“Alright-alright! I didn’t mean anything Ellie.”
Luke touched her arm. “Hey,” he said softly. “We get it, ok? Nobody would ever say you were bad to Bentley.”
“But you guys aren’t taking this seriously,” she said, pointing to the sign.
“We just don’t want you to get all worked up about it. It doesn’t mean we don’t get what you’re saying,” Jimmy said.
“Well I am worked up about it.”
“We know,” John said, sarcastically.
“Shut up, John,” Luke said.
“Jeez!” John said. “Alright, Ellie. I’m sorry.”
She looked at all three of them and then said, “You know, sometimes it’s hard hanging out with just boys.”
“We know,” Luke said, smiling. “We can be pretty stupid.”
“Speak for yourself, dumbass,” Jimmy said, a grin spreading across his face.
She finally smiled and said to Luke, “Well-you’re not stupid.” And she leaned up against him resting her head on his shoulder.
“What?” John said. “Does that mean I am?”
They ignored him and started walking again, Ellie and Luke with their arms around each other and her head leaning on his shoulder.
“You know,” Jimmy said, “you two are so cute sometimes it makes me want to barf.”
“Me?” Luke asked.
Jimmy just gave him a look. “Come on. Let’s go see the creek.”
They went deeper into the woods and Luke could hear water rushing in the distance.
“Do you hear that?” John asked. “Come on!” and he started to run. They all chased after him and as they came up to a foot bridge they could see the creek filled to the top of its banks. The water was rushing past under the bridge just a few inches below their feet.
“Man!” John said. “It’s rockin’!”
Luke watched Ellie pick a stick up and throw it upstream into the creek. It zoomed past them under the bridge in a matter of seconds.
“It’s pretty strong,” she said. “Better not fall in.”
Luke sat down on the edge of the bridge and stuck his feet in. The current was quick and powerful. He had to grip the wood to keep from being pulled off.
“Be careful,” Ellie said.
“Come on,” Luke said. “Stick your feet in!”
They all sat and put their feet in the rushing water.
“Damn! That’s cold!” John said.
“It feels like it’s gonna pull me in,” Ellie said, yanking her feet out of the torrent and standing back up. Suddenly, two kids on bikes came barreling down the path straight onto the foot bridge. They were side by side and taking up the whole trail. As they sped across the bridge, one of the kids stuck his foot out and knocked Ellie backwards. She was apparently in the way. She stumbled, falling against John who was just barely hanging on, the strong current pulling at his feet. He went over into the water and disappeared under. Luke was able to hold on to Ellie and keep her from following John in.
“John!” Jimmy shouted and ran off the bridge to the shore of the creek, chasing after his brother. Luke pulled Ellie up and they followed after him. John still had not come up.
“Where is he?!” Jimmy yelled, panicking. “I can’t see him!”
Luke searched the water trying to find any sign of John in the foaming liquid. Suddenly, fifty yards downstream, his head popped up and his arms flailed air as he tried to grab hold of something.
“There!” Luke pointed.
Jimmy saw him and chased after his brother who was racing away in the current. “Hold on John! We’re coming!”
Luke ran after them and watched as John was able to catch hold of a branch hanging low over the creek. The branch was straining against his weight but holding fast. Jimmy got to him and frantically looked around for something he could extend out to his brother. Luke tripped and fell. Grabbing his shin in pain, he looked at what he tripped over. It was a long branch. He grabbed it and dragged it over to Jimmy.
“Here! Use this!”
“Oh man! That’s good! Got it! Help me.”
“I’ll try,” Luke said, limping.
“I’ll help,” Ellie said, and grabbed hold of the branch too.
John was holding on but he looked tired and he kept choking on the water when it lapped into his face as it rushed by. They extended the branch out to him, but it kept getting pushed away by the current.
“We need to move a little more upstream,” Jimmy said, and they moved up the shore a few feet. They tried again and the branch hit John in the head.
“Grab it, John!” Jimmy yelled. “We’ll pull you in!”
“I can’t! It will pull me under!”
“We won’t let go! Come on man, it’s gonna pull you under in a minute anyway!”
John thought about it for a second and then made up his mind. He let one hand go, grabbed the branch they were holding out to him, and then let his other hand go. He floundered for a second and Luke thought he was going to get swept away, but he managed to get his other hand on the branch and they all pulled him quickly to shore. He stumbled climbing up the bank and then collapsed from exhaustion as his brother held onto to his arm like he would never let go. After a few seconds John said, “You can let go now Jim, I’m ok.”
“I know,” Jimmy said, letting go of John’s arm. “I know.” And he grinned at his brother who, despite his exhaustion, grinned back at him.
“Thanks,” John said.
Ellie hugged him around the neck saying, “I’m sorry, John! I didn’t mean to make you fall in. I’m so sorry!”
“It’s ok, Ellie,” John said. “I know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Who were those kids anyway?” Luke asked.
“One of them was Jason Margot,” Ellie said. “I don’t know the other one. Jason was the one who stuck his foot out.”
“Sounds like Jason deserves a little payback,” Jimmy said.
“Let’s just let it go,” Ellie said. “John’s ok and nobody got seriously hurt.”
“Bullshit!” John said. “I’m not letting this go. They almost killed me!”
Ellie let go of John and sat back on her knees looking distraught. Luke wasn’t sure how to feel about this. He wasn’t one who liked revenge, but John was right. They almost killed him.
“I got a cool idea and nobody will get hurt,” Jimmy said, “but it should scare the crap out of them. Come on.”
John got up slowly and they all followed Jimmy back to Cotton Court.
Chapter 17
After five long months of nothing breaking in the case, Jaxon received a call that got his blood going. He grabbed Sally from the break room saying, “Come on! We’ve got a lead on the pool kids. Let’s go!”
They drove into the familiar neighborhood and made their way to a house which sat directly across from the pool complex. It was a two story, brick affair with a perfectly manicured yard and fresh paint on the eaves. A man stood in the yard watering a patch of flowers planted around his matching brick mailbox. They parked in the driveway and stepped out into the bright morning sun.
Jaxon could see what looked like a swim team practicing at the pool. A man who appeared to be the coach was blowing his whistle and gesturing at something in the water Jaxon could not see.
“What are we doing here?” Sally asked as they watched the man put his hose down and make his way toward them.
“You’ll see,” Jaxon said and grinned.
As the man walked up, Jaxon produced his I.D. and asked, “Are you Mr. Lolly?”
“Yes sir,” the man said. “Glad you two could get here so quick. But please, call me Burt.” And he stuck out his hand to shake. His grip was like shaking a stone statue. Only one that gripped back. It took everything for Jaxon not to flinch.
“Detective Jennings, FCPD and this is Detective Winston.”
“Nice to meet you two,” Burt said. “Come on in and I’ll show you what I got.”
They followed the short stocky man of
about seventy in through the garage, entering the house through the kitchen. An older woman with bright red hair stood at the sink washing what looked like the breakfast dishes. She turned as they stepped in behind Burt.
“This is my wife Marie. Honey, this is Detective Jennings and Detective Winston.”
“Nice to see you,” she said as she wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Can I get you some coffee or something to eat?”
“Coffee would be great,” Jaxon said.
“And you young lady?”
“A cup of coffee would be spectacular,” Sally said with a smile. “What a lovely kitchen you have.”
Marie beamed, said “Thank you,” and grabbed two coffee mugs from the cupboard behind her.
“We’ll be in the den, sweetie,” Burt said. “Could you bring the mugs in there?”
She smiled and nodded.
Jaxon followed Burt through the house to a room which was in the rear of the spacious first floor. It was lined with books and had a dark wood desk on the wall opposite the door. Small and tidy, it was a man’s space and Burt had it decorated with small models of military jets along with pictures of a younger Burt in uniform standing next to various aircraft and servicemen. Framed medals hung on the wall behind the desk and Jaxon recognized the Distinguished Flying Cross in a frame all by itself.
Burt saw him looking the medal over and said, “Were you in the service?”
Jaxon nodded. “Army. Major in the M.P.’s. Ten years, but I never saw battle. Got out before Desert Storm and was too young for Vietnam.”
Burt nodded. “Doesn’t mean you’re anything less than you are. It shaped all of us that have been in. One way or another. Good or bad.”
“What was the DFC for?” Jaxon asked.
“Chu Lai, Vietnam. Hill 488. I helped one of the war’s greatest heroes make it off that hell hole alive. His name was Gunnery Sergeant Jimmie Howard. He was Staff Sergeant at the time. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for that battle. He deserved a medal more than I.”
“What did you fly?” Jaxon asked, guessing at his occupation.
“A-4 Skyhawk. Best damn attack aircraft McDonell Douglas ever built. Tough too. Brought my ugly ass home every time, even when she had holes in her.” He looked dead serious and Jaxon believed every word. He looked at a picture of two A-4’s in formation over an aircraft carrier at sea. He assumed one of them was Burt.
“I didn’t bring you back here to reminisce about the past,” Burt said, getting down to business, “but if you want to come by another time, I’ll tell you the whole story. Deal?”
“Deal,” Jaxon said.
“Alright, let me show you what I found,” Burt said, sitting at his desk and logging on to his computer. “I have a motion sensing surveillance system in the front yard, and as I was reviewing the recordings from Christmas, so I could clean up disc space, I saw this…”
He hit play and they watched as a nighttime shot from a camera high up looked over the front yard toward the street. His mailbox was in plain view and Jaxon recognized the pool across the street. From the right came what Jaxon could only assume was an adult male, about six feet four inches tall, huge, wearing black and moving in a crouch around the cars in the driveway, past the mailbox, and into the neighbor’s yard where he stepped behind a hedge and crouched down out of sight. He turned toward the camera as he hid and they caught a brief glimpse of a bright white face.
“An albino?” Jaxon asked no one.
“A mask,” Sally said. “It looked like a Halloween mask.
“That’s what I thought too,” Burt said. “Now, here is the interesting part. If you look at the time stamp,” he pointed to the upper right of the computer screen where the time was displayed and a few other numbers Jaxon could not decipher, “you’ll see thirty three minutes have elapsed.” He paused the video and pointed to the time. “The system is set only to record when it senses movement and it will continue recording as long as an object is moving in front of the sensor. It stops after five minutes of inactivity.”
Jaxon nodded understanding. He had seen many systems use this feature, especially ones which recorded to computer hard drives. It saved precious space and allowed for much longer monitoring times if it wasn’t running the whole time the system was armed.
Burt hit play again and they watched as the camera caught a young male walking down the sidewalk coming from the same direction as the masked man in the bushes. As he got closer, Jaxon recognized the clothing, even in the greenish glow of the night vision.
“Oh shit,” Jaxon said unaware he had cursed.
“Yes,” Burt said. “Now watch.”
“Is that Paul Bannon?” Sally asked.
Jaxon nodded his head, but didn’t reply. Even though there was no sound with the recordings, he seemed to think he would miss something if he spoke or made a sound. He realized he was holding his breath and he exhaled trying to relieve some of the tension.
Paul casually walked past the mailbox and seemed to be talking or singing to himself. As he approached the boundary of Burt’s yard, the boy suddenly stopped and cocked his head. As they watched, he turned toward the hedge and seemed to be listening to something. He took a step into the yard and then stopped again as if unsure what to do. He stayed that way for a moment and then looked in both directions. He made a move to continue on his way and then jerked back toward the bushes as if surprised. He waited, and then took some steps toward the hedge again. He was bent over at the waist as if trying to hear something very faint. He kept edging closer to the bushes and when he was about a foot away, he was yanked into the hedge by some unseen force and disappeared from view. The recording stopped.
“I called you right away,” Burt said.
“Damn,” Jaxon murmured, his face tense at what he’d just witnessed.
“Is there more?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know,” Burt said. “I didn’t watch any more. I didn’t want to risk doing something stupid like erasing it by mistake. This is the boy they found in the pool, isn’t it?”
Sally nodded her head. “We’ve been at a standstill on the case for months. Not a clue as to who would do this.”
“Until now,” Jaxon said. “What do you need to do to see if it caught anymore?”
“Just hit play,” Burt said. “But it’s approaching the end of the disc space.” He pointed at a number which read 98. “It’s 98 % full now. That’s why I was going through stuff and deleting things. It will record over the oldest stuff first once it reaches max capacity, but sometimes it messes up. I lost some stuff for you guys last year when the kids vandalized my lights.”
“Lights?” Sally asked.
“Yeah. I run a pretty large animated Christmas Light show and I bought the surveillance system because kids were vandalizing some of the display. I put signs up too, warning them about the cameras, but sometimes they still ignore them. Maybe they’re just stupid.” He looked a little embarrassed but Jaxon thought it sounded pretty cool.
“I’ll trust you,” Jaxon said. “We need to see if there’s more.”
Burt nodded and pressed a key on the computer. He pointed at the time stamp and they saw it had advanced twenty minutes. The man emerged from the hedge in a crouch carrying Paul Bannon over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. He walked straight to the street and then stopped. He turned toward the camera and seemed to look directly at it. His head was tilted up and he stood motionless for about twenty seconds.
“He’s mocking us,” Sally said. “He knows the cameras are there.”
“I’ll be damned…” Burt said.
They watched as the white masked man turned toward the street and crossed it heading for the pool. He stopped at the fence and pushed Paul Bannon up and over the top, letting him crash to the ground on the other side. The man then started climbing the fence, but before he reached the top the recording ended.
“That’s it,” Burt said.
Chapter 18
They waited in the woods
for Jason and his friend to return from the pool. John was the lookout and would make some kind of animal noise as a signal. Laughable, Luke knew, but it was their only way of pulling the prank off without Jason and his friend being tipped off. By the time they figured it was some kid making the animal call, it would be too late.
Jimmy, Luke, and Ellie were upstream from the bridge, just behind a tree at a bend in the creek. Sitting in front of Jimmy was an Estes rocket launching system primed and ready for firing. They had taken some of Luke’s dad’s wire fishing line and strung it from the tree they were hiding behind to the base of the foot bridge, right at the midway point. A ‘D’ sized rocket engine was hanging from the line by a piece of soda straw super-glued to the engine’s body. When fired, the rocket engine would shoot toward the bridge, guided by the wire, and impact the large support beam the line was tied to. The rocket engine had a small charge that would ignite at the end of its firing run. This charge was supposed to expel the parachute most rockets carried. It was basically a firecracker that would explode with a loud bang right at the feet of whoever was crossing the bridge at the time.
Sometimes Luke couldn’t believe the stuff Jimmy came up with. He was trying hard not to laugh out loud as he imagined what would happen to the two kids when this loud whooshing noise came straight at them followed by a large bang.
“What are you giggling at?” Ellie whispered, her face betraying the anxiety she felt. She hadn’t wanted any part of this, but she was here in support of her friends.
“Nothing-just thinking about what’s going to happen when that rocket engine hits the bridge.”
“I hope nobody gets hurt,” she said.
“It’s not going to hit them, El,” Luke said. “It’ll just scare the crap out of them and then we’ll jump out and give ‘em hell about making John fall in the creek.”
“I hope that’s all it does,” she said.
“Will you two be quiet. I can’t hear John if he signals,” Jimmy said, adjusting his position behind the tree.
Frozen Past Page 9
