered, calm, warmer. He was wiry, had a twangy accent, and made little eye contact as he introduced himself, described how the machine worked, what it measured, laid out the parameters of how he would ask questions and how she should answer. After she confirmed she understood the process, he placed a cuff on her arm, monitors on her fingertip and chest, and sat in front of the laptop, out of her direct line of sight.

  Cel stared upward in the direction of the camera without focusing on any particular point as she answered. She fought off waves of nervousness by focusing on her breathing in the five to ten second breaks between questions. Questions, some simple and mundane (Is your name Celia Rebecca Lundy? Are you sitting in a chair?), others complex and specific (Were you involved in a car accident on November 4th 2009 that resulted in your 2004 maroon Envoy’s front right fender being damaged?), that she was to answer with only a yes or no. Questions that delved deeper into what Hart had already asked her about both Lauren and Parker. Questions she believed sometimes had no black and white answer.

  Have you ever been inside Lauren Page’s apartment? Harmed Lauren? Wanted to harm her? Do you know where she is today? Believe she was having an affair with Parker? Did you know she had a son? Have you met her son’s father? Followed her? Did you know Parker had taken Lauren’s son Sammy to his parent’s house? That he’d visited Sammy at Lauren’s parent’s house in Austin? Bought him birthday presents? Have you ever harmed Parker? Do you know why he went to Hunter’s Haven two days ago? Do you know where he is today? Did you hurt or kill Parker in your bedroom? Do you own a gun? Have you left Oak Mott city limits in the past forty-eight hours? Destroyed any household items? Replaced any?

  And on and on.

  The longer time dragged on and the questions mounted, the harder Cel found it to keep calm. In the silent gaps between questions her thoughts continued to circle back to the knowledge that Parker had introduced Lauren and her fucking kid to his family. And that he’d visited her family in Austin. And that he’d done it all behind her back.

  When done, Langmore thanked Cel for her cooperation, unhooked her monitors, removed the sensors and finger clip, untethered his laptop from a larger machine sitting in the center of the table, and left without a goodbye or any hint of what she should do. She stood and paced back and forth, occasionally glancing up at the camera, wondering who was watching, what the results would be, what Parker saw in Lauren Page, the look on his face when he played with her son, how guilty she would look if she marched out of there with her chin held high and arms swinging confidently, leaving without offering a goodbye of her own.

  She stopped moving when Detective Hart entered the room and refused his request for her to sit down. “I’ve been sitting down long enough. I’m ready to get out of here.”

  “I understand, but I have a few more things I’d like to discuss real quick.”

  Cel crossed her arms over her chest. Her mouth set in a hard line. “No. I’ve cooperated. Done everything you wanted me to do. I want to go now.”

  “You’re free to leave, if you want,” Hart said, gesturing at the door. “But then you won’t be able to explain to me why the results of the polygraph test showed signs of deception on certain questions.”

  Cel was well aware she’d lied. A little. White lies. About being inside Lauren’s apartment, following her, knowing that she had a son or why Parker had gone to Hunter’s Haven. But she’d only fibbed about small things. Nothing that had anything to do with Lauren or Parker’s disappearance. “This is bullshit.” She stepped close enough to Hart to smell his sweat stench. “I. Don’t. Know. Where. Lauren. Or. Parker. Are.” She cut her eyes at the camera in case she had an audience.

  Hart threw up a hand-shield again, at chest level. “It doesn’t mean you’re guilty. I’ll be the first to admit these tests aren’t one hundred percent. There are variables we’re willing to take into consideration. Maybe you were too nervous or stressed. Or misunderstood the question. If you’ll agree to come back and retake—”

  “No. I’m done here.”

  Cel held eye contact with Hart. He didn’t blink. She didn’t blink. The air surrounding her felt solidified and warm despite the whooshing air conditioner. The thought of whether or not she looked guilty didn’t re-enter her mind as she marched passed Hart with her chin held high and arms swinging confidently.

  Chapter 27 - Parker

  Parker awoke covered in sweat, his red boxers clinging to his legs and crotch, the balled-up shirt beneath his head damp. The stench of his own waste stewing in the bucket-toilet assaulted his nose seconds after he opened his eyes and found the room lit. The overhead bulb had fluctuated between lit and unlit for random chunks of time, but not in long enough intervals to coincide with night and day. He had no idea how long he’d slept. Or how long he’d been chained to the floor. Without clocks or sunrises or communication of any kind, the steady passage of time had abandoned him.

  After his eyes adjusted to the light, he sat up and immediately noticed a ch
ange in the room. The small rectangle in the center of the far wall. A wallet-sized picture. He sprung up and almost fell when his foot tangled with his slacks. He’d taken them off God knows how long ago and slid them down his right leg over the chain. He regained his balance and moved forward until the chain snapped taut.

  The photo was a headshot of Cel from not that long ago. Her face obviously cut out of a larger picture. A small piece of Scotch tape held it to the pocked wall. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wasn’t facing the camera. She had on her blue jogging tank top and was smiling wide enough to reveal her signature Garcia Family crooked incisor. The photo appeared creased and worn. As though it had been taken in and out of a wallet hundreds of times.

  Parker pitched forward, lifting his chained ankle up off the ground, and reached for the picture, but his fingertips stopped six inches away.

  “Damn it!” He yelled out of frustration as he reached down and jerked on the chain hard enough to send barbs of pain shooting up his leg, a reaction he’d found himself giving in to more and more as time passed. Or didn’t.

  He stared at the picture of Cel for a moment, then turned toward the coffin-sized cellar door at the top of the slender staircase. He hadn’t seen his captor since the first time he’d awoken chained to the floor. Whoever it was must’ve slipped in while he slept and taped the photo to the wall.

  “What do you want?!”

  He could feel his skin reddening, his heart jackhammering, his veins bulging in his hands and temples. His tongue felt like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth. He glanced at the water jug on the floor to his left and realized it had been refilled sometime while he slept, too.

  He shot a middle finger at the cellar door. “Fuck you!”

  He wanted more than anything to chug the water, the entire gallon. His muscles and organs ached for moisture. But he knew better than to indulge. He’d concluded early on that he was either being drugged or poisoned. He initially attributed the waves of drowsiness and disorientation he was experiencing to a concussion from the blow to the back of his head, but soon realized the waves hit him hardest after he drank water from the jug. Water that when swished and held on the tongue carried an unnatural bitterness. The more he drank, the harder the punch. So he started drinking as little as possible, as infrequently as possible, in order to stay as alert as possible. Ready to seize an opportunity to escape if it arose.