Your Son Is Alive

by James Scott Bell

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Garner said.

  102

  When they got to the Bijou there was a sheriff’s car and two male deputies outside the glass doors of the darkened building. An old-fashioned ticket kiosk sat there like a sepulchral sentinel.

  Dylan followed Gadge to the deputies. “I’m Garner, I made the call.”

  The older of the deputies said, “Place is locked up.”

  “I can take care of that,” Garner said, producing a folded cloth from his back pocket.

  “You mean pick the lock?” the deputy said.

  “Better than smashing the glass.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “You certainly can,” Garner said. “Exigent circumstances, an exception to the warrant requirement. There’s a potential victim inside. You got the information from a reliable citizen, who would be me.”

  “Yeah, but information based on what?”

  Garner sighed. “I heard a scream. Did you hear it?”

  The deputy smiled. “All right. Unlock the door.”

  As Garner went to work with a lock pick, he said to the other deputy, “In the back of my Jeep is the guy who tried to kill my friend here. He’s got a bullet wound but I patched him up. He’s a little woozy. Arrest him and put him in your squad car.”

  The lock clicked. Gadge Garner opened the door.

  Both Garner and the deputy had flashlights. Dylan followed them in and saw the beams revealing a lobby with a glass concession counter and framed posters. Not current movies. They looked old, like from the silent days.

  One of them was West of Zanzibar with Lon Chaney.

  Dylan’s entire body went cold. He felt like he was in the dark castle of a madman.

  And then, as if on cue, a scream cut through the silence.

  More like an animal’s screech, long and closing in on them from the shadows.

  The deputy whipped his flashlight around and Dylan saw the white face in the beam.

  A young man’s face, teeth bared, flying at the deputy sheriff.

  Who backhanded the face with his flashlight. An ugly cracking sound, and the young man’s body hit the floor.

  Lobby lights came on. Gadge Garner was standing by a wall switch near the concessions stand.

  The screamer was now a moaner, flat on his back. He was dressed in jeans and black Converse tennis shoes and red T-shirt that was too short for him. Part of his stomach pooched out, white as porcelain.

  “What goes on here?” the deputy said.

  Gadge Garner came and leaned over the kid. He patted him down quickly, expertly, then detached a keychain from the kid’s belt. At least ten keys jangled off it.

  “Give me ten minutes,” Garner said to the deputy.

  “What about this guy?” the deputy said.

  “I suggest you cuff him.” To Dylan, Garner said, “Come with me.”

  Garner led him to the exits, popping the doors and looking through.

  Then, using a flashlight, Garner went down the aisle of the theater to the left side of the screen and through a curtain.

  Over on the right side, they found two doors—one an exit, the other marked Electrical. Do Not Enter.

  “We’re entering,” Garner said. “Hold this.”

  He handed Dylan the flashlight, then looked at the keys he’d taken off the wild young man. He tried one, then another in the lock.

  When that didn’t work he looked more closely at the keys on the chain. He selected one and inserted it.

  The door opened.

  “I’ll take that,” Garner said, and took back the flashlight.

  It was a small, closet-sized space, dominated by a bank of circuit breakers and breaker boxes.

  Nothing special.

  But Garner was giving it all a strong look.

  “Well look at this,” he said. “Fifty-amp, double-pole breakers.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” Dylan said.

  “It means inadequate for this usage,” Garner said. He began to flip the switches. There were no loud clicks, as one would expect with a real breaker.

  “Well how about that?” Garner said. “A facade.”

  He began to pull and jiggle at switches and boxes. Down one row, up another.

  And then one of switches moved. Garner pulled it, and it opened like a little door on a hinge. Behind it, in the flashlight beam, Dylan saw a cylindrical lock body.

  “Ingenious,” Garner said.

  He tried one of the keys in the lock.

  Nothing.

  Another, and another.

  On the fourth try, the lock turned.

  Garner pushed and the entire panel opened like a door.

  Because that’s what it was.

  It led to a stairway of iron. Dylan’s heart spiked into overdrive as Garner led the way.

  At the bottom of the stairs was flooring about ten-by-ten, and another door—industrial, probably aluminum.

  And another lock.

  Garner used a key, presumably the same one that had just opened the secret door, to flip the lock.

  They entered the darkness.

  In the initial flashes of light Dylan saw a row of theater seats and what looked like a table that had been set for a dinner. He waited just inside the door until Garner found a light switch.

  It was some kind of movie viewing room. A projector was set up behind the theater seats. A big, white wall would have been the screen. Beyond the projector was an open doorway leading to another room.

  That was where Gadge Garner headed.

  Dylan was drawn to the table. He had the disquieting idea that Petrie had been the one to set it.

  He smelled garlic and saw lettuce spread out on the floor in front of one of the seats.

  “She was here,” Dylan said.

  “What’s that?” Garner said from the other room.

  “I’m sure of it,” Dylan said. “She was here!”

  Garner came back to him. He examined the scene, the table, the scraps. “And not very long ago.”

  “What do we do?”

  Gadge Garner said, “Let’s go talk to our boy.”

  103

  It was unbelievable.

  She was in a pickup truck, handcuffed. And driving the truck was the man she had thought was her son.

  A man holding a revolver in his left hand, steering with his right.

  Was he really Kyle? Doubts were creeping in. She was exhausted, pushed to the limits. Petrie had done a number on her mentally. Was she projecting? Was she so spent and desperate that she made this driver, this obvious criminal, into her flesh and blood?

  He had taken her roughly from her prison, uncuffing her from the seat but securing her hands again in front of her.

  He told her to shut up as he practically dragged her up the iron stairs, then out an exit to where his idling truck was.

  Shoved her in from the driver’s side. Didn’t put a seatbelt on her, which made her think he was going to shove her out the door at some point.

  As soon as he got on the 5 freeway, heading north, he said, “Talk! What was T. J. doing with you?”

  Erin fought for coherence. “He kidnapped you. From me and from your father.”

  “You are crazy with that! He adopted me when I was a baby, my mom was a drug addict. T. J. was trying to help her.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “He told me about it. Showed me papers and stuff. Where do you get off with this?”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “I don’t know!” he said. “T. J.’s dead and you got something to do with that.”

  “He was going to have you kill your father!”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Your real father, my husband. That was his plan—”

  “Shut up with that!”

  “Don’t you remember anything from your childhood? Harry Potter? Baseball? The Cubs. You were on the Cubs, don’t you remember? Coach Mike. Your friends, Jayson Gillespie, Sergio Var
ela—”

  “I don’t know any of that! You better start talking straight.”

  The possibility of this man being Kyle began to fade. It was a million to one shot, always had been. Most likely, Petrie had set up a ruse. He concocted a wild scenario. And she fell into it. He wanted her to want to see Kyle, he’d made her want it too much.

  “I’m giving you one last chance,” the driver said. “You tell me straight or I’m gonna blow you away.”

  104

  The other deputy was standing by the sheriff’s car. Petrie was seated in the back.

  When Dylan and Gadge Garner approached, Petrie snapped his head toward them and looked Dylan in the eye.

  Gadge Garner said to the tall, lanky deputy, “Open up. I need to question him.”

  “He’s under arrest,” the deputy said.

  “We have a potential victim out there,” Garner said. “Open the door.”

  The deputy complied.

  Dylan listened as Garner leaned down and said, “Where is she, Petrie?”

  A half-smile crept onto Petrie’s face. “Who?”

  “You know you’re going down. You’ve got one chance to help yourself.”

  “May I have a glass of wine?” he said.

  “We’ve got ’em all,” Garner said. “Somebody’s going to flip on you.”

  Petrie squinted, as if trying to determine if Garner was telling the truth. The half-smile stayed.

  “I show movies,” Petrie said. “Why did you shoot me? Deputy! This man tried to kill me!”

  Garner straightened, looked at Dylan, shook his head.

  Petrie said, “Dylan! Buddy!” He motioned with his head for Dylan to approach.

  Dylan looked at Gadge Garner, who nodded. Dylan stepped up to the squad car.

  “Not your son,” Petrie said. “Your son is dead. You’ll never see him again.”

  “Where is my wife?” Dylan said.

  “Who?” Petrie said.

  Dylan readied a fist to put through Petrie’s face.

  “I’m talking about your son,” Petrie said. “I made the whole thing up. It was a game. I won. And for that you tried to kill me!”

  A second before Dylan sprang, the deputy pulled him away from the car. And shut the door.

  Dylan yanked out of the deputy’s grasp. “My wife is missing.”

  “I sent out a couple of plates,” Gadge Garner told the deputy. “Do the same.”

  105

  “We can work this all out,” Erin said. “Let’s go the police.”

  The driver snorted a laugh.

  “You’re not guilty of anything yet,” she said.

  “You stupid … they got me for kidnapping right now.”

  “I won’t say you did it.”

  “I’m not the stupid one.”

  “I just want to know. I need to know. We need to know.”

  “All I want from you is the real deal.” He lifted the revolver in his left hand and pointed it at her over his right arm. “I’m giving you one more chance.”

  “You’re not a killer,” Erin said.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Talk!”

  “Then listen!” Erin was shocked by her own voice, but it exploded out on a river of adrenaline. “Your T. J. is a punk! He always was. I went to high school with him. He puts his hands all over me once, tried to push me up against a wall. Dylan, the man you were going to shoot tonight, beat the snot out of him. And then Weezer, that’s what he was called, got kicked out of school.”

  The driver pressed harder on the gas as he looked in his rearview mirror.

  Erin said, “Then he comes along all these years later, says he has our son. Our son who was taken when he was—”

  “Shut up!” the driver said.

  “You listen!”

  “There’s a cop behind us!”

  Erin spun to look through the cab’s back window. Flashing lights were closing in.

  Mumbling curses, the driver pulled over to the right-hand lane. He put the revolver down on the floorboard. He lowered his window, stuck out his arm, and gave a wave to the vehicle behind him.

  They were coming to an offramp.

  The driver took it. At the end of the ramp was a STOP sign but no light, indicating a road that was not highly trafficked. He put on his turn signal, turned left, went under the freeway.

  The flashing lights were right behind as he slowed to a stop on the side of the road.

  Then reached up behind him and pulled down something Erin had not noticed before.

  A rifle.

  “No,” she said.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  “We can work this out.”

  He opened his door a small crack and put the barrel of the rifle up to it.

  In the next split second, Erin knew nothing verbal was going to stop him, and screaming an alert to whoever was approaching would be too late.

  The driver was going to jump out and start shooting.

  The physics of her body and position became clear in that split second, and without reflection she pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned right, spinning herself on the bench seat of the cab.

  With all the force she could muster, with legs strong from her running years, she pile-drove both feet into his back, sending his upper body into the slightly opened door.

  She drew her legs back again and gave him another shot, this one sending him outside the cab. He went forward, face down.

  Using her heels she scooted to the end of the bench seat, put her head down, and dove on top of the driver just as he was scrambling to get up.

  Her jaw hit the back of his head, made a cracking sound, and she heard a voice shouting and what sounded like a gunshot.

  Then her body shut down, and all was darkness.

  106

  On the first Tuesday in May, Dylan Reeve picked up Erin at DeForest University a little after one o’clock in the afternoon. As soon as Erin was in Dylan’s car, she said, “I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

  “Me either,” Dylan said.

  “Are you as scared as I am?” Erin said.

  “Nervous,” Dylan said.

  Erin exhaled, long and slow. “Let’s go.”

  They drove mostly in silence. Dylan took the 101 downtown and parked in the lot near Sam Wyant’s building. He didn’t care that it was going to cost him twenty bucks. Money was of no concern now.

  Not with the final answer waiting for them in Wyant’s office.

  Pete Parris met them in the reception area. “Mr. Wyant is waiting for you in his office. Dr. Haslam is with him.”

  Dylan tried to read Pete’s face, but it seemed just like its normal, smiling self.

  As Pete walked them toward the corner office at the end of the long hallway, Erin took Dylan’s hand. It was warm and trembling in his.

  Pete ushered them through the door and into Sam Wyant’s office. Wyant stood up behind his desk to greet them.

  A tall, gray-haired man in a charcoal suit stood behind one of the client chairs.

  “This is Dr. Jonas Haslam,” Sam Wyant said.

  The gray-haired man shook hands with Dylan and Erin. They all sat. Dylan hardly felt the chair underneath him.

  “I don’t want to warm up,” Sam Wyant said. “The charges against you have been dropped.”

  The relief Dylan felt was only partial.

  Sam Wyant knew why. “And the man they are holding as James ‘Jimmy’ Petrie is, definitively, your son.”

  Wyant slid a paper across his desk. Dylan picked it up. It was a report with medical jargon and numbers.

  “The DNA test is conclusive,” Wyant said.

  Dylan felt light in the head. After all they’d been through, it was true.

  His son was alive.

  Their son was alive.

  He reached for Erin’s hand and saw that her eyes were moist.

  To Wyant, Dylan said, “Can we see him?”

  “That’s what we need to talk about,”
Sam Wyant said.

  “What’s there to talk about?” Dylan said.

  Wyant folded his hands on the desk. “There is nothing that can compel him to see you. I will of course do everything in my power to convince him.”

  “You?”

  “I’ve decided to represent him.”

  Erin squeezed Dylan’s hand. Dylan was glad she was holding it, because he had no words.

  Sam Wyant said, “I’m taking this case pro bono, in part because of what you two have been through. But in greater part because I believe James has been—”

  “Kyle,” Dylan said.

  Wyant nodded. “He has been operating under an extreme form of duress for many years. I’m going to let Dr. Haslam explain. But on the legal side, James … Kyle possessed loaded weapons, but he didn’t discharge them.” He looked at Erin. “When you kicked him out of that truck and jumped on him, you saved his life.”

  Erin closed her eyes.

  Wyant put his hand on some papers on the side of his desk. “I just received this morning the statement by the deputy sheriff who stopped the truck. He was about to shoot to kill. If you hadn’t done what you did, the shot he fired would have found … Kyle, instead of the ground next to him. Things could have gone the other way. You also saved that deputy’s life.”

  “What is Kyle facing?” Erin said.

  “He’s charged with two counts of carrying a loaded firearm, of brandishing a weapon, criminal threat to a law enforcement officer, and conspiracy to commit murder.”

  Dylan tried to process his thoughts, now raw and swirling. His son was alive, but could spend years in prison.

  “But we have a basis for a reduction,” Wyant said. “The woman, this Terri Boyce, she’s flipped on her partner, Carbona. They’re a real winning pair, these two. With the money Petrie was paying them, they were getting set to leave the country. They were caught trying to get into Mexico, and I don’t think they’re going to be playing house anytime soon.”

  “What does that mean for Kyle?” Dylan said.

  “I’ve been approached by the prosecutor, he’s somebody I know, worked with a long time ago. If Kyle cooperates against Petrie, he’s willing to drop the conspiracy count and the felony weapons charges. Kyle would plead to a misdemeanor and have to do some county jail time.”