Secrets In The Shadows

by T. L. Haddix

  “Patty, I appreciate you coming over today. I’m gonna head upstairs and lay down for a bit. I’m feeling awful tired now, and I need to rest.” She headed out of the kitchen, stopping at the door. She looked at Troy, studying him.

  “Those whores caused me to lose one baby already. You go upstairs and take care of Iris. I won’t let ’em cause another innocent baby’s death. Hear?” She headed slowly up the stairs, moving as though she were twenty years older.

  For a few minutes, Patricia and Troy just sat there, not saying anything as they listened for her bedroom door. Hearing it close, Patricia blew out the breath she had been holding.

  “I’m worried that all this with Carl is going to affect her mind. She’s strung about as tight as a person can be without breaking.”

  He nodded, agreeing. “She never was the same after we left here. We’ll just need to watch her, make sure she doesn’t have any more surprises like today.” Standing, he stretched. “I’m gonna go check on Iris. Mommy’s right, she doesn’t need all this trouble, either.”

  “Just about the only time I see your mother smile anymore is when she’s around Jamie,” Patricia told him sadly. “If Iris was to lose this baby, I think it’d kill Mary Margaret.”

  “You gonna stay a little while longer?”

  She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’ll stay until one of you can sit with Carl. He’s had an awful bad day, himself. I don’t like the way his breathing sounds. I put a call in to the traveling nurse, but she won’t be here until later. Keep an eye on him if I leave before she gets here.” She stood and went down the hall toward Carl’s bedroom. “Go check on your wife, Troy,” she said with a small smile. Grumbling under his breath, he trudged up the stairs. If he wanted to get lucky anytime soon, he’d have to make sure he handled Iris and her temper with care.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Later that afternoon, Lauren sat alone in her office, going over paperwork. She found it nearly impossible to focus on the numbers and words in front of her. Sighing, she threw her pen down and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her face with her hands. Somewhat hesitantly she reached for her cell phone, and strengthening her resolve, picked it up and dialed David’s number. He answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, it’s me. You have a minute?”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  She told him about the morning’s brouhaha. “And of course, Charlie was here. Witnessed the whole thing.”

  He whistled. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. It was just… a shock, I suppose, more than anything. Anyhow, I’ve thought about what you said the other day, about looking into things. I think we should do it.”

  “That’s not a problem. Do you want me to call Rob and get the particulars on his folks?”

  “Yes, but that’s not all. Charlie has a business that does that sort of thing—background checks, I mean. He’s offered his assistance.”

  “How reputable is this business. Do you know?”

  “I don’t know. Pretty reputable, if I had to guess. We’ve not really talked about it too much.”

  David hmmm’d. “Do you want him to investigate this for you?”

  “I—part of me does. I think he’d—I don’t know. And part of me doesn’t. I don’t want him learning about all this ugliness. It’s humiliating.”

  “Look, I’m going to give you a piece of advice here. It seems to me that the issue isn’t so much whether you want this guy to do background checks on Carl as it is that you have to decide whether you want him in your life or not. Do you want to let him in? That’s the question you have to answer.”

  Lauren felt her stomach drop when she realized he was right. “Okay. That’s the advice, then? Figure out what role I want him to play in my life?”

  “Yeah. And Lauren, for what it’s worth, you deserve to be happy. If this guy makes you happy, for God’s sake, don’t throw it away.”

  She felt her face heat. “Gee, being giving relationship advice by my ex-husband isn’t the least bit awkward. I’ll consider what you’ve said. In the meantime, though, I do want to start looking into Carl’s past.”

  “Why don’t we do this, then—I’ll initiate the investigation. I’ll also look at Charlie, see what I can find out. Maybe that will help you make the decision.”

  “Thank you. I’ll owe you big time. I need to do this. I don’t want to try and press charges for myself. But I can’t sit by and not find out if he has any other victims. They deserve some measure of justice, if they’re out there.”

  His voice was quiet. “You deserve justice, too. How much does Charlie know?”

  “Enough. Like I said, he was here when the Mary Margaret came in.”

  “Well, let’s see what we can find out and go from there. We can’t really do anything else until we get more information.” He asked about Ava, and after a few more minutes, they hung up.

  Laying her phone down, she rested her head on the desk. She felt as though a weight had been lifted off her chest, and was certain that she had made the right decision. It made living with the past a little more bearable.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wednesday morning after the department briefing, David followed his supervisor into his office and closed the door. He had requested the meeting immediately after Lauren called yesterday, using the intervening time to pull some basic information. Captain Stanley was a very fair-minded man, but he hated it when his people came to him with half-formed ideas. He invited David to have a seat.

  “Well, Grant, I’m curious. You mentioned this was related to something personal?”

  David nodded, crossing an ankle over his knee. “I need to know that what I’m about to tell you won’t go beyond these walls unless it’s unavoidable.”

  “Of course.”

  “It involves my ex-wife, Ava’s mother. When she was a teenager, one of her distant relatives tried to rape her. The guy left, ran to Georgia, and now he’s back in Indiana. I think he needs to be looked at, and I wanted to run that by you before I started anything.”

  “Who is this man?” He scratched his chin idly, a sure sign that he was considering what David had told him.

  “You know Rob Vernon, the EMT?”

  Captain Stanley sounded startled. “Surely you don’t mean to tell me Rob tried to rape her?” He glanced through the file David handed him.

  “No. Rob is the man’s son. Carl Vernon is his father’s name. I met with Rob last night after work and got some more information from him—full names, DOBs, that sort of thing. Apparently, his parents moved back a couple of months ago because his father’s dying. Rob thinks it’s worth exploring, and I have to concur. He’s actually the one who brought this to my attention.”

  The captain pursed his lips and peered over the top of his bifocals. “What’s your gut tell you?”

  “My gut tells me that offenders like Carl Vernon don’t stop offending just because they move away. Rob mentioned that the old man had tried the same thing with his younger sisters, but got caught, and the family is pretty sure he got away with raping their older sister.”

  “But not completely sure?”

  “No. She disappeared the same night Carl tried to rape Lauren, and she hasn’t been seen since.”

  The captain frowned. “No one’s heard from her, seen her? Not in all these years? How long ago are we talking about, anyhow? Ten, fifteen years?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Shit, Grant.” He ran a hand over his thinning hair. “We’re so backed up right now, I don’t know when you’d find the time… You know there’s little chance of this ever going to trial? Statute of limitations, not to mention this guy’s terminally ill?” David nodded. “Whose jurisdiction did the original crime fall under?”

  “It happened up in Clayhole, near Madison,” David told him. “It’d probably be Jefferson County or maybe even the state boys, depending on who wanted to handle it. Just so you know, Lauren doesn’t want to prosecute the guy. She just wants to make sure he doesn’t
have any other victims out there.”

  Stanley took off his glasses and laid them down on the file. “The way I see it, you have three options.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One is to do nothing—let the guy go to hell and let the devil take care of him. Two is to look into it yourself, see what you can come up with. If you find anything, make a decision then about whether to go forward or not.”

  “What’s the third option?”

  “The third option is to turn it over to whoever the hell wants it, and let them handle it. Might not win you any points with the ex, but what with your current caseload, you don’t really have time to handle this yourself. I can’t authorize that.” He held up a hand when David started to protest.

  “There might be a fourth option.” He reached for his glasses and his Rolodex. Thumbing through, he found the card he wanted and wrote the information down on a sticky note, pressing it onto the top of the file David had given him.

  “The fourth option is this one.” He handed the file back to David. “It’s the one I’d go with if I were you. That guy there, Charlie Clark? He runs a consulting business.” Seeing David’s look of surprise, he frowned. “You know him?”

  “Yeah, you could say that. So he’s legit? I got kind of a mixed reaction to the man, to tell you the truth.”

  “To Charlie? Well, he’s a little different, I’ll grant you that, but he’s as solid as they come. He’s pretty big news these days, got a solid team working for him. He came out of the military a few years back, started a consulting business. Mostly he does corporate work, but he sets aside some of his resources to help out small law enforcement agencies. Usually doesn’t charge much, if anything, and if you want answers fast, he’s the way to go. He can dig a lot deeper than even we can.”

  David was surprised by the information. “Well, that certainly sheds a new light on things,” he said and stood.

  “If I were you, I’d give him a call. He gets results when no one else can.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

  He opened the door to leave and the captain called him back. “Let me know how it turns out, okay? I hope you nail the bastard to the wall.”

  “So do I.” He tipped his fingers in a salute, then headed to his desk and sat down, looking at the name and number with a puzzled frown. It was almost eerie, that the captain had brought up Charlie’s name. David was just superstitious enough that he didn’t believe in coincidences. Picking up the phone, he dialed.

  ~ * * * ~

  The restaurant had been a madhouse all day, and when Wednesday evening finally rolled around, Charlie was glad to see it. He was restocking the glasses behind the bar when Sonny came up and ordered a soda.

  “You look awfully cheerful. Get good news at the doctor?” Charlie asked.

  Sonny’s final follow-up appointment had been that afternoon, and he’d told Charlie the night before that he hoped to be released back to regular duty. Charlie had his doubts, given the extensive bypass surgery Sonny had undergone, but hoped his friend was right. He loved the man like a father, but the effort of working double shifts at the Lighthouse in addition to running his own business was starting to wear thin.

  Sonny smiled. “I got very good news. Son, I can proudly tell you that you are fired, as of this minute. Get your stuff and go home.”

  Charlie straightened. “You sure? You got the all-clear?”

  “Doc said I am healed up better than he ever expected me to be. Told me that if I take care of myself, stay away from the booze and the fried food, I should be here when I’m one hundred.”

  Charlie grinned at his friend’s obvious relief, feeling quite a bit of it himself. They both knew that Sonny had dodged the bullet of death when he’d had the heart attack that precipitated his heart surgery.

  “I imagine you’re eager to get out of here, back to running your own business.” He came around the bar and grabbed Charlie in a brief but tight hug. “I owe you one.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing. You gave me refuge when I was a kid, taught me what it meant to really be a man. You probably saved my life, more than once. This was the least I could do.” He pulled off his apron and laid it on the bar.

  “Maybe now you’ll get a chance to call that cute little Lauren Grant, go out on a real date with her.” He laughed when Charlie’s cheeks reddened. “I know you’re interested in her, son. Hell, if I was twenty years younger, I’d snatch her up and marry her in a heartbeat.”

  “For your information, I have been on a date with her,” he said in a low voice, not wanting to be overheard.

  Sonny whistled. “Whoo-hoo, miracles do happen. Any chance you’ll be going out on a second date?” Charlie grinned at him and the older man broke into a genuine smile. “I’m glad, then. You’d make a nice couple.” Picking up the apron, he tied it around his own waist.

  “Go on and get out of here, then. I’ll see you around soon.”

  Charlie headed through the kitchen. He stopped to let everyone know that Sonny was back out front, and that he’d be leaving. After a few minutes spent saying goodbyes, he finally made it out of the stifling kitchen and into the cooler night air. Once at his truck, he pulled his phone out of its holder, checking to see if he had any calls. When he saw the blank screen staring back at him, he cursed under his breath. The phone had been acting up on him recently, and apparently had died sometime during the day. Things were so busy that he hadn’t had time to check on it until now.

  Inside the truck, he plugged the phone in, relieved to see that it still worked. As he turned the air conditioning on full blast, he checked for missed calls. He winced when he saw that he had two, one from his mother. He didn’t recognize the other number. He called his voice mail and the electronic voice notified him that he had two new messages.

  The first was his mother, reminding him to not forget his stepfather’s birthday dinner Thursday night. He made a note on the notepad he always kept handy and deleted the message, moving on to the next one. When the caller identified himself, he was surprised.

  “Mr. Clark, this is David Grant with the New Salem Police Department. Captain Stanley gave me your contact information. I have something I’d like to discuss with you, so if you’d call me back at your earliest convenience, I’d appreciate it.” The man gave his contact numbers and the message ended.

  The call had come in that morning. Glancing at the dashboard clock, he winced. It was early evening, and he doubted he would be able to reach David Grant at work, but decided to try. He punched in the number and waited for the call to connect, surprised when the man answered.

  “It’s Charlie Clark, returning your call. Do you have a minute?”

  “Can you hold for a second?”

  “Sure.”

  After a brief pause, he was back on the line. “Thanks for returning my call. Didn’t we meet a couple of weeks ago? At the Brown Bag? You were arguing with my ex-wife.”

  Charlie winced. He was never going to live down that stupid day. “Unfortunately, yes. That was me. That isn’t what you called about, is it?”

  “No, but I haven’t forgotten it,” David told him. Charlie grimaced again, hearing the warning in the other man’s voice. “I called you because my captain swears that you are the person for what I need done. I don’t know, though. It involves Lauren, and if you two don’t get along, I don’t want to get you involved.”

  “Would it help if I told you that we’ve moved past that argument? If you’d feel better talking to Lauren to confirm, I’m okay with that.”

  “I did speak with her, earlier today. I just wanted to see if you’d be honest with me or not.”

  “Okay, then. So what can I do for you? I’m assuming I passed your test?”

  “Lauren said you’d offered your services. I’d like to take you up on that offer.”

  “What about Lauren? Is she okay with me handling things?”

  “She is. She asked me to have you call her after we talked.”

  Charlie felt worlds lighter. A
ll his training and hard work had finally paid off in a very tangible way—he’d be able to help someone important to him. “I’d be glad to do anything I can. What do you need on these people?”

  “Basically, I need to know every move the man has made for the past fifteen years or so, going back even before what he tried with Lauren. I’d also like to try and find out what happened to Margie. I think it’s strange that she disappeared the same night he did, and that no one’s heard from her since.”

  “You think he did something to her, murdered her? It wouldn’t be the first time something like that’s happened.”

  “I don’t know. Carl’s son, Rob, is the one who asked about getting this investigation started. I think he would have mentioned it if he suspected his father of doing something to his sister.”

  Charlie grunted noncommittally. “Did Rob tell you anything about his brother, Troy?”

  “No, he didn’t. Why? You think there’s something there?”

  “Yeah, I do. It’s just a gut feeling I got when I looked in his eyes yesterday. He made me uneasy.”

  “Well, it can’t hurt to check him out. I appreciate you volunteering to do this.”

  With a silent groan, he decided to come clean. “I have a confession. I had pretty much decided to look into these people, with or without her permission. Lauren was pretty shaken up by everything that happened. She deserves some answers.”

  David didn’t speak for a minute. “Just how interested are you in my ex-wife?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that. I really like her, and Ava. I don’t want to see them hurt. I’m not chasing after Lauren just to get her into bed.”

  “That’s good enough, then.” He asked for Charlie’s email address. “I’ll send you all the pertinent details about the Vernons. How long do you think it’ll take to find what we’re looking for?”