Hello, Little Sparrow

by Jordan Jones

  “I’m doing well. I’ve regained strength in my arm and shoulder. I mean, they told me there’s little to no nerve damage. I’m doing physical therapy twice a week.” I sounded like a seventeen-year-old boy whose prom date just said yes.

  I was too eager to answer.

  “That’s good!” She said, sounded genuinely happy for me. “It’s been hard for you, I know…but, it hasn’t been easy over here knowing what you’re going through. I truly hope you find happiness, John.” She hung up before I could respond.

  A sense of calmness captured my soul in that moment, and although it didn’t mean we would be reunited, I could hear in her voice that it wasn’t quite over. I knew it would help me cope with the paralyzing fear and anguish I felt on a daily basis.

  It wasn’t so bad.

  I set the phone down on coffee table and took a sip of hot tea, placed the dirty dishes in the sink, and grabbed my trench coat and fedora and headed out the door.

  I gave a tip of the hat to the officers in the car and they pulled out before me to head home for the day. I was instantly grateful for what they did. It was probably the most mind-numbing assignment they’ve ever had, but they still didn’t complain to me about it.

  The car was warmed up in no time and I was back down the winding path to Lincolnshire. Before entering town, a huge sign hung over the road for Fasten Biofuels - Next Exit.

  It was an obnoxious sign that slammed me in the face every time I went into town. The factory made much of the city stink on certain days when the winds were just right.

  The company employed several thousand residents of Lincolnshire, and it drove much of the economy.

  But the stink was too much some days.

  Descending down into the precinct garage, the hustle and bustle of early morning traffic was evident. The Sparrow had everyone focused on finding his true identity. The swat team was on standby and ready to gear up in a moments notice.

  They spent most of their days training and working out. I spent most of mine trying to catch one of the most dangerous and elusive men on the planet.

  I passed the weight room and took the elevator up to our section on the first floor and sat at the desk. Harlow was already typing away at her computer, unconvinced I was sitting across from her.

  Abraham sat behind me with his nose scouring the printouts of each letter. Welker sat at the end of the row of cubicles, hanging up pictures of the most recent suicide victims.

  He wasn’t as engaged in our investigation and I didn’t envy him…or us.

  The suicide rates were finally going down as the gloomiest days were behind us, but they were still far higher than the national average.

  They’d have to wait until The Sparrow was caught to get the respect they deserved.

  “I’m still not understanding this, Trotter,” Abraham said. He swung his chair around and faced me. “I keep thinking this guy knows the person writing this, but this isn’t from his viewpoint. This is definitely a woman.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked, fully agreeing with him in my head.

  “The handwriting is in old English style…she probably wrote a lot. It’s too nice and taken care of to be a male. This person cared not only about what they were writing, but how they were writing.”

  I nodded and took one of the letters from him. “I read this as a sickly lady in her late forties entering the end of her life. She knows it. She knows something bad is about to happen, but not to her; to the children.”

  “I think something bad has already happened,” Harlow chimed in. “Something bad was happening. Maybe it was that one of the kids was sick.”

  “Maybe abuse,” I said.

  “Abuse?” Abraham asked. “What if they lived in a terrible neighborhood? What if the kids didn’t exist and this lady was going crazy or something?”

  “I guess,” I said. “But, these metaphors describe objects or things…like monsters and the ground. The ground is typically something that just exists. She’s talking like the ground is hurting this person on purpose.”

  “She says here that a storm is brewing.” Harlow flipped a few pages. “This is the first letter we found, I think. She’s definitely afraid of something, and it doesn’t appear to be her death. I’m on the side that this is a person she’s describing.”

  Abraham sat back in his chair and took another look at the paper before him. His brows narrowed and he let out a stress-induced sigh.

  “She does say to get away from whatever this is. Fly, fly, fly. She’s warning a child, perhaps?” Abraham placed the paper back on his desk.

  “A couple of children,” I said. “There’s mention of a younger child…a male I think. The older child is a female. She wants her to look after him after she passes. That’s the way I read it, anyway.”

  Harlow found the same passage:

  Also, the other Little One needs to be protected at all cost. His potential is unfathomable. Both of you are incredible.

  “He must’ve been considerably younger if the lady put the sister in charge of protecting him,” Abraham said. I’m used to hearing it the other way around.”

  “Meh, she said he has great potential. Doesn’t mean he’s strong.”

  I’ve been here since four-thirty this morning trying to see if any of these metaphors are anagrams, but it doesn’t look that way.”

  “You are something else,” I said.

  All of our emails popped up at once and it was Benjamin wanting to see us so we quickly made our way down the hall to his lab. LT Anderson was already there, and we walked in mid-sentence.

  “— And that’s what I’m thinking,” Benjamin said.

  “What exactly?” Abraham said.

  “I was just telling our Lieutenant here what I found. The hair that I found in sink belonged to three different men. One I couldn’t find in the system at all, but another one I did. After matching his DNA profile with virtually everyone who’s been incarcerated that we have samples of, it came up with a Bradley Claxton. Pretty unique last name, so it shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  “So this looks like our guy?” Harlow asked.

  “Potentially,” Benjamin said. “It’s a guy. It was someone that was in the house. I just got the match a few minutes ago, so I wasn’t able to pull up any type of rap sheet yet.”

  I pulled it up on a laboratory computer that was hooked up to our network and displayed an unfamiliar face. The man looked short, even in a waist-up photo. He was heavy for his height and was unshaven, disgustingly so. There was a small tattoo above each eyebrow of tiny boats rowing across water…that were his eyebrows apparently.

  Stupid.

  “Well, he looks like an idiot, but not a serial killer,” Abraham said out loud.

  “Could this be someone keeping Kay ‘company’ while her husband was incarcerated?”

  “That’s likely,” I said. “She’s mourning her daughter and probably pulled this guy from a local bar. His crimes were all drug related. It says here that he can’t read or write.”

  “Just a notch on the bedpost,” Abraham added.

  “Not much of one —“

  “Enough,” LT Anderson interjected. “We’re not here to go over Mrs. Maise’s sex life. We don’t need to embarrass this poor woman, but we do need to know who this guy is. Trotter’s right, he doesn’t fit the M.O. of a psychopath murderer, but we need to do our due diligence.”

  We all stopped conversing. It felt like a master telling us how disappointed he was that we peed on the carpet.

  “Now,” LT Anderson continued. “Abraham, I want you to talk to Mrs. Maise about this Claxton guy.”

  “And what about the other hairs?” I asked.

  “Another one was clean and another one came up as a partial match for an ex-con who served time up in North Central Corrections. Went by the name of Samuel Ingram. I’m not sure what the findings mean exactly, but it might worth a look.”

  LT Anderson looked at Benjamin. “You work on that…try to get as much inform
ation from that piece of hair as possible, the other one too. We might have three suspects to look at here. Better than the nothing we’ve had so far.”

  We all left and went back to our desks. Harlow was already exhausted despite the day only being a few hours old, and the rest of us were still hanging on by a thread.

  I was also tired and made my second cup of coffee in as many hours, downing it faster than it was intended. The Sparrow forced many hours to be funneled in investigating him, and it killed me slowly knowing he liked it. He loved attention…otherwise he wouldn’t make a spectacle out of his killings.

  He wanted to be seen, but unknown.

  He wanted to be admired, but feared.

  He wanted to be viewed as a hero, but also a villain.

  He was winning.

  We all knew Claxton wasn’t the killer, but something had to be done. We had to turn over every stone. I wasn’t fully convinced The Sparrow made his way into the Maise bathroom…if he truly was professional, he’d make his way to the fewest rooms in the house. His presence in the Maise house was felt the moment we knew he was there.

  For the entirety of the day, I spent my time calling the Maise neighbors and asking about suspicious subjects in the area. Abraham couldn’t get through to Kay to ask her about Claxton, or any other male that made his way in her house.

  Welker was making notes on a nineteen year old boy found hung in his dorm room at Lincolnshire Community College.

  Harlow did her best to stay awake while scouring Claxton’s legal history, to get any hint that he could be responsible for the killings. The digital clock on the wall turned to eight-fifteen when Harlow pulled her head up from her arms.

  “How long was I out?”

  “Not long…thirty minutes or so,” I responded.

  “You were just going to let me sleep?”

  “You’re exhausted. Go home. The rest of us are, too. We’ll be back here bright and early.”

  LT Anderson shut the lights off as we all left. Abraham pulled me in front of the crowd as we were heading out and the janitorial staff was coming in.

  It was uncommon for homicide to leave in tandem, but it was happening. We needed to refuel and reload for several consecutive days of non-stop work.

  “Hey, can you follow me to Eldo’s Coffee Bean on Fourth and Pasture Ave? We can grab a decaf, then head home afterwards?”

  My body felt the weight of several hours of brutal mind-numbing work, but my eyelids held strong. My mind wouldn’t shut off for at least another few hours, so I agreed.

  Eldo’s Coffee Bean was on the corner of two busy streets and it didn’t have many patrons at night. Abraham and I found a nice quite booth in the back.

  “I just wanted to let you know that I know you’re struggling with all this,” he told me “If you want to move on after this case, then fine. I’m totally with you on that. This job is hard and it takes a lot out of you. But, I’m begging you; wait until we catch this guy. I feel like we’re getting closer and closer and you’re the one who’s going to get us there.”

  I took a sip of my black decaf coffee — the taste wasn’t quite what I expected, so I assumed they were trying to drain the rest of an old batch to get ready for a new brew for the morning.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I did have some of those thoughts.”

  “Well, what are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure…but I’ll tell you that I will stay on until this case is solved.”

  “That’s all I need to hear,” he said. “As much as I’d hate to see you go, I can respect that. John, I really am glad to have you as my partner. I couldn’t imagine trying to do this thing without you.”

  I smiled and nodded. “I feel the same way, fella.”

  We finished the rest of our coffees and stood up to leave.

  “I’m going to run by the Maise place before I head home,” he said. “I just want to see if there’s anything out of place and just make my presence known a little bit.”

  “That’s a good idea. She should be with her sister for the next several weeks, or until we find this guy. I’m scared she’s going to try to go back home with Philip Maise getting out of prison and all.”

  We stepped out of the shop and walked our separate ways to our cars.

  “John,” he said as he turned around. “Thanks for sticking this out with me. We’re going to get this guy.”

  I gave him a grin, and walked to my car.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The wind was picking up and the chill returned to the air. All the sudden, Brooks found himself admiring what remained of Madison’s memorial, the poor dilapidated thing didn’t stand up to the relentless late winter and early spring of the northeast.

  Unlike his shrine he kept in his office at work, the memorial was brought together by the community to pay respects for the fallen girl. Brooks felt an intense pain in his gut at the sight of a teddy bear caked in mud, the cross fallen down, and letters and cards long lost in the slushy mud that Maine had become.

  Brooks’ shrine was meticulously placed and tended to on a regular basis. He made sure everything had its place, and nothing stood alone.

  The community had failed Madison, and through her, they failed Brooks.

  It didn’t enrage him, though. He thought it would, but it didn’t. He was more saddened at the fact the community allowed Madison’s memory to be forgotten, much like the words on the cards they placed at the front of her mobile home.

  The words meant something once.

  The messages imprinted on the cards and letters were hard to make out now, and many of the cards had washed away in the rains weeks ago.

  Brooks had made his way to the Maise residence twenty-six times since Madison jumped from the bridge nearly six weeks ago. He kept a tally on his sun visor just so he could keep track and not visit too many times.

  Roughly four times a week was his average and he would park across the gravel road and sit and watch for up to four hours at a time. He made sure the lights either turned off or Kay was gone before he left so as to not cause too much suspicion.

  He wasn’t there to protect the mother, but to regain Madison’s energy.

  He felt closer to her when he was near the house…and the feeling when he was inside the house was unimaginable. He was invincible as if an aura of comfort and unrivaled strength shielded him from everything the world had to offer.

  Inside the house was where he gained his wits to outsmart the police. His breadcrumbs offered them false hope that all would be fine because they were getting closer.

  Brooks knew the truth.

  He was uncatchable.

  He knew all about the investigation thanks to the local media. They’re so addicted to the high-ratings-drug that they’ll spill every detail the police knew about Brooks.

  They’re arrogance knew no bounds and it made Brooks sick.

  And, tonight was a very special night. Kay would eventually venture back into the home untethered by police restrictions, though they were very obviously against her returning to the home…

  …She was unafraid. Brooks respected Kay for that.

  Brooks wasn’t at the house for Kay on this particular night. A pair of headlights from a truck shined down the dimly lit trailer park corridor, it’s bulky and unnecessary tires crunched the rocks underneath, making its presence obnoxious to Brooks.

  The truck stopped across the narrow road from Brooks and a gentleman stepped out of the passenger side, walked around the driver’s side, and gave the unknown occupant a secret handshake before the driver reversed back down the road, passing Brooks’ sedan on his way.

  Brooks peered through his binoculars at the man as he stepped up on the front porch, and the light came on displaying the man’s face.

  It wasn’t the short fellow that Brooks had seen there several times before, and it certainly wasn’t the tall thin man who made his way to the Maise residence a few times with Brooks present from the outside.

  This man�
�s build was average…about Five-Ten and two hundred pounds. Nothing too imposing, but he wasn’t a small guy, either.

  Brooks turned his dome light on and checked the still frame he took off a video online and cross-referenced it with his memory of the man on the porch.

  “It’s him,” Brooks said, allowing a shattering sense of relief and catharsis flow through his body.

  “It’s Philip Maise.”

  ***

  Abraham left Eldo’s Coffee Bean and took some back streets to the trailer park on the edge of town. The streets were darker than they usually were, and Abraham was convinced there was still a power outage in the area.

  He stopped at a stop sign and let out a yawn, thinking it may be best to just take the left and go home for the night. Tomorrow would be exhausting enough without missing an extra fifteen minutes of sleep. He checked his dash clock again…9:42 p.m.

  If he went home, he’d have about six hours of sleep, and if he kept going to the Maise residence, he’d have five and a half hours.

  He tapped the steering wheel and put the car in gear and went forward, his subconscious let out a reluctant groan starting in his throat and ended on his tongue.

  His car crossed the intersection down the road towards the trailer park.

  ***

  Kay screamed.

  Brooks held his pistol to the back of Philip Maise’s head, as he was hog-tied on the living room floor. Kay was crouched behind the kitchen counter, cowering down as Brooks took charge.

  “You came back here,” Brooks said in a calm voice, completely unfazed by the mounting tension around him. “This place is sacred, and yet you came back.”

  Philip squirmed on his belly like a fish out of water and it amused Brooks.

  “Please, let me go…I’ll give you anything,” Philip said.

  Brooks saw Madison’s aura standing in the corner next to the TV. He felt her presence guiding him every step of the way.

  “You already have,” he said.