by Paris Morgan
“The memories will be difficult to get over, but if he can make it past that, I think he’ll be able to come back.”
“Only time will tell,” Adam agreed.
***
Back in Dallas, I felt like I had a luxurious amount of time before we were on the clock again.
I called Chris when we landed to see if he wanted to get together.
“Hey, I’m back.”
“That was a much quicker trip than I thought you were going to be on. I’m still swamped up until this weekend, though.” Chris’s voice held regret.
“The weekend will give me time to do laundry and catch up on some loose ends. Friday night too soon?”
“What would you say to going on a small trip with me to San Antonio for the weekend?”
“Perfect. I haven’t ever been, and I would love to explore more in my home state.”
“Wonderful. I’ll book us rooms and get back with you on the final details Thursday night.”
I hung up, feeling excitement for the first time in quite a while.
“You know that this could be just his way of taking you out to kill you where no knows to look for you?” Mary Ann’s voice echoed in my head.
“When are you going to move on and go bug someone else?” I spoke out loud, startled at the sound of my voice in the empty house.
“I’ll be around until I feel it’s safe to move on to the afterlife.”
“Are you telling me that you have unfinished business here on earth, or that you’re just scared to move on because you killed so many innocent people?” I questioned.
“Both. Galen has a few things to take care of, and it didn’t seem so bad until I was dead.”
“Um, well, can you at least be quiet unless I need you?”
“That depends on if I think you’re making a wrong move,” she sighed.
“Give it a try for my sanity’s sake, please.”
I was going to have to check with Adam to see what he suggested for the removal of a wandering spirit. First, though, we were going to pay another visit to Belle Stevens and see if she had some pictures for us to use.
Ryan had promised to pick me up, and he was right on time.
“Are you ready for this?”
“I am. I just hope she’s still willing to help us.”
He glanced at me. “Any side effects from your little incident?”
It was so cute that he was being cautious concerning my feelings. “I can hear her, but after she gets a few things sorted out, I believe that she’ll move on eventually.”
“Is she listening to everything? A sentient spirit?”
“Yes, but we’re coming to a workable solution.”
Ryan’s jaw dropped. “Hearing voices isn’t good, Leslie.”
“Neither was hearing ghosts, but you accepted that.”
“True. Doesn’t mean I like it. Hey, hold on.” He frowned as we got closer to the turnoff. “See that smoke? There’s a fire nearby.”
The farther up the road we went, the more my stomach sank as I realized that we weren’t going to find what we needed.
Ryan pulled into the yard by the firetrucks, where one of the firefighters walked over to meet us.
“Um, this is an active crime scene. You’ll have to go back out to the main road.”
Ryan flashed his badge. “Is Ms. Stevens okay?”
“No. We went in to get her out and found her already dead in her bed. She must have passed in her sleep last night, and then the storm must have started the fire. We’re just keeping it from spreading to the trees at this point. There’s nothing left inside.”
I could see why he’d say that, because the entire interior of the house had collapsed, with the standing walls the only indication of where the house had once been.
He rolled up the window with a dejected sigh. “We should’ve asked her before we left.”
“I think we were too surprised with the information we’d received.”
“He outsmarted us again, choosing what he wants us to know, and then cleaning house before we can dig too deep.”
“It’s time to take a break and come back next week.”
Ryan had driven out to the freeway again, but stopped before getting onto the highway at a gas station.
“We need to consider going to see a counselor.”
“Why on earth would you suggest that?” I protested. “We’re doing okay.”
“Come on, Leslie. We’re barely coping with all of these different things that keep coming up. You’re hearing voices. I know there are reasons, but let’s be real, what we do isn’t normal. We need someone to walk us through the pitfalls.”
I shook my head in disagreement. “I don’t know, Ryan. What if that’s just another way for the Zodiac Master to spy on us?”
“Leslie, we can’t put our lives on hold or see shadows behind every tree. That’s what he wants us to do. We have to make sure that we come out of this as whole as we possibly can.”
“When I get back on Monday, I’ll see what Adam recommends, because if this lady in my head doesn’t shut up, I’m going to jump off a cliff to make her be quiet.”
“She’s been talking this entire drive?”
“Yep, and I’ve been ignoring her. She’s giving me a headache.”
“Hey, where are you going this weekend?”
A smile lit my face. “I’m going on a date for the weekend.”
“Isn’t that a little fast?” Ryan started back toward Dallas.
“We’ll have separate rooms. That way, there’s no pressure unless we want there to be.”
“I got ya.”
Epilogue
Wyoming – Later That Week
Galen
I knew when Mary Ann told me, that I would go in search of information regarding my child. To gain closure, I needed to have a gravesite, or some sort of confirmation about what had happened.
The town hospital held records of births, and I’d been able to track down some information, but I needed to be there in person to get copies of all the certificates.
“May I help you?” the lady behind the glass of the records department asked.
“I need to get the birth certificate and death certificate for Mary Ann Walsh’s baby. I’m not sure if there was a name, or if it was a boy or girl.”
“We can check by the mother’s name, or the father’s if it’s listed.”
“Great, thanks.” I stood there, hoping that she could find something for me to go on.
“I’ve made you a copy of the birth certificate that we issue from the hospital. It’s not an official record. You’ll have to go to the courthouse for one of those, but they’ll be able to find what you need with this.”
I glanced at it. Baby Boy Walsh, born to Mary Ann Walsh and Gale Dalca.
“Did you find the death certificate?”
“I’m sorry, honey, we don’t have a record of that. You might check at the courthouse, but if he passed away, it wasn’t recorded at this hospital.”
My brow furrowed as a thought hit me. “Was there a caseworker assigned to that file?”
“Let me look.” She hit the keyboard with a few strokes of her fingers. “Yes, it was a Molly Brown. She still works over at the CPS office. We don’t have anything else listed here.”
“You’ve been very helpful.” I turned away, stunned at what I was thinking.
A quick search led me to the office of Molly Brown, but it wasn’t as easy to get answers at the CPS office as it had been at the hospital.
“I’m looking for Molly Brown in regards to a case from about ten years ago.” I held out the badge Agent Watson had gotten for me.
“She’s not here right now, but I can leave her a message.” The harried looking receptionist barely glanced at my badge before answering.
“When do you expect her back?”
“She’s out in the field right now, and we have no way of knowing where she’s going to be, even if we could give out that information.”
“This is a time-sensitive case. Call her now, please.”
“Uh, we don’t do well with threats or demands,” the receptionist warned.
“I’m not threatening you. I need you to call her and find out when I’ll be able to meet her in person. This is something that can’t wait.”
“I’ll check with my supervisor and see what I can do.” She gave me a dirty look before disappearing into the back.
She returned with another woman and the security guard.
“Hi, may I help you?”
“Yes, I need to speak with Molly Brown on an urgent FBI case about a missing child.” I held out my badge again with a glance at the security guard. “I’m not trying to cause trouble. I don’t have time to wait for an appointment. I need her to call me back today in regards to an old case. One of the parents she worked with just went on a murder spree and has been killing people.”
I’d finally piqued her interest. “Why don’t you come back to my office and I’ll see if I can locate her for you.”
“Thank you.” I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at the receptionist, but it was difficult.
A few minutes later, she joined me in the small room. “I was able to get ahold of her, and she’s on her way back to the office now. I’m sorry for all of the confusion. Many parents try to impersonate law enforcement officials, and we don’t generally listen to them.”
“No worries. I just knew that I needed to speak with her, but I wasn’t trying to cause trouble.”
“When she gets here, I’ll send her in.” The head lady left me in the small room, which I was certain was a parental visitation room.
It was so sad that children had to visit with their parents in small, cramped rooms after being taken away from them. Not that most of these parents weren’t pieces of crap, but it still wasn’t fair to the kids who didn’t know what was going on most of the time.
The door opened and an older lady on the verge of retirement walked in. If I’d have been a parent on the receiving end of a look from her, I would have been quaking in my boots.
“I heard that you’ve been causing a ruckus up here. What is so urgent that you needed to see me right now?”
“Do you remember a Mary Ann Walsh from about ten years ago who had a baby? She was a drug addict and an alcoholic who went into mandatory rehab. When she came out, they told her the baby had died.”
“Sir, you have to know that ten years means I’ve dealt with over 2000 cases, some with more than one child in each case.”
“Right.” I could understand that, so I pulled out my phone and brought up the picture we had of Mary Ann from the case files.
“Oh, her. Yes, she was memorable.” She pulled out a laptop and turned it on to pull up the case with her notes.
“Mary Ann Walsh. Father absent at birth. There were no other relatives, and when the child recovered from withdrawal symptoms, he was placed with a family here in Wyoming.”
“He’s alive. She was certain that the child had died. She came back after rehab, and that’s what sent her down her destructive path. I was curious when I went to pull the birth and death certificates to put them in the case files that the hospital didn’t have a death certificate.”
“Your son is alive,” Molly confirmed. “But when she went into rehab, the courts terminated her rights due to the fact that she had been completely high when she gave birth.”
“Why would you assume he was my son?”
“Mr. Dalca, I’ve never had an FBI agent determined to find a child from a ten-year-old case that was considered urgent unless the parent was trying to find the child.”
I gave her a wry smile.
“I’m not going to explain everything to my boss because I’ve been here before she was even born,” she sighed. “What’s the point of protesting that I didn’t say anything to Mary Ann when I did? I retire at the end of the month, so there’s not really anything they can do to me, and I have a feeling that you don’t really care that I stretched the line to keep her away from that poor child.”
“No, ma’am.” I grinned. “I really don’t care about any of that. Mary Ann would have ruined that child’s life. She did put me on the birth certificate. Is there any way that I can try to meet him, and if he wants to at a later date, become his official guardian?”
“Normally in cases like this, where the mother’s rights are terminated and the father isn’t in the picture, we try to get the child placed in a permanent home. Your child had a few problems. He was small because of the mother’s drug use, and we put him in a foster home that caters to babies with fetal alcohol and drug issues. When he aged out at about two years old, he was sent to a prospective adoptive family for a few years, until…well, there were some unusual incidents.” She frowned.
“These weren’t behavioral incidents, but the child claimed he knew what was going to happen before it did. The parents were freaked out, and he’s bounced around from home to home for the past three or four years.”
“Does he have a name?” I knew what had happened, and I couldn’t imagine not having my mother to guide me when I’d discovered that I could see and do unusual things.
“Lex Walsh. If you’ll give me a copy of your ID and someone to verify the information about his mother’s death, I’ll see if I can get this fast-tracked through the courts. He’s been a problem child, and I honestly didn’t want to send him to the group home, but it’s the only place that will take him still.”
“I never dreamed when she told me with her dying breath that my child would still be alive and I could meet him. I can stay for a few days. If something comes up due to finishing the last of this case, I can come back quickly.” I handed her all of my information and the numbers to contact Agent Watson at the FBI to verify my story.
“Let me make copies of this, and then if you can meet with me at about 10 tomorrow morning, I’ll see what the judge thinks, and if we can schedule a hearing at that point.”
“Wow! I’m amazed. Thank you.”
“Most people think CPS workers are mean people who don’t care about the families involved, when in fact, the opposite is true.”
“Words can’t express what I’m feeling right now.”
She frowned. “Then don’t.” She left the door open this time, and I couldn’t help wondering what part of the universe was being nice to me.
The receptionist came in to give me back my stuff. “She’ll meet you in the morning.”
“Thank you.”
***
I barely had time to wrap my head around the fact that the court was giving me my son before he walked into the courtroom.
His little face was freckled over ivory skin, and his hair matched mine. He had his mother’s hazel eyes, and a sadness that I’d never seen on a child’s features before. My heart nearly broke for him, going through what he had. He had my family’s gift, and there’d been no one there for him to guide him, or help him understand it. I would do everything I could to make sure he knew he wasn’t alone, not anymore.
“Hey, they said I’m your kid. Where are you taking me?” he asked warily.
“With the permission of the judge, we’re booked on a flight to Texas to meet your grandmother and Uncle Adam. Then, when things get settled down, we’re going to come back and live in my cabin up in the woods around Cheyenne. Would you like that?”
He hid his excitement well, but I could hear an echo of his thoughts. He wanted this, and badly.
“I guess. I wasn’t doing anything else this week.” He shrugged nonchalantly.
“Your grandmother is so excited to meet you. You’re her first grandchild.”
He followed me out, holding a black trash bag over his shoulder. “How come you never tried to get me before?”
“I didn’t know you existed. It’s a long story, but unless you don’t want to be my kid after trying it out, we’ll have plenty of time to discuss it.”
“It’s better than the state home. Guess I can give it a try.”
>
I gave him a genuine smile. “Great. Then let’s get you a bag for all of your stuff that’s easier to work with and head out.”
I turned back to Molly Brown. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Just remember to check in when you get back, and let your caseworker know that you’re home.”
“Will do.”
***
The Zodiac Master
I’d heard about Mary Ann’s child, but just like Agent Dalca, I hadn’t even thought of the possibility that the child being alive. This was an interesting turn of events. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make use of this, but there were a lot of probabilities available.
This month’s killer, Leo, had already been chosen, but I was going to have to give him a few extra things to bring to crime scenes to throw our detectives off track. They were solving these murders way too soon now, and I was starting to lose interest in the game. They needed to have something more personal than just a note to bring them back into the game.
Maybe I’d take the gloves off and allow personal attacks if they didn’t actually harm their bodies.
Back to Texas and my home, because even a psychopathic killer enjoyed sleeping in his own bed from time to time.
Make sure to check out the next exciting installment of the Leo: Murders of the Zodiac
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-Paris Morgan
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