by Kyle Mills
She tried to stifle it, but the long mournful cry still escaped as she tried to stem the tide of memories projecting themselves onto the darkness that surrounded her.
Her father’s image appeared a few feet away, pressing the barrel of the gun under his chin and speaking his final, meaningless words to her. Then her mind replayed the sting of the syringe as it broke her skin and turned the room to quivering mush and then finally to nothing. She felt a tear make its way across the bridge of her nose and down her cheek. Then another. And another. Once she started to cry, her sobbing just grew in intensity, melding with her nausea and leaving her choking and coughing uncontrollably.
She went on like that until the muscles in her stomach and sides exhausted themselves and her mind decided it had had enough and let her drift off into unconsciousness.
When she awoke again, her head still hurt and her throat was painfully dry, but the nausea was gone. The image of her parents’ death began creeping back into her mind, but she pushed it off into the emotional numbness that was quickly overtaking her.
“Hello?”
Her voice was little more than a harsh whisper, but it seemed impossibly loud in the darkness and silence that surrounded her.
She waited for some reply, some indication that she wasn’t completely alone in the world, but there was nothing.
She cleared her throat painfully. “Is anyone there?”
Louder this time, but still weak. She sounded like a frightened little girl, even to herself.
She sat up slowly and swung her feet onto the cold floor. The blood rushed from her head and she had to bend forward at the waist for a moment to keep from passing out. After a few seconds, she raised her head and slid off the bed.
She tried to crawl but the bruises and cuts on her knees were too painful against the hard floor and she was forced to turn over and slide on her butt until her back reached a wall.
Feeling along it, she finally came to the smooth wood of a doorjamb. She used the doorknob to steady herself and struggled to her feet. It took only a few moments to find the light switch.
She covered her eyes with one hand and flipped the switch with the other. The flare of light worked its way between her fingers as she pulled them slowly away from her face.
When she finally opened her eyes, she fell against the wall and screamed.
A black-clad woman sat motionless in a chair less than a foot from where Jennifer had slept. The woman’s head turned slowly toward her as Jennifer backed into the far corner of the room and sank to the floor. The brief surge of adrenaline overloaded her weakened system and her breath came in short, useless gasps as the woman stood and moved across the room.
The pounding of her heart seemed to be robbing her of her strength. Her arms felt impossibly heavy as she raised them in front of her face.
The woman paused and looked down at her, then opened the door and disappeared through it without a word.
Jennifer listened to the latch on the door click shut as she crumpled to her side on the hard tile and struggled to even out her breathing.
It had been the same woman. The one who had driven her parents crazy. The one who had drugged her.
Why had she been sitting there in the darkness? Why hadn’t she answered?
Jennifer crawled sobbing toward the door and flipped the light switch. It was better that way, she thought as the darkness closed in on her. Better to see nothing.
6
“YOU ALL RIGHT?” MARK BEAMON YELLED. The brand-new window at the front of his office had gone almost completely opaque with white paint. A smear the size of the painter’s back was transparent enough to allow him to see the collapsed scaffold and two slightly dazed construction workers on the other side.
Beamon crossed his office and stood in the open door. The men involved in this latest of a recent string of construction disasters looked more or less unharmed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true of the two freshly painted PCs and three freshly painted FBI agents that had been sitting a little too close.
He sighed quietly, remembering that it was now his job to get the Three Stooges Contracting Company to pay up for the damaged computers and business suits.
He pointed at Chet Michaels and reminded himself that he’d been bucking to get into management for years. In the future, he’d be more careful what he wished for.
“I’ve got the new stuff on the Davis case,” Michaels said, walking carefully across the paint-splattered floor with a large box in his hands and a blue folder under his arm. “I take it you’re ready?”
Beamon settled back into his chair as one of the painters attacked the floor in front of his office with a mop. “Yeah. Have a seat.”
The young agent dropped the box next to his chair and flipped the file folder open on his lap. “We got the initial background stuff on the Davises.”
“And?”
“They’re actually not Jennifer’s real parents. She was adopted.”
“Shit, really?” Beamon snapped his fingers. “That’s it, then. Reason number three, subcategory one.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, Chet, we talked about this yesterday. What’s reason number three for kidnapping someone?”
“Uh, ransom?”
Beamon frowned. “That’s reason one. Try again.”
“Oh, wait a minute. It’s ‘cause you want the girl.”
“Or whoever. And why do you want the girl?”
“Uh, I thought that one was ‘cause you were divorced and didn’t get custody.”
“Precisely. Adoption’s just a variation on that theme. Find the biological parents and you find the girl.” Beamon lifted his mug in a salute to his own deductive genius and took a sip of the hot coffee.
“We already found the parents, Mark. They’re dead. Died in a fire years ago.”
Beamon tried not to let his disappointment show. “Oh. Back to Jennifer, then.”
Michaels flipped a page in the file. “So far, we’re not finding any real problems at the Davises. The neighbors and friends we’ve talked to have told us that Jennifer was pretty well adjusted and that there were no significant problems in her relationship with her parents. She’s an excellent student, athletic, and well liked—if not exactly popular. As you mentioned, she’s a little alternative. Oh, and a pretty good mountain bike racer.”
Beamon tapped his front teeth with the nail of his index finger. “The maid told me that maybe Jennifer’s mother wasn’t crazy about her boyfriend. Was she putting pressure on Jennifer to get rid of him? Love tends to rank right up there with money as a motive for murder.”
“Don’t think so in this case, Mark. I did get that Mrs. Davis would have liked her to get together with their best friends’ son, but that had been going on for a long time and I think she probably knew it was never going to go anywhere.”
Beamon interrupted him. “Why not? What makes you say that?”
“I met the kid—Billy’s his name. Not a match made in heaven, believe me.”
Beamon remained silent, prompting him to continue.
“I went through Jennifer’s room with a fine-toothed comb, Mark. She listens to Naked Raygun, reads Kerouac and Burroughs. Rebuilds suspension forks. This guy her mother liked for her was dumb as a post. Pure generic high school football player.”
Beamon gave a short laugh and shook his head. “God, you make me feel old, Chet. I have absolutely no idea what you just said.”
“Would you care for a translation?”
Beamon held up his hand. “How about I just take your word for it. What about the boyfriend she did like?”
“Jamie Dolan. Haven’t talked to him yet; I’m going this afternoon. Preliminarily, though, he doesn’t look great as a suspect. He’s a drummer in a band and was apparently playing that night. I think there are going to be a lot of witnesses nailing him down between way before ten P.M. ‘til about three A.M. I don’t think there was any way he could have sneaked out between sets, but maybe he could have slipped out of
his house early in the morning. I’ll know more later.”
Beamon looked across his office at the man smearing paint around on his window with a rag. “I have to wonder about that. The Davises were attacked in the living room in the same clothes they’d been seen in at dinner, right? He’d have had to roust them out of bed, get them to put on their clothes, and bring them downstairs before he shot them. Maybe he’s that clever, I don’t know. Does he have access to a gun?”
“No gun registered to his mother, but who knows?”
“What about the Davises?”
“No gun registered and none of their friends we talked to know of any.”
“Shit,” ‘Beamon said, tapping out a complex rhythm on his desk with his knuckles. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you, Chet? Physical evidence?”
“So far, we don’t have anything in the way of prints or fibers and the autopsy report’s still pending. Didn’t get anything from phone records. There was no sign of forced entry or robbery. Oh, and Jennifer had a credit card. Last used …” He flipped a couple of pages in the folder. “Middle of last month. We’re watching for any new usage.”
Beamon leaned across his desk. “What’s in the box?”
“Oh, we finally got into the Davises’ safe.” He dropped the folder and hefted the box onto his lap.
“So, what have we won?”
Michaels grabbed a red velvet bag with a ribbon tied around the top and let it dangle from his hand. “A bag of gold and diamond jewelry. Good for evening, or feeding a thousand homeless people for a month.”
“Commie.”
The young agent affected a hurt expression and dropped the bag on Beamon’s desk. “Passports for all three of them, roughly four thousand dollars in cash, a few stock certificates, Mr. Davis’s college transcript, the financial statements of the corporation that owns Mr. Davis’s car dealerships …”
“How do those look? Maybe he was borrowing from the wrong sort?”
“They look pretty strong, actually. Of course they could be bogus.”
Beamon screwed up his face. “Maybe. But why keep fakes in your own safe? Partners?”
Michaels shook his head. “He owned the whole thing, one hundred percent.”
“Uh-huh. Go on.”
“Lessee. Birth certificates for all three, and a copy of the Davises’ irrevocable trust.”
“What’s that say?”
“We’ve got a lawyer going over it, but I read a lot of these when I was an accountant. It pretty much says that Jennifer gets it all. She’s got to attain a certain age and there are provisions for her living and school expenses until that time, as well as some other stuff, but that’s the gist of it.”
“What if she dies?”
“The whole estate turns into a charitable foundation. No specific charities or people are named.”
Beamon leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his stomach. He sat there for almost a minute, with Michaels watching his face carefully.
“I don’t know, Chet. I keep coming back to Jennifer and Jamie. We’ve got a young couple in love, a mother who doesn’t like the boyfriend, and a pretty favorable trust here. What time are you leaving to meet with this kid?”
“Around noon. I’m going to the high school to talk to him and all her friends.”
“Set Jamie up for the first interview. I assume you don’t mind if I join you.”
“Not at all.”
7
BEAMON GAZED DEJECTEDLY AT THE LOW-slung yellow brick building as Michaels eased into a parking space next to an overflowing bike rack.
If memory served, the seventies was not one of the most economically sound periods in American history. And if that was true, it must be one of the great mysteries why all public buildings looked like they were built during that decade.
“… So this kid’s pretty bright …”
The flat roof of the school had gotten piled with snow and Beamon watched a tall black man walk carefully to the edge and begin to stab at a particularly large cornice with a shovel.
“Mark! Are you listening to me?”
Beamon pressed the release on his seatbelt and let it snap back toward the door. “Sorry, Chet. I was somewhere else. What were you saying?”
“Jamie Dolan. He’s seventeen, a senior this year. Extremely intelligent—fifteen eighty on his SATs …”
“Is that good?”
“Uh, yeah. To put it in perspective, eight hundred is average. Sixteen hundred’s perfect.” “Uh huh.”
“So anyway, Jamie’s parents split up when he was ten. Apparently his father had a drinking problem and was pretty abusive. Now Jamie lives with his mother in a trailer park about ten miles from here. He works at a local video club to help make ends meet. His mother’s a waitress.”
Beamon sighed. Sounded like an okay kid. Strong enough to rise above the less than full deck life had dealt him. Had he become impatient? Wanted it all now?
“You okay, Mark?”
“Yeah.”
“I talked on the phone with a couple of his teachers and they pretty much all described him the same way. Very bright. Mature beyond his years. Not crazy about authority figures.”
Beamon pushed the car door open and grabbed hold of the luggage rack to keep his feet from skidding out from under him as he got out. He knew how he was going to have to play this and was already starting to feel the guilt and regret creeping up on him. Despite the large neon sign in his head pointing to Jennifer and Jamie as the Davises’ murderers, his intuition was telling him that that sign might be pointing in the wrong direction.
The problem was that he couldn’t figure out if that gut reaction was the result of their innocence, or the fact that he just didn’t want to believe they were guilty. There was just no satisfaction in nailing two love-crazed teenagers. Instead of making you feel like you’d won, it just made it feel like everyone had lost.
“Okay, Chet. Let’s get this over with,” Beamon said as he half-walked, half-slid across a wide puddle of ice to a patch of snow that would get him to the door.
The school didn’t look a hell of a lot better inside than out. The walls were painted a uniform faded orange, broken only by an occasional mural, painted with a childlike sensibility that pegged it as the work of the student body. The halls were empty and the doors lining them were all closed. Prompted by a sign that read OFFICE, Beamon turned down a hall to his right and walked through the first door he came to.
The woman behind the tall counter jumped up from behind her desk and looked at Beamon with mild expectation. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Beamon said, digging into his jacket and pulling out his credentials. “I’m Special Agent Mark Beamon and this is Special Agent Chet Michaels. We were told we could use one of your conference rooms to talk with a few of your students?”
She looked down at the counter sadly. “I read all about it, but I still can’t believe it. Mr. and Mrs. Davis were such nice people. And Jennifer … Do you have any leads?”
“We’re doing everything we can,” Beamon answered, anxious to get this over with and escape the vaguely musty-smelling building before he started having high school flashbacks. “I’m sorry, but I’m running a little tight on time …”
She spun on her heel and disappeared through a door behind her. A moment later she reappeared with a sturdy-looking gray-haired woman in a tweed suit.
“Mr. Beamon. I’m the principal here. Louise Darren.”
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Darren. This is my associate, Chet Michaels.”
As they shook hands, she motioned toward the door behind her. “Jamie and his mother are already in my office. You’re welcome to use it to talk to them.”
Beamon looked at the cheap hollow-core door that she had indicated, and its proximity to the outer office. “I appreciate that, but I wouldn’t want to put you out of your office. Also, it might be more convenient if we could find something with a bit more privacy?”
She
thought for a moment and then pointed down a narrow hall with walls papered in various announcements and lists. “There’s a room we don’t really use anymore down at the end of the hall. It’s kind of full of junk, though.”
Beamon smiled. “No problem. You should see my office.”
“Right though here, Jamie,” Beamon said, opening the door to the abandoned office and stepping aside. There was a dusty old desk piled high with papers and old books centered in the room. Chairs were plentiful, but most had been stacked against the walls.
“Why don’t you and Chet grab us a few chairs and I’ll be back in a minute.” Beamon put his hand lightly on Jamie’s mother’s shoulder before she could enter. He closed the door quietly, leaving Chet and Jamie to rearrange the office.
“I’d like to speak with you for just a moment, if I could … Ms. Dolan is it?”
She shook her head. “Rodrigues. I went back to my maiden name when I was divorced.”
“Excuse me—Ms. Rodrigues.”
She looked up at him with deep concern that bordered on fear. It didn’t seem to be an expression specific to the situation—just the generic powerlessness many poor Hispanics seemed to feel when faced with white male law enforcement officials.
And he was about to use that unfortunate feeling of powerlessness to the absolute hilt. What a guy.
“Would you mind terribly if we spoke to Jamie alone? Sometimes having a parent in the room makes kids nervous. You know how they are. It’s really important that Jamie be relaxed so that he doesn’t forget anything that might allow us to help Jennifer. I’ve been doing this for a lot of years and I can tell you that the smallest detail can be critical.” He spoke—lied—slowly. Ms. Rodrigues’s English was less than perfect.
Beamon pointed back down the hall toward the outer office. “Why don’t you have a seat out there? We won’t be long.”
As she walked slowly away from him, Beamon told himself for the thousandth time that sometimes the end justified the means. He actually did believe that, it was just that he’d never run into a situation that he was dead sure qualified.
