And then there was the sidewalk chalk that had completely changed . . . hadn’t it? Parker thought.
“And?”
“And that’s about it. He didn’t have anything new to offer. Never saw Charlie walk home with a stranger. Said he taunted him online as a joke, nothing serious.”
“Joked about having Charlie kill himself, huh?” the cap said, disgust creeping into his voice.
“Yeah. ‘I was just playing around.’ One of the standard bully defenses.”
“Exactly. But then had a meltdown in front of us after his mother asked if they needed an attorney.”
“What’d you say?”
“Probably not.”
“Balls, Parker. You don’t know that yet.”
“I know. Which is why I hedged it with the fact they could get a public defender. But he’s only freaking eleven years old and we’d gotten all we were going to get. Had we leaned on him anymore, I would’ve felt like a bully.”
Sighing, the cap leaned back in his chair and put his hands on his stomach, his fingers laced together, his thumbs fidgeting. “Okay. So, we’ve got Ms. Henson’s mysterious, possibly abusive lover to look into. Beyond that—”
He was interrupted when the phone on his desk rang. Leaning forward, he answered it and listened for a bit. “Okay. Hmm. You found that on both Xboxes?” It was obvious now that he was talking to the tech guys. “We got dates and times? Okay. Keep at it.”
When he hung up the phone, the cap looked around the room intently. “WillowWalker10 was on the girl’s Xbox as well.”
“Damn. That was fast!” Klink said.
“Yeah. Well. Tech guys with a few Xboxes? Like kids at the circus. Plus, everyone here knows we have a missing child case underway. It should surprise no one that things are getting fast-tracked.”
“So?” Parker asked, pushing off the wall.
The cap had a face of fixed concentration before he answered. “Well, I was gonna send you and Klink to find the boyfriend. But that’s nixed now. I want you two to make another run at Ava Hot Girl or whatever and get some answers. Tech says that her Xbox, and the Microsoft servers, show that this guy has been in multiple . . . groups?”
“Parties,” Parker corrected.
“Yeah. Parties with her. They’re trying to track the IP address of WillowWalker10 but so far it’s not a fixed address.”
Murillo shook his head. “He’s moving around?”
“Maybe a trucker or something?” Campos mused. “Or a traveling salesman.”
“Or a tech guy himself, who knows how to scramble his IP,” Klink added.
“Regardless. Get back at Ava. Murillo, you take the boyfriend.”
Murillo nodded. “I’ll head over to the Henson house now and try to get the name of this guy and details about their relationship out of Charlie’s mom.”
“Good,” the cap said with a nod. “Campos, you get the husband from Missouri to come into the station as soon as his flight gets in.”
Campos rolled his eyes. “Sun-na-nitch.”
“Yeah. Well. You want some juicer action? Keep taking your vitamins and get the medical clearance. And, oh yeah. You can also try not getting your ass shot next time.”
The huddle broke with some uneasy chuckles, but Parker could actually feel it; the case had just shifted into a higher gear.
Chapter 9
It had only been three hours since Parker and Klink had last seen Ava Thomas, but when she opened the door to greet them it was immediately obvious that something was off. Her eyes were wider, and her face held a faintly vacant look. As she motioned for them to come in again, she took a deep hit from a vape. She was dressed more modestly now, in sweats and an over-sized Adidas hoodie, and Parker noticed that the apartment was as cold, if not colder, then the nighttime air outside.
“Heater’s broken?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. My landlord’s an asshole, like all landlords. I’ve been asking for two weeks for him to get it fixed.”
As a trained detective, when you come to visit a place the first time you take note of things, and often you do so with varying degrees of discernment based mostly on the level of suspicion that you arrive with.
On their first visit, Parker had noticed the lack of furniture and written it off as a design style. Minimalist, or whatever the trendy-ass word for it was. But this time, he took a harder look at things and noticed a lack of photos throughout the home, too. Nothing on any of the tables of older people that could’ve been her parents, none of her and a consistent face—male or female—of anyone near her age that might’ve been someone she was dating or a close friend. Sparsity, it seemed, was a common theme in Ava Thomas’ life.
The Cal State LA notebook and art history textbook were gone from the coffee table. Instead, they were stacked with her laptop on the dining table. In their place now was a large sketchbook, the cover closed, with two graphite pencils and a large eraser that was stamped with the Getty Museum logo.
Evidently tracing Parker’s gaze, Ava spoke softly. “I draw to help myself relax.”
Parker nodded and Klink did, too. “Ms. Thomas—”
“Please don’t tell me something’s happened to him. I . . . just . . . can’t . . .” She spread her hands in frustration and looked directly at the floor.
“No. We’re not here with any bad news. We’re still looking.”
She nodded. “Okay. Okay, that’s good.” But it was as if she were speaking to herself and not them.
Parker and Klink exchanged a quick glance. She wasn’t high, but rather extremely agitated, maybe from too much of the vape. Then again, maybe not. Her hands were jittery and as she took another hit, she breathed in deeply and seemed to almost exhale in desperation.
“Do you mind if we ask you a few more quick questions?” Klink said.
Gone was the perky, confident wannabe cop-hater they’d met earlier. She was off now in her head somewhere and seemed to be only vaguely aware of what Klink had said. Like a ghost, she motioned for them to sit down where they had before, on the sofa. Again, she took up her spot on the chair, but this time it was in a sudden, almost panicked fashion.
“Ms. Thomas, are you okay?” Parker said firmly.
It seemed to do the trick. She snapped out of it, folded one leg under the other and sighed. “Yeah. I’m just . . . I dunno. This whole world sucks, man. I felt that way before you guys came to tell me that some sicko might have Charlie. And after you guys left? I dunno. It was just more proof, bro.” Her eyes blinked rapidly as water began to fill them.
After countless hours of therapy for his PTSD, Parker knew altered psychology when he saw it. She had just downshifted, in seconds, from extremely agitated to completely depressed. And, well, that was no small feat. He glanced around for any medicine bottles but saw none. Possibly bipolar, he thought, before something inside him shifted. He felt sorry for her—not in another odd parental way, but as a fellow . . . sufferer.
It had thrown Parker off, so Klink cut in. “Yeah. Well. It’s hard stuff. Sure. But we found something on your Xbox that might be of help.”
That should’ve gotten a look of surprise or at least stunned denial, but it didn’t. Nor did it result in any suspicious body language, stammered speech or feigned shock. She was a complete null-hypothesis. “Oh? That’s good . . . right?”
“Yes. It is,” Klink replied uneasily.
“He’s probably already dead, you know,” she replied as she wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
Parker noticed Klink hesitate a few beats before he said, “Oh. Why would you think that?”
“Because it’s how the world works, man. The world sucks. We do everything we can to make it not so . . . but it still sucks. Life?” She gave wry smile. “Not a good time.”
Parker sighed. It was a unique saying, and because it matched the tattoo on her left forearm that he’d noticed on their last visit, it was evidently a mantra that she believed in. Yep. Definitely clinically depressed.
He wondered if it was chronic or situational, so he looked her in the eye. “Ms. Thomas—”
“Ava. Please.”
“Ava, have you recently lost someone in your life or—”
She cut him off and gave the faintest of smiles. “No. Mom’s alive. Dad’s out there somewhere in the world. Haven’t seen him since I was eight and he dragged me around the house by my hair.”
There it is, Parker thought. And this time he did feel something in him stir. A partial sort of rage. Because you didn’t do that to a child. You shouldn’t. Ever. Because all children want is love, because really, when they’re little like that? That’s all they have to give.
Seeing that he was staying silent, Ava looked him dead in the eye and said, “My mom kicked him out after that. About time, Mom,” she sniggered. “But it’s all good.”
“Yeah?” Parker said. It was all he could manage.
“I have a boyfriend,” she said. And it was the way she said it, with a touch of melancholy, that hit Parker even harder.
“He’s out of town right now,” she continued, “training for his new job. I can’t text him because he’s on the east coast. Late there.”
She was just going through the motions, making conversation.
The only light in the room was coming from a lamp on the end table next to where Parker was sitting on the couch. Graphite smudges were on a napkin there as well. Noticing that the sketchbook was directly opposite him on the coffee table, Parker decided to change tack and break the ice with a little small talk. “I’m no artist, but isn’t it hard to sketch in such poor light?”
“I do my best work in the shadows,” Ava Thomas said, her puppy-dog eyes now looking very weary as she wiped more tears from them. “Because life is dark ya gotta draw it dark, ya know?”
Okaaayyyyyyy, Parker thought.
Klink, evidently, didn’t like small talk. “We’ve found a gamertag on both Charlie’s Xbox and yours that are the same.”
She shrugged. “I have a lot of friends that play in my parties.”
“Yes. But only one that we’ve found that contacted Charlie outside of the games you played,” Parker countered.
Finally, she seemed surprised. Becoming more lucid, she squinted at them. “Who?”
“Someone who calls themselves WillowWalker10.”
She barely hesitated. “None of my friends go by that tag.” Then, to her credit, she appeared to give it a longer measure of thought before she added, “I’m sure of it.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I mean . . . I know that tag, just not who it is.” She looked to Parker, apparently having already surmised that he was the only other gamer in the room. “You know . . . who’s behind it.”
Parker nodded. “Okay. Did you happen to chat—”
“I don’t think so, no. I rarely chat with people who join my parties that I don’t know. Too many creepers. But . . . wait!” Her face danced with a realization. “Yeah. WillowWalker. Now I remember him. He’d join infrequently. Followed me at some point, I guess, so he no doubt knew when I was online. But he always kept to himself, at least with me.”
“Mm-hmm,” Klink said.
A look of disdain suddenly flashed across her face and Parker was on it immediately. “What?”
“Yeahhhhh. WillowWalker10. I got it now! He’s a camper.”
An almost comical look of confusion came over Klink’s face as he looked at Parker like she was crazy. But in truth, this wasn’t funny in more ways than one.
“A camper is someone who camps out—” Parker began to explain.
“To kill people,” Ava interjected.
“—like a sniper,” Parker finished.
Klink nodded. “So, you’re telling me . . .”
“That this guy lies in wait. In the game, you’ll usually find him hiding in a window, or on top of a building, or lying prone on top of a semi-truck. Yes.”
Ava sneered with disdain. “He’s a coward, really. If it’s a he. Could be a she. Regardless. Not a real player. Just someone too afraid to mix it up and really gain any skills.”
Parker marveled at her civilian perspective. In truth, the snipers that he had known in the military were some of the bravest men he’d ever met. Willing to go into enemy territory alone, or with only a spotter, oftentimes with no ground or air support, was the exact opposite of anyone you would call a coward. Conversely, you could often count on two hands the number of days a guy who wanted to “mix it up” would actually last in country before being loaded onto a medivac copter missing a limb or zipped into a body bag entirely.
“Did you guys bring my Xbox back?” Ava asked.
“Not yet. We’re still working on it,” Parker answered.
She shrugged. “Too bad. It’d help to know his stats.”
This time Parker moved to explain things before Klink could get confused again. “His rank, level . . .” Parker hesitated, for some reason feeling a chill run across his neck, “and his number of kills.”
“Plus,” Ava added, running her fingers through her hair, “other stuff.”
Parker looked at her. “Like?”
“His gear and avatar. I’m not saying I look for dates online, and sometimes it can be downright comical, but it says a lot about a gamer, how they see themselves or whatever, what they maybe look like or want to look like, with the long hair or big frame and what not.”
“I always assumed that was a fantasy projection of some kind,” Parker replied.
“Oh? What about your character online, Mr. Macho Detective Guy? Did you go with someone more your size?”
Parker nodded.
“See. That probably means you’re very self-confident,” she said, before adding in a snarky tone, “Or just good at pretending that you are.”
Parker checked his annoyance and gave her no reply.
Ava smiled and continued. “Anyway, I’ll admit that I’ve dated a few guys I met online, after tons of DMs and once I figured out that they were more like their characters and less like a tiny guy with an inferiority complex.”
“So,” Klink said softly, “it can break either way, but oftentimes a gamer is a lot like his character.”
“More than he knows.”
“So, what else do you remember about WillowWalker?”
She sat up a bit and folded her other leg under her, now sitting fully cross-legged in front of them, her big sweatshirt seeming to swallow her frame, the soft light from the lamp caressing her face, which she now contorted as she glanced to the ceiling, as if she were sending her eyes into her brain to sift around for whatever miniscule memories she might have on him. When she came back to them, she looked worried. “He camped all the time. He killed a lot. I mean, if I’m remembering the same guy, he had a good kill ratio. For a camper, that makes sense. But . . . yeah. There was one time . . . I’m almost positive . . . we played two-v-two.”
Klink looked to Parker, who explained again. “Two-player versus two-player.” He turned to Ava. “So he wasn’t always camping, then? I mean, that’s kinda out there.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I think I remember it so well.” And again, her eyes were reflecting a bit more positivity the more she pulled on the strings of the memory. “I was short one. It was late at night. I couldn’t sleep and . . .”
Parker saw the shift the second it happened, a ripple of tension creased her left cheek as the darkness left and her agitation returned. “I . . . I remember now. He was good. Really good.”
“At two-v-two?” Parker said with complete surprise.
“Yeah. We must’ve played a dozen games before he bowed out, but I don’t think he died one time. And he killed like crazy.” Her eyes glazed over a bit before she squinted at them. “He was on my team, so when I got killed . . . you know . . . I got to watch from his POV, and he was really, really good.”
This time, Klink was right to sound confused. “But . . . you just said he was a coward.”
Ava looked at him with her own confusion this ti
me. “Yeah. I know.”
Parker barely heard her. Instead, his focus had shifted to Ava’s right hand, which was drawing something over and over on her right leg. Even more bizarre? She didn’t even seem to realize that she was doing it. He didn’t know if Klink had noticed, but Parker guessed that he hadn’t. He concentrated on the movements of her hand. It looked like she was drawing . . . letters.
“Weird, huh?” Ava said.
“Excuse me?” Parker said, worried that she’d seen him looking at her hand.
“Ya know. That a guy who could play that good would choose to be a camper, right?” she said, looking at him intently.
Parker returned her gaze but noticed in his peripheral vision that her hand was still drawing on her leg. He had an idea. “Yeah. Go on, though,” he said, needing to buy time as he reached into his pocket to pull out his cell phone. So as not to alert her, he smiled. “I take my notes in Google Docs.”
She gave a tiny smile back, which she forced through tight lips. “Well . . . beyond that . . .”
Her chair was slightly lower than the couch. Parker couldn’t bring the phone up to his face to record her hand, that’d be too obvious, but if he crossed his legs with one ankle on his other thigh and put the phone on his raised knee . . . perfect. He held the phone in both hands and pretended to be typing notes, but in reality hit record and the let the camera capture a video of her hand.
Ava went on to discuss a few other details: the hours she played, the days she couldn’t play because of school work, the time her and Charlie had talked about getting their wisdom teeth out—another reason why she thought he was older than he was, which she now realized must’ve been him just making up stories to empathize with her after her surgery—and their favorite flavors of Otter Pops. Parker managed to capture maybe another thirty seconds of video before she absentmindedly folded her drawing hand into her lap. That was enough. By then he had a good idea that she was most likely drawing letters, but reading them upside down and at the speed she was writing them was impossible. It didn’t matter. The pattern had repeated itself a few times now, of that much he was sure. So, he stopped recording and put his phone back in his pocket.
Chalk Man Page 6
