Frozen Past

by Richard C. Hale

  Stansfield nodded and turned to go. “Remember, stay inside until we nab this guy. He’s gotta’ be pretty pissed at all of you right now. Squad car will be parked out front to watch the house. You’ll be safe here.”

  Luke wasn’t so sure about that, but he didn’t say anything. Stansfield went downstairs and he could hear murmurs through the floor as the cop talked to his parents. Luke wondered how Ellie was doing.

  The Citation 500 cruised at thirty three thousand feet and barely a ripple coursed through the aluminum skin as the jet made its way back to Virginia. Jaxon sat, tense, as the smooth air cradled Victoria in her seat and she snored from the effects of the pain killers she had been given back in Indiana. He stared at her, unable to sleep himself, the events of the night too fresh in his mind.

  Vick’s hair was fanned out over her arm and the dark strands stood out starkly against her pale skin. He remembered a vision from his marriage with her sleeping just as she was, a wispy smile on her lips, hair spread out around her and her bare skin glowing in the soft candle light. It had been one of those rare evenings when Michael was out of the house at his grandparents and they had an evening to themselves. He had drunk too much and she took advantage of him. Not that he had complained or anything. He had watched her sleep afterwards and felt his life could not get any better. He had been right. It had gotten worse. A lot worse.

  He turned and looked out the small window into the night and thought of his dead son. Malcom Switzer had professed his innocence to Jaxon over and over again. Pleaded with him as he pointed the gun at the killer’s head, two of his buddies trying to keep Jaxon from shooting Switzer the night they took him down. It hadn’t mattered to Jaxon. He didn’t hear him. Wouldn’t hear him. He pulled the trigger just the same and as his friends and workmates wrestled Jaxon to the ground, only one of the bullets found its mark. In Switzer’s thigh. He had screamed like a woman and it had made Jaxon smile.

  Now, he had to wrap his mind around the reality that Malcom Switzer had been right. Or at least it appeared he was right. The two frozen ears were on this very plane, along with the various animal parts, kept in the hold, under ice, awaiting the FBI’s forensic lab to analyze them and determine who they belonged to. Jaxon didn’t need the FBI to tell him that. He knew they belonged to Michael.

  His anger and guilt had been aimed at the wrong man for so many years and apparently his aim was as bad as the night he shot Switzer. Switzer was a cold and brutal killer, Jaxon knew, but he wasn’t Michael’s cold and brutal killer. This new man…no…man wasn’t a word he could put next to him…this new beast was killing kids and stalking Jaxon’s mind. He had to be stopped. There would be none of Jaxon’s ‘friends’ around this time. No one to influence his aim. He would make sure of that. This asshole was going to die a slow and painful death in front of Jaxon’s eyes and nobody would be able to help him.

  “What are you thinking?” Victoria’s voice startled him out of his thoughts.

  He turned toward her. “Just imagining this guy dying slowly in front of me as I wrap my fingers around his neck and squeeze.”

  She searched his face and yet he couldn’t read her reaction one way or the other. She sighed and finally said, “I’ll hold him down.”

  Chapter 33

  The funeral for Sally was three days later. Jaxon, Victoria, Holt, and the chief were up front along with the entire force. Some of the FBI guys on the case were in attendance too. The news crews had shown up and there had been an uncomfortable compromise reached after a few of the cops made their feelings known concerning the appearance of the local reporters. The crews elected to keep their distance until the proceedings were over.

  Victoria’s face looked better, but she still had a small bandage just above her left eye. A sickly, yellow, brown color could be seen peeking out from underneath it. Jaxon’s back was still sore but he was able to function. He had even been a pall bearer.

  As the priest intoned his words over the audience, Sally’s father sat stoically next to her mother who leaked tears the entire time. Though she was crying, she remained eerily silent. Her father periodically looked up at Jaxon. The man seemed to be questioning him with his eyes or maybe it was just his imagination. Jaxon didn’t blame the man. Hell, he was questioning himself ever since the explosion.

  Jaxon’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he chose to ignore it. The whole force was here and if they needed him, someone would tell him. Jaxon’s eyes wandered the grounds. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to look at Sally’s casket. Every time his eyes passed over the flag draped aluminum box, he would jerk them away as if he were staring into the sun. He knew there was probably some psychological term or condition for what he was doing, but he didn’t care about that now. He just wanted to be away from here. And soon.

  A few groundskeepers were busy tending the flowers and hedges in the distance and he could hear the purr of a leaf blower bleeding through the priest’s voice. A few coughs into fists and quiet snifflings made their way to his ears as he scanned the headstones and flowers.

  Something caught his eye. Just a brief flash of black in the distance. He wasn’t even sure if he actually saw something, but his subconscious held his eyes on the spot. From behind a tree an arm clad in black appeared followed by the torso of a person. The face remained obscured behind the tree. His cell phone began vibrating again and for some reason the urgency in the vibration seemed more pronounced than the last call. He was imagining this, he knew, but the urge to pull it out of his pocket was overwhelming. The black flash disappeared behind the tree again. The phone buzzed and buzzed in his pocket.

  The priest was rambling on about life after death, and the leaf blower was growing louder, but the buzzing in his pocket stopped. At least for a moment. The phone began vibrating again and Jaxon’s eyes were drawn to the tree. The black clad arm was in view again only it was raised to a head as if someone was holding a cell phone to their ear. Jaxon started, and then frantically reached into his pocket for his phone. Victoria turned to him and the chief cleared his throat as Jaxon struggled to gain access to the buzzing gadget trapped in his pants. People were starting to look at him as he finally freed the phone and brought it to his face. The caller I.D. display sent a jolt through his body. He showed it to Victoria who took a quick breath. It was all zeroes.

  He looked up finding the tree again and watched as the flash of black stepped back behind it. Jaxon pointed to the tree and then turned around and began gesturing to the uniformed men around him. Victoria turned to the chief and whispered something in his ear and Jaxon watched the man scowl. Jaxon moved quickly to the edge of the crowd, Victoria and Holt on his heels, and murmurs began traveling through the crowd as Jaxon’s actions disrupted the proceedings. The phone continued to vibrate in his hand while Jaxon kept an eye on the distant tree. It was difficult to make anything out as the people attending the service kept getting between him and his view of the tree. He answered the phone on the move.

  “Jaxon.”

  “Hello, Detective,” the electronically altered voice drew out his title just like before, the mocking tone finding its way through the eerily irritating voice. Jaxon cringed but his anger boiled through.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Jaxon tried gesturing toward the distant tree but Victoria wasn’t quite getting it. He put his hand over the phone and whispered, “He’s behind that tree over there. Get some men to it.” She nodded and moved away.

  “Now, now, Detective, no reason to be so angry. I’d thought you’d be a little more appreciative of me by now. I did give you a gift.”

  “You’re going down.”

  “Probably-eventually. But not before we have our little fun. I’m not finished yet.”

  Jaxon could see cops fitted in their dress blues making their way out of the crowd. Many were already drawing their weapons. A murmur was building in the crowd as people began to realize something was happening.

  “What do you want?” Jaxon asked.

  “We�
�ve been through this Detective. I thought I made myself clear the last time we had this discussion.”

  “Enlighten me.” Victoria was directing the action and as she moved men into position, Jaxon saw the flash of black appear again from behind the tree. He pointed and she finally saw.

  “I want to help. We’re helping each other.”

  “Why don’t I make it easy for you,” Jaxon said. “I’m here waiting. Come help me.”

  The laugh that came through the speakers made Jaxon pull the phone away from his ear. The metallic quality of the voice vibrated nerves in his head he didn’t know existed. Jaxon watched as the police officers approached the tree from both sides and then he could hear shouts as they ordered the man down on the ground. He put the phone to his ear and listened. More laughter echoed in his head and then the voice said, “Did you really think it would be that easy.”

  Jaxon could see the officers holding up something black that moved in the breeze. It looked to be a coat, or jacket, on a hanger. One of the maintenance men was walking over to them, gesturing. The laughter grew louder in his ear and then it abruptly stopped.

  “The girl is next,” and the line went dead.

  Chapter 34

  Ellie lay on her bed, bored. Three days cooped up in her house was getting to her. The swim team was on hold, the pool closed, Luke was trapped in his own house, and her mom was being a total bitch. She really didn’t blame her, she just wished her mother could see things through her eyes. All her mother wanted to do was lecture her about how irresponsible she’d been keeping all this to herself. She tried arguing with her that if she hadn’t, her mother might be attending her own daughter’s funeral, but it hadn’t seemed to phase her. She rambled on and on until Ellie couldn’t take it anymore and got up in the middle of one of the speeches and left the room. Her mother yelled at her, but Ellie showed her her back and stomped up to her room. That had been yesterday. Her mother hadn’t talked to her since.

  She sat up and went to her desk. Maybe Luke was online and he would tell her he loved her again. Even if he was just typing it into a computer screen it was still pretty epic. She knew they were young and it didn’t matter what other people said, her mother included, she felt what she felt, and no one could take that away from her. Up until last year she hadn’t even known she could feel this way. When Luke held her or stroked her hair, the world and all its stupid crap would disappear and everything else didn’t matter. She only prayed it would last.

  Luke wasn’t online so she checked her Facebook page and saw she had a message. It used to be so cool, the messages exciting and fun, but lately the feeling that washed over her when she saw the notification, was panic. What if it was from him? Would there be some awful picture embedded in it? Would he tell her something else she didn’t want to know? She hesitated, the curser hovering over the link. She pressed it.

  It was from him. Her heart leapt into her throat and her hand recoiled as if shocked. She didn’t want to open it, didn’t want to see it, yet she couldn’t help herself. She had to know what he wanted. Had to see the horrible picture. Had to know the new lie he needed to tell her. If the fear she felt equaled her sick curiosity, the computer would probably have found its way through her upstairs window, crashing into a million pieces on the ground outside, but her curiosity won and she opened the message.

  I know your father.

  She sat back, deflated. To her, her father was dead. She had never met the man, never hugged him or felt his rough beard scrape her soft skin as he kissed her goodnight, never felt him pick her up to play or lay her down to sleep. He was a mystery to her. She had only ever seen one picture of him and she had been very little, almost too little to even remember. The picture was old and worn, a Polaroid stuffed in her mother’s drawer under some old coloring books, and the memory of it even more worn than the tattered shot. If someone asked her to describe her father, all she could come up with was tall. Big and tall. He had towered over her mother in the photo.

  So why did she feel like her world was crushing her under its weight? If she cared so little about the stranger known to her only as Leonard Worthington, the father she never knew, why did it matter if the killer knew him? Why was she letting this madman push her buttons?

  Because if he knows my father, he knows me, and I don’t want to know him.

  She felt violated. Dirty. Everything about her was unclean. She shivered and rubbed her hands unconsciously on her pants. If he even knew a little bit about the man who fathered her, then he knew intimate things about her that she couldn’t stand thinking. What had her father said to him? What did he show him? Did he have pictures of her or some other mementos she couldn’t even fathom? If Smith knew her father, than he knew her and this terrified her beyond all other things he had done so far.

  The psycho knew her.

  She suddenly felt very sick. She ran to the bathroom and gave up her lunch.

  Chapter 35

  Another web cam had been found mounted in a tree at the cemetery and when the FBI contacted the company administering the relay service for the camera, the IP address they gave led Jaxon to an internet cafe in downtown Washington D.C. The security cameras in the cafe gave them very little information despite having the timing down to the second. The killer kept his face hidden the whole time though they got a good indication of his body type. He was big, but it had only confirmed what the kids had told them the night of the attack in The Woods neighborhood. The man knew how to avoid detection.

  The remainder of Sally’s funeral service had been a fiasco. Her parents had not appreciated the gravity of the situation and vocalized their disappointment at the outcome in as few words as possible. Most of them starting with the letter ‘F.’

  The news crews had had a field day with the coverage and the department looked incompetent. The story had been broadcast on every station for two days. Jaxon watched himself deflate on TV as the black coat, hung on a branch by a gardener, fluttered in the wind, the officer holding it frowning into the camera.

  Jaxon was frustrated. The computer program he got from Luke Harrison gave them nothing. They had designated one officer the sole task of monitoring the cell phone’s signal, but the damn thing hadn’t even been turned on since the software had been copied to the IT department’s computers. The phone Smith had called from during the funeral was a new number and they had no way of decoding it. The dead ends were like alleyways with thirty foot walls and Dobermans trapping him inside. He felt like he was clawing his fingertips off trying to scale the massive barriers. He’d give Harrison one more try.

  He called Victoria at home first.

  “You actually know my number,” she said, without saying hello. “It’s a true miracle. Are you bringing Reverb over?”

  He smiled to himself for the first time in three days. “Should I? He’s mean and grouchy, but he might remember you.”

  “Thanks. I thought dogs always remembered their owners.”

  “He has a drinking problem. He can’t even remember where to pee.”

  “Sounds like someone I know.”

  “Like owner, like mutt.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “How is the head?” he asked.

  “Sore, but I don’t have the bandage anymore. Looks worse than it feels. It’s got that sick yellow tinge to it old bruises get after a few days. Looks like a bird crapped on my head.”

  “Well, I was going to ask you to come with me so your beauty and wonderful personality would offset my anger and bad manners, but maybe the bride of Frankenstein will make things worse.”

  She laughed and the sound was good in his ear. “I could throw some sheet or bag over my head.”

  “Worse.”

  “What’s the plan, anyway?”

  “I wanted to see if we could sweet talk the Harrison kid into giving up his hacker.”

  “Smith’s cell phone hasn’t been turned on?” she asked.

  “No. Not even for a second. He’s moved on to a new one and I do
ubt he’ll go back. This is a smart asshole.”

  “When do you want to go?”

  “Now.”

  “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes. Think you can find your way?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’ve never been here.”

  Embarrassed he paused. “I know where it is.”

  “You have been here,” she said, and he could hear the grin in her voice. “Why didn’t you knock?”

  “I just know where it is, ok?”

  “Uh-huh. See you in a bit.”

  Jaxon put the phone in the cradle, slowly, and kicked himself for looking like a fool. She was not going to get to him this time. He swore to himself it wouldn’t happen. He needed a partner is all and she was the only one on top of everything. Just a partner. Besides, she was seeing Holt now. Their relationship was over and probably irreparably damaged. The death of a child had a tendency to do that. It was a known fact, a lot of marriages failed after the loss of a child. It was just too much to handle. Blame worked its way into the fabric of the love and weakened the threads. Slowly, the material began to unravel and the ragged pieces would give little shelter and warmth.

  In Jaxon’s case, the blame had been huge. Still was. He carried a massive amount of guilt around, the burden rendering him ineffectual at times. The alcohol helped, but never pushed it completely out of his mind. He had to live with it every day and he could see it in her eyes, even now, though they were getting along better than they had in years. He imagined her blame as a inferno of resentment and the smoke and embers on the surface reflected in her eyes.

  Then why was she being so nice? Why was she flirting with him? Or was he imagining that too? This kind of thinking drove him nuts, so he just shut it off. No time for the bullshit. He needed to find and kill this son-of-a-bitch and do it soon.

  He made his way to Reston, where she and Holt held residence, and parked in the street in front of the condo. He knocked on the door and she opened it, smiling. She was beautiful and his mouth must have been hanging open because he forcibly shut it. She smiled even bigger.