“What are we doing down here?” Charity asked, peering at the shaky wooden shelves stocked with old paint cans, rusty tools, empty mason jars, and other sundry items.
“There’s something down here that I hid. It’s important.” Titus procured a flashlight from a shelf and flicked it on. “It’s dark where we’re going.”
“Does anyone else know about what you’re showing me?” Charity asked, ducking beneath low hanging beams and cobwebs that hung from the ceiling.
“No, it’s a secret.”
“Why didn’t you show it anyone else?”
“I was afraid people would be mad at me if I told them what I did.”
They reached the end of the cellar. It seemed to Charity they could go no further. But Titus handed her the flashlight and pushed an empty wooden shelf system away from what looked like a door in the wall.
“Isn’t that too big for you to move?”
The boy shook his head. “It’s light.”
“Is that a door?” Charity asked.
“Yes,” said the boy, taking back the flashlight.
“Where does it go?”
“Into a tunnel.” Titus pulled the creaky door open. “Come on, let’s go in.”
Charity imagined there were lots of spiders in the dark space—spiders that might drop down on her while she walked. Or mice. Maybe even rats.
“Are you sure it’s safe to go in here?”
“Yeah, it’s safe.” Without another word, Titus stepped into the darkness. His flashlight cut through the black with its swath of light. Presented with no other choice, Charity followed the boy.
The tunnel was narrow. It might have been wide enough for two people to pass by one another, but not without each person turning sideways. When they had progressed inward about ten feet, Titus made a sharp right into a little alcove. He bent down to the ground then held an object up to Charity. At first, she couldn’t see it because Titus inadvertently shined the flashlight into her eyes. But when he turned the light away, she could discern its small L-shaped metal frame. When Charity recognized what it was, she shuddered.
“Titus, that’s a gun! Give it to me, carefully.” Charity knew very little about firearms. She gently took the weapon from Titus’ hand. Her dad had taken Hope and her with him to the gun range on several occasions when she was younger, so Charity knew enough to ensure the safety was on.
“Are you mad at me?” Titus shrunk back into the darkness as he sensed Charity’s disapproval.
“I’m not mad, Titus.” Charity did her best to control her tone. “It’s not safe to play with guns, though. You could get really hurt. Where did you get this, anyway?”
“From my dad’s office,” the boy replied, “the night that he died.”
Charity nearly dropped the gun upon hearing that revelation, stricken with the horrifying thought that she might be holding the weapon that had killed Pastor Wilcox.
Chapter Sixteen
Seitzer and Harrison entered the Wilcox home in the early evening after receiving an anxious call from Elizabeth Wilcox about a strange discovery her son had made. She met them at the door.
“Thank you for coming, Detective. Titus is back here in the playroom.” She escorted them past the living room, where Glenda Price sat with her hands folded on a couch. Price’s eldest daughter sat on a chair across the room. Hope waved at Seitzer as he walked by. The detective nodded in her general direction, wondering what role she might have played in Titus’ find. Wilcox’s parents sat next to one another on a love seat; they shared a foreboding look.
The boy who sparked all of this activity sat in a little wooden chair in the corner of the playroom with his back turned toward the door like he had been bad and was taking a timeout. Charity Price sat on the floor next to Titus, her legs folded off to the side. Her hand rested on the chair, not quite touching the boy’s arm.
“Titus, the policemen need to know about the gun you found,” his mother said, her voice firm.
Harrison walked over to Titus and knelt down in front of him, just a few feet away from Charity who quietly watched the scene unfold. “Hi, Titus. Do you remember me?”
The boy nodded. While Harrison took the lead interviewing Titus, Seitzer tapped Elizabeth Wilcox on the shoulder.
“May I see the gun, ma’am?” he said softly, so as not to interrupt Harrison’s and Titus’ conversation.
“Oh yes, of course.” She left the playroom and walked over to the kitchen. Seitzer followed her. Wilcox approached the refrigerator and reached for a Ziploc bag on the top of the appliance. Once she held it in her hand, she offered it to the detective. “Sorry. I didn’t know what to do with it. I just wanted it to be as far away from the kids as possible.”
“You did fine.” Seitzer turned the gun over in his hand to examine it. He knew this kind of weapon well.
“Do you think it’s the gun that killed Graham?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“How do you know?”
“Wrong kind of gun. Your husband was killed with a .357—this is a .38.”
Elizabeth Wilcox exhaled.
“Could this be your husband’s gun?”
“No, he didn’t own one.”
“Okay, thank you, ma’am. I’d like to hear what Titus has to say about the gun now.”
Seitzer and Elizabeth Wilcox reentered the playroom. Harrison was conversing with the boy, but they were speaking about baseball, not guns. When Harrison realized Seitzer had returned, he shifted the discussion to the matter at hand.
“Okay Titus, I need to know how you found this gun. Can you tell me?”
The boy turned his body away slightly.
“It’s okay, Titus. You’re not in trouble. We just want to know where you found the gun. I promise you, no one will be mad at you.”
The boy glanced down to Charity, who gave him a reassuring smile. “I found it in Dad’s office.”
“Okay, so you found it in your dad’s office. Where was it?”
“It was on his desk.”
“Was your dad there when you found it?”
The boy shook his head.
“Okay, that’s really helpful, Titus. Now, can you tell me when you found it?”
“Friday night.”
“The same night everyone was at the church, waiting for Jesus?” Harrison asked.
Titus nodded.
“Do you know what time it was when you found it?”
“It was after Mommy took us home and put us to bed.”
Harrison narrowed his eyes at the boy. “How did you get over to your dad’s office?”
“Through the tunnel.”
“There’s a tunnel that goes from your house to the church?”
“Yes.”
“Can you show us?”
Titus looked up uncertainly at his mother. Though Harrison had promised Titus no one would be mad at him, the boy seemed to doubt this claim. Elizabeth Wilcox held her hands behind her neck, gripping it tightly. Finally realizing Titus needed some reassurance from her, she nodded. “Go ahead, Titus. I want to see too.”
Now possessing his mom’s blessing, the boy led the expedition to the basement. Titus, Harrison, Elizabeth Wilcox, and Seitzer navigated down the squeaky wooden stairs and passed the rickety shelves.
“You didn’t know about this?” Seitzer asked Mrs. Wilcox when they had stopped and Titus dragged away the shelving unit that blocked the door.
“No. I had no idea. Honestly, I don’t come down here much. I’ve never liked basements.”
“Did your husband know about it?”
She shook her head. “He never mentioned it to me if he did.”
Harrison helped Titus pull the shelf out of the doorway. The boy grabbed a flashlight next to the passageway and shined it into the darkness. Harrison had to bend down to enter, as did Mrs. Wilcox and Seitzer; the clearance was no more than four and a half feet.
“What’s this space here, Titus?” Harrison asked, gesturing to the five-foot-deep al
cove located halfway down the tunnel.
The boy shrugged and kept walking. Harrison and Mrs. Wilcox followed close behind Titus, but Seitzer stopped to examine the empty space. Its width reached about four feet. As far as he could see, the space was little more than a dead end. Seitzer caught up with the rest of the group, right when they reached the door at the opposite end. Titus pushed the door open and stepped into another basement.
“Someone’s got to know about this,” Seitzer said, shining his light around the church basement. The door was all the way in the corner, but he struggled to believe no one had stumbled onto its existence before.
“How do you get upstairs?” Harrison asked.
Titus escorted them to a staircase on the other side of the basement, past stacks of cardboard boxes and around a corner. They walked up the staircase into the office area of the church, in the back of Graham Wilcox’s study.
“And you found the gun right here, right on your father’s desk?” Harrison asked. Titus nodded.
“When you came up here, did you hear anything?” Harrison asked. “Were there still people in the church?”
“Yes. Some people were talking with my dad. They sounded angry.”
“Why’d you take the gun?”
“I was scared someone was going to get hurt,” he replied, pain clouding his eyes.
“How long did you stay in your dad’s office?” Harrison asked, whose voice grew even gentler.
“Not very long. I heard my dad coming. Things got quiet.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went back downstairs.”
“Did you hear or see anyone else after that?”
“No. No one else. Besides the person in the tunnel.”
Seitzer and Harrison exchanged looks. Mrs. Wilcox instinctively reached out and placed her hands on her son’s shoulders.
“Someone was in the tunnel?” Seitzer asked.
“Yes. In the little room.”
“What did the person look like?”
The wheels in Titus’ head were clearly turning, but he finally said, “I couldn’t tell. His head was covered.”
“The person was wearing a hoodie?” Harrison asked.
“Maybe. I couldn’t tell. I didn’t really look. I was too scared. I didn’t want to shine the light on them.” Titus appeared afraid, making Seitzer wonder how much this memory haunted the young boy.
Harrison again knelt down to the boy’s eye level. “Is there anything you can tell us about that person? Anything at all? It might be something small, like what their sneakers looked like, or if they were wearing perfume or cologne.”
Titus shook his head. “The person felt bad. I was scared of him.”
“What did you do with the gun?” Seitzer asked.
“I dropped it and ran.” The little boy trembled against his mother’s touch.
Harrison exhaled. Seitzer placed his hand over his mouth.
“Was that the person who hurt my dad?” Titus asked.
Harrison pursed his lips together before answering. “It’s possible. We don’t know yet, Titus. But we’re doing everything we can to find out who that person is.”
Seitzer jumped into the conversation, barraging the boy with a litany of questions. “Titus, did you ever use the tunnel before that night, to go over to the church?”
The boy nodded.
“Did you use it a lot?”
He nodded again.
“Did you ever use it at night, after your mom went to sleep?”
“Yes.” He looked anxiously at his mom, fearing reproach for his spying.
“Did you ever see your dad with anyone else in his office?”
“Sometimes he’d be talking to Mr. Thompson or Mr. Price.” Titus looked thoughtful. “One time I heard him with a woman. They were laughing together.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“What time was it?” Seitzer asked.
Titus shrugged. “I don’t know—maybe ten o’clock? It was after Mom went to bed.”
Elizabeth Wilcox’s face turned pale. Seitzer caught her expression from the corner of his eyes. “Harrison, why don’t you take Titus back to the house? When you’re done, meet me over here.”
“Okay. Let’s go, Titus.”
The two descended back down the stairs into the basement.
Seitzer waited until they were completely out of earshot before asking, “It wasn’t you that Titus heard with your husband, was it?”
Elizabeth Wilcox crossed her arms around herself, squeezing them tight as if a cold draft had blown through the room. “I don’t think Graham and I had laughed together in months.”
Seitzer fended off a strong urge to touch her shoulder. The resignation, resentment, and hidden rage she felt, even if she buried them below the surface, were all recent acquaintances of his.
“Your husband made a number of calls to Natasha Gregorson. Did you ever see them together?”
“Natasha? No. All I knew is that Graham publicly confronted her husband George for having an affair. Other than that, she seemed like any other person in the church.”
“How did that confrontation go down? Were you there when it happened?”
“I was teaching the kids. Some people talked about it later and said George was clearly embarrassed and just made a run for it.”
“Was there any fallout?”
“I wouldn’t know if there was. Graham had his inner circle and I wasn’t part of it. I didn’t know anything about the situation before it happened and I didn’t know what happened afterward, either.”
Elizabeth’s voice had grown soft, almost fading into complete silence. She was trying to hold herself together, Seitzer could see that.
“Mrs. Wilcox, do you have someone you can talk to about all you’re going through? Losing someone through homicide can be a really difficult and unique experience that many other people aren’t able to understand.”
Her eyes darted away again. “My parents are here. I don’t really know how to talk about it with them, though.”
“Maybe someone from your old church? We spoke to Reverend Wesley and he mentioned that you and his wife used to be close.”
“Paula and I were good friends. But as things got worse with Graham, it became hard to talk to anyone. I was ashamed. I never intended to end up in a broken marriage. The worse it got, the less I said. Now that Graham’s dead, murdered, I just don’t …”
She turned away and bowed her head, letting her words trail off. Seitzer was sure that Elizabeth Wilcox did not deserve to feel this way. Maybe it was her soft green eyes or the way her hair framed her face that made him feel sympathy for her. More than anything, though, he saw in her a person who had given her life to someone who no longer felt the need to honor that choice.
Wilcox turned back to face him. “What about you, Detective? Do you have someone to talk to?”
“Talk to about what?”
“The things you see every day—this. The pain you obviously carry around with you, even if you don’t talk about it. You would understand me, right?”
“I…” Seitzer thought about his quiet nights at home, sitting in front of the glow of the television in an otherwise darkened room. “No, actually, I don’t have anyone to talk to.”
Though he offered her near transparency, Seitzer left out one telling phrase that flitted across his synapses as he answered her—But I do understand you. It was not the kind of phrase he could say to say to a recently widowed woman, even if he thought it was true. All the while Elizabeth Wilcox locked eyes with him, Seitzer thought that maybe she did want him to say something to that effect. But then Harrison walked through the front door of the church and the moment evaporated.
“Am I interrupting something?” Harrison asked, looking from person to person in the silent office.
“I should go back to my family. Thank you, detectives. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Mrs. Wilcox,” Harrison said.
&
nbsp; The woman stepped through the front door. Seitzer never stopped watching her progress until she vanished into the darkness outside. Even then, he stared at the place on the wall where he imagined she would be on the other side.
“Did she say anything I should know about?” Harrison asked.
“Only that it wasn’t her who was with her husband the night Titus snuck into the office.”
“I figured as much.”
Seitzer exhaled and gathered himself. He moved over to the late minister’s desk and sat down. “So, the night of the murder, Graham Wilcox sits down to make this video, but someone interrupts him. Do you remember which way he looks?”
“I can do better than remember.” Harrison drew his cell phone out of his pocket. “I can show you.” He touched the screen to bring up the video in question. In the brief clip, Wilcox spoke the now familiar words before a noise from off-screen distracted him, causing the pastor to look behind him.
Seitzer reenacted the reverend’s final moments. “That means that whoever interrupted him came from the back of the room, where the basement is.”
“There’s also a fire exit to the outside back there. Whoever interrupted Wilcox could’ve come from there,” Harrison said.
“That’s true. But we can at least conclude that the person came from the back. So it probably wasn’t someone from off the street.”
“What do you think the odds are that the person that Titus saw in the tunnel killed Wilcox? Pretty high, right?”
“I would say so.”
“And that person possibly wore a hoodie.”
Seitzer rolled his eyes. “Well, fortunately for us, there is only one hoodie in Woodside, so the killer should be pretty easy to track.”
“Hey, I was just pointing it out, so we don’t completely rule out what Jim Thompson told us.”
“Duly noted.” Seitzer leaned back and kicked his feet up on the desk. “So, tonight we found a gun that wasn’t the murder weapon. We have a witness who probably saw the killer, but didn’t really see the killer. And we have a Pastor who was probably having an affair.”
“So what are we going to do tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is Graham Wilcox’s funeral. I’d like to go. Maybe someone will make a dramatic confession.”
Everyone Was Left Behind Page 11
