“Jesse Alvarez. Are you OK working with him?”
Ellie felt the flush spread across her face. Her heart raced with panic. “Sure,” she squeaked.
Jack gazed at her over the rims of his glasses. His eyes were narrowed into tiny slits. He finally nodded. “Just checking.”
She couldn’t get out of his office fast enough, her heart thumping wildly in her chest. How much did he know and how did he know it? To her knowledge, there weren’t any policies about dating a co-worker. Again, if there had been an intra-office memo about it, she missed it. It was probably back there in the fax pile. But she wouldn’t exactly call their one-night stand a date. She was fairly certain she wouldn’t lose her job over it, but how embarrassing if others knew. Especially if one of the others was your boss. Be sure your sins will find you out—how many times had her father preached that message before his sins found him.
Furious, she marched into the AV room and planted herself between Jesse and a monitor, her hands jammed on her hips. He looked around her at the flickering images, paused the machine, then looked up at her. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is Jack just asked me if I could work with you.” She angrily crossed her arms and pulled her mouth into a tight knot. “Why would he ask me that, Jesse?” she asked through clenched teeth.
Jesse opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, his mouth contorted into various wordless shapes. He opened his hands wide, like he was getting ready to explain something but again, said nothing.
“Please, tell me you didn’t tell him about…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “us.” They never had been an “us.” Besides, he was the one who never called back.
“Using the Feds’ scanner? Of course I told him about it. You know, the whole budget thing you mentioned.”
Ellie narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “That’s all you told him?”
“I told him I thought it could be useful in your investigation.” He spoke slowly, like a prisoner carefully gauging his words before divulging too much information. “Was there something I was supposed to tell him?”
Ellie wasn’t completely sure she believed him. Other than her own guilty conscience and a good dose of paranoia, she had no reason to not believe him. She marched out of the room and headed to the hospital.
On the way, she called Brady Mitchell and arranged to meet them in the Emergency Room. She didn’t want to drag the parents through the army of press crowding the main lobby. She realized when she pulled into the parking lot, she’d probably made a mistake.
News vans with colorful logos and satellite antennas jabbing at an overcast sky lined the patient pick-up and drop-off lane. The reporters crowded around the double doors in clusters, their watchful eyes zeroing in on everyone who came or went. Ellie took a deep breath and pushed her way through, motioning for the admitting nurse to buzz her back into the treatment area. Safe behind the electronic door, she stuck her head in the admissions booth. “I’m expecting a detective from Avery County. When he gets here can you page me?”
“He’s here. Exam room two.”
Ellie nodded, found room two, and peeked behind the curtain. Mitchell was standing beside the examining table while the parents were seated in two metal chairs. “Detective Mitchell?” Ellie pushed the curtain aside and offered the detective her hand. “Detective Saunders.”
Mitchell looked about a month shy of his thirty-year mark chasing bad guys. The lines etched deep into his face and gray hair were the tell-tale battle scars of a man who had seen it all. He had a flat face with sagging jowls that reminded Ellie of a bulldog. And she’d bet money he was a bulldog.
He introduced the parents as Richard and Tina Chambers. They looked to be in their mid-twenties, teetering on the poverty level, and very tired. There was a difference between numb and tired, and these parents fell into the latter. He was wearing navy work pants with wrinkles as deep as the lines on Mitchell’s face and a light blue work shirt with an oil stain on the front tail. “Bekley’s Wholesale Seafood” was monogrammed on a white fish sewn onto the upper left chest. His blond hair looked about an inch or two longer than a good buzz cut was supposed to be, creating scattered porcupine-like spikes all over his head.
She wasn’t faring much better. Her bleached blonde hair hung straight, falling on her shoulders like dirty mop strings while her face was long and narrow with sunken cheeks void of color. Her amber eyes reflected a perpetual state of confusion, or boredom. She was wearing dark brown corduroy pants accessorized by tiny balls of gray lint and a plain yellow sweatshirt whose sleeves had been shortened in the dryer.
The mother’s eyes darted back and forth between Mitchell and Ellie, while the father studied a callus between his thumb and index finger.
“Ritchie,” Mr. Chambers said in a voice barely audible.
“Pardon?” Ellie cocked her head to hopefully hear him better.
“I go by Ritchie.” He finally looked up, met Ellie’s eyes then returned his attention to the callus.
Ellie looked at Mitchell. He slightly moved his tired shoulders, raised his brows.
“Is he OK?” Tina asked. She looked back and forth between Mitchell and Ellie, not sure who would answer. “Dusty. Our son.”
Ellie smiled slightly. “His name’s Dusty?”
Tina bobbed her head up and down. “Is he OK?”
“If our Johnny Doe is your son, then yes, he appears to be fine.”
“We’re paying a babysitter and need to get back. Can we see him now?”
Ellie glanced at Mitchell then at Tina. “I’ll be glad to take you up in just a minute but I need to speak with Detective Mitchell first.”
She motioned for Mitchell to join her in the hallway, smiled at Tina then drew the curtain. She stepped a few feet away from the room, hoping the Chambers were safely out of earshot. She wondered if it would be wrong to pray that Tina and Richie Chambers were not little Johnny Doe’s parents?
“You have got to be kidding me?” She whispered to Mitchell as he joined her. “They have to hurry this up because they’re paying a babysitter?”
“Mom don’t work; dad makes nine bucks an hour. They’ve got a one-year-old, a three-year-old and an eight-year-old back at home.” He shrugged then popped a piece of chewing gum in his mouth. “I checked out Bekley’s Wholesale Seafood. The dad’s route is up through Tennessee. The driver that handles this area is a guy by the name of Jerome Kenton.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“He’s running Charlotte today. He’ll be back in your area tomorrow. I figured either you could grab a few minutes with him tomorrow or I can pay him a visit at the loading dock.”
Ellie nodded. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow. What about the parents? What’s your take on them?” She stared at the curtain, angry at the complacency behind it.
Mitchell shrugged again. “If stupidity’s a crime, then they should probably be arrested. But I don’t really see ‘em doing anything harmful to the kid.”
“Not even in the heat of anger? Maybe a spanking that went too far?”
Mitchell shook his head. “Like I said, they’re not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but they’re not criminals.”
Ellie ran her hand through her hair. “Well, let’s get this show on the road. We don’t want to run up that babysitting tab.”
“He’s named after Dusty Rhoades.”
Ellie stared at him, her brows raised.
“Dusty Rhoades. The wrestler,” he said.
“They named their son after a wrestler?”
Mitchell smiled. Ellie sighed and followed him back into the room.
“Y’all ready?” Mitchell asked.
Tina pulled herself out of the chair like she had been planted there with weights. Maybe she had. Maybe this wasn’t the way she had envisioned her life to turn out. Maybe she loved her kids desperately and cried at Christmas and birthdays when there wasn’t enough money to go around. But would she cry if there was one less mo
uth to feed?
Ritchie tagged along behind as if disjointed from the whole experience.
Ellie led them through the treatment area and to the elevators. “The media should be confined to the lobby and entrances, but you never know. Some of them may have wormed their way up to the fourth floor. If you’re approached, just turn your head away and if you say anything at all, just say, ‘no comment,’” she said, as they stood there waiting.
Tina stared with her empty eyes then turned back to the elevator door and watched and waited. Ritchie studied his callus again. Mitchell shrugged.
The ride to the fourth floor was so silent, Ellie wondered if the Chambers understood that they were going to see if a found child was their missing son. She wondered if they even cared.
“He’ll be in a playroom where you can observe him without him seeing you.” The elevator stopped, and Ellie held the door as the Chambers and Mitchell stepped off.
A small group of reporters were clustered around the nurses’ station, their attention zeroed in on the same perky nurse Ellie had spoken with earlier. “It’s truly a miracle,” she said, her voice as animated as her hands flaying about.
Ellie wanted to scream at the nurse and tell her to shut-up, to scurry the reporters away from hearing anything more about miracles and little Johnny Doe. But if she interrupted, the vultures would turn their attention to her and to the possible parents of the miracle child. She opted to hurry the Chambers and Mitchell away from the scene, herding them down the left hallway and toward the playroom.
“What was that all about?” Tina asked. It was the first time she had showed an interest in anything other than getting back home.
“A sick child was apparently healed.” She figured that was all they needed to know at the moment. If Johnny Doe turned out to be their son, they’d hear the rest of the story soon enough. If he wasn’t their son, they could return home, pay the babysitter, and watch the story of Johnny Doe on the evening news.
Ellie peered through the window of the playroom. Johnny Doe, wearing the blue Spiderman sweat suit, and Leon were building a skyscraper out of red and green Legos. Johnny Doe erupted in a fit of laughter apparently over something Leon had said. He grabbed his belly and swayed back and forth in his pint-sized chair while Leon had a goofy “what I’d say?” look on his face. Another child, a little girl with a purple cast covering her leg, was playing a board game with a nurse and glanced over at the dynamic duo, then went back to her game.
Ellie watched Johnny Doe for a moment then stepped aside and allowed Tina and Ritchie to step up to the window. “Remember, he can’t see you.”
Ritchie glanced up then went back to picking at his callus. Tina shook her head. “That’s not him.” There was no emotion in her voice. No disappointment. Nothing. She turned away and stared at Ellie. “Can we go now?”
“You’re sure that’s not him?” Mitchell asked. “We can have him turn more toward the window so you can get a better look.”
Again, she shook her head. “It’s not him. Dusty’s hair’s shorter. Can we go now?”
Ellie couldn’t tell if the Chambers’ detachment stemmed from the shock of having your child go missing, or if they just didn’t care. She had seen people more upset over a pair of lost gloves. She wished them all the luck in the world finding their son, Dusty. But was almost thankful her little Johnny Doe wasn’t the child they were looking for.
8
Gray clouds rolled from the west like a soft flannel blanket being fluffed for a waiting bed. Forecasters were calling for a light dusting of snow, which meant they would probably get a couple of inches. Ellie cranked up the heat in the car and drove to the alley where little Johnny Doe had been found.
She parked in front of the fish market and headed inside to see Dwayne Andrews. Shorty McCorkle and a younger man she assumed to be Andrews had their noses jammed into the backside of one of the freezers.
The younger man looked her up and down while McCorkle pushed the fur rim of his toboggan away from his face. “You’re back.”
“What can I say? I love the smell.” She pressed a finger between her upper lip and nose as the foul odor from the thawing fish invaded her sinuses.
“This is the cop I was telling you about,” McCorkle said as he jabbed an elbow in the young man’s side.
“Detective Saunders, Burkesboro PD.” Ellie offered him her hand.
“Dwayne Andrews.” He jerked off a glove and pumped Ellie’s hand hard. He was gangly with a hook nose and butter-colored hair that hung over the edges of his gold-rimmed glasses. “Shorty told me you were wanting to ask me some questions about that little kid.”
“Yes. I was wondering if I could talk with you a minute about it.”
“Sure, sure. I didn’t see much, but I’ll be glad to help all I can.”
Shorty offered the use of the so-called office then cussed at the malfunctioning thermostat. Ellie followed Andrews to the partitioned office where the fish odor wasn’t quite as strong. Andrews offered Ellie a seat in Shorty’s worn leather chair then pulled up a white resin lawn chair splotched gray with mummified bird poop.
“Why don’t you tell me what you saw?” Ellie asked, sinking so far into the leather, she wondered how she was going to get out of the thing.
“I was loading some mackerel in the front freezer and heard all these sirens. That’s not real unusual for this neighborhood, but there was a lot of ‘em—sirens, I mean. Usually it’s just one. The police, maybe an ambulance now and then, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many at one time. It got me a little concerned. I mean, I was thinking it must be something big like nine-eleven or something.”
“Did you go outside?”
He nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah. I stepped outside to see what was going on, and that’s when I saw it.”
“Saw what?” Ellie opened her notepad, pen poised.
“All the police cars. There were ten. No wait—I think it was eleven, and two fire trucks. Well, they weren’t fire trucks, so-to-say, they were, you know, the emergency response trucks, the red ones with—”
“What about earlier in the afternoon? Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary then?” She knew what happened after the emergency personnel arrived. What happened before was what she was interested in.
“Yeah, when I was coming in I saw this black guy in the parking lot. He got in a green Honda. I think it was an Accord. He pulled out of the parking lot behind Marisol’s then crossed over to Salem Street.”
Ellie nodded. “What time was this?”
“A little after three.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He was big, like a body-builder type, and his head was shaved. I didn’t see his face, though.”
“Do you remember what he was wearing?”
“Gray pants and a black leather jacket. The pants were those fancy, athletic kind. You know, with zippers at the ankles.”
“What about his complexion? Was he dark-skinned, light-skinned?”
“Light.”
“And you didn’t see which direction he came from?”
Andrews shook his head. “No. He was already in the parking lot when I pulled in.”
“Have you ever seen him around before?”
Again, he shook his head.
“OK, you’ve been a big help, Dwayne. If you think of anything else, give me a call.” She handed him a card. He studied every letter on the card like he was studying for a test then slipped it in his nylon and Velcro wallet.
When they returned to the front of the warehouse, Shorty was still working on the freezer, and his temper was flaring hot. He banged on the side of the unit with the handle of a screwdriver, cursing through clenched teeth. “Worthless piece of….” He blew air out his nose and smacked at the fur tickling his face. “Did you find out anything?” He threw Ellie a glance then kicked the freezer with his midget-sized foot.
“Dwayne was very helpful. He said there was a man in the parking lot Tuesday when he got
here. A man wearing athletic pants and black leather jacket. Do you remember seeing anyone fitting that description? A customer maybe?”
He thought about it a moment then shook his head. “He didn’t come in here.”
“When customers park, do they use the back parking lot?”
He shook his head again. “Most time they park on the street. I don’t think they even know we have a parking lot.”
“Who uses the parking lot?”
Andrews chimed in. “Just us and some of Marisol’s customers. When the building next door was open, they used it some.”
“The abandoned building?”
Andrews nodded.
“How long has it been empty?”
Andrews and Shorty looked at each other and both shrugged. “Six months,” Shorty said. “Give or take.”
“Do you know who owns it?”
“I don’t know who owns it but it’s managed, if you want to call it that, by Foothills Realty.”
“What type of business was there before it closed?”
“Print shop. Before that a TV repair shop and before that some kind of little office.” The freezer hissed, and Shorty cursed again then sighed. “Look, I don’t mind helping you out but I’ve got to get this thing fixed before I lose a grand of flounder.”
Ellie smiled and nodded. “Sure. No problem. Bekley’s Wholesale Seafood, when will they be delivering again?”
“Tomorrow morning. They usually pull in around nine.”
Ellie left Shorty and Dwayne to their freezer and rotting flounder and went across the street to Kellum’s Insurance Agency. Signs on the inside of the plate-glass window declared “The Lowest Rates Around!!” and “We can Insure Anyone!!” Ellie wondered if they insured a green Honda Accord.
The office was sparsely furnished with two metal chairs in a small waiting area, separated by a dying plant. A large U-shaped desk was planted in the middle of the room. Phone cords, fax lines, and computer cables were stretched across the room and taped to the grungy carpet with large swatches of silver duct tape. An insurance agency couldn’t very well have someone tripping over a cord in their own office.
The Rising Page 7
