I parked my car and got out. As they approached me each flashed an FBI identification wallet and badge. They were young men, maybe mid-thirties, and there was a look of gravity about them I’d worn myself on many occasions over the years – mostly when I was the bearer of very bad news.
“Mr. Parmenter?” one of the agents asked in a very respectful tone.
“Yes.”
“I’m Agent Donnelly, this is Agent Forbes. Tom Kilborn sent us here today, sir. He wanted to be here himself but was unable to make it.”
“Is there some word on my daughter?” I asked, dreading the response I could almost hear ringing in my ears already. Both men were having difficulty maintaining eye contact with me. There was no doubt in my mind that what I was about to hear was going to be bad.
“I’m afraid so, sir,” the agent on my left said. “Would you like to go inside, where we could sit down?”
I tried to steel myself for what was coming. “Just tell me,” I said, my voice hoarse.
He took a long, slow breath. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Parmenter. The deceased body of a young girl we believe to be your daughter was located this morning in a remote area near the town of Hendersonville, Georgia.”
Even though I had known from the moment I saw the two agents step out of their vehicle what the news was going to be, hearing it was like being hit in the chest with something large and heavy. For a while I was unable to draw breath. I stumbled backward and would have fallen had I not been standing near my car. I shook my head, probably a subconscious effort to throw off the unspeakable truth I had just been given.
“How was she killed?” I blurted.
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t have any other information at this time.”
“Goddamn him to hell,” I choked out through my sobs.
When I recovered enough that I was able to function on some level, the agents told me they would drive me to Ocala where we would board a helicopter for a flight to Fayetteville so that I could make a positive identification of my daughter.
Even though I had spent the better part of my working life as an FBI field agent and had endured more than my share of traumatic experiences, seeing Tanya under these conditions would be by far the most difficult thing I had ever faced.
When we arrived at the morgue we were met by the coroner, a slender African-American woman in her fifties. She looked at me with kind eyes that peered out through a pair of glasses with round lenses like John Lennon had made popular in the sixties. “Sir,” she said in a somber tone, “I should warn you that you need to prepare yourself for what you’re about to see.” She waited for me to acknowledge her cautionary advice but when I didn’t react she added, “It would be best if you simply view her face through the observation glass.”
“No,” I said, my eyes already beginning to blur with tears. “I want to hold her hand. Please.”
The coroner then looked at the agents accompanying me and studied their faces for a moment before addressing me again. “Sir,” she said with as much compassion as one human being can offer another, “are you aware that this child has been decapitated?”
How much horrific news can the human mind absorb? When do the words you’re hearing stop conveying meaning and simply become noise?
And when awareness finally dawns how much do we really accept, and how much is simply beyond comprehension?
12
To say that things changed for me after that day would be to understate the reality in the extreme. My focus became one of revenge. I wanted to get my hands on Henderson and cause him to suffer the most extreme pain imaginable. And the longer it took, the better.
News of a nice clean take down and then a return to that country club they called a prison was not going to make it for me. The cost to me personally didn’t matter. As I saw it, I had already lost everything worth having. Mere existence didn’t seem worth coveting.
My return home from Fayetteville did not go well. I wandered around our empty house in a delirium. For two days I sat in a rocking chair on the verandah, staring off at nothing. I forgot to eat. I slept where I sat.
The service for Tanya was held on a Sunday and was kept private, attended only by our immediate family and a few very close friends.
Throughout the short service I stared through blurred eyes at the tiny casket containing my daughter’s body. The notion that I would never hear her cheerful voice again or see the look of wonder on her face while I read her a story seemed inconceivable. I could not imagine living long enough to ever forgive myself for allowing such tragedy to befall my family.
An old friend, Al Mercer, who had recently retired as the SAC of the Richmond office had split with his wife a few years before and he offered to stay with me. I appreciated his concern but told him to go back home, that I wanted to be alone.
Miles and Betty were pretty much inconsolable. They had no children of their own and they regarded Callie as the closest thing to a daughter they would ever know. Tanya’s death could not have hit them harder if she had been their granddaughter. Miles seemed especially shaken. It was a blessing to see them leave. Witnessing the pain on Miles’ face made everything I was going through even more difficult.
My aging parents, of course, were heart broken at the devastation our family had suffered. After they returned home they called me daily but as often as not the calls would end with my mother breaking down in tears. I finally told my dad that I’d rather they let me call them when I felt more like talking.
The nightmares started in earnest after the funeral. No two were ever exactly the same but the general gist didn’t vary much. All involved some form of betrayal on my part - my family needed me and I was not there to help them. Most nights I would startle awake soaked in sweat, a vision of Tanya, bloody and screaming, pleading for my help.
Days passed but I had no concept of time. I would sit down with a coffee on the veranda and take a sip to find it stone cold, only to come to the realization that three hours had elapsed.
Evenings I would often swear I could hear Tanya calling from her bedroom. They were never calls of terror, though. Just dim echoes of her voice calling to me. Daddy… Daddy… Time after time I pounded up the stairs, certain I would find her there, only to feel foolish and pitiful for falling prey to my fevered imagination.
One day I heard a dog barking and realized it was Winston. It wasn’t that I had forgotten about him exactly but I had just not been able to gather together the energy to walk over to my neighbor’s place to retrieve him.
At some point, a knock at the door roused me from a stupor. When I opened the door Winston leaped up at me, nearly knocking me over. My neighbor stood there with a sad smile on his face.
“Hello, Jack,” he said. “I didn’t want to intrude on ya but I thought maybe you’d want some company. If not me, then Winston here maybe.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I meant to stop by earlier but…”
“Nah, don’t even think about apologizing. I’d be happy to keep the old fella actually. But I know he misses ya.”
“You know, I can’t even remember your name.”
“It’s Conrad. Folks call me Con.”
“Right. Well, thanks, Con. I appreciate you helping us out.”
“Look, Jack, I’ve seen the news. I know what’s happened to your family. I just want ya to know if there’s anything I can do for ya – anything at all - ya just have ta let me know.”
“I appreciate that,” I said.
I’m sure my demeanor must have made it pretty obvious I didn’t feel much like company but he seemed reluctant to leave. He reached into the pocket of his frayed jeans and extracted a piece of paper which he handed to me. “This is my phone number,” he said. “If ya ever feel like talking, call me.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I will.”
He nodded, then turned and sauntered off.
* * *
I settled in to a mindless routine of driving down to Ocala every other day or
so to spend an hour sitting with Callie. And I’d call Tom Kilborn every few days to see if there was any progress in the search. Neither of these activities ever provided me with any reason for optimism. Quite the contrary actually. Callie, if anything, seemed to be getting worse. Her pallor was ghostly, she was losing weight rapidly. It was like she was disappearing before my eyes.
The only thing the FBI had accomplished so far in their investigation was to find the bodies of an old couple from Wisconsin whose car Henderson had stolen when he had first escaped from prison. They’d been found with their throats slit, buried in a shallow grave in a wooded area near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
I spent endless hours trying to fathom how Henderson could remain at large while being the subject of such a massive manhunt. It didn’t make sense that, with all the resources available to them, the Feds couldn’t do better than they were. The only conclusion I could come to was that, like the press had contended, he had taken refuge somewhere in the wilderness. After all his years of living in a remote region of the Virginia mountains there was probably no one better equipped to remain undetected than Reuben Henderson. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed a feasible explanation.
But where in the mountains? That was the million dollar question.
* * *
Being a bachelor for so many years should have made a decent cook of me, but it hadn’t. My idea of a good, home-cooked meal was a charred steak, a baked potato, and a cold beer. Such was my plan one sultry evening when being outdoors seemed infinitely more inviting than remaining cooped up in my increasingly claustrophobic house. But as I went to the freezer and reached for a steak I was struck by a sudden and severe aversion to the thought of eating another meal alone. I closed the freezer door, then dropped into a chair at the kitchen table where I sat with my head tilted into the palms of my hands. Thoughts of putting an end to my anguish were not new to me. They had, in fact, been occurring with increasing frequency. I was not thinking clearly but I was lucid enough to know that if I didn’t do something soon to change the course my life was taking there were going to be drastic consequences. I forced myself to stand, then went to the phone and dialed a number I found on a piece of paper tacked to the wall.
The phone rang seven times before Con answered. “Halloo.”
“Con, it’s your neighbor, Jack,” I said. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No, not at all. I was just having a drink out on the porch. Took me a minute ta find the phone.”
“Ah. I was just wondering if you’d be interested in joining me for supper. I could barbeque a couple steaks…”
“Make mine rare,” he said. “I’ll bring the sour mash.”
Part 3
The Alliance
13
If Con Eldridge was anything he was easy company. He was quite content with long silences and only offered up a rare tidbit of advice if it was the kind that might actually do you some good. He looked to be in his mid forties, wore his graying hair long and shaggy, and his beard untrimmed. He was average in height but big-boned with a solid frame that gave him a look of toughness. Not the kind of guy you’d want to mess with. He had a few tats on each of his thick, hairy arms that looked military.
By the time we’d finished our steaks and Con had poured two inches of sour mash whiskey in a couple of tumblers I brought from the kitchen we probably hadn’t spoken more than twenty words each.
I sat back on one of two matching rocking chairs on the porch and took a sip of the whiskey. It tasted like a blend of paint thinner and jet fuel. “You make this stuff?” I asked, grimacing but trying not to choke as it burned its way down my throat.
“You bet,” he said proudly. “Ya can’t buy this in a store. Ninety-five percent pure alcohol.”
I nodded and went silent again.
After a few minutes Con said: “Jack, I know your life has taken one awful fucking bad turn. Hard to imagine how things could possibly be worse. If ya think talking things out might help ya some, I’m a good listener.”
I turned my gaze on him and watched as he sipped contentedly on his homebrew, rocking gently and gazing off into the distance. There was an effortless sincerity to him that wasn’t all that common with men in my experience. It occurred to me that if I was in fact ready to begin the process of examination he would be someone to whom I might be able to open up. But I was a long way from that kind of disclosure. The wounds were still too fresh. Still, I found his voice soothing and anything was better than that dangerous voice in my head. “Tell me a little about yourself, Con.”
“Not a lot ta tell,” he said matter-of-factly. “Born in Kentucky, raised on a farm. Got myself into a bit a trouble as a kid. The army drafted me in sixty-five. Before I knew it I was slogging through the jungles in Nam. Turned out I was pretty good at soldiering. Did three tours. After I got out, though, I realized I wasn’t much good for anything else.”
“If you did a triple then you saw some bad shit, I imagine.”
There was a pause as he digested that thought. “Yeah,” he said in a quiet voice. He looked at me then and gave me a sad smile. “I’ve seen some bad shit. And it’s not something I talk about either. Maybe talking a little more would be good for both of us.”
I nodded. “Maybe,” I said.
“What’s the best outcome to this you can imagine?” he asked. “What I mean is, if this Henderson asshole was caught and sent back to prison, would that be enough for you?”
It was like he had read my mind from a couple of days earlier. “No,” I said. “It wouldn’t be enough.”
“So what’re ya saying?”
It took me several long seconds before I answered. “I guess I’m saying I’d rather find him myself than let the Feds do it.”
“Yeah? And then what?”
I started to seethe thinking about it. “This animal did things to my little girl I can’t even bring myself to say aloud. Because of him the only woman I ever loved is in a coma so deep her brain activity can’t be measured. I think you probably have a pretty good idea what I’d have in mind.”
He sucked his teeth noisily while he processed my candid comment. “Yeah, I imagine I do,” he said.
I could feel myself giving in to the emotions that constantly threatened to engulf me. I took a deep breath and then threw back a large gulp of my drink.
“What about the consequences?” Con asked. “You off this fucker you’re gonna do hard time, Jack. The courts don’t take kindly to vigilante justice. No matter how much John Q. Public might applaud your actions.”
“Consequences are not exactly at the top of my priority list right now,” I said. The truth was, though, I had given some thought to the consequences. I was a former FBI agent. I had been responsible for putting away a lot of scum in my career. If I was locked up in a federal prison with these lowlifes my incarceration would most definitely be violent and short-lived. But the way my thoughts had been tending lately, did it really matter whether I took my life or someone did it for me?
What Con said next surprised me. “I’ve met your wife. Did ya know that?”
I’d had no idea. Callie had never mentioned him. “No I didn’t,” I said.
“Not long after you folks moved here she brought over a cake for me. It just happened to be a bad time for a drop in. I was kinda hammered up that day and… well, ya know, I might have made her a little nervous.”
“She never said a word about it.”
“Mmm,” he said contemplatively. “That don’t surprise me at all. She’s a hell of a fine woman.”
His comment seemed a tad inappropriate in that he didn’t know her well enough to make it, but I let it be. “She is,” I said. “The best.”
“What do ya think she’d have ta say about your plans?”
“Not something that’s really too pertinent, Con,” I responded. “I haven’t been given much hope that she’s going to pull through. Her doctors don’t seem optimistic about her future.”
�
��I’m real sorry to hear that, Jack. I do hope you’re wrong about it.”
I don’t know why this simple statement affected me the way it did but suddenly my eyes started to mist up. I rose quickly and went into the house just in time to conceal the torrent of tears that spilled out of me.
It took a while to get my emotions under control.
When I came back out to the porch later, Con had left.
14
The crime scene guys phoned to let me know the motor home would be released to me whenever I wanted to pick it up. It had been held in Lumberton but an inspection had yielded no evidence of Henderson’s presence and so served no useful purpose in the investigation. I decided I would get a rental car for the drive up to Lumberton and pay the extra drop off fee that would permit me to leave it there. Meanwhile I took the path that led from my place to Con’s to ask if he would look after Winston while I was away.
Con’s home was a very unassuming place. It looked like it had been built sixty or so years earlier and could have used some attention. The yard was pretty much left to nature. Like mine, his home was set well back on a heavily treed property and could not been seen from the road. He answered my knock at his door with a friendly smile. “Jack, good to see ya.”
“Hi, Con. I’m sorry for the other night. I guess my feelings got away on me a little.”
“Hey,” he said, “if anybody’s got a reason to let go now and then it’s you. Ya holding up okay?”
I nodded, not sure I could pull off a spoken lie. “I was wondering if you might look after Winston for me again. It’d just be for a day or two.”
“Not a problem, man. Glad to.”
“I’ve got to go up to Lumberton to get my RV. I’ll leave in the morning.”
“Oh. How ya getting up there?”
“I’ll get a one-way rental.”
A Shadow Fell Page 4
