Only the Strong

by Ethan Cross

  “And Corin lived here?”

  “Up until two weeks ago, when she disappeared.”

  Jenny pursed her lips. “Cool. Missing persons case. Are we thinking the boyfriend?”

  “I peg him as clean. Just a gut feeling.”

  Baxter walked out into the road and looked both directions. It wasn’t a heavily trafficked street, but there were still cars traveling by every few seconds. He wasn’t concerned about the vehicles. He needed to get a look up and down the road a ways, and the best place to do that was from the center lines.

  “What witnesses have you talked to?”

  He replied, “Only the boyfriend, Blake, and the sister. I’ve been holding off on going any deeper.”

  “Why?”

  “Baxter’s Rule #7084: never trust what is squishy and fragile over what you can see with your own eyes.”

  He could hear the rattling of all her zippers as she hurried along behind him. “I have no idea what that means.”

  “Never trust someone’s memory, or story, over some good camera footage.”

  She grabbed him by the Hawaiian shirt and manhandled him over to the curb, saying, “Get out of the road, you jackass.”

  “Your concern is touching.”

  “I’m not concerned for you. I’m worried about the dent you might make in somebody’s hood.”

  “I believe all cars are equipped with those new-fangled brakes I’ve been hearing so much about. You may have read about it on the Tweeter.”

  “Cars have always had brakes. And it’s Twitter. What were you doing in the middle of the road?”

  “Surely the very first car ever built didn’t possess brakes. An inventor who built the brakes first probably wouldn’t have created such a modern marvel.” Baxter pulled a joint from the breast pocket of his white-and-red Hawaiian shirt and added, “And I was deciding which direction someone may have driven off in Corin’s car. Earlier I found something that made me wonder if Corin had been taken from here. You actually just parked in her reserved spot. Security footage at the school shows her leaving there. The boyfriend doesn’t think she made it home, but I’m not convinced the investigating officers believed him.”

  “You said he was clean?”

  “I said that I believed him. I just think he may be wrong. But that’s the difference between me and the cops. They have procedures and due diligence. I just go with my gut. They have to thoroughly check out the boyfriend. But I think he’s clean, so I’m moving on.”

  “Your gut ever wrong?”

  “Of course, but sometimes you just need to sit back and let the Universe take the wheel.”

  “So now your gut has the ability to communicate with ‘The Universe?’”

  “We all have that kind of connection, Jenny. But most people don’t trust that the Universe has their best interests at heart.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “So you just go with the flow and trust that some higher power has your back, so you’ll be good?”

  “Well, yeah, in a way. I mean, it’s like solar eclipses.”

  “You lost me.”

  “The study of our sun is a natural and integral part of learning more about the universe and making new scientific discoveries. In their book ‘The Privileged Planet,’ astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher Jay Richards argue that our place in the cosmos is designed for discovery. Eclipses make it possible to gain knowledge about the sun in ways that aren’t normally observable. That’s how they validated Einstein’s theory of relativity, which predicted that gravity bends light. The same with solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Scientists were only able to observe those phenomena during an eclipse.”

  “So what? Eclipses are the Super Bowl for scientists. I knew that.”

  Baxter smiled. “But did you know that, in order for an eclipse to occur, the moon has to be just the right size, orbiting a planet just the right distance from its host star. You see, the sun is four hundred times larger than the moon. In order for the two objects to appear roughly the same size in the sky, the sun has to be four hundred times further away from us. Which, just so happens, to be our approximate distance from the sun. Is that just coincidence or does somebody have our backs? I don’t expect that choirs of angels are going to protect me, but I think the concept of goodness is universal. And we should trust that the Universe wants good for us.”

  “If God does exist, he’s indifferent.”

  “That’s a horrible thing to say. Think of it like this. Everyone has some sense of what is fair and good. Every culture in history from remote South American villages to the Romans to modern Americans have a general sense of what is right and wrong. We have a measuring stick by which we judge what is good and what is evil. That inherent facet of humanity has to come from somewhere. I just take what’s thrown at me and let the Universe direct my path. Everything’s worked out so far.”

  She shook her head. “What about a tribe of cannibals out in the jungle?”

  “What about them?”

  “Some of those tribes murder and devour any outsider they come across. They have a pretty radical view of good and evil.”

  “I know. Whatever happened to their ancestors must have been pretty horrible for them to be so untrusting. But even under those circumstances, they have a measuring stick. It’s just one we don’t fully understand.”

  “Fine, Mr. Universe, which direction does your gut signal say we should go?”

  “Away from the city. So, toward the closest interstate or major thoroughfare. Cover the greatest ground in the least amount of time. North or south, in regard to their final destination, doesn’t really matter. We just need to think about where they would pass by for the first few blocks.” Baxter pointed up the street to the north. “My gut says there’s better camera potential in that direction.”

  Jenny said, “Didn’t the cops check for that kind of thing?”

  “I’m sure they did, but I’m looking for the things they didn’t see. For example, they would draw a circle on a map based on time and distance, then try to check everything they could without a court order. We’re just trying to walk in her shoes through space and time. If she was here and left, where did she go next? Plus, the cops would have checked during the daytime. We’re here at the same time she would have been taken.”

  “I don’t think they have cameras that only come out at night.”

  “You never know, my dear.”

  They walked to the end of the block. Jenny was studying the buildings for cameras, but Baxter was only studying her. He said, “Four-way intersection, fair Jennifer. Which way now?”

  “Keep going straight.”

  “Why?”

  Jenny said, “Because left and right turn off onto side roads. This one is the fastest way out of here. Putting the most distance between me and the scene of the crime in the fastest time.”

  “You are strong in the ways of the Force, young Jennifer.”

  “Shut up. I already knew that. What about that ATM machine?” she asked, pointing out the blue-and-gray box sitting across the street. “Or that gas station on the next block. Or there’s also a company called RJ Transportation Services up there that has a little truck depot. Any of those would have good camera angles.”

  Baxter stopped walking and considered that. Something didn’t feel right. He held out his hand and said to Jenny, “Will you pray with me?”

  “Excuse me.”

  “Just take my hand. Humor me.”

  She made a face but reluctantly placed her hand in his. Baxter said, “Lord, some dangerous cat who has lost his way has done crept in on your child, Corin Campbell. Help us get her back. Like Frampton said, ‘Show me the way.’ Amen.”

  Jenny said, “Do you feel better there, Mr. Universe?”

  Baxter lit the joint in his mouth, inhaled deeply, and held the smoke. He had never und
erstood Bill Clinton’s response about never inhaling. All Clinton was admitting was that he was a poser who wasted his buddy’s weed. Sounded like kind of a dick move to Baxter. He held out the joint to Jenny. She took a hit and passed it back.

  He said, “They didn’t go this way.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because the police would have checked those cameras. And since we can assume they didn’t see Corin’s car on any of that footage, we can also assume she didn’t go this way. We need to find the cameras they didn’t check.”

  Turning back toward Corin’s condo, Baxter walked to the first intersection and examined the other two paths. They were both small side streets, barely more than alleyways. Cars and reserved spots lined the western path. The eastern path was bordered by brick walls and held ample parking. The next street in that direction was a one-way road heading south.

  He started walking to the east.

  Jenny said, “I thought the abductor would want to put as much distance—”

  “I’m just following my gut, darling.”

  They reached the next intersection, and Baxter heard the whoosh of air brakes. A bus stop sat to their left. One of the city’s many electric trolleybuses was picking up a line of passengers. Two sets of electrical lines hung suspended above the street. A harness atop the bus connected to the wires and supplied the bus with a steady and environmentally friendly stream of power.

  Baxter chuckled and rubbed his hands together like Sylvester the cat staring at Tweety Bird. “I just found the camera the cops didn’t check. Also, do you think Tweety Bird has an account on the Tweeter?”

  “It’s Twitter, you idiot. And try to stay focused. What camera? Do the bus stops have cameras?”

  “Yeah, but the police would have checked that one. I’ll just have to show you.”

  “I hate surprises.”

  “But I feel the need to impress you with my genius.”

  “I’m not impressed.”

  “You haven’t even experienced the genius part yet.”

  “I won’t be impressed. Just tell me.”

  “Okay, but you’re ruining it . . . We don’t want the camera at the bus stop. We want the videos from the bus itself.”

  “I didn’t know they had cameras on the buses.”

  Baxter nodded. “Eight cameras, actually. All wide angle. Two inside the cabin of the bus and six along the exterior sides. The city saved enough in insurance premiums to more than pay for the whole camera system. The digital footage is stored on the actual bus as a failsafe but is also broadcast to a central data repository.”

  “How is that you say the wrong name for Twitter, but you have the inside scoop on mass transit security?”

  Baxter grinned. “Because my neighbor is possibly the next Unabomber.”

  ~~*~~

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Ackerman could never sleep in a bed. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his childhood of nightmares and the subconscious trauma, or if his developing bones had merely become accustomed to a harder sleeping surface. He had also removed all the pictures from the walls of his temporary domicile. Emily and the others had acquiesced to his unusual requests and had allowed him to curl up in the corner of a room with no pictures.

  While in Arizona, he had simply curled up somewhere on the floor beside Marcus and Maggie’s bed, but that had quickly made him feel like some sort of pet. He had demanded to have his own bed, even if he didn’t sleep in it.

  His brother would be back in California within a few hours, and they would be heading to meet with the task force handling the abduction and hacking case. But even though this was merely a rest stop, not a full-on surrendering of the day, he couldn’t help but feel that man’s most precious commodity—time—was slipping away from them.

  The squished-faced little vermin lay beside him on the floor. And the dog continued to inch closer as time ticked on. Then it started making high-pitched mewling noises and scratched at his arm.

  “Do you not have the proper instincts to realize that I am a danger to you? Danger, you ignorant rat. Danger!”

  He tried to just ignore it, but there was something about that mewling sound that sent chills of anger through his body. He had tried locking the thing in the closet, but then it simply scratched incessantly at the door.

  Ackerman finally sat up and said, “You’re lucky this hotel room doesn’t come with a microwave or refrigerator. What do you want from me?”

  The dog’s tail wagged and his ears perked at the attention. Ackerman started to get up, and the thing ran toward the exit door. When he sat back down, it simply returned to him, and the whole process started over again.

  Ackerman growled in frustration, which only seemed to enliven the canine. “I’m starting to wonder if Emily was sold a defective model. Maybe there’s a return policy on you. Come on, do I seriously have to take you out every time you need to evacuate your waste?”

  The small dog barked and ran toward the door again.

  “Piss in a corner like a good hobo. Live like a rock star. Trash the place. I don’t care. But I refuse to pander to your petty demands for attention!”

  He stood and took the creature into the bathroom, holding it over the toilet. “Go,” he said, but the vermin merely stared at him. After a few seconds, he growled again and deposited the small dog in the bathtub. “There. Easy clean up. Go nuts.”

  He returned to his spot on the floor, but it only took a moment before he heard a rustling in the bathroom and the sound of paws on fake tile. He didn’t open his eyes, but he could feel its presence in front of him, its eyes staring at him expectantly.

  Still, he ignored the creature and turned his thoughts to other things.

  In his head, he began listing popular methods of torture from the sixteenth century.

  Then the vile creature started back in with the whining and scratching. Opening his eyes and releasing a deep breath, he said, “Fine. But if you get carried off by a bald eagle or hit by a car, I’m not helping you. That’s where I draw the line. I promised not to kill you, but that doesn’t mean I have to save you from all the other things that could kill you.”

  The dog barked and ran again toward the door. Ackerman didn’t bother putting on a jacket or shoes. His jeans and gray long-sleeve T-shirt alone would have to suffice. He wasn’t afraid of a little cold, and he welcomed the pain of sharp gravel and broken beer bottles against the soles of his feet. He tried to pretend that was the sole reason for this late-night stroll.

  He stood by the door, trying to forget about the dog, but it barked and whined and broke the illusion. He said, “We’ll go when I’m damn good and ready.” Remaining still, he took a few deep breaths and then said, “Okay, I’m ready now, but by my own will, not yours.”

  The dog just wagged its tail and panted, bouncing all the while with that happy, expectant energy. The look on its face seemed smug to Ackerman, and he contemplated whether such a beast could, in reality, be a skilled manipulator.

  ~~*~~

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  As he stood in the corner of the Westchester County Airport’s private charter terminal, Marcus’s world fell apart. His dad’s old partner had given it to him straight, and Eddie had been right. His dad had planted the evidence, and he felt as if his father’s memory had been forever tainted with that knowledge.

  It wasn’t that Marcus judged his dad, especially considering that he knew the suspect was guilty of the crime. Still, his father was the one constant beacon of hope and righteousness in his life. Now, that light was gone, and the darkness had crept in.

  He dropped into one of the terminal’s chairs, hung his head, and began to cry.

  The memory of his dad finding him in a similar position—crying alone in his second-story bedroom—was as vivid in his mind as if it had just taken place. He could still feel the breeze from t
he open window, the wind carrying with it the melody of the city traffic and distant sirens, a sweet chorus of buzzing humanity.

  His dad had asked what was wrong, and he had broken down, happy to finally unburden himself of the things he had witnessed. Every time he had closed his eyes, he saw the blood. He tried to fill his nose with Vicks to mask the smells of copper and vacated bowels that had infected the concrete slaughter room he had found down in the dark. The slightest sensory reminder of his time in the Mad King’s castle would send him to the edge of a panic attack or to the verge of losing his lunch.

  He had told his dad everything, and John Williams had hugged Marcus close and told him that he was so proud of him. After which, his detective father had his young son look through countless mug shots until he found a picture of the woman he had rescued. His dad had told him that he would handle it from there and that he shouldn’t worry about it anymore.

  Marcus hadn’t heard another word about the case, until one day his dad pulled him aside and informed him that the woman he had saved from the basement had been found dead. Marcus felt responsible. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told? Perhaps he should have told sooner? She had been their best chance at finding someone to testify against Tommy Jewels, but then she was gone. His dad had said, “But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up. I’m stubborn that way when it comes to justice being done.”

  Apparently, his father had then decided that seeing justice done was worth breaking the law and falsifying evidence.

  “Looks like you received some bad news.”

  Maggie’s voice startled him, and he quickly wiped the tears from his eyes, not wanting her to see him cry. “You were right. Eddie was right. My father planted the evidence, and he almost lost his job over it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? No such as thing as heroes, right.”

  She lowered her eyes, unsure how to respond. Finally, she said, “The FBI pilot said he’s ready when we are.”