One Man's War

by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  Chapter 7: Probable Cause

  It was dusk when the tired search party returned to Tim’s house, and they all gathered around him as he walked up the few steps to the front porch and sat down on the top step. He gazed into everyone’s eyes individually. “Okay, people. Go home and get some rest. We’ll head out again in the morning. There’s still a shitload of ground to cover,” he said, too tired to stand up. No one spoke, but everyone left silently, Paula all but collapsing onto Ian’s shoulder as they plodded away towards their house. Robyn sat down next to Tim on the porch, putting her head on his shoulder.

  “We’ll find her, Dad,” she said quietly.

  He put his arm around her shoulder, leaned over, and kissed the top of her head. He looked out over the meadow in the twilight. He knew from his years in the police department that the first twenty-four hours were the most important. If they didn’t find the person they were looking for by then, the chances of finding them alive dwindled exponentially.

  There were black bears, coyotes, mountain lions, and the occasional wolf all over this part of the country, and anything could have happened. Everyone was pulling together to find April, even that Colin guy. He was one of the first to volunteer to go out and search for April, which secretly surprised Tim. He still didn’t trust him, and deep down he felt that somehow he was responsible for April’s disappearance, though he couldn’t prove it.

  The front door opened, and Holly stepped out, followed by Izzy.

  “I take it there was no luck?”

  “None at all, and not a trace of her anywhere. It’s almost as if she’s vanished off the face of the Earth. I can’t even find any tracks,” Tim sighed.

  “Would you like something to eat?” Izzy asked.

  “No, I think I’m going to get a shower and hit the fartsack. I’ve got a feeling tomorrow will be another long day,” Tim replied. He kissed Holly and entered the house without another word.

  “It’s really hitting him hard,” Robyn said.

  “I know, he’s taking this rather personally,” Holly said, coming over to Robyn and hugging her tightly.

  “He shouldn’t. He wasn’t even here when she went missing,” Izzy said.

  Jimenez came around the side of the house, shucking a backpack he was carrying and tossing it on the porch. He walked over to Robyn and gave her a kiss.

  “Any luck?” he asked.

  “No, nothing,” Robyn said with a shake of her head.

  “No luck here, either,” he said. Robyn took his hand and led him inside, followed by Izzy and Holly. They all went into the spacious kitchen, and Robyn got out two bottles of beer, handing one to Jimenez.

  “Thanks,” he said with a tired smile, twisting off the cap and taking a pull. “I think Tim wants to get an early start again tomorrow, Juan,” Izzy said.

  “He doesn’t still think she’s alive, does he?” Jimenez asked.

  “Taco!” Robyn gasped, “Of course he does! We all do!” she exclaimed, looking into everyone’s eyes, taken aback when she did not see the response she was hoping for.

  “Soon we’re going to have to face facts,” Jimenez said, taking her hand.

  “No! I won’t give up hope!”

  “Robyn, he’s right,” Holly said with a tone that hit Robyn like a brick wall.

  Her eyes welled up with tears, her lower lip trembled. “No! She’s alive and we will find her, you’ll see!”

  “Robyn, please think about it for a minute,” Holly said.

  “No, I won’t!” she screamed, breaking the grip on Jimenez’ hand, and bolting out of the room and up the stairs, where they heard her bedroom door slam.

  “I’ll go talk to her,” Jimenez said, leaving Holly and Izzy standing in the middle of the room, speechless.

  Izzy smiled warmly at Holly, in the fatherly way that always calmed her.

  “I think you should go up to Tim and comfort him right now.”

  “Aye. I’ll do that. What about you, Iz?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll just go up and retire myself. I think everyone’s lost their appetite anyway. We’ll get up early and start again tomorrow. Nothing more we can do tonight.”

  “Are you sure, Iz?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Now run along and see to Tim. He won’t admit it in a million years, but he needs you right now.”

  “I will, thank you, Iz,” Holly said tiredly. She went upstairs, and when she heard Robyn’s soft sobs, she thought to go and check on her, then thought better of it. Jimenez was with her, so she’d be alright. It was Tim she was worried about; she’d never seen him in such a state.

  She went to the bedroom they shared and opened the door quietly. The lights were already off, but the light from the hallway behind her cast a beam of light ahead, sending her shadow across Tim’s form, lying under the sheets. She shut the door behind her, stripped, and climbed under the sheets, sliding up behind Tim’s form. She fluffed her pillow, and placed her arm around his waist, cuddled close, pressing her face into the center of his back.

  “Are you awake?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, I can’t sleep.”

  “I figured as much. Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, squeezing him tighter.

  “Not really.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing, babe. In a few days, we’re going to find a body.”

  “How can you be so sure?” she asked.

  “Too many years as a cop is why I’m so sure. Even if nothing nefarious happened, she’s been out in the woods for far too long. She’d be dead from exposure, if nothing else,” Tim sighed quietly.

  “If that happens, we deal with it. Until then, I think we should keep a positive outlook,” Holly stated.

  “You go ahead and do that. I’ll be the realist.”

  “Why are you beating yourself up over this?” she asked, pleading.

  “I’m responsible.”

  “No you are not, Timothy.”

  “Yes I am. People here look to me for protection, and I can’t even do that. I couldn’t even protect one young girl. How the fuck am I supposed to protect a whole goddamn community?”

  “You can’t. That’s not what they’re after.”

  “Then why did they come here?” he said, rolling onto his back.

  “Tim, they didn’t come for protection, they came for a sense of purpose.”

  “They all should have stayed on Oahu,” Tim said angrily.

  “They didn’t. They came with us because they wanted to be a part of whatever we have here.”

  “Which is fast becoming a clusterfuck,” he snapped.

  Holly held him tightly for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Tim, you’re doing your best. We all are.”

  “My best isn’t good enough,” he said. “Ian and Paula trusted me to keep them and April safe, and I’ve failed.”

  “Tim, honey, the only thing you promised them, promised anyone, is that they could have a new start here. That’s it,” she said softly.

  “I’m just so tired, babe,” he said after a moment.

  “Get some sleep. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Tim lay there in the darkness, feeling Holly’s warm skin next to his, and that gave him small comfort. Holly was soon fast asleep, but sleep eluded Tim for quite some time.

  The next morning when they woke, Tim felt as if he hadn’t gotten a minute’s sleep. He kept to himself and didn’t say anything, even when Robyn came down from her room, followed by Jimenez, who’d obviously spent the night with her.

  There was very little in the way of conversation over coffee, except for plans being made on where they would continue their search for the missing girl. Everyone met up in front of Tim’s house, and he went over the topographical map of the area with everyone, assigning a search area to each member of the search party. Robyn handed out fresh batteries for the Army issued handheld Motorola radios, and they all headed out.

  It was decided that Holly and Izzy would stay at the house, sort of like a base-camp, an
d if they did find her, they would be in a central location, standing by with a radio of their own to come with a Hum-Vee and medical aid if needed.

  After walking through the forest for several minutes, Tim stopped when he could no longer hear the sounds of the others. Adjusting the sling on his carbine, he pulled the folded map out of his pocket and opened it.

  Everyone else was concentrating to the west and south, and he traced his finger over the lines marking an area a few miles away, to the north and east, a place that Colin had said he searched thoroughly the day before, and found no trace. He refolded the map, placing it back into his pocket and headed off in that direction.

  He wasn’t sure if it was his old cop instincts or old soldier instincts, but something was just not sitting right with that man’s actions. Colin talked a good line of bullshit, and even made a good show of looking for April, but Tim had a very uneasy feeling. He made his way through the woods silently, skirting around the clearing that ran behind the house that Colin had taken over.

  It was fast going, the carpet of pine needles made for a nearly silent journey. He didn’t see any outward signs of anyone having been through the area, that was until he came across an overgrown fire trail cut through the trees by long-dead forest service employees. He didn’t see it at first; there were many young tree saplings sprouting up all over the dirt road, but when he did spot the days old trail, he followed it easily.

  The ground was dry and dusty, and since it hadn’t rained in weeks and all of the snow had melted some time ago, he clearly saw the footprints that had to have been April’s, alongside of a larger set, about three sizes bigger than his own. They were side by side, giving the impression that whoever had left them had walked together.

  He followed the trail of the fire lane and back into the woods, and right before he was at the edge of another clearing, he was momentarily startled by several buzzards, who had been gathered around something lying on the ground, partially hidden by some fallen tree limbs and pine needles.

  They flew off, squawking angrily at Tim’s intrusion, and as he neared the shape on the ground, his heart fell to the pit of his stomach. She was lying supine, naked from the waist down, her legs splayed obscenely, and her dirty face staring up at him through the dark holes where her eyes had once been. He thought of the man, so many years ago in Bucks County, Pennsylvania who had hurt his friend Paul, that Tim had left to bleed to death. Had he suffered a similar fate?

  He supposed so. But that animal deserved it. Not this girl. She didn’t deserve this at all. His blood boiled as he stepped away from the horrid scene, pulled out his radio, and called Holly.

  She answered immediately. “Holly, go to Quebec,” he said, indicating she should go to a pre-arranged radio channel that they’d come up with between themselves, that no one else knew about. When she acknowledged, he changed his radio to that frequency and waited for her to call him.

  “Tim, are you there?”

  “Yeah,” he said, pulling out his map and double checking his location. “I want you and Izzy to come to my location, grid number seven three five niner zero niner three, as soon as you can.”

  There was a short pause, then Holly replied, “That’s nowhere near where everyone else is looking. That’s been searched already.”

  “Just get here, and not a word to anyone else, okay?”

  “Tim, have you found her?” she asked excitedly.

  “Yeah,” he said disgustedly.

  “Izzy wants to know if he should bring his medical bag,” she asked with hope in her voice.

  “That won’t be necessary. You two get here, okay?” he replied, irritated. “Get here now, goddamn it! I’ll wait out on a fire trail.” Tim took a breath, calmed himself, then said flatly, his voice now devoid of all emotion, “You should be able to pick it up just about a mile north of our house, off of the blacktop.”

  It was a tone that Holly knew all too well. She’d heard it before from him, before she even knew who he was. She’d been flying a Royal Air Force Lynx helicopter in Iraq at the time, and Tim’s voice was the same emotionless monotone then, when he threatened to shoot her down himself if she didn’t land her aircraft. A chill went through her when she heard it, and just as she had done in Iraq so many years ago, she obeyed without another word.

  Tim walked back through the trees, and found a shady spot to sit with his carbine across his lap. He fished out his pipe and sat there puffing away; waiting for them to show, and his anger simmered. He should have done something. What though?

  His thoughts were broken by the sound of the approaching Hum-Vee, and he stood. The four wheel drive cut an easy path through the saplings, and Holly pulled up to a stop next to him. She and Izzy got out with worried looks and came over to Tim, who still hadn’t said a word. Izzy stood to the side and Holly put her arms around Tim.

  “Where is she?” she asked.

  “Follow me,” he said, and headed off back through the trees, followed closely by Holly and Izzy. He had to shoo away the buzzards again, and when Holly saw April’s body, she gasped.

  “What do you think happened, Tim?” Izzy asked.

  “It’s pretty goddamn obvious someone—and I’ve got a good idea who—lured her out here, raped, and then strangled her.”

  “Who do you think, Tim, that Aussie chap, Colin?” Holly asked.

  “Yeah, it had to have been him,” he said, and went on to tell them both about what he and Ian had witnessed the previous week.

  “Just by that? That’s thin evidence, don’t you think?” Izzy asked, trying to play the Devil’s advocate.

  “Iz, I know it would never stand up in a court of law, and it’s all we have to go on. It’s not like we can get a crime scene crew out here, and collect DNA. You can see by just looking at her it wasn’t natural causes, by any stretch of the imagination. And Colin was adamant that he’d searched this whole area yesterday, wasn’t he?”

  “That’s true, Tim. But—”

  “But what, Iz?” Tim all but shouted, his voice seething with anger. “Both Ian and I saw him lurking around, watching her. When she went missing, he was one of the first ones to volunteer to start looking, and conveniently, he picked this area to look in, comes back, and says there wasn’t a trace.”

  “What do you plan on doing?” Izzy asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Tim said, his voice now icy and eerily calm.

  “Oh, Tim, it’s so horrible,” Holly said tearfully, kneeling down and brushing the pine needles off April’s face.

  “Remember what you said before, Tim, about following the Constitution. If you want to stick by that decision, there are rules we need to follow. You know that better than anyone here,” Izzy pointed out, looking down at the body.

  Holly tried to give the girl a little dignity by covering her up with a light jacket she was wearing.

  “I know that, Iz. I’m all out of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and prisons,” Tim said. Again, his mind was drawn back to those first few months after the Event, back in Bucks County, where he invoked what he’d called then ‘Tim’s Law’, where he made himself judge, jury, and executioner. Could he return to that mentality again? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he’d better do something.

  “All this talk isn’t going to get anything accomplished. Let’s get her back to home, and we’ll decide then. Someone is going to have to tell Ian and Paula,” he added with a grimace, knowing full well it would be him telling them about April.

  Tim took Izzy by the arm and walked back to the Hum-Vee. He opened the back tailgate and pulled out a green canvas tarp, then turned to Izzy.

  “I don’t know what to do, Iz,” he said, tears coming to his eyes. “I want to go back to the compound, find that piece of shit, and put a bullet in his melon.”

  “It angers me too. But if we do that, we’re no better than he is.”

  “You’re right. What do we do? Throw him in a cage? For how long?”

  “I don’t know, Tim. Let’s just get Ap
ril back home, tell her parents, and then we’ll take him into custody, and let everyone decide what we should do.”

  “Oh, a democratic form of a lynching?” Tim spat.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Izzy said.

  “Why not? Because that’s what I think everyone will want to do with him once we tell them what happened! They will drag him out of his house without due process, and string him up from a tree!”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because it’s what I want to do with the fucker, okay?” replied, fire in his eyes.

  “But you won’t, will you?” Izzy asked.

  “No, I won’t. Sorry, Iz, I let my emotions get the better of me,” Tim sighed and let out a breath.

  “Let’s get April back home,” Izzy urged, heading back into the trees, and Tim followed him.

  They walked back down to the clearing where Holly was standing, tear-faced, over April’s body. Tim couldn’t remember just how many dead bodies he’d had to place into body bags in his lifetime, but he went about the task like an automaton, no emotion showing at all, like he was picking up the Sunday newspaper.

  They went about their task gently and with as much respect as they could, and carried the bundle back through the woods to the waiting bed of the Hum-Vee. Tim got behind the wheel, started the engine, and they made their way back to Tim’s house.

  In spite of not letting on to what was happening, most everyone was standing there waiting for them to return, and Tim scowled when he saw them.

  “Great,” Tim spat, pulling up to a stop in front of the house.

  “They must have heard me and Izzy leave in a hurry,” Holly said.

  Tim shut the engine off and got out. Everyone must have read the look on his face, as their looks of anticipation turned to horror. Paula, who was standing next to Ian, collapsed into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

  “What happened?” Ian demanded angrily, trying to hold onto Paula and keep her from collapsing in a heap at his feet.