Phish NET Stalkings

by Denise Robbins

  He followed Jack into the diner under the chimes of the door and waited for Jack to excuse the young patrol officer sitting at the counter drinking a cup of coffee. Then he pulled out a pad and pen and turned his focus on the woman with the tall reddish orange hair.

  “Sharon, I’m Chief Chance. Do you think you could answer a few questions for me?”

  “Yes, but I already told Detective Jack everything.” She glanced at Jack and the gleam in her eyes told him she had told Jack everything about the incident as well as herself.

  “Janette comes in almost every evening for a coffee break before we close. She always said she needed that last kick of caffeine to get her through the last part of the evening.”

  “Did you notice anyone out of the ordinary, suspicious looking perhaps, following Janette when she left the diner?”

  “Everyone had already gone.” Sharon’s shoulders shook as if a shiver shuddered up her spine.

  “What is it?”

  “I was in the back cleaning out the coffeepot and I heard the bathroom door shut and the chimes of the front door.” She looked over at Jack. “I didn’t remember that until just now.”

  “It’s okay, Sharon,” Jack soothed and patted her hand.

  “Did you see who left?”

  Sharon turned her violet gaze on him and shook her head. “I called out but no one answered. By the time I got to the front, there was no one here. I double-checked the bathrooms and storage closet before I went back into the kitchen to finish cleaning up.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Everyone liked Janette. I mean, we all knew what she did. I even tried to convince her to become a waitress but she said it wouldn’t pay enough to take care of her and her kid. Oh!” Sharon slapped a hand over her mouth and tears welled in her eyes.

  “Janette has a child?” Coop shot a hard stare at Jack, who muttered a curse. Shit! Another victim, a child.

  She nodded. “The cutest little boy you’ve ever seen. Janette brought him in here on Sundays for breakfast. He liked orange juice, and waffles with chocolate chip smiley faces.” Sharon sniffled and clutched at his hand. “Who’s going to take care of that little boy?”

  “We’ll call in social services and see if we can locate a relative close to here. Do you know where she lived or who took care of the boy when she worked?”

  “Umm.” She bit down on her lower lip and looked up into her head as if remembering. “Over on McGrath. Not far from here. She walked here on Sundays with little Joey.”

  “You wouldn’t know if there was a father around, would you?”

  Sharon shook her head and her tall hair didn’t budge an inch. “Not that Janette ever mentioned, but she loved little Joey.”

  He shot a look at Jack who inclined his head and excused himself to make a call to social services and send a patrol car over to try to locate Janette’s home and her son Joey.

  “You’re doing great, Sharon,” he told her and offered her a sincere smile. “I really appreciate your help.”

  “I’m not sure how much help…” She trailed off and waved her hands in her face as tears welled in her eyes.

  Cooper took a napkin from the table and handed it to Sharon. “The tiniest bit of information is helpful. Just a few more questions and then I’ll get one of the patrol officers to take you home.”

  Sharon nodded and dabbed at her eyes. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

  “What made you go looking for Janette? Did you hear something, see something?”

  She leaned back, blew out a long breath, and did that eye rolling in the back of her head thing again. Searching her memory. “I heard a crash in the alley, like a clatter. I thought that maybe the animals got the trashcan lids off again. I locked up and went out back to secure the lids and that’s when I found Janette.” Her voice shook and she started to tear up again. “It was just so awful. I ran. I ran right back to the diner and locked myself in and called you. The police.”

  He reached out, laid one of his large hands over her smaller, more fragile-boned hand and offered solace. “You did the right thing, Sharon.”

  She began to sob. All he could do was offer her another napkin and a shoulder to cry on. “You’re safe.”

  SIXTEEN

  The minute Cooper left her house, Jane sprang out of bed and got ready for work only to realize it was Sunday. The man fuddled her brain and wasn’t that a pain in the ass. After changing into a pair of jeans and a snuggly sweater, she sat in her living room, her feet on the coffee table. Newspaper open next to her on the sofa, she drank a cup of coffee and skimmed the headlines before glancing through the ads for upcoming flea markets and the For Sale section.

  The one headline that caught her attention was one on the Street Corner Rapist Strikes Again. Street corner rapist? When had this started? Was she so caught up in her own work she forgot to tune into the rest of the world?

  Halfway through the article, she wanted to throw up the coffee she just finished. Some lunatic was attacking hookers, beating and raping them. Couldn’t the guy just pay them? Why hurt someone who was willing to sell it? Jane shook her head in disbelief. She continued to shake her head until she saw Cooper Chance’s name in print.

  “Whoa.” She set her coffee cup on table and bent over the newspaper. The chief of police is on a routine case? Was it a routine case?

  The article quoted Chief Chance as saying, “I don’t want to cause a public alarm, but there is someone attacking women. Women need to be on high alert. Walk in pairs or groups, but don’t walk alone. Lock your doors. Practice safety.”

  All ladies? The article only mentioned ladies of the night being attacked. Jane swallowed a lump of fear. Was that his plan? To make all women afraid? What was he not telling them?

  He had to be hiding something. That’s what the police did. They hid things so it suited their purposes. They covered things up so they looked like heroes. Jane dragged her fingers through her hair. What had she been thinking? She could not get involved with a cop.

  Her mother worked for the police all those years ago and they covered up her murder. They said it had been a drug deal gone bad. Drugs. Her mother had never done drugs in her life. At eight years old, her mother warned her every morning before school to be wary of strangers and to stay away from drugs. The only drugs her mother kept in the house were aspirin. The absolute last thing she would have done is drugs. That wasn’t the reason she knew her mother hadn’t been involved in a drug deal. She knew it because she had been a witness.

  A shiver shook her shoulders as the memory flooded her mind. Inside the closet, Jane sat curled up in a ball with her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped tight around her knees. She folded her lips inward to prevent her teeth from chattering and making noise.

  “Be as quiet as a church mouse,” her mother told her and slid the closet door shut.

  Jane huddled in the back, dark corner behind her mother’s dresses and winter coats with her fingers pressed to her ears.

  “Please, please, make the bad men go away,” she chanted in a whisper as she rocked back and forth. “Please.”

  When her mother’s shriek was followed by a loud bang, Jane’s heart froze, stopped then beat in overtime. She squeezed herself into as small a ball as possible, ducked her head, and held her breath. Another explosion ripped the air. Her head popped up and her mouth opened to scream but she slapped a hand over it and gave a silent yelp. She buried her head against her knees again and her fingernails dug into her legs as she held on to the screech that bubbled and scratched at her throat.

  She waited for what seemed like forever before she moved. Without making a sound, she crawled to the closet door and peeked through the slats. The louvers blocked her view and she couldn’t make out much except movement. Holding her breath, she shifted her position, craned her neck and was able to see two people walking around her mother’s bed.

  She couldn’t see their faces but she saw the badge. The shiny gold color mesmerized her until one
of the men moved. She dropped down and buried her face in her shirt. She wanted to scream, to run out of the closet and tear their eyes out. Her mother. Her beautiful mother was dead, sprawled across the bed. Dark red blood pooled on the pillow next to a big hole in her mother’s head. Silent tears spilled down her cheeks, but she held back the sobs.

  When she heard one of the men speak, she sucked in several big gulps of air and through tear-blurred eyes peaked through the slats again.

  “Leave the weapon on the bed. I’ll put the drug paraphernalia in the nightstand.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “She’s probably at school.”

  “Yeah, but she’s going to walk in on this.”

  “Better that than being dead.”

  “You’re a cold-hearted bastard.”

  “No. It’s called self-preservation. Cassandra knew too much. Thanks to her job, she connected the dots and discovered our side business.”

  That was the last thing Jane heard besides the front door slamming shut. She stayed hidden in the closet until the sun turned to shadows. It was then she reached out, laid her hand on the doorknob and hesitated, afraid to open it.

  “Stop,” she muttered and rubbed the vision from her eyes. She did not want to relive seeing her mother lying on the bed not moving. Dead.

  “Do something. Take your mind off it. Off him.”

  She could check her email and maybe find a flea market to go rummaging through today. Setting her laptop on her knees, she ran her finger across the mouse pad and woke it up. After typing in her password, she clicked on the icon for her email and waited for it to appear. She quickly glanced through her messages and not seeing anything of interest, she clicked the icon for the Internet and waited for the screen to paint. Once Internet Explorer was up, she typed in the URL for http://www.nhevents.com to see what was happening in New Hampshire today and get a list of possible flea markets open on a Sunday.

  David’s birthday was coming up and she was on the hunt for something special. David could pretty much afford anything he wanted so buying something new would mean very little. Instead, she had a plan for something old is new again. Her lips curved into a grin. No matter what, she was determined to find a certain set of frogs that had sentimental significance to them.

  “Hmm. That one looks promising,” she mumbled to the computer, reading the ad that specifically mentioned antique ceramics.

  After glancing through a few more ads, she copied the information for the two places she thought looked promising into an email and sent it to her Windows phone. Then she programmed the addresses into the online GPS application so when she got to her vehicle the GPS unit could download the coordinates.

  Standing, she picked up her coffee and took it to the kitchen sink where she turned off the coffee maker. Then she hurried up the stairs and slipped her feet into her shit-kicker boots before heading back downstairs where she shrugged into her coat and hefted her tote bag over her shoulder. At the door, she lifted her keys from a hook, punched in the code for her security system and then slipped outside into the freezing cold morning.

  * * * *

  Even though she was on a mission to find David’s birthday present and that it would fit in her front seat, she still chose to drive her beat up red pickup truck because she never knew what she would find and could not live without.

  Today would be the day, she thought, two hours and one stop later as she turned down another dirt road, and bounced over potholes. Call it intuition, call it determination, whatever, but she knew she was going to find David’s birthday present today. She felt it in her bones. The first flea market had been a bust, but somehow she knew she would find something at the next one. Plus, she had gotten some great tips and leads from a couple of the vendors at the first stop.

  When her truck hit pavement again, she veered left then took another quick right back onto dirt and kept on driving. She passed wicked tall maple and pine trees, old barns that needed serious repairs. She saw sheep, and cows, and signs for fresh eggs. She was well and truly in the sticks. That was okay with her. Sometimes the more remote, the better the find.

  Finding an empty slot, she pulled up and parked. A shiver of excitement raced through her as she exited the vehicle and she rolled her hands over each other in anticipation. Sliding her bag over her shoulder, she trudged through the muck until she hit gravel and she saw a sea of tables and people, and things. “Oh. My. Gosh,” she jittered with giddiness. “This is going to be fun.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Sitting behind his desk in a vinyl and aluminum chair at the police station, Cooper let out a heavy sigh, and wiped his hands down his face. He was beat. Emotionally beat. Chasing down some psycho nut turned murderer was not how he anticipated spending a Sunday afternoon. He had taken on the job of locating Janette’s next of kin. While Jack had the easy yet impossible job of tracking down witnesses to the murder. The only next of kin they could locate was her young son.

  At Janette’s apartment, he found a college girl named Sally, a neighbor to Janette, watching the little boy. She babysat in the evenings while she did her homework for classes.

  When he entered the apartment, an adorable tow-headed boy toddled down the hallway dressed in mini-dungarees and a red flannel shirt. His grin was so big it left a dimple in each cheek. His heart sank seeing that little boy so full of life and knowing he would never see his mother again. Life was cruel, but it was especially so when the brutality touched little children. They deserved to be innocent as long as possible, not have the harshness of reality slap them back at an age where it would scar them forever.

  Down on one knee, he held out his hand for the kid. “How ya doin’, little buddy?” he asked the child as his large hand engulfed his tiny one.

  “Hi.”

  “I’m Cooper. What’s your name?”

  “Joey,” he answered, only it came out as Jo-eee.

  “How old are you, Joey?”

  “Free.” He outstretched his hand and held up three fingers.

  “Wow. You’re a big boy.”

  The little tike grinned and puffed out his chest. Cooper had to cover up a laugh by coughing into his hand.

  When he sat on the worn sofa in the tiny living area the kid crawled up on his lap and his self-preservation instincts kicked in. His instincts screamed at him to get the kid off, to put him back down. He couldn’t do it. One look at those deep dark eyes filled with wonder and curiosity and he couldn’t shove the kid away. Instead, he held the boy on his knee and let him handle his badge while he spoke to the babysitter.

  “What will Joey do now?”

  He had called in social services and met the social worker at Janette’s apartment, but a foster home or welfare center was not a place for a young boy to grow up. He needed a mother who loved him, which obviously Janette had. According to the neighbor who wept uncontrollably when he notified her of Janette’s death, Janette spent every moment possible with her son and took pictures of him every day. Cooper could see for himself that what the babysitter said was true. Scores of photos covered every wall, every table. Pictures of Joey playing ball, building a sand castle at the park, blowing out candles on his second birthday hung in the living room. In Joey’s bedroom, she had set little pictures of the two of them walking hand-in-hand, of them underneath a short, skinny Christmas tree, and a picture of her holding a newborn in a hospital. Janette had documented every event, every moment of her and her son’s life together.

  Unfortunately, the college girl did not know the father. “She never mentioned him,” she said with a shrug. “Who the father was didn’t matter to Janette,” she told him between sniffles. “All she wanted was to make Joey happy and to give him a good life. That was why she was taking online classes. I helped her with her homework whenever she needed it.”

  When he looked around Janette’s two-bedroom apartment with Joey on his heels, he hadn’t seen any evidence of a father or a steady man in Janette’s life. His guess was that one of her Jo
hn’s knocked her up, or maybe she had gotten pregnant before she started turning tricks. They would check court papers, birth certificates, and her financial records. Perhaps if a father existed, even if he was an absent one, he had paid some kind of child support.

  The sitter hadn’t known if Janette’s parents were still alive or if she had any siblings, but she didn’t think so. Again, Janette never mentioned any other family. That did not necessarily mean anything. She could have run away, or been estranged from her family for some reason.

  He sat up, lifted and dropped his shoulders. With one hand under his chin, he wrenched his head until his neck cracked. The way the boy screamed when the social worker picked him up had curdled Cooper’s stomach and tightened a fist around his heart. He had had to carry the boy out to the social worker’s car and hook him securely in the child seat. He bribed the child with his whistle. The face-splitting grin left those craters in Joey’s cheeks again and a hole in his own heart.

  “I may be tough, but I’m not impervious,” he grumbled and opened his bottom drawer to pull out a bottle of aspirin. After swallowing three tablets dry, he dropped the bottle back in and slammed the drawer shut. He started to get up from his chair when someone knocked on his door.

  He glanced up to see Jack walking in. “You look like shit.”

  “Kiss my ass. You had the easy job,” he told Jack as he took a seat in the chair on the opposite side of his desk. Then he relayed to him what had transpired at Janette’s apartment.

  “That sucks.” Jack raked fingers through his dirty-blonde hair.

  “Tell me about it.” Cooper stood and started toward the coffeepot. “You want a cup?”

  “Hell, yeah. It’s damn cold out there.”

  After pouring two cups, he handed one to Jack and then sat back down in his chair again. “Tell me you came up with something?”