by Mark Gimenez
Someone sat down on the couch next to him and put a hand on him, over the blanket. He prayed it was Elizabeth, that she had come down to tell him that together they would survive without Gracie, to ask if she could lie next to him and hold him, to whisper that she loved him with all her heart.
Ben sat next to John on the couch, quietly so as not to wake him, and rested his hand on his only son. He recalled the day in 1969 they had brought John home, wrapped in an Army blanket and in desperate need of a father. But all he had gotten was a mother. A month later, Lieutenant Ben Brice had returned to Vietnam to free the oppressed.
He had failed.
By the time Ben had left Vietnam for good, John had already departed on his lifelong journey leading away from Ben Brice, two wounded souls fighting their own demons. Army life had been tough on John; he hadn’t fit in with the other Army brats on the bases where they had been stationed over the next decade as the Army tried to hide the most decorated soldier of the Vietnam War—tried to find a way to forget a war and its warriors. Ben would have left the Army, but he couldn’t; he needed twenty years of service to qualify for a pension to take care of his family. It wasn’t as if Colonel Ben Brice’s peculiar skills were in great demand in the private sector.
At least John’s life had become his own when he left Fort Bragg and North Carolina for Boston and MIT, a perfect score on the entrance exams and a full scholarship in his pocket, the same year that Ben had quietly retired. But Ben Brice’s life would never be his own; a warrior’s life is forever a chattel of war.
John turned over. His eyes expressed undeniable disappointment, as if Ben Brice were the last person on earth he wanted to see at that moment. Father and son regarded each other silently. Then John spoke.
“Why’d you come, Ben? I grew up without you. Only time you came home was to move us to another base, another school, another set of bullies to beat up the geek. And you didn’t save those people—you lost your great war. You were an American hero and what’d it get you? You live with a dog.” He sat up. “You weren’t there when I needed you. I don’t need you now.”
His son’s words hit Ben like a two-by-four across the face. He gritted his teeth to hold back his emotions.
“I know you don’t need me, son. I failed you, and for that I am sorry. Maybe one day you’ll find a way to forgive me.” He stood. “But this isn’t about us, John. This is about Gracie. She does need me, and I’m not going to fail her, too. I’m leaving for Idaho in the morning.”
“Idaho? What’s in Idaho?”
“Gracie.”
“Ben—”
“She’s alive.”
“Jennings isn’t.”
Kate was standing at the door.
7:47 A.M.
The tires on the Lexus sedan screeched to an abrupt stop in the handicapped parking zone directly in front of the town hall. If any of the police officers standing on the sidewalk and watching in amazement had detained the woman wearing a nylon warm-up suit and sneakers and no makeup, her black hair pushed back behind her ears but otherwise untouched this morning, and asked her if she knew she was parked illegally, she could have said no and passed a polygraph.
The woman ran up the sidewalk and into the building and directly through the metal detectors without slowing, setting off loud alarms. The cop manning the security desk intercepted the woman, but once he recognized her, he retreated and followed at a respectful distance. She proceeded through the lobby and into the police chief’s office; the chief sat alone behind his desk.
“I want to see him,” the woman demanded.
The chief looked the woman up and down—she looked like hell—then he sighed and nodded slowly. He waved off the cop from the security desk. He stood and led the woman down halls and through secure doors and into the small jail; neither spoke a word as town personnel along the way recognized her but quickly averted their eyes from her. From the entrance to the jail corridor, the woman could see several police officers and FBI agents standing outside an open cell door; a photographer was snapping pictures from various angles. As the woman came closer, the photographer’s subject gradually came into view until it fully confronted her: Gary Jennings’s body, hanging limp from the sprinkler pipes.
The officers looked at the woman then at the chief for instructions. He gestured with his head; the officers parted and allowed the woman entry into the cell.
She stepped close to Jennings hanging there in his white underwear. His eyes were bulging, his face pale, and his bare legs bloated with blood. Staring up at the man who had abducted, raped, and killed her only daughter, the woman felt jealous. His demons were gone now. But hers had just set up shop. Because now she would never know. Elizabeth Brice punched the corpse, setting it to swinging gently.
“Damn you! You took her to the grave with you!”
9:47 A.M.
“The cretin is dead?” Sam asked Kate through a mouthful of Cheerios.
“Yes.”
“Did the cops shoot him?”
“No. He … he just died.”
“So how’s he gonna let Gracie go if he’s dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he hide her somewhere?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he tie her up?”
“I don’t know.”
“When is she coming home?”
Kate went over to Sam at the table. She sat next to him and cupped his little face with her hands. How could she tell him that Gracie would never come home?
“Nanna, why are you crying?”
“Because I just don’t know about Gracie.”
Now Sam started crying.
“But you know she’s not dead or nothing, right? Right, Nanna?”
2:55 P.M.
“I want to bury my daughter,” the mother said quietly.
FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux was sitting behind his desk in the command post; he was facing the victim’s family. The final family meeting was always difficult, particularly when the victim’s body hadn’t been found and probably never would be. Families needed the closure that burying their child brought. As a father, he respected their anguish, not having had a chance to say goodbye to their child; but as an FBI agent, he had to move on to the next case. Otherwise, the dead children would drive him mad.
“We searched the fields next to Jennings’s apartment. Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“So that’s it?
“Mrs. Brice, Chief Ryan closed the case—and it’s his case. I don’t have independent jurisdiction to continue the investigation. And FBI resources are not unlimited.” Her face fell. “Mrs. Brice, we’ve conducted the most extensive search in all my years with the Bureau. And your reward, the national publicity—if she was out there, someone would’ve seen her. We usually locate the body with the abductor’s help. With Jennings dead, it’s not likely we’ll ever find her. I’m sorry.”
He did not tell Mrs. Brice that her daughter’s body might be found one day, maybe a year from now, maybe two, by a hiker or a hunter or a farmer or a road crew; by that time, her body would be decomposed and unrecognizable as Gracie Ann Brice.
“What about all the sightings?” the mother asked.
“Mrs. Brice, before your reward offer, we had zero sightings. In the two days since, we’ve had over five thousand. We’ve cleared a thousand. The others just weren’t credible.”
Colonel Brice said, “What about Clayton Lee Tucker in Idaho? He seemed credible. You’re not even going to check him out?”
Devereaux was stung, the colonel thinking he hadn’t done everything possible to find Gracie.
“Colonel, I would never fail to clear a lead like that. We e-mailed Gracie’s photo and the blow-ups from the game to our office in Boise. I got an agent out of bed at five his time to fly over to Idaho Falls to interview Mr. Tucker this morning.” He put his reading glasses on and flipped open a file on the desk. “Agent Dan Curry just faxed in his 302 … his report. Mr. Tucker could not ID Gracie or the
men or the—” He was about to say “tattoo,” but he remembered his promise to the colonel. And the tattoo meant nothing now anyway. “Or anything about them.”
A puzzled look came over the colonel’s face.
“Colonel, Agent Curry’s report also states that Mr. Tucker wanted to discuss the government’s monitoring of UFOs in Idaho, said he sees them all the time. And the report states that Mr. Tucker admitted he drinks heavily since his wife’s death.” He shook his head. “That’s the problem with big rewards, they bring out the nutcases.”
“Why’d he say something different to me on the phone?”
“Happens all the time. An agent shows up, flashes the badge, all of a sudden they decide to tell the truth instead of some story to get a piece of the reward.”
The colonel seemed unconvinced, so Devereaux held Agent Curry’s report out to him. He took it; his eyes ran down the page. He shook his head slowly.
“Colonel, sexual predators don’t travel halfway across the country to abduct a child. And they don’t abduct a child then take her halfway across the country. Child abductions are local crimes by local predators against local children. Gracie’s body is within a few miles of the park, I guarantee it.”
The colonel tossed Curry’s report on the desk.
“I’m sorry, Colonel, but there’s no mystery—Jennings did it. That’s the only plausible answer for the jersey, the photo, the phone calls, his description, the coach’s ID, and most of all, the blood—that DNA puts Gracie in his truck.”
“Maybe it’s someone else’s blood.”
“Colonel, the odds that that blood is not Gracie’s is—and I’ve checked this—is one in twenty-five quadrillion, and I don’t even know what a quadrillion is.”
The father: “A million billion.”
“Look, sir, I know this is tough to accept, but sexual predators don’t plot out their crimes and they don’t frame someone else to avoid apprehension … and innocent people arrested for a crime they didn’t commit don’t hang themselves. They hire a lawyer.”
“He didn’t fit your profile.”
“No, sir, he didn’t. Not even close.” He shrugged. “An aberration. Or those guys in Behavioral don’t have a clue. Either way, it doesn’t matter.”
The mother gestured around the room. The agents were packing up the equipment.
“So you’re giving up?”
“Mrs. Brice, we never quit until the body is found. We will always respond immediately to any new evidence or information, I promise you. But we can’t operate out of your house indefinitely, I told you that when I agreed to establish the command post here. We’re moving the command to the Dallas field office. Agent Jorgenson will be able to reach me in Des Moines—”
“Des Moines?”
“A five-year-old boy was abducted—”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, ma’am. We have a known sex offender at large up there, and a child is missing. That’s where I’m needed now.” God, this was hard. “Look, I know this isn’t the ending you were praying for. I know every piece of the puzzle doesn’t fit together, it never does. Some things just can’t be explained. We never get every question answered. That’s just the way it is.” He stood. “I’m sorry for your loss. Gracie must have been a wonderful child. But it’s over.”
Devereaux’s eyes went from family member to family member, all of whose eyes dropped when they met his, until he came to Colonel Brice. His eyes did not drop.
“No, Agent Devereaux—it’s just begun.”
3:18 P.M.
After the family had departed the command post, FBI Special Agent Jan Jorgenson got up from her station and went over to her superior. Agent Devereaux’s eyes were sad and tired. He slumped down in his chair. He exhaled audibly.
“If I ever get a child back alive,” he said, “I’m through. I’m giving up the chase.”
She nodded. “I made some contacts, about the mother, at Justice.”
“Proceed.” Then he added, “Not that it matters anymore.”
Jan checked her notes. “Her unit chief was an Assistant Attorney General named Raul Garcia—”
Agent Devereaux was rubbing his face.
“And what did Mr. Garcia have to say about Mrs. Brice?”
“Nothing. He’s dead, too.”
Devereaux stopped rubbing his face.
“Both of Mrs. Brice’s superiors at Justice are dead?”
“Yes, sir. Garcia died two years ago, in Denver, shot in a carjacking.”
“Jesus.” Devereaux stood. “High mortality rate over at the Justice Department these days.”
“And I called the Army about getting the names of those SOG soldiers. All SOG records were destroyed in ’72.”
“Figures.” Agent Devereaux picked up his briefcase. “Jorgenson, it’s your case now. I’m catching a flight to Des Moines.”
Devereaux thought about Gracie Ann Brice all the way to the airport. Another life ended before it had begun. Another family destroyed by a sexual predator. Another failure for FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux. What good had he done here?
He was fifty-six years old. He had handled abduction cases exclusively for ten years now. It was getting to him. His wife had begged him to transfer to the public corruption unit: “What could be more fun than investigating crooked politicians?” she had said. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was time to give up the chase, one hundred twenty-eight dead children. Good God, one hundred twenty-eight dead children! And he wouldn’t have to travel as much; there were plenty of crooked politicians in Texas. He’d have more time with the family. And maybe in time he wouldn’t see the faces of dead children when he lay down in bed each night and closed his eyes.
Jorgenson pulled the sedan over in front of the American terminal and turned to him. “Agent Devereaux …”
“You can call me Eugene now.”
“Eugene … You taught me a lot. Thanks.”
He nodded. “You did good, Jan.”
“You know, most of the agents I work with in the Dallas office, they’re pretty cocky, like carrying the federal badge makes them special. You’re not like them. You’re different.”
“Difference is, Jan, I’ve seen dead children, up close. That’ll take the cocky right out of you.”
Devereaux exited the vehicle, shut the front door, retrieved his bag and briefcase from the back seat, then leaned in the front window and said to Jan, “Collect the outstanding evidence, write up a final report. I’ll review it when I’m through in Des Moines. You’ve got my cell phone number, call me if you need me.”
He was about to turn away when Jan said, “You really think Jennings took Gracie?”
“I don’t know … but I know she’s dead.”
“If we had jurisdiction, would you have closed the case?”
FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux stood straight, stared into the blue sky a minute, and then leaned back down to the window.
“No.”
9:45 P.M.
Life is not a fairy tale.
But Katherine McCullough had not known that in 1968. She had married the man of her dreams only to lose him to the nightmare of war. Ben Brice had given his heart and soul to the Army and that damned war, only to have his heart broken, his soul blackened, and the war lost. When he had returned from Vietnam, he tried to find peace in a bottle. And he had never stopped looking.
The Army tried to put the war and its warriors in the past and move on to a peacetime military. The Army brass couldn’t very well demote the most decorated soldier of the war, but it didn’t have to give him a command. Ben said you don’t get a parade when you lose a football game or a war.
After his retirement, Kate had gone with Ben to the cabin he had built. She had hoped retirement would set Ben free; but he took the war with him to Taos. After a few years, she had woken one morning and accepted the truth: the war would never be over for Ben Brice. He would never find his peace, not until the day he died. And the way he was drinking, that day
was not far off.
Kate Brice had refused to stay around for that day. She couldn’t save her husband from himself. So she had left him. Now, pacing her room, she felt like a teenage girl getting ready for her first date; she was working up the courage to go to him. She needed to lie next to him and to feel his arms around her, once more before he left her. He had left her many times, but she knew this time was different.
She knew that Ben Brice would not come back this time.
“When are you coming back?”
Sam was looking up at him, his face full of innocence. Ben Brice wasn’t about to say something that would change that.
“Soon.”
Sam shook his head. “Typical grownup answer—vague.”
Ben smiled. It was like talking to John at the same age. He sat on Sam’s bed.
“I’m not being vague. I just can’t say for sure.”
“But you will come back?”
Ben pondered for a moment. Vague was hard to come by now. He said what the boy needed to hear.
“Yes.”
Little Johnny Brice was small, weak, timid, and brilliant. He was teased and taunted, bullied and beaten. He was introverted and lonely, with no friends except his mother and an Apple computer. He was a mama’s boy because his father was off at war. He hated his life right up until the day he had arrived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where everyone was a Little Johnny Brice. He possessed a 190 intelligence quotient, he earned a Ph.D. in algorithms at the Laboratory for Computer Sciences, and upon graduation, he founded his own company and set about to write a killer app. Ten years later, today, he became a billionaire: at 9:30 A.M. Eastern time, BriceWare.com went public at $30 per share; by close of trading at 4:00 P.M., the price had bounced to $60.
John R. Brice was worth $2 billion.
This was the day he had dreamed about for as long as he could remember, like a teenage boy looking forward to the day he would lose his virginity, the day he would become a man. This was to be that day for John R. Brice. But now, standing in the master bathroom of his $3 million mansion and staring at himself in the mirror, he still saw Little Johnny Brice.
