[Henry Parker 01.0] The Mark

by Jason Pinter

  They’d discovered a trunk full of old notebooks in Amanda’s room, one of the strangest things Mauser had ever seen. Every one was filled with descriptions of people Amanda had met. They were being combed through for leads, but there were literally thousands of names to follow up on, and most of the entries were hopelessly dated.

  Denton was drinking a bottle of water, tapping his finger against the dining room table. St. Louis PD had been coming in and out of the Stein house all night, still looking for forensic evidence that could provide a clue. Everything in Amanda’s room had been bagged and tagged. Joe only hoped the poor girl would live to sleep in her own bed again.

  “What if Parker somehow crossed state lines?” Joe said, half to himself. “As much as I hate to do this, we might need to expand the search to adjacent cities.”

  Denton looked at Joe. He seemed to know that Mauser had resigned himself to this. The last thing he wanted to do was allow local authorities to collar Parker before he could wrap his hands around that young neck, and squeeze. But the longer they waited, the greater chance he would be picked up on someone else’s terms. Or not at all.

  “I know how bad you want him, Joe. We all do,” Denton said. Mauser nodded. He’d been awake for nearly forty-eight straight hours. His eyes were heavy. And he’d probably built up such a tolerance for caffeine that coffee had been rendered useless.

  Joe reached into his pocket, took out his cell phone. With a heavy heart, he dialed the Department of Justice.

  When the operator answered, Mauser asked to be connected to the DOJ’s Criminal Division. Ray Hernandez was an old friend. Guy worked around the clock. No family, no children, no life. Maybe that’s why they’d bonded.

  “Department of Justice, Criminal Division. This is Hernandez.”

  “Hey, Ray, how’s my favorite burrito bandit?”

  A hearty laugh came from the other end.

  “Joe, you alky fuck, how’s it going? Hey, I heard about your sister. Man, I’m so sorry, please give Lin my best. Are you close to catching this Parker dick?”

  “We almost had him last night, but there was a pretty big snafu I won’t bore you with. Anyway, Ray, I need your help. I need you to run a search of all violent crimes in states including and adjacent to Missouri in the last six hours.”

  “That’s a lot of crimes, my friend. Any chance you can narrow it down?”

  Joe thought for a moment.

  “Okay, limit the search to grand theft auto and armed robbery.”

  “Gotcha. I’ll run a check in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois.”

  “And cross-check the victims and criminals to see if they have homes or businesses in St. Louis or neighboring counties.”

  “Will do. I’ll call you back.”

  “Oh, and Ray?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Check on homicides, too.”

  “You got it.”

  Half an hour later, Mauser’s phone rang. It was Hernandez.

  “Okay, here we go. In those nine states, in the last six hours, there’ve been three grand theft autos reported, seven armed robberies and three homicides. All of the GTAs and robberies have suspects that don’t match your Parker fugitive.”

  “What about the homicides?”

  “First 189 was last night in Little Rock, four hours ago. A burglar broke into the home of Bernita and Florence Block, strangled Mr. Block with a garden hose, stole his antique coin collection and her costume jewelry. The perp was apprehended a mile away, still had the garden hose tubing on him.”

  “America’s dumbest criminals. Go on.”

  “The other two 189’s were a pair of stabbing deaths in Chicago, David and Evelyn Morris. Perp wasn’t apprehended. But get this,” Ray said. “According to David Morris’s tax statements, our man works construction in St. Louis, also does some side work for neighbors in the area. Repairing decks and fences, seems to report all his income, amazingly. I cross-checked Morris’s credit card charges, and we got a hit within your time frame.”

  “Where?”

  “Morris bought a pack of cigarettes from a grocery store less than a mile from the address you’re at right now.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Joe said. “You said Morris lives in Chicago?”

  “Lived in Chicago until last night. Guy’s got two kids. Messed up world.”

  Two more children left without hope.

  Mauser bolted out of his chair and threw on his coat. Denton followed, confused. “Thanks, Ray, I’ll buy you a beer next time I’m in town.” He hung up.

  “What is it?” Denton asked. Mauser sprinted to their car, Denton chugging behind him. “Joe, what happened?”

  “Call the Chicago PD. Get them to halt all transportation that’s left the city in the past six hours. I want any buses or trains searched. Have them station cops at O’Hare as well as all bus and train terminals. I’ll call Lambert International and get a plane on standby.”

  “You want to clue me in to what the hell’s going on?”

  “We found Parker,” Joe said, gunning the engine. “And now he’s wanted for three murders.”

  29

  The Amtrak train hurtled along on tender rails. My stomach churned, every muscle in my body thanking me for this brief respite. Then I caught sight of my reflection in the train’s window.

  Jesus H. Christ. Amanda sure had a vivid imagination.

  I admired the fake gold running from my right nostril to my right ear, the long, blond wig covering all but a sliver of my brown sideburns. All kidding aside, I looked like the love child of Joey Ramone and a rodeo clown. Completing my getup was a pair of tattered black jeans covered with glitter pen scribblings, written to the gods of whatever ’80s hair bands Amanda worshipped. I wore a black T-shirt with a red A in the center. The word below it read anarchy.

  Amanda wore black lipstick, dark enough to make people think she’d been seriously making out with a chocolate bar, and her mohawked hair had enough gel to sate the cast of Friends for another ten seasons.

  Right.

  On a train that was otherwise packed, nobody was sitting within ten feet of us. Amanda was scribbling in a familiar notebook.

  “You said you left that at home,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I lied.”

  She closed the pad and stuffed it into the nylon fanny pack we’d bought at Union Station for $1.99. Nothing said “you don’t want to talk to us” more than a fanny pack. I shook my head at the wad of twenties inside.

  “I still can’t believe you stole that guy’s wallet.”

  “I didn’t steal his wallet,” she said defensively. “I borrowed it. Besides, did you see that Rolex? Trust me, Henry, we need the money a whole lot more than he does.”

  I hoped Mr. Rolex would understand that logic.

  I looked past Amanda, saw a conductor collecting tickets. He was overweight, blue hat sitting awkwardly on his head, midsection resembling a stuffed mushroom. Smiling as he clipped tickets.

  Then I looked at Amanda, her silly makeup unable to obscure her natural beauty, the softness of her eyes. She knew the truth about me, about Henry Parker, and deep down I knew I’d never lie to her again.

  On an adjacent seat I noticed a discarded Chicago Sun-Times. I picked it up, figured it would keep my mind off the mound of shit that was suddenly my life. Most of the news was local: a three-alarm fire at a nursing home in the North Shore, a Cook County bowling alley under investigation for ties to organized crime. Then, on page three, I saw a column that would have made me lose my lunch if I’d eaten any.

  The author was Paulina Cole. Her byline read Special to the New York Gazette.

  The headline was The Art Of Deception.

  The subtitle read The Truth About Henry Parker.

  I read on.

  Henry Parker came to New York with a journalistic pedigree any young reporter would kill for and an eye most people would die for. And suddenly, two days ago, somebody did. And now one of the most-w
atched man-hunts in New York City history is still in progress. And the questions remain.

  The noble profession of journalism has taken its lumps in recent years, mainly from rampant plagiarism scandals that have tried in vain to discredit the rest of us, who are hardworking and honest, who make our livings with a clean conscience and have weathered this ship through the turbulence of the past few years.

  But at the same time, the media glorifies these alleged villains, giving them even more access to the fame and fortune they so desired, despite working in a vocation where the noblest of writers desire none. Several of these literary desperados inked book deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars within weeks of their scandals, had movies made about their transgressions and had more ink spilled on their scandals than most wartime atrocities.

  You might say we don’t have our priorities straight. That we foster this culture. But hopefully once the dirt is uncovered in this sordid mess, we can go back to healing that rift.

  Those of us who knew Henry Parker can scarcely believe this shocking turn of events. Yet it should come as no great surprise that the evolutionary leap in journalistic crime has finally reached a fatal precedent. We can only hope this tragedy, which has an entire city—nay, a country—up in arms, reaches a swift resolution. We can only blame Henry so much.

  As the media and the ever-adoring public deifies its journalists, crowning them with the same mantle of celebrity bestowed upon those in other forms of entertainment, it should come as no shock that the crimes inherent in those mediums have cross-pollinated this world.

  And so I’ve been forced to ask myself this question, a question that strikes at the very heart and soul of this nation, and the news which serves as its soul: Was this violent, uncaring gene embedded in Henry Parker’s DNA from the moment he was born, or was it this world that drove a good man bad?

  I let the paper fall from my hand. Suddenly I felt cold, dizzy. Amanda picked up the paper and read Paulina’s column. Then she crumpled it up and threw it into the aisle. My head pounded. It took all my strength to hold in the wretched sorrow that filled my chest like a lead balloon.

  “Don’t listen to a word of it,” she said. “You know the truth. I know the truth. And soon everyone will.”

  “It’s not that,” I said, my voice weak. “Things like this don’t go away. I worked with Paulina. I don’t buy this ‘me against the world’ b.s. She’s trying to make a name for herself off this mess, and pretending she’s doing something noble.”

  “And there’s nothing you can do about it right now. So don’t waste your energy.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s just…this is my life. How can I ever go back there after this?”

  “We’ll find a way,” Amanda said. “People need heroes right now. They don’t realize that when all this is over, it’ll be you, not Paulina.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at Amanda.

  “You have no idea how ridiculous you look,” I whispered.

  “Look who’s talking. You know punk went out of style when we were in high school,” she said.

  “I’d be hurt if I didn’t know you picked this stuff out.” I looked at the spiral notebook peeking out of the fanny pack. “Hey, can I ask you a kind of personal question?”

  “Of course,” she said. Her eyes were dubious.

  “Why do you write what you do in those notebooks?”

  Amanda looked at me for a moment, our eyes locking, then she turned away.

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  I paused as an elderly couple inched past, watching us like we were disrupting their peaceful earth just by existing.

  “When we were at your house,” I said, “I went into your room when I thought you were in the shower. I noticed the trunk under your bed, and…I don’t know. I just couldn’t help myself. I read them. I read about all those people you’d met, everything you wrote about them.”

  “You read them,” she said, more a statement than a question. I nodded, guilt burning through me like hot coal.

  I said, “Take curiosity and turn the volume to eleven, and that’s what’s inside me. So I’m sorry. But I need to know.”

  She said nothing, her mind somewhere else. I paused, trying to find the words.

  “I’ve been around every kind of journalist imaginable, from people who take the most detailed records to people who claim they have a dictaphone in their head. But I’ve never seen anything like that. Why do you keep records of everyone you meet?”

  Amanda shifted her body, staring out the window. Roads passing by so fast. So many miles traveled, none really observed. A single tear escaped her eye. She quickly wiped it away.

  “My parents died in a car accident when I was five. One second you have the whole world, the next second the world the way you know it just ceases to exist.

  “Social services moved me from orphanage to orphanage. I was still in shock. You can’t really explain death to a five-year-old, so for years I thought my parents were just on a long vacation. I don’t know how many orphanages I bounced around, I lost count after the first four or five. Then when I turned eleven, Larry and Harriet Stein adopted me.”

  My mouth opened, but no words came out. Amanda stared out the window.

  “Most orphans are so happy when they finally find a home. But when I was adopted, it just crushed everything. It was like somebody slapped me in the face and said, hey, your parents aren’t coming back.”

  “I’m sorry.” She didn’t seem to hear me.

  “The whole time I was in those awful places, I watched couples take child after child home with them. My friends disappeared like I’d never even known them. My parents died and nobody wanted me. I was like a girl somebody lost at the bus stop and didn’t bother to look for. I couldn’t make any friends because in time, they all left me.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said softly. “Why the notebooks?”

  Amanda sat back, resting her head against the seat. She closed her eyes and I could almost see the pain rush through her as she conjured up these painful memories.

  “Nobody wanted me, nobody stayed in my life.” A fat tear streaked down Amanda’s cheek. She went to wipe it away, but I gently took her hand, letting the droplet fall. Her eyes were so wide and open, I just wanted to jump in, see everything from the inside.

  “I figured that if eventually everyone left me, I had to do something to make them stay. And since I couldn’t physically make them stay, I wanted to remember them. So everywhere I went I brought along a notebook. Whenever I met anyone, even if it was only for a few seconds, I wrote about them. When my friends left me, I would open a notebook and read about my memories. But the worst part was that over time, I started to judge people based on the littlest things. The way a couple held hands. The way a parent spoke to their child. The way someone held a soup spoon. Every detail was symbolic of an entire life. And for me, that was much easier to understand.”

  Amanda turned in her seat until she was facing me fully. “We’re pretty similar, me and you,” she said. “We both try to see what’s beneath the surface based on what little we can discern from it. Only you, you dig deeper. Me, I let it go. It’s always been easier that way for me. But you cut through the skin.”

  I gripped the armrest as the train shook. Amanda turned back to the window. She had nothing else to say.

  Underneath the makeup, her eyes remained the same. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I searched through Amanda’s hidden notebooks, I knew her heart beat to the same rhythm as mine.

  Perhaps meeting Amanda under different circumstances could have led to something beautiful, sincere.

  Amanda. Studying to become a child advocacy lawyer. She worked to help those who couldn’t help themselves, because help wasn’t there when she’d needed it. Like I wasn’t there for Mya. And now Amanda was here for me.

  I placed my palm in hers, her skin cool to the touch. Her fingers closed around mine. Tighter, then tighter still, until our hands were knotted
like twine, the bond unbreakable. Her head fell onto my shoulder as I listened to her breathe. Steady. I could almost feel the life coursing through her.

  “Where are we?” Amanda asked wearily. I checked my watch.

  “We should be at Penn Station in less than two hours,” I said.

  “Thank God,” Amanda said, letting out a deep breath. “I need a massage and a painkiller, stat. And we need to get that leg of yours to a doctor.”

  “I think I saw an unwrapped Tylenol under my seat cushion. You’re on your own with the massage.”

  “Thanks. You’re quite the gentleman.”

  Suddenly there was a horrible screaming of metal, and I was thrown forward in my seat. Dozens of suitcases toppled onto the floor around us. I heard the squeal of grinding gears. My soda can fell onto the floor, spilling fizzy brown liquid everywhere. People standing in the aisles flailed for balance as the train jerked back and forth. The high-pitched shriek of metal on metal rang out like fingernails on a blackboard, then filtered through the world’s loudest bullhorn. I jammed my hands over my ears and pressed my body against Amanda’s, holding her. Then the realization hit me like a hammer to the gut.

  The train was slowing down.

  When we finally ground to a halt, I looked out the window. My heart pumped like mad, my mouth dried up. There was no station outside, no platform to exit onto, no passengers waiting to embark. All I could see was a dusty road alongside the train tracks and a highway off in the distance.

  We were trapped.

  A static-filled crackle broke through the passengers’ groans, and then a voice came over the loudspeaker.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats. We’ve just been informed by the Manhattan Transit Authority that they’ve received notice of a possible disturbance on this train. Amtrak staff will be coming through the aisles. Please have both your ticket stubs ready as well as picture identification. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we’ll be underway as soon as this issue is resolved. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”