State of Life: A Mystery Thriller Novel (Virgil Jones Book 12)

by Thomas Scott

  Twenty minutes later the other team began showing up. Most were on a school bus, but a few of the older girls followed in their own cars. Once they were on the field, their coach, a harsh-looking woman with short black hair and muscles in her face, walked over, said hello, then asked about the condition of the course.

  “You might know better than me, but I think it’s in pretty good shape,” Coach said. “There are a few places where it might be a little slick, especially on the hills. I was watching the weather, and that storm looked like it was pretty intense.”

  “It was. Nice day today, though.”

  Coach looked up at the sky, and said, “Sure is. Anyway, my girls are walking the course now. Looks like they’re about finished. Feel free to send yours out whenever they’re ready.”

  She gave him a tight nod, said, “Thanks,” then walked away.

  Coach smiled to himself. Tough to know you’re going to lose before you even got started. With nothing better to do, Coach thought he’d walk part of the course himself to make sure the wooded areas had dried out. He thought they must have. It was windy, and the sun had been shining all day.

  The killer had parked his van in the exact same spot as before. The sliding door was unlatched, the path was clear, and he was ready to go. Risky? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. He could practically taste her already. He stood well back in the tree line. If he was spotted now, he’d have to abort. The girls—some jogging, some walking—all went past without even glancing his way. Over the years he’d taken seven girls. This would be number eight, and the anticipation was almost too much to bear. The killer had to be careful, and he always was, especially today, as he’d never actually taken one from a cross-country course. What he usually did was find his victims by cruising the mall, or any number of fast-food joints late at night. He’d pick out his target, follow her home, and once he knew where she lived, the rest was basic research. He’d follow her to and from work, watch her at sporting events, take note of who her friends were and where they lived, and eventually an opportunity would present itself. The trick was, to be ready when it did, and the killer was always ready. It wasn’t that hard if you knew what you were doing.

  But this time was different. He’d be more exposed, and while there was an increased risk, there was also a heightened sense of urgency that made the taking almost as exciting as what he’d do once he had her.

  Almost.

  He’d have to wait for the last girl, whoever she was, something he knew going in. At first the idea of not knowing who he’d get bothered him, but the more he thought about it, he considered this particular change of pace a nice little surprise. Sort of like Christmas…you never really knew what you were getting until you unwrapped your gift. The fighters were the best.

  He saw her coming and knew she was the one. A redhead—not his favorite—the freckles were a little much sometimes, but it wasn’t like he could afford to be choosey. Besides, redheads were a feisty bunch, so she’d probably want to fight. She was walking along, looking at the ground, chewing on one of her fingernails, paying no attention whatsoever. When she passed by the killer, he took a careful quiet step forward, made sure there was no one else coming, then made his move.

  He was on her like a cat. She heard him coming at the last second, turned, and when she did he punched her in the gut to take the wind out of her. Then he hit her again, this time on the back of her neck, his arm wrapped around her midsection so she didn’t fall all the way to the ground. She was stunned, but not completely out, and she grabbed his arm and tried to break free. She struggled and scratched at him, and the killer felt some blood on his arm where she’d ripped his skin. She began kicking and moaning, and the killer, now bleeding and furious with himself for not hitting her harder, grabbed her by the neck and smashed the back of her head into a tree. She collapsed in his arms, out cold. He threw her over his shoulder, ducked back into the woods, and headed for his van. It took longer than his practice run, but he got it done. He dumped her in the back of the van, stuffed a rag in her mouth, covered it with a piece of duct tape, then wrapped her wrists behind her back with the same roll of tape. When he had her secured, he slammed the door and turned to make sure no one had seen him. No one had. He looked at the scratch on his forearm and saw that it wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d thought it was in the moment. He untucked his shirt, spat on his arm, and wiped the dried blood away. Couldn’t even tell he’d been cut. More like a bug bite than anything.

  Bitch could kick, though. He laughed at himself. He was so caught up in the moment he never noticed that when she was kicking, she’d lost a shoe.

  Coach watched as the girls finished their final warmups, and when everyone was ready, he took out his starter’s pistol, made sure all eyes were on him, and was just about to pull the trigger when the other team’s coach stopped him by blowing her whistle three times.

  Coach turned and gave her a curious look. All the runners relaxed out of their starting stance. “What is it?” Coach asked.

  The female coach held up her finger and did a quick count. “I’m missing one,” she said. “Has anyone seen Mary?”

  All the girls turned and looked around, the French Lick girls having no idea who Mary was, or what she looked liked. The girls on the Indy team all shook their heads, then one of them said, “She was walking the course, but she didn’t want to run it. She was sort of falling behind.”

  “That sounds like Mary,” one of the other girls said.

  Coach, as was his nature, took charge right away. “Okay people, we may have an injured runner out there. I want half of you—let’s say the Indy girls because you know the course best—to walk it backward, and my girls, take it from the starting line. She might have slipped and sprained an ankle or something. Let’s go help her out.”

  Ten minutes later, they found Mary’s shoe.

  Twenty minutes after that, the cops started showing up.

  Because the course itself was outside the city limits, it made the case a county matter. The shoe was left in place, with an evidence marker next to it on the ground. The Marion County cops conducted a full search of the park but came up empty. The meet was canceled, and the sheriff had all the girls sit on the grass in a circle. He looked at both teams’ coaches and said, “Are we sure everyone else is accounted for?” He was told that they were. After questioning all the girls as a group, asking what they saw, if anything, he discovered that while plenty of girls had seen Mary go into the woods, none of them actually saw her come out.

  “And her last name is Adams,” the sheriff said.

  “That’s right,” the Indy coach said. “Mary Adams. Redhead, she’s a Junior, weighs about ninety pounds, probably five-four, maybe five-six. I’m not exactly sure.”

  The sheriff was taking it all down in his notebook. “Boyfriend?”

  A few of the girls looked at each other, but they all shook their heads. One of them said, “I’m not sure she’s ever had a boyfriend.”

  Sheriff Mason Jones looked out across the park and shook his head. This was the last thing he needed right now. His sons were off fighting a war in the Middle East, and his wife was at home fighting cancer. He hoped his boys would be okay. He knew his wife, Elizabeth, wouldn’t be. He’d already turned in his retirement papers so he could spend more time with her. He looked at both coaches and said, “Okay, listen, let’s get your girls back home. Keep them off the phone until I can notify the parents. The last thing they need to hear is that their daughter is missing. The second last thing they need is to hear it from someone besides one of my men. Understood?”

  They both said they did. As the coaches were rounding up their girls, a crime scene tech came jogging over with the shoe in a plastic bag. “Pretty sure it’s her shoe, Sheriff. If you look inside, under the tongue, you can see her initials written in ink. M.A.”

  Mason swore under his breath. Then he turned and pointed at the group of girls. “I meant what I said. Stay off your home phones. If anyone calls the Adams residence,
you’ll be in big trouble.”

  The girls, who at first were mildly amused by the whole thing—like maybe Mary had just decided to run off—were now scared. Mason could see it on their faces.

  “You won’t have any trouble from my girls, Sheriff,” Coach said. “None of them were friends or even knew who Mary was until we couldn’t find her.”

  Mason nodded, his anxiety beginning to grow. “You’re team…you’re uh, from French Lick?”

  “That’s right,” Coach said. “If there’s nothing else, I guess we’ll wish you the best of luck and get out of your hair.”

  “Have a safe trip back,” Mason said. Then he quickly thumbed through his notebook, and said, “In all the confusion, I don’t believe I got your name.”

  Coach felt sorry for the man. It looked like he was struggling with more than just the prospect of dealing with a missing teenaged girl. He let out a little chuckle and said, “You probably didn’t, because all anyone ever calls me is Coach.” He stuck out his hand to shake and said, “My name’s Don. Coach Don Whittle.”

  Sheriff Jones shook hands with Whittle, then said, “Appreciate your help today, Coach.” Then he turned and got back to work, the whole time thinking about his sons, Virgil and Murton…praying for their safe return. And his wife…praying that she wouldn’t suffer in the end, an end that seemed to be coming at them like a double-header locomotive that’d lost its brakes, screaming through the night on a downhill slope, headed toward certain destruction.

  With those types of thoughts going through his head, Mason made a mistake that would haunt him, even after his own death. He just didn’t know it at the time.

  Chapter Three

  PRESENT-DAY:

  A cool weekend, high cirrus clouds drifting about in no particular direction, a fish toying at the end of his line causing the bobber to wiggle and make concentric circles on the water’s surface, the kids running and playing in the backyard with Larry the Dog, the women at the farmer’s market getting fresh vegetables for dinner, a lawnmower buzzing from across the far side of the property. The scent of the cut grass drifted his way and mixed in with the aroma of the pond water and the brisk, sharp, freshness of the air.

  For Virgil Jones, lead detective of the state’s Major Crimes Unit, it should have been one of those weekend days where everything was right with the world, where life and those who lived it were happy, content, and free—at least temporarily—from the worries of the job, and the grief, stress, paperwork, and the politics that came with it all.

  But still…Ron Miles. Dead and gone.

  Maybe free in his own way. Then again, maybe not. Virgil didn’t know, though clearly he should have. He only knew the heaviness he carried around with him after everything that had happened, and he felt like the weight might be crushing him on the inside, like a piece of deadwood smashed underfoot in the forest of his soul.

  Life. The great cosmic mystery. Here one minute, and gone the next. He hadn’t seen his father since Ron’s murder…yet another thing tearing him apart. He looked at the cross next to him and said, “Are you there anymore? Were you ever?” When he got no response, he pulled the fish from the water, took the hook from its mouth, and set it free. If only everything was that easy.

  Virgil’s path forward felt thin, razor-sharp, crooked, and chaotic. It was a switchback of sorts, a dividing line between the man he knew he was, and the man he couldn’t seem to find no matter where he looked or how hard he tried. He felt like a fractal of a being, broken inside, which is exactly what he’d told his wife, Sandy, a number of months ago. Virgil had lost himself, and now, at the tag end of a cool, crisp summer, he was trying to balance the fact that he’d lost both a friend and an advisor of sorts. Ron Miles was dead, and Virgil knew who was to blame, no matter what anyone else said.

  Virgil’s life was coming at him in pieces…little dribs and drabs that made no sense whatsoever. Ron’s death had hit him hard—and to a lesser extent, though he was ashamed to admit it—so did the death of Sheriff Ben Holden. And because he hadn’t seen or spoken with his dead father since the deaths of Miles and Holden, the whole thing left him feeling…apart from himself. It was a feeling Virgil knew well but handled poorly.

  Work was dragging him down, and it wasn’t long before everyone began to notice. What started as supportive hugs or words of encouragement, turned into tight nods, the meaning sympathetic, yet the words unspoken. As time went on, he began snapping at his coworkers to the point where if they happened to see him walking down the hall, they’d suddenly realize they’d forgotten something, turn around, and walk the other way…or duck into their office until he’d left the building. When they’d all finally had enough, somebody whispered into Cora’s ear, and Cora LaRue—both Virgil’s boss and the governor’s chief of staff—said something to the lieutenant governor, who, as it happened, was Virgil’s wife. After a few staffing questions regarding current caseloads and the MCU’s ability to function, Sandy assured Cora that she’d handle it.

  And she did…in her own unique way.

  The weekend had come and gone, and when Monday morning rolled around, Virgil got up early and ran three hard miles to try to clear the thick, dense fog inside his own head. He’d been through this before…the junkyard of thoughts tumbling down into the basement of his brain. His friend, Patty Doyle, had been through it as well. She once described it to Virgil as a thought tornado. And that’s exactly what it was. But no matter how he or anyone else described it, the bottom line was this: Virgil was once again suffering from PTSD, brought on by his own actions which ultimately cost Ron Miles his life.

  He quietly showered in one of the guest bathrooms, then dressed in his usual: jeans, a white T-shirt, and half-top boots. He grabbed his badge, gun, and truck keys, and tried to sneak out of the house before anyone else was up. Virgil loved his family more than anything in the world, but lately, if someone even looked at him the wrong way, he’d snap and say something he’d later regret.

  The sneaking out didn’t work. Sandy was waiting for him in the kitchen.

  “Trying to leave without saying goodbye?” Sandy said. Her blond hair was sleep-tangled, and she wore an oversized light blue sweatshirt that did little to hide the curves of her body. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted a deep shade of red so dark they almost looked black. She was leaning with her butt against the counter, her arms crossed. Her voice was pleasant enough, but when she smiled it didn’t show in her eyes.

  “I wanted to get down to the office a little early today,” Virgil said. “There’s some paperwork that Cora wanted—”

  Sandy hip-checked herself off the counter, walked over to her husband, and placed her hands on his chest. “You were going to the cemetery again, weren’t you?”

  Virgil raked his teeth across his bottom lip and didn’t answer. Sandy simply stared at him and waited it out. Finally, he said, “It’s on the way. I thought I’d put some fresh flowers on Ron’s grave.”

  “Virgil, the gesture is nice, but you can’t keep going there all the time. I don’t think it’s helping you. In fact, I’d say it’s making things worse.”

  “I don’t see how it could possibly be any worse. I sent the man to his death.”

  “And now this is your penance?”

  Virgil took a step back, and Sandy’s hands fell from his chest. “What if it is? What’s wrong with that?”

  “I just told you what’s wrong with it, Virgil. I think it’s making things worse. You’ve got to find a way to get out of your own head.”

  “So you’re the expert now?” The words were no sooner out of his mouth when he saw a mask of hurt and frustration wash over his wife’s face. “I’m sorry,” Virgil said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Yes, I was trying to sneak out of the house. I didn’t want to hurt you by saying the wrong thing…again.”

  Sandy let it go. “Do you remember what I said after the whole ordeal at the speedway?”

  “I remember the catsuit,” Virgil said with a slight g
rin. A brief moment of love expressed at what had the potential to turn into yet another argument.

  Sandy took the compliment but held on to her question. “That’s not what I asked.”

  Virgil looked down at his wife’s feet for a moment, then said, “Yes, I remember. Your mind was made up and you were going to wave that flag and do your thing no matter what. After Mok’s men died and Baker got shot, you said it felt like it was your fault.”

  “And what did you tell me?”

  “Sandy…”

  “Say the words, Virgil. You need to hear yourself say them.”

  “I was speaking about you, not me.”

  “Say it,” Sandy said, a little bite in her voice.

  “I said it wasn’t your fault.” He practically shouted it at her.

  “So…was it true, or were you just trying to make me feel better?”

  Virgil had walked right into the trap. If he said it was true for her, then that meant it was true for himself as well. If he said it hadn’t been true, then he’d be putting a burden back on his wife…one she didn’t deserve. He ran his fingers through his hair—he wore it long for a cop—and finally said, “It was true then, for you…but that was different.”

  “How? How is it different, Virgil?” Sandy was getting a little loud herself. “Are you different from the rest of us? Better? Wait, don’t bother answering. I’ll just say it: You’re not. You didn’t kill Ron anymore than I killed Mok’s men. You’ve got to find a way to let this go.”

  “I’m trying.” Still loud.

  “Try harder,” Sandy said. She put some teeth into her statement.

  Virgil looked at his wife for a few seconds, then walked over toward the back door. He put his hand on the knob and said, “I’m giving it everything I’ve got.”