“Until lately,” Navarro says.
“I’m just not a hundred percent convinced on Parker. One thing I don’t get—Parker is a pedophile. We know that. But pedophiles target a specific age group. Ben was nine when he went missing and Will is only two. You used to work sex crimes. The pattern doesn’t fit.”
“Typically, most pedophiles are attracted to a certain age group or sex of a child. But there are always exceptions. These guys are all different. Some like girls. Some like boys. And the bisexual pedophiles like both. Like I said, there are a lot of reasons why Parker might have taken Will. But if I had to narrow it down to one, I don’t think sex is the motive.”
“What do you think it is then?” I ask, feeling an odd sense of momentary relief.
“Revenge. Parker wanted to get you back.”
My mind fills with black and crimson ribbons of dread as images of Parker torturing Will begin to choke off my sanity.
“Jesus. We need to move faster. Did you get the handwriting analysis results on the letters Cahill got?”
“Not yet. But Parker is obviously a religious guy. He had a Bible next to his bed and a cross hanging on his wall. Plus, he went to AA meetings at Cahill’s old church. Seems like a no-brainer to me with or without the handwriting match,” Navarro says.
I stare down at the number 1977 I wrote on the place mat.
“Did you get anything on the person I asked you to check out? Sarah Gooden?”
Navarro pulls a pair of square-shaped glasses and a skinny notebook from his jacket pocket. He rests the glasses on the bridge of his nose as his eyes check off the multiple offenses on my sister’s rap sheet.
“You said this Sarah is a relative of yours?” he asks.
“Yes, my sister.”
“Holy shit, Julia. Do you have any more surprises you’re waiting to pull out? I told you before, you have to be honest with me about your past. It’s crucial that I know everything. If you keep holding back, it could make the difference for whether your boy is coming home or not.”
“I understand. I wasn’t trying to cover anything up. Sarah was older, a teenager when Ben disappeared. We were never close. She acted like she couldn’t stand Ben and me when we were kids. When my parents took off, Sarah started to get into trouble and my aunt couldn’t handle her anymore, so Sarah wound up in foster care. I don’t think there is any way she was involved in Ben’s kidnapping though. Sarah was too young and that just wouldn’t make any sense.”
“Well, you have suspicions about her now, otherwise you wouldn’t have called me. Do you think Sarah is tangled up in this somehow? She definitely has a record.”
“I don’t know. She showed up out of the blue, had a sit-down with Cahill at the state penitentiary right after the press conference, and then tried to steal a picture of Will to sell to the tabloids.”
“She’s a grifter. Was and most likely still is,” Navarro says and settles the glasses back in position so he can read his notes. “You may know a lot of this already. It looks like she started early. She ran away from foster homes, caught a couple of shoplifting arrests trying to steal food and jewelry, and wound up in juvenile hall. After she turned eighteen, she got popped for drug possession and burglary. Things got quiet for a while after the courts required her to go to rehab as part of her probation requirement. But then it looks like she fell off the wagon pretty quick. Your sister got arrested for possession of meth and intent to sell. A judge gave her a second chance, and she only got ninety days in prison and then another hundred-and-eighty-day mandatory stay in rehab.”
“There’s credit card theft too,” I say.
“I was getting to that. After rehab, she and a dirt-bag guy . . .”
“Steven Beckerus,” I interrupt.
“Yeah, that’s right, Beckerus. It looks like they had a credit card scam going on. Your sister . . .”
“Just refer to her as Sarah, all right?”
“Fine by me. Beckerus and Sarah had a pretty good sting. She’d target rich guys in bars and make them think they had an easy lay. Once they got to the guy’s place, Beckerus would bust in, pretending to be the jealous boyfriend, and beat the shit out of the guy. Then Sarah swept the house for valuables and credit cards.”
“Sounds about right. Where is Beckerus these days?”
Navarro looks back at his notes.
“He did a stint at the Carson City Correctional Facility.”
“Carson City, Michigan?” I ask.
“The one and only.”
“So he’s here. That’s why Sarah showed up. She said she was living in Florida, but I’m betting she’s been here the whole time.”
“Beckerus has been clean for a while, had a steady gig with Sherman Security for over a decade,” Navarro says.
“That’s a pretty big security guard firm, right? I’ve got a source there.”
“Yeah, the owner is one of those ultra-religious types. He was a former convict himself, found God in prison, and started Sherman Security when he got out. He’s known for hiring ex-cons, trying to give them a second chance. I know a retired cop who did some work there. He said it made his skin crawl when he had to do a job alongside of a guy he collared for drugs five years earlier.”
“I interviewed someone from Sherman Security when I was writing about Cahill. Sherman Security had a contract with Cahill’s church. If my sister’s boyfriend was working for the company, there’s a strong chance he could’ve done work for Cahill. He could be involved in Will’s kidnapping.”
“Bottom line, Parker did it. We’re not going to spin our wheels and waste time looking somewhere else. He’s got a hell of a motive and pictures of you and your brother he’s been hiding away for the past thirty years.”
I look down at Ben’s necklace, and my biggest fear wraps around me and won’t let go.
“I just need to be sure. I’m going to ask you something now, and you need to be honest with me.”
“Shoot,” he says.
“Do you think Will is still alive?”
“Don’t give up, okay? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet,” Navarro answers.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I think we still have time. I’ll call you right after we search Parker’s property.”
I swing back into reporter mode and try and figure a way to outmaneuver Navarro.
“I gave you something with the hunting camp and the necklace. Now you need to give me something. I want to go with you when you search Parker’s property. I can be a huge help and can identify anything that might belong to Will.”
“I don’t know what we’re going to find out there, and there’s always a chance it’s not going to be good.”
“I’ll be all right. And as a heads-up, the guy who lives with Parker is drunker than hell and he’s armed. He fired a couple of shots as I was leaving and threatened to kill me. And you better bring Animal Control along. There’s a pissed-off Rottweiler on the property ready to eat someone alive.”
Navarro lets out a long whistle.
“You were always a ballsy reporter, but I’ve got to say, the way you’ve been since your kid was taken is either downright stupid or braver than hell. You’re not scared of anything, are you?”
“If you only knew.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m scared of plenty. After Ben was taken, I never felt the same. I’ve been terrified all these years that whatever took Ben was going to come back. I thought I was being paranoid, but deep down, I must have known somehow.”
“Maybe it was instinct,” Navarro answers.
“Whatever it was, I didn’t do enough. I failed Ben thirty years ago, and now I failed Will. Mothers are supposed to protect their children.”
“What are you talking about?” Navarro asks. “You’re a good mother. I admire you for that. I always figured you had your life figured out better than anyone.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“As for your brother
, cut yourself some slack. I’ve interviewed hundreds of kids who witnessed their mothers being hacked to death by their drug-addled boyfriends or worse. Most of the time, kids bury what they saw so deep, the gruesome details never resurface. Did you ever think you might not have witnessed what happened to Ben?”
“I was in the same room when he was taken. There’s no way I didn’t see anything.”
“Memories come when they’re ready,” he answers.
I look up at Navarro and try to smile. But I can’t.
“Tell you what, wait here and I’ll pull the car around,” Navarro says and slides out of the booth.
“Does that mean you’re going to let me go with you to search Parker’s property?”
“Against my better judgment. But you’ve got rules. You listen to my direction and if I tell you to walk away, you walk away, got it?”
The smile finally comes as I follow Navarro out of the restaurant.
“I got it,” I answer.
Navarro slips the key into the ignition, and Kid Rock’s “Cowboy” blasts out of the speakers.
“Sorry about that,” he says and shuts the stereo off.
“I’ve got to call David to fill him in. He’ll want to be part of the search, too.”
Navarro rubs his index finger across his temple as though I’m giving him a colossal headache.
“Fine. You two follow the rules. Understand?”
“We will.”
“You and David trying to patch things up?”
“I’m not exactly sure anymore.”
* * *
Navarro and I pull up to Parker’s property in his unmarked patrol car. Animal Control is already there. Kim, the ever-devoted friend, easily agreed to watch Logan at my house again, so David and I could be part of the search. I catch David’s eye as Detective Russell escorts a handcuffed Mark Brewster out the front door.
“There’s that lying bitch. She stole my necklace, the whore over there. You should be arresting her,” Brewster yells. “Cheap tramp. I never wanted to sleep with you anyway. I was just offering to do you a favor.”
David shoots me a “what the hell?” look, and I shake my head over the allegation. Brewster starts on another rant against me, but Russell cuts him off. He places his hand on the back of Brewster’s neck and is about to shove him into the police car, when Brewster lets out a violent shudder. His complexion turns a waxy yellow, just like the dead bodies I encounter on the crime beat. And then with one mighty wretch, Brewster the bully projectile vomits the boozy contents from his stomach, landing a few splatters of beer- and vodka-laced puke on Russell’s shoes.
“Son of a bitch,” Russell yells.
“Nice. At least it didn’t happen in the back of the car,” Navarro remarks. “That’s going to be one hell of a hangover when you wake up in the drunk tank, pal.”
A group of plainclothes police officers and sheriff deputies stand in front of the farmhouse. Navarro approaches Sergeant John Salinas of the K-9 unit and hands him Will’s blue baby blanket, which I retrieved from the side of his crib. Salinas bends down and puts the blanket in front of Roger, the unit’s bloodhound, who picks up the scent. About a year ago, I wrote a feature story about Roger the police dog. The animal is an experienced tracker who successfully located a missing child. The story didn’t have a happy ending. A three-year-old girl disappeared from her parents’ campsite late one night. Roger tracked the little girl’s scent to the banks of the lake, where he found the child’s lifeless body. The little girl had played in the lake earlier that day with her older brother. She had wandered off in the middle of the night to return to the place that had brought her so much joy and adventure, only to fall in the water with no one there to save her this time. I interviewed the girl’s parents and their eyes were dead and distant. I left the interview wondering how they could ever find a shred of normalcy, let alone happiness, again.
David links his arm around my waist, and I let him leave it there as I bow my head and silently beg Will to hold on.
David’s voice cuts through my desperate prayer.
“What if they find him?” he asks.
There’s no hope in David’s question, and I roughly slap away its intended meaning.
“Will isn’t dead. Don’t say that ever again,” I snap.
“But, Julia . . .”
“I said never. Now let’s go find our son.”
David retracts his arm from my waist, obviously annoyed with my pointed tone, and moves toward the other side of the growing circle of law enforcement personnel who have started to gather around Navarro. I steal a quick look toward the thicket of woods behind Parker’s property, and my body gives in to a deep shudder.
“Hey, guys. How are you doing?” Navarro addresses the group. “I know a lot of you are working overtime or have volunteered to be here today. Also, a big thanks goes out to our inter-agency help from the sheriff’s department, the FBI, and the K-9 unit. Now, let’s get to it. As you know, a two-year-old boy was taken from his home last night. We believe he may be hidden somewhere on this property. There’s approximately thirty acres of woods that need to be covered. There’s supposedly a hunting camp on the property that is located near the Shaw Mill covered bridge. We’ll be spreading out into five groups, so we have six miles each to canvass. My team will handle searching the radius that includes the hunting camp. Just a reminder, the property you will be covering is very dense woods so take your time and keep your eyes open. If you find anything, you call me on the two-way radio. Any questions?”
Navarro pauses for a beat, waiting, but is greeted by silence.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
The officers quickly assemble into their respective groups. David and I agreed to separate so we can cover more ground collectively in our search for Will. David pairs up with the sheriff’s team. I follow Navarro and ten other officers as we begin to head to the thick, untamed woods located behind the rear of the house.
“Hold on a second, guys,” Navarro says and looks toward me. “You know the rules, Julia. You stay behind. And if I need you to walk away, you walk away. Got it?”
“I got it,” I respond.
As we start out, I realize our geographic search area is harder to navigate than I originally thought. Parker has obviously never bothered to clear any of his property. There are no manmade paths to follow, just thick underbrush that teems with wood ticks, angry deer flies, and rabid mosquitoes. We cut deeper through the woods, and the late-afternoon sun dims as it is eclipsed behind an intricate canopy of red pines, white oaks, sugar maples, and spruce trees.
“Son of a bitch. Ragweed,” Navarro says and lets out a loud sneeze.
We continue on in silence for about a quarter of a mile when I hear a soft trample of leaves and a low-lying branch rustle to the right of our makeshift path. I quickly turn my head in the direction of the sound and see a young doe timidly peering out from behind a dead stump of a huge oak. Nearly hidden behind the doe are two white-spotted fawns. The doe thumps her hoof onto the ground in front of her as if she is warning us not to come any closer to her babies.
“I won’t hurt you,” I whisper.
The doe looks directly at me for a second and then sprints away with her fawns close behind.
“Two more months until hunting season,” Navarro says.
“Hunting is a cruel sport,” I answer.
“It thins out the population. Last November, I almost hit a buck right in the middle of I-96,” he replies. “Hold on. I think that’s the hunting camp just ahead.”
Navarro silently motions to the officers in our group and then bolts in the direction of the hunting camp with his weapon drawn, moving almost silently for a man of his stature. He and the other officers quickly circle the crude structure, which looks like it was cobbled together in a hurry with only scrap wood, rusty nails, ripped tarp, and putty.
I do a quick inventory of the outside of the building. Two windows mark either side of the one-room cabin and look like they were
recently boarded up with newer wood. Navarro stands by the sole door of the structure and signals the officers who flank him on either side. Navarro counts to ten silently and then plows into the thin wooden front door, which snaps easily under his muscle.
“Police, put your hands up!” Navarro yells as he rushes inside.
A high-pitched scream wails from the cabin and echoes through the quiet woods like a gunshot.
“Will!” I cry out.
Instinctively, I charge toward the hunting camp. Before I can reach the door, a terrified raccoon dashes out of the cabin and tears into the underbrush.
I bend forward, grab my knees, and try to breathe.
“The sound you heard was just a scared wild animal,” a voice says from behind.
I turn to see Salinas, who has sidled up next to me with his dog, Roger, who is still on alert. “Sometimes not finding someone is a good thing,” he says.
I look at the animal for a minute, and as if on cue, Roger’s stocky body suddenly stiffens, and he begins to bark in an incessant, warning baritone. He springs away from Salinas and makes a beeline to the cabin. The dog dodges around officers’ legs and darts inside with Salinas and me following close behind.
I know my orders are to stay back, but I don’t care. I make it to the doorway and search the interior of the cabin. A set of ten-point deer antlers is mounted on the wall, and a threadbare Green Bay Packers rug covers the dirt floor. On top of the rug sits a rusty kerosene lantern, a cooler, and a stained putty-colored easy chair pockmarked with cigarette burns. The police dog begins to whimper and then anxiously paces back and forth until it positions itself in the center of the rug. Roger’s expert nose picks up the scent again, and he begins to dig furiously against the worn fabric.
“There’s something under the rug,” Salinas yells and jerks Roger’s collar away from the hot spot.
Navarro hustles toward the rug and puts his gun back in his holster. Before he pulls the rug away, he catches my profile in the doorway.
“Get out of here, Julia. Get her out of here now,” he yells. “Bannaro, move!”
The Last Time She Saw Him Page 18
