“You’re the one who said we had to pull out all the stops to find Will, so let’s go through the process at least,” David urges me.
“Oh, a psychic. How fascinating,” Kim responds with keen interest. “I’ve read about psychics who’ve been able to help break cases the police couldn’t.”
I roll my eyes and head to my bedroom to change out of the same pair of jeans and shirt I’ve been wearing since yesterday. En route, I pass by Logan and Kim’s cousin, Aunt Alice, who are parked on the living room couch. Logan is transfixed by an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants playing on the TV, while Alice clicks her knitting needles with precision as she works on something that looks like the makings of a rainbow scarf.
I try and pass by unnoticed, but Alice sees me and jumps up from the couch. Kim said Alice was from Berkeley, California, and she wears the look of a still attractive, aging hippy. Alice is probably mid-fifties, with long grey-blond hair parted in the middle that hangs down to her waist. Alice’s Rubenesque figure is almost camouflaged under a shapeless lavender caftan. She approaches me with an uncertain, tight smile and an outstretched hand, and a waft of patchouli oil reaches me before she does.
“I’ve heard so much about you from Kimmy. I’m sorry about your baby, I hope my being here isn’t an intrusion,” Alice says in a nervous rush.
“It’s fine,” I lie and shoot Kim a look.
“Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. My daughter, Leslie, should be here soon. It takes her forever to get dressed. You know how teenagers are, but once she gets here, Leslie will do whatever you need. Now please tell me the police have a suspect in custody already.”
“Thank you and no. The police haven’t arrested anyone,” I answer.
“Do they have any idea who would want to take your child?” Alice continues. “I’ve read about these kinds of things happening, but it’s just so unbelievable to meet someone who is living such an unthinkable tragedy. I called my women’s group at my Methodist church back home, and we have you and your family on a prayer chain.”
“That’s nice. If you’ll excuse me . . .”
“Let me make you a sandwich, dear. I bet you haven’t eaten anything since your little boy was taken,” Alice says, oblivious to the fact I am trying to escape.
Alice heads toward the kitchen, her plump backside swishing back and forth behind her.
“Aunt Alice, don’t you worry. I know you’re trying to help, but let’s just let Julia get changed. We’ll give her a little space,” Kim suggests.
“Oh dear. I’m being a nuisance instead of a help, aren’t I? Tell you what, I’ll just make you that sandwich and I’ll leave it on the counter if you want it later,” Alice answers and begins to scour my pantry for bread.
“David said a psychic from television is coming here to help find Will,” Kim says.
“When I was a girl, a psychic came to town with the carnival,” Alice answers while slathering two pieces of wheat bread with mayonnaise. “We lived outside of Grand Rapids then. Kimmy’s mother was visiting for a week that summer. We snitched a dollar from my mom’s pocketbook to sneak out to the carnival and have the psychic read our palms. My mother caught wind of my thievery and what I’d done with her hard-earned money, and she took a belt to my backside, she did. To this day, I never forgot what she said.”
Logan unglues his gaze from the television and looks back at Alice curiously.
“What did your mother say to you?” Logan asks in a small voice tinged with intrigue and just a hint of fear.
“She said psychics were things of the devil, trying to connect the dead back to the living and that I’d opened a door to let the devil slip on in. She scared me so much, I couldn’t go to sleep at night without the light on for years after that,” Alice recalls.
“Aunt Alice!” Kim responds and motions her head toward Logan.
“Sorry. I’m just a bugger today messing up, aren’t I? Leslie is older now and I don’t have to watch what I say around her so much anymore. Sorry, Logan.”
Logan looks to me for reassurance, his eyes round and worried.
“Why don’t you come and visit with me for a minute,” I say and grab Logan’s hand in mine as we retreat into his bedroom.
Once the door is closed, I sit down on the side of Logan’s bed and pat the space next to me.
“How are you doing, buddy?”
Logan casts his eyes to the floor, and I brush a tuft of his dark hair behind his ear.
“Is the devil real?” Logan asks.
“No. Well, I mean, I don’t know for sure. I do know there are bad people on this earth, and I’ll do my best to protect you from them, but when I’m not around, you need to be very, very careful, especially around strangers.”
“Will is dead isn’t he?” Logan whispers and looks back at me with eyes that look much older than they did just the day before. “That’s why the police are bringing a psychic here.”
I grit my teeth and silently vow to throttle Navarro when I see him.
“No. That’s not why. Look, I don’t really believe in psychics, but I trust Detective Navarro and if he thinks this person can help us find Will, then I guess we better give it a shot. Is that okay by you?”
“You don’t think people can talk to the dead?”
“No, I don’t.”
Logan nods, seeming satisfied with my answer and pops something into his mouth. In his right hand is a bright yellow wrapper with a red stripe down the center and an old-fashioned picture of a little girl wearing a short dress and a bonnet in the corner.
I snatch the wrapper from his hand. The wax paper still smells like peanut butter and molasses taffy, and a once familiar and pleasant memory comes flooding back. The wrapper is from a Mary Jane candy. Ben and I used to buy Mary Janes for a penny at the Lewes Dairy when we were kids. They were my favorite, but after Ben was taken, I never ate one again.
“Where did you get this?”
Logan holds up his index finger to let me know he is still chewing. Finally, he swallows.
“I found it. It was in my treasure box underneath my eagle feather and my magnifying glass. I’ve never tasted one before. It’s really good,” Logan says, licking his lips. “I thought Daddy put the candy in the treasure box. He always brings me home surprises when he comes to see me on the weekend.”
“Whoever took Will could have planted it. Jesus, let me see your treasure box,” I shout.
Logan rushes over to his bookshelf, where he purposely stashes his treasures, high away from Will’s curious grasp. I dump the box on his bed and carefully analyze its contents: an eagle feather, a smooth skipping stone, a silver dollar, and what appears to be a dried-up ladybug.
“Do you feel sick?” I ask, satisfied that I didn’t find anything else suspect and that Logan is still breathing.
“No. Geez. You scared me,” Logan answers.
My paranoid episode is interrupted by a polite knock.
“Sorry to disturb you, but someone named Sarah is on the phone,” Kim calls out from the other side of the door. “She says she’s your sister? She heard about Will’s kidnapping and says she needs to talk to you right away. You never told me you had a sister, Julia.”
“Take a message,” I answer curtly.
“That doesn’t seem very nice.”
“Just do it,” I answer, already knowing my sharp tone not intended for my friend will hurt her feelings anyway.
I pause a beat and wait for Kim’s footsteps to retreat down the wooden hallway floor and pray Logan will have somehow not picked up on Kim’s mention of an aunt he’s never heard of before. But he’s way too smart for that.
“Who’s Sarah? Logan asks.
“Someone I used to know a long time ago.”
“Aunty Kim said she’s your sister.”
“This is important. I need to tell you something before you hear it from someone else first.”
Logan drops his silver dollar he is studying intently with his magnifying gla
ss and a look of worry settles on his face.
“I was going to tell you about this when you got a little older, but sometimes things don’t happen like you plan. So here goes. When I was little, I had an older brother. His name was Ben.”
“You told me you didn’t have any family besides Aunt Carol. Did you lie to me?”
My heart starts to break a little and I try again.
“It wasn’t that I was trying to keep anything from you. I love you. I was just waiting for the right time to tell you.”
“You’re scaring me again,” Logan says.
“You don’t need to be scared. Give me your hand, sweetheart,” I say and Logan timidly reaches out and slips his small hand into mine. “Here’s the story. I moved in with my Aunt Carol when I was seven, just a little younger than you are now. When I was growing up, my family was different than ours. My parents didn’t do the right thing most of the time, and I had a choice to either move in with Aunt Carol or go live with strangers who I didn’t think would care for me. I had an older sister. . . .”
“Sarah?”
“Yes, Sarah is her name, but we were never close. When we got older, Sarah got involved in some bad things, and I needed to distance myself from her for my own protection and later for yours and Will’s.”
“Is Sarah a bad person?”
“You ask tough questions. I haven’t seen her in a long time, so I don’t know. But the one good thing I had growing up was my brother, Ben, and I loved him more than anything in the whole world when I was a little girl.”
“Ben is my middle name. Did you name me after him?”
“Yes. I know he would’ve loved you very much. You look a lot like him, you know.”
“What happened to your brother? Did he die?”
I am not sure how to answer his question. So I simply tell him the truth:
“I don’t know what happened to my brother. Sometimes you just have mysteries you have to solve.”
“Have you been trying to solve your brother’s mystery for a long time?”
“Yes, I have.”
Logan pats my hand like a parent trying to comfort a hurt child. I wrap my arms around his thin frame and hug him as hard as I can.
“I’m going to help you find your brother, right after I help you find Will though. Okay?”
“That’s a deal.”
“Do you think your brother put the candy in my treasure box for me?” Logan asks and retrieves the yellow and red striped wrapper so he can inspect it with his magnifying glass.
“That’s a really nice thought, but I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“You don’t believe in magic?”
“No, I don’t. If you can’t prove something with facts, then it’s not real.”
Our conversation on magic’s existence ends as Kim begins to rap on the door again, but she doesn’t need to tell me what she wants. I can already smell Anita Burton’s perfume wafting down the hallway like a pungent calling card. I kiss Logan on the head and hurry down the hall to fend her off, but Burton is already standing in my kitchen, wearing a skirt about two sizes too small and chatting up David in a very friendly tone.
“Where’s Navarro? I surely didn’t agree to this.”
“Hi, Julia. I’m Anita Burton. Ray asked me to help out in your son’s missing persons case,” Burton answers, extending her hand. “I’m so sorry about what happened to your boy. I’m not sure if Ray told you about me. I’ve worked with him on numerous high-profile cases. I’m a paranormal investigator.”
Paranormal investigator my ass, I think as I consider strong-arming Burton out of my house.
“I know exactly who you are,” I answer instead and move past Burton’s extended hand to the front door, which I bang open wide for her exit. “I do not need, nor do I want, your help. It’s a waste of time, and time is one thing I don’t have right now. So if you’ll do me a favor . . .”
“Thanks for holding the door for me,” Navarro says as he breezes inside the house. I detect just a hint of newly applied cologne as he passes by.
“I need to talk to you. In private,” I tell Navarro. I grab his arm and drag him outside in the direction of the backyard patio, where I know we will be out of earshot.
“Julia . . .” Navarro starts, but I cut him off.
“Are you kidding me? You bring your tarty little girlfriend over here right now? This is the laziest example of policing I’ve ever seen. If I weren’t preoccupied with trying to find my missing son, I’d write a story about how the police turned to a psychic less than a day after a child goes missing because they weren’t capable of solving the crime themselves.”
“Hold on.”
“My son was kidnapped last night and this is all you’ve got? I expected way better from you, but men always lead with their dicks, don’t they?”
Navarro shakes a few fallen leaves from Will’s red baby swing, and his jaw settles in a tight line.
“Are you done?” he asks.
“Not even close.”
“You’re such a pain in my ass sometimes,” Navarro grumbles and gives the swing a push. “Before you crucify me, I got your phone message about Cahill’s letters. We’ve already picked them up from the prison, and a forensic scientist is doing a handwriting analysis as we speak. Not to mention the fact that my guys have been busting their asses all morning, talking to every registered sex offender within three hundred miles of your place. We also checked out the list of defendants David gave us who might have been seeking payback from him. Everyone checked out. Three of them are living out of state and have alibis for their whereabouts last night, and the Matthews guy who killed his girlfriend is still serving time over in Carson City.”
“What about the people I mentioned from my crime beat?”
“Rojas was murdered a year ago, right after he got out. We’re still trying to track down Kate Bramwood, but I got a pretty good lead that she’s living in a trailer down on Delmar Street. Russell is going to pay her a visit this morning.”
“What about the connection to my brother’s case? Did you speak with Detective Leidy?”
“I’ve bugged the hell out of the detective who investigated your brother’s disappearance with fifteen calls back and forth already this morning. And the FBI is now involved. For the first time in my career, I actually asked for their help. We’ve got at least three days before we get the DNA results on the evidence we found in your house last night, and that’s pushing it. Anita Burton may be unorthodox, but I need to use every resource to find your boy in the shortest time possible.”
I hold Navarro’s stare for a minute and then finally look away.
“What do you have against Burton anyway?” Navarro asks.
“Despite the fact that she slept with a good portion of the police department and a few firemen, I don’t trust her. Journalists base their stories on facts, not fictional accounts from beyond. Burton is a publicity hound who capitalizes on desperate people searching for loved ones, longing for reassurance a dead relative is indeed in a better place. She takes advantage of people and makes a buck from their misery.”
“Could you just trust me on this one?”
“I don’t put my faith in paranormal hacks. Or sluts either.”
Navarro takes a step back and cocks his head to the side as though something has finally clicked.
“Holy shit. You’re jealous. That’s really what this is all about. It’s not that Anita Burton is a psychic. You’re pissed because we went on a couple of dates.”
“You’re totally off base here. I’m not jealous and I could care less who you date, so go check your ego. Someone stole my son and we have zero time to piss away and Anita Burton is a colossal waste of time.”
Navarro stuffs his hands in his pockets and tries to suppress a smile that begins to curl around his lips. “Remember, Gooden, you were the one who called it off, not me. You wanted the normal life with the nice guy who didn’t drink. That’s what you wanted, right? No more cops, no more
drama.”
When Navarro and I first got together, I thought it would be easy to date a police officer. I knew the dangers from my beat. But after Navarro nearly died in a shootout during a drug sting in an abandoned building on Gratiot Avenue, the reality of his work came crashing down on me and a steady ache of worry stayed with me constantly when he was on the job. With David, everything was safe and routine, especially when he moved into private practice. David’s white-collar clients didn’t come packing to trial or wait in the parking garage with their guns drawn, ready to cap David if he lost their case.
“Right. That’s exactly what I have now. A normal life. My son is missing. So, if you’ll shut up, I’ll go inside and talk to your little psychic friend. But she’s got fifteen minutes. That’s it.”
I brush past Navarro and I feel his hand graze my elbow as he tries to pull me back, but I keep on going to the house without turning around.
“Wait a second. I wasn’t trying to piss you off,” he calls out from behind.
I ignore Navarro and make a beeline inside the house without offering him another word. David stands in the living room with Burton and breaks away from her as he notices my expression.
“Is everything all right?” David asks as he walks over to my side.
Before I can respond, Navarro puts out his hand for David to shake.
“Haven’t seen you in the courthouse for a while. I’m sorry about your son, but my guys are working hard to bring him home safely.”
David disregards Navarro’s attempt at a greeting and handshake. Instead, David puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. “If Julia isn’t comfortable with this, then we aren’t going through with it. I’m willing to keep all options open, but this seems like a long shot and I don’t want my wife to be any more upset than she already is.”
I look back at David and feel startled over his comment. I realize we are putting up a united front for Will, but David’s protective reaction is a surprise and something he hasn’t done in years.
“Julia is tough. I already talked to her. She agreed to go through with this,” Navarro answers. “And for the record, no one is trying to make her upset, especially me.”
The Last Time She Saw Him Page 9
