Every Fear

by Rick Mofina

  She forwarded it along with Don’s instructions to Henry, an old friend of Don’s from his Seattle police days. Henry was a quiet man and a bit of a mystery. He’d been a Seattle cop years and years ago but for only a short time. He’d recently retired from working in a warehouse, or something like that, and was working on getting three years of experience under his belt so he could obtain his license and supplement his pension.

  Maybe Henry would be happy to handle this one, Michelle thought, looking up his number, oblivious to the fact that she’d overlooked one key thing.

  She had completely forgotten to check the registered owner’s name through the online database for the Washington State Patrol and Criminal History Section to determine if the person who had crossed Everett Sinclair in Ballard had a criminal record. The system held data on arrest records and cases not open to the public.

  And had she looked further, she would have noticed that the plate did not match the vehicle.

  27

  After reading his son’s story on the Seattle Mirror’s front page, Henry Wade swelled with the usual wave of pride.

  The kid had accomplished a helluva thing with his life.

  Against the odds, Jay had worked his way out of the brewery, put himself through college, and had earned a good-paying, full-time job with the newspaper. Now he was writing about the city’s biggest crimes.

  It was a helluva thing for sure.

  Truth was, his boy had inspired him to turn his own life around. Even if it had taken years. Long, painful years. He took stock of his empty house, confident that he had put his ghosts to rest. Most of them, anyway.

  He rubbed his chin, reflecting on his own small achievements. He’d been faithful to AA. Over four hundred days sober now since he’d taken early retirement from the brewery. It gave him the strength to resurrect a dream. One that he’d buried a lifetime ago when he had to quit the Seattle Police Department after only a few years on the job. Don’t go there, don’t think about that. Best to keep the past in the past.

  Stepping carefully around the locked rooms of memory, he came to his resurrected desire of working as a detective.

  After all he’d been through, he’d managed to salvage it.

  Hell, he was doing it. Maybe on a small scale, but he was doing it. Thanks to Don Krofton, a decent guy who didn’t owe Henry Wade a damn thing. Nobody did, but Krofton had remembered him from the old days and took him on as a trainee to help him get his three years in to get his license. Krofton had given him a shot, first with some small files. A little surveillance. Checking court records. Confirming people worked where they claimed to have worked.

  It was all going just fine.

  Henry resumed looking over the state’s study guide on the exam for private investigators. He flipped through his well-thumbed copy of the Washington State Criminal Code. A lot of it was coming back to him from the old days.

  He’d used his pension and retirement package to buy a new top-of-the-line computer. He took courses to learn how to use it and the Internet. Got himself a cell phone and a few other high-tech toys.

  Funny, he was living in the same house in the same blue-collar neighborhood near Boeing Field, south of the airport. He was driving the same old pickup and wearing the same workingman’s clothes, but he’d traveled a world away from the life he’d left at the brewery.

  At sixty-one, Henry Wade was a new man.

  He peered into his empty coffee cup, went to the kitchen for a refill; the phone rang.

  “Hi, Henry, Michelle at Krofton’s. Are you available for a job today?”

  “I am.”

  “As we speak, I’m sending the file to your e-mail.”

  “All right, hang on.”

  He sat before his computer with its high-speed access.

  In seconds, he was reading Everett Sinclair’s ranting request and looking through the photos Sinclair had attached. He took careful notes as Michelle relayed Krofton’s instructions. She directed him to the results of her query of IVIPS, the state’s database for driving and vehicle records.

  After giving it all a quick read, he said, “Sounds good, I’m on it.”

  As his printer kicked to life, he filled his coffee cup and thought fondly of the guys at the brewery calling him Jim Rockford when word got out about his second career. He adjusted his glasses as he studied every aspect of the file, reading and rereading the details of Sinclair’s note, until he noticed something.

  Hold on.

  He unfolded his street map of greater Seattle. Then retrieved the Mirror and reviewed the facts on the Colson case. Just hold on. Let’s look at the time Sinclair’s thing happened. The location. He consulted the map. The news stories. Sinclair’s report.

  A van. A red van.

  According to Sinclair’s report it was a van that had clipped him while driving dangerously out of the Ballard area. The color. The timing. Still, something didn’t look right. Hell, he should call this in to Seattle PD, or the FBI.

  Wait a sec. Just relax there.

  He kept checking the details. If Krofton cleared it, then it had to be just a coincidence. He didn’t want to overreact here. Come across as a complete hysterical dope, especially while trying to get his license. He went to the IVIPS printout.

  Maybe this is it. A clear mistake. Wasn’t it? Sure looked like it. Look at the results of the query on the registered owner and the type of vehicle. This was a car, a Toyota Corolla. But look at what Sinclair stated. He was emphatic that it was a van.

  Henry sat there staring at his pages, the map, and the newspaper.

  Something about this one didn’t make sense, he thought as he consulted his map for the best way to the address linked to the plate from the van provided by Sinclair. He collected the documents into a file folder, gathered his keys and jacket.

  But before he headed to his pickup, he stopped.

  He wouldn’t go alone. Something about this one didn’t add up. He reached for his phone and began dialing. He needed a second opinion.

  It wouldn’t take long.

  Besides, it was probably nothing at all.

  28

  Nadine is four years old.

  She’s alone in the cold, dark basement while above her the floorboards creak.

  Big Pearl is coming.

  The basement door opens, the wooden stairs groan, Nadine trembles, and the dog chain jingles. In the darkness, Nadine picks up the bad smell coming off of Big Pearl. She hears the clink of an empty glass bottle joining the others in the pitch-black corner beside the furnace, sitting there breathing fire like a patient dragon.

  Then the flashlight finds its target, trapping Nadine’s small face in a circle of harsh light. It hurts her eyes.

  “This place stinks like cat piss and you, Natty Nat.”

  Big Pearl grunts as she comes closer.

  “No wonder your mama didn’t want you. Nobody wanted you, why, you’re nothin’ more’n what people scrape from their shoe. You thank your lucky stars for Big Pearl. Now, git over here!”

  Nadine recoils and the chain scrapes across the cement floor. She knows what’s coming. Can feel what’s coming even before it starts.

  And it starts with her leg.

  Big Pearl grabs the chain shackled to Nadine’s ankle.

  And pulls.

  “I said, git over here!”

  Big Pearl pulls on the chain, dragging Nadine across the cold hard floor as she pleads. Then comes the rush of air and the belt whistles down on Nadine with a whip-crack against her skin.

  She spasms with pain.

  “No, Big Pearl.”

  “You better thank me, Natty Nat.”

  The leather cuts into her flesh, Nadine bites her tongue. Tears stream down her face as the belt comes down again and again and again until finally Nadine says it.

  “Thank you Big Pearl for teaching me right. Oh thank you.”

  And it ends with Big Pearl heaving and huffing and the stairs groaning as she leaves Nadine in the darkness with her s
pirit broken and her skin on fire. Nadine sobs and fumbles in the dark for her baby doll, naked and alone like her.

  Nadine hugs her so tight.

  So tight.

  Her baby is the only thing in this world that she loves because it is the only thing in this world that loves her back.

  29

  In six clear frames a woman was placing an orange plastic bag into the trash bin at Sunset Hill Park, then walking away.

  “These are all I got.”

  Nate Hodge clicked through his pictures on his large flat-screen monitor in the Seattle Mirror’s photo department. Jason Wade, Fritz Spangler, the FBI agents, and the Seattle detectives were standing over Hodge’s desk, studying his crisp digital images.

  Four of the photos were full-body, head to toe. The woman was Caucasian, mid-thirties, slender build with short brown hair. She was wearing a lavender fleece jacket, print top, and tan slacks.

  On her feet: blue sneakers.

  A cell phone rang; an FBI agent answered it and stepped away from the desk, talking softly. Another agent leaned closer to Hodge’s monitor.

  “Can you enlarge her face?”

  Hodge zoomed in on the frame where the woman looked directly into the camera. “She never saw me,” Hodge said. “I was nearly two blocks away when I shot these. I headed to the park as soon as Jason called me to set up.”

  “See if I’ve got this,” Kirk Dupree said. “Jason told you he was going to meet a source at Sunset Hill and you get there in advance to position yourself to take pictures with a long lens?”

  “We do it all the time when we meet an anonymous source,” Jason said. “It covers us. Try to get pictures of everything. Never know when you might need the information.”

  “You happen to follow this woman and get a plate?” Grace asked Hodge, who shook his head.

  “I couldn’t stay. Got sent to Bellingham on another job, got back late and thought nothing of this until I saw this morning’s paper. So what do you think?”

  The FBI agent completed his close-up study of the enlarged version of the woman’s face and pulled back. “We know her. She’s been up to our office.”

  “Who is she?” Dupree said.

  “Robin, her name is Robin somebody.”

  “Robin Dove.” The agent on the cell phone had finished and tapped a white-gloved finger on a copy of the Mirror showing the reproduced note from the psychic. “ERT just called. This morning, before we came, they started comparing this note published here with other tip letters we’ve received in other cases. From the composition, syntax, the font used, they say it fits with previous letters from Robin Dove.”

  “Who is she?” Dupree asked.

  The agent consulted his notes. “A Seattle housewife. Works part-time at a daycare. She believes she has psychic abilities. She usually contacts us, unsolicited, several times a year with details she ‘feels’ will help our investigations.”

  “And?” Spangler asked.

  “Her information has never been useful,” the agent said.

  For Dupree, it all ended there. “Our warrant covers this material.” He nodded to the photos and Hodge. “We want all of them. Your photo card and a statement.”

  Another agent joined the group after finishing a call.

  “Things are piling up on the shoe. We’ve got leads to check.”

  “Let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time here.”

  “Excuse me, Fritz.” Rosemary the assistant approached, nodding to the TV crews at the far end of the newsroom. “CNN and FOX are here to talk to somebody on our psychic story.”

  Camera operators hoisted their cameras to their shoulders and began recording the white-gloved detectives. Dupree shook his head, then led the investigators out in a direction that took them away from the TV people. Spangler’s face flushed and he turned to Jason, but the reporter had left with the investigators.

  In the foyer, Jason managed to pull the group aside for a private moment amid the tall potted palms. All of them, including Grace, were poker-faced. He tried to gauge their reaction and a silent icy moment passed. Careful not to single out Grace Garner as a source, he tried to put out the fire Spangler had ignited on his bridge into the investigation.

  “You guys have to understand,” Jason said, “I didn’t write the story in today’s paper. Spangler did. I didn’t think it was developed and I wanted to hold off until I checked it out. That”—he pointed back to the newsroom—”is not the way I do things.”

  “That’s your fucking problem, Wade,” Dupree said. “Frankly, ours is a tad more serious than you having an asshole for a boss. Let’s go.”

  Jason returned to his desk, utterly defeated. Any hope of breaking news on the Colsons through police sources was dead. As far as the cops were concerned, the Mirror was the pariah paper on the case.

  This sucks.

  The morning paper, the sketch, and portions of the “psychic’s” note now mocked him.

  “The forces behind the crime departed the scene immediately in a vehicle with the child in an easterly direction through the community. Their vehicle was seen by hundreds of people... Death stands over this case.”

  Death stands over this case. You think?

  All crap.

  Jason crumpled the paper.

  Look at Spangler over there basking in the bright camera lights. One leg half-straddled on a desk, his body half-turned so the newsroom, “his” newsroom, was framed behind him. Thinks he’s Ben Bradlee, or Lou Grant.

  He’s more like Perry White.

  Unable to stomach another second, Jason grabbed his jacket. He had to hit the street. He’d try working on the Colsons’ background by going back to the neighbors. He rifled through his drawer for a pen, then found his notebook as his phone rang.

  “Jay,” his father said, “have you got a moment?”

  He closed his eyes.

  “This is a bad time, Dad.”

  “Son, I’ve got something that could be connected to your big abduction story. Need you to take a ride with me.”

  “Dad, listen, I don’t have time.” To listen to your wild theories about this case. Every time I’m on the front page you call me up with advice. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.”

  “Jay, I’ll be in front of the Mirror in fifteen minutes.”

  30

  Rolling his eyes and clenching his jaw, Jason headed to the newsroom elevator where he repeatedly jabbed the down button.

  I don’t need this, Dad. Not now.

  First the psychic crap. Then Spangler screwed everything up, leaving him to face the wrath of every FBI agent and Seattle detective on the Colson case—effectively killing any hope he had of cultivating Grace Garner as a source. Or something more. Thank you, Fritz.

  And now his old man wanted in on the Colson story.

  Jason spat on the sidewalk as he paced in front of the Mirror building. Tapping his notebook against his leg, he searched the traffic until he spotted a familiar blue Ford Ranger pickup. His father waved from behind the wheel then double-parked, forcing angry drivers to honk as they wheeled around him. Jason stepped into the street and leaned into the open passenger window.

  “I just can’t do this now.”

  “Get in, it’ll only take an hour. Tops.”

  “Dad.”

  “Come on, get in, son.”

  Jason muttered something, got in, and was catapulted back through his life. The interior was immaculate but the smell of cologne and hops, the desperation of the brewery, mingled in the cab with Johnny Cash, whose singing of “I Walk the Line” floated softly from the Ranger’s sound system.

  “I see you’re kicking ass on the big story.”

  “Whatever you want to tell me, please get to it and get me back to the paper, okay?”

  His father nodded and squinted into the traffic.

  “I’m sorry, Dad, but this has not been a stellar morning.”

  His old man shrugged it off. He understood.

  “I caught an interesting little j
ob this morning from Krofton. You might want to look at it. It stays confidential, by the way.”

  He passed a file folder to Jason, who read quickly through its few pages then put it on the seat between them.

  “So? You confirm an address, press the guilty party for compensation in a hit-and-run fender bender. All straightforward. How’s it related to the story? And where the heck are you taking me?”

  “I think you’re missing some key facts. The client says the vehicle was a van.”

  “Sure but your information confirms it’s a car, a”—Jason consulted the file again—”a Toyota.”

  “But look at the client’s note. He insists it was a van.”

  “Whatever. I still don’t get it.”

  “Also, look at the time and location of the incident.”

  Jason did.

  “See,” his father said. “Location: Ballard. Time: the morning of the kidnapping. Vehicle: van. See where I’m going with this?”

  Jason reread everything. Much more closely this time.

  “Maybe it’s a coincidence, Jay. That’s why we check it out first, right?”

  As the implication dawned on Jason, his old man winked, in the good way he used to wink at him long ago, before things went dark. Jason felt the tension melt as his old man’s Ranger headed northbound on 1-5. The road rushed under them like so many of the bad years. Jason wondered if his old man’s ancient internal war flowed from something that happened a lifetime ago when Henry Wade was a Seattle cop.

  Who knows?

  His old man never talked about it. Ever.

  As the Ranger gathered speed, Jason looked at him. Polo shirt, faded jeans. Tanned. Silver hair. Looked good. Then he glanced over his shoulder. The cab’s back window was still bordered with stickers of the American flag, the brewery union, and the brewery’s security parking decal. It was all behind them now. Best to leave it there.