Redemption

by Laurel Dewey

  The scene finally cut to a one-on-one interview between Lesley and Leann. Thankfully, Leann had changed into a navy blue, button front shirt and jeans, and sat nervously tapping her fingers on the armrest of the chair.

  “This has been a big week for you, hasn’t it?” Lesley asked.

  “Yeah,” Leann replied, letting out a burst of air and smiling momentarily.

  “Take us back to that moment when you saw Charlotte getting into the car.”

  “Well...um....” Leann nervously looked off to the left, holding that glance as she continued. “It happened so fast. I saw her from the back. But I recognized her red leather jacket. She wears it a lot.”

  The show instantly cut to the birthday video that had been played ad nauseam for four straight days. As Lesley narrated, the screen once again showed Charlotte in her backyard, wearing the odd rainbow wig. The camera zoomed closer, filling the TV screen with Charlotte’s face. Her hazel eyes, painted in thick black liner, stared at the camera in a provocative manner. “I love my new coat! It’s beautiful! Thank you!” Charlotte squealed. The camera pulled back as Charlotte took off her jean jacket to reveal the tank top with the slithering snake image. Jane unexpectedly found herself sinking her hand into her pants pocket and rubbing the snakestone totem. Charlotte donned the red jacket and paraded for the camera. Jane grabbed the remote and pressed the PAUSE button just as Charlotte completed a modellike, runway twirl and faced the camera.

  “Why’d you stop it?” Kit asked.

  “Pretend you don’t know she’s twelve. How old does she look?” Jane asked, her eyes boring into the seductive face looking back at her.

  Kit considered the question. “Maybe fifteen...fourteen at the youngest. Why?”

  Jane resumed the playback of the show. “Just curious.”

  “Put it back on pause,” Kit instructed. Jane obliged. “We know that Lou is attracted to victims who match his mother’s looks: hazel eyes and brown hair. And then there’s the age of fourteen—”

  “And Charlotte is batting one out of three, based on that profile.”

  “But if she looks fourteen, then the only thing we’re missing is the color of the hair.”

  “You’re trying to fit a square peg of rationale into a round hole.”

  “Okay, forget the hair! Maybe Lou changed his MO!”

  “So, no patterns? Lou just chose Charlotte for no reason?”

  Kit let out a weary sigh. “Jane, it’s like you’re the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. I’m trying to make this—”

  “Fit,” Jane said, finishing Kit’s sentence. “Because you hate Lou Peters. You told me so. You said you were so angry at him, that you gave yourself cancer—”

  “I did hate him. But I don’t anymore. In my heart, I have forgiven him. I see him for who he is: A desperately confused man who is still reacting to life because of the horrific abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother—”

  “Cut the pabulum—”

  “Lou was easily influenced. He still is. He could have become a charismatic, positive member of society. But the sexual deviancy he was subjected to at a young age somehow made him choose the darker path.”

  “You got one thing right: he chose it.”

  “Oh, Jane. Sometimes, there’s a tender line between the good and the evil in a person. All it takes to fall either way is the perfect trigger.” Kit leaned her body toward Jane. “You danced on that razor sharp edge. But you chose to live an honorable life.”

  Jane noted how Kit enjoyed turning the conversation back to Jane’s troubled childhood. She wasn’t going to take the bait. “Tell me something, Kit,” Jane’s tone was direct and unemotional, “how many times a day do you fantasize about killing Lou?”

  “I don’t,” Kit replied without missing a beat.

  Jane expected to hear a moment’s hesitation to her question, but Kit’s response was startlingly quick. From Jane’s experience, a lie is found within the split second between the question and the answer. Based on that, Kit passed Jane’s test. But she still wasn’t sold on the fact that Kit’s motive for tracking down Lou was completely altruistic. Jane pressed the PLAY button and the show resumed.

  The camera cut to Lesley Stahl. “Did it look like Charlotte knew the man in the car?”

  Leann looked right at Lesley. “From where I was sitting—”

  “And where was that?”

  “Um, I was on break. There’s this area next to The Barbeque Shack with a bench where you can see the street and people walking by. That’s where I was sitting.” Jane noted that Leann’s voice became stronger as she described the location.

  “You were sitting on the bench and then you saw the car drive up?”

  “Yeah, I just happened to be looking in that direction—”

  “Describe the car,” Lesley interrupted.

  Leann appeared taken aback by Lesley’s rapid question. “Um, like I told Sheriff Golden, it was an old, four-door Chevy. Blue. Grayish blue.”

  “Are you aware that the man who has been picked up, Mr. Trace Fagin, owns a vehicle matching that description, except that the color has more green than blue in it.”

  “Yeah, um,” Leann became visibly nervous, anxiously rubbing the arms of the chair. “It was so quick. But there could have been more green than blue—”

  “You told Sheriff Golden you were unable to discern the face of the driver?”

  Leann looked down at the floor. “That’s right,” she replied with breathy worry.

  Lesley reached over, placing her hand over Leann’s trembling leg. “This is a lot of pressure for a sixteen-year-old.”

  “I’ll be seventeen in a couple weeks,” Leann weakly offered.

  “It’s obvious that this ordeal has been very traumatic for you. Hasn’t it?” Lesley’s voice was a mixture of genuine concern blended with high TV drama.

  Leann’s eyes filled with tears. “I just wanted to help. I saw her get into the car—”

  “You saw Charlotte get in the car....” Lesley said, leading Leann.

  There was a moment of hesitation from Leann. Her eyes strayed from the floor and wandered to the left, seemingly fixated. “Yes...I did.”

  The rest of the interview focused on the direction the Chevy took, any unusual markings on the car, and whether Leann and Charlotte were friendly. It was patently clear to Jane that Leann found the question of a friendship totally obscure. It wasn’t just the age difference, Jane gauged, but the social clique that Charlotte rotated in. Jane imagined that Leann’s life revolved around school, her job, and home, where she probably spent all her free time watching TV, gorging on food, and feeling the abject sting of loneliness engulf her.

  The interview ended and the program went to a commercial. Jane pressed the MUTE button on the remote control. Kit unraveled her salt-and-pepper braid, letting her locks flow freely across her shoulders. She tentatively maneuvered her heavy frame off the bed, grabbed a pair of pajamas from her packed suitcase, and headed into the bathroom. Jane waited until Kit closed the door and turned on the shower before pressing the REVERSE button. Skimming the interview, she landed at the point where Lesley Stahl patted Leann’s thigh. Pressing the PLAY button, the scene resumed.

  “It’s obvious that this ordeal has been very traumatic for you. Hasn’t it?” Lesley said to Leann.

  Leann’s eyes filled with tears. “I just wanted to help.... I saw her get into the car—”

  “You saw Charlotte get in the car....”

  Jane leaned closer, eyeing Leann like a hawk. The girl hesitated and then her eyes moved from the floor to the left of where she was seated. “Yes...I did.”

  Jane pressed the PAUSE button and stared at Leann’s tortured face. She kept staring at it until she heard Kit turn off the shower water.

  DECEMBER 31

  After a restless night of sleep, Jane awoke at six A.M. feeling a mix of apprehension and confusion taking hold. Kit lay sound asleep, her buckwheat pillow perfectly contoured under her neck. It seemed like an
eternity to Jane since the last time she took a morning run. Deciding it was the best way to shake the cobwebs from her troubled mind, Jane quietly changed out of her Denver Broncos nightshirt and into running pants and a hooded sweatshirt. Coffee would have to wait. Jane wanted to make as little noise as possible so she didn’t wake Kit and fend off questions such as “Where are you going?” She snagged a cigarette, a pack of matches, and her cell phone. One never knew when one may need to make a phone call, Jane reasoned as she slipped out the front door.

  The sun was just cresting over the trees that framed the front office of The Bonanza Cabins, illuminating the barrage of media trucks that filled the parking lot. A handful of technicians were already outside, fiddling with equipment in their van and talking on their mobile phones. The sky was a dank, cloudy mess, and the air filled with a wet coldness that shook Jane to her core. She lit her cigarette and took several drags. As was her pattern, she gently squashed the cigarette out against the pavement before resting it on the window ledge. Jane judged that it was unlikely Clinton Fredericks would be out and about this early. However, there was always a chance he’d be cruising the main drag. With that in mind, Jane opted to jog around the remote, two-lane back road around the cabins.

  Curving around the front office, Jane noted a stack of Fresno Bee newspapers outside the door. Too small a town to have a daily newspaper, Oakhurst relied upon the Bee to enlighten them on local and national news. The headline to the side of the center read, REWARD FUND FOR MISSING OAKHURST GIRL TOPS $50,000. Jane knew Clinton Fredericks would be tingling with anticipation when he read that newsflash.

  She meandered around the cabins and started up the dirt road when she noted three navy sedans parked in the adjacent motel parking lot. Each had government plates that Jane identified as FBI. She felt a swell of anger as the pained memories of the not-so-pleasant dealings with the FBI came to mind. A few weeks prior to this, she had felt on top of the world, working with the Feds; now she was a very small fish in a very chaotic pond. Jane ran up the dirt road in an attempt to shake off the crush of bad memories. It suddenly struck her that tonight was New Year’s Eve. A year ago, she spent it with her brother, both of them getting drunk in her home until they passed out at dawn. Since then, Mike had found a girlfriend, AA, and a new life of sobriety. Reflecting on her own last twelve months, Jane felt as if she had gone far and then fallen to a place even more desperate than when she began. Six months, she thought to herself with a sense of sadness. Six months of not picking up a drink. Six months worth of sobriety chips that lay strewn in her cousin Carl’s gravel driveway. And now she had a little over thirty hours of sobriety under her ragged belt. An overwhelming sense of failure grabbed at her gut, suffocating her drive as she headed up a sharp incline. She ambled up the hill as a heavy mist blew across the road, signaling the onslaught of more inclement weather. Jane pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head, drawing the ties closer to protect herself from the bone-chilling climate. She considered turning back when the sound of someone hammering in the distance got her attention.

  Jane crested the hill. Looking up the two-lane road less than a quarter mile, she spotted the white Firebird with the distinctive red stripe. It was parked on an unsteady angle off the right side of the road. She obscured herself in the shadows of the conifers and walked toward the car. The echoing sound of the hammer continued for another few seconds before abating. She spotted movement about 100 feet in front of the Firebird. Peering closely, she identified the boy walking back to his car carrying the hammer. It would be an easy sprint for Jane. She knew she could reach his car just about the time he got to it. She could strike up a conversation. Pretend she was lost. Anything, she reasoned, to draw him into her web.

  Picking up the pace, Jane jogged with purpose toward the Firebird. The lonely road and the echoing of her feet slapping against the wet gravel attracted the boy’s attention. He looked up, then resumed his gait with greater resolve toward his car. “Excuse me!” Jane yelled, waving her hand in the air. “I need directions! I’m lost!”

  The boy reached the driver’s door and hastily got into his car. He steered the Firebird back onto the road and drove away from the scene. It took Jane less than a minute to stand in the spot where the Firebird had been parked. The sound of paper flapping in the wet breeze caught her attention. Turning toward the fluttering noise, Jane discovered one missing child poster of Charlotte Walker after another, hammered to the trunks of trees along the road. The niggling idea crossed her mind that the best way for a criminal to cover his tracks and protect himself is to join the search effort for the missing victim. And what better way for that perp to feel the power of his crime than by driving a nail through his victim’s head as he hammers her picture onto a tree?

  Jane arrived back at the Cabins twenty minutes later. Jogging into the parking lot, she spotted an odd sight. There was Kit, dressed in her purple pants and heavy winter coat, walking backward in circles around the perimeter of the parking lot. And she was chanting. At least, it looked as if she were chanting from where Jane stood observing the disjointed scene. Kit’s bizarre actions were attracting the attention of a few media technicians. Jane briefly considered corralling Kit and hauling her back into the room. But she weighed that option against the fact that Kit’s momentary absence afforded Jane the opportunity to do some quick investigative work on her computer. She headed for the cabin, eager to retrieve her partial cigarette from the window ledge. However, the cigarette was gone. Jane checked the surrounding area, thinking the wind may have swept it away, but she found nothing. The morning was starting off on a bad note.

  Inside the cabin, Jane hurriedly turned on her laptop computer. While she waited for it to boot up, she grabbed the local phone book from the top drawer of the bureau. It was a long shot that Lou would be listed in the white pages, but Jane had lucked out before by using the most obvious means of investigative know-how. It wouldn’t work this time; there was no Lou Peters in the phone book. Jane quickly pulled out the voluminous files Kit gave her on Lou’s case and searched specific pages where addresses were listed. All she found was Lou’s prior address in Mariposa. Jane recalled Kit telling her that Lou dutifully called his bondsman to tell him he was moving to Oakhurst, but unfortunately, that address never made it into Kit’s hands.

  The computer beeped to alert Jane it was ready for action. Jane opened her Internet program and clicked on her bookmark “Favorites,” opening one of her many subscription service Web sites. This particular site—sexcriminals.com—included a national directory that listed registered sex offenders by county within each state. Jane selected Madera County after checking the phone book cover for Oakhurst. She typed in her professional ID number and password to gain access. Within a few seconds, the page of names appeared. Scrolling down the page, Jane spotted Lou’s name and address. Typing the address into MapQuest, Jane determined the location was about eight miles away on a rural road that skirted the edge of Oakhurst. Footsteps neared the cabin. Jane quickly jotted down the address before snapping her laptop shut.

  Kit walked breathlessly into the cabin, closing the door behind her. “What an invigorating morning!” she gushed. “I trust your jog was as exhilarating?”

  “Yeah,” Jane guardedly replied.

  Kit glanced toward the laptop. “Checking your e-mails?”

  It was this sort of questioning that Jane hoped to avoid with Kit. “You got it,” Jane said in a distant manner. Kit meandered around Jane toward her bed. “You have any idea what happened to the cigarette on the window ledge?”

  Kit melted onto the bed, stretching like a cat. “Yes. I disposed of it.”

  Jane’s ire swelled inside her chest. “I left it there for a reason! It’s a ritual. I get dressed for my run, light a cigarette, take a few drags, crush out the tip, and leave it outside the door so I can relight it when I get back and finish it!”

  Kit regarded Jane as if she were insane. “Aren’t you running to improve your health? Isn’t cigare
tte smoking antagonistic to that endeavor?”

  “I run when I need to think more clearly! And I like rituals—”

  “Like all alcoholics do,” Kit added matter-of-factly. “That’s not a judgment, by the way. I love rituals. But some can be selfdestructive. Case in point, the cigarette.”

  Jane moved toward Kit’s bed. “That was not your cigarette to dispose of! If I want to smoke, go for a run, and then smoke the rest of it when I come back, I will do it!”

  “That simply doesn’t make any sense,” Kit countered, twisting her body to the right until she successfully popped her spine.

  “And walking backward in circles, chanting to yourself in front of television crews makes more sense?”

  “Absolutely,” Kit said casually. “I learned the technique from a Chinese acupuncturist. Walking backward in circles or in a straight line for twenty minutes every day relieves pressure in the low back. It’s very common in China. They have walking backward breaks the same way we have coffee breaks. You should try it sometime. And I wasn’t chanting. I was softly singing ‘Me and Bobby McGee.’ God, I still miss Janis—”

  Jane took Kit’s rambling as another attempt to conjure a sense of openness with her, whereby Jane would drop her guard. “I was under the impression that we’re attempting to not draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves. Isn’t that our agreed upon objective?”

  “Of course.”

  “So don’t you think that walking backward in circles singing ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ might contradict that objective?”

  Kit furrowed her brow. “My goodness. You sound like a lawyer.” Kit rolled off the bed, heading for the bathroom. “I intend to walk backward and sing whenever I want to. And you’re welcome to join me anytime.”