19
The sun is a simmering ball against the horizon, casting looming shadows into the softball multi-plex located in St. Louis park. All four baseball diamonds are active with softball and baseball teams, the players sweltering under the hot afternoon sun. The park is packed, players smacking balls on the nearby tennis courts, smoke rolling off barbeques, families playing Frisbee and dogs barking.
Burke parks us in a lot near the softball fields, and we get out. The lot is full, but near the entrance we pass a maroon caravan with a Hornets sticker on the back mirror. I peek inside and see a car seat buckled into one of the back bucket seats.
Next to it is a sweet looking Corvette I salivate over a bit.
Oh, my poor Camaro.
I glance in the Corvette’s window, too, and spot a mesh bag of softball supplies in the back—helmets, gloves, balls—crammed into the back.
We head out behind the backstops and I’m searching for the uniforms of the Edina Hornets. I spot the team on the field, wearing green and gold.
Their fans are packed into a tiny string of bleachers, cheering. Burke and I wander over and stand at the fence. I spot who I think is Robert Swenson—my memory after twenty-plus years is dim—but he glances over and sees Burke. Nods.
The guy with the blonde hair, slight paunch, and balding is not quite the Casanova I expected him to be. He’s wearing a green hornets t-shirt, a cap and a pair of shorts, and is yelling at the shortstop to move over.
“There’s his wife,” Burke says and points to a woman sitting on the end of the bleachers, first row. Petite, blonde hair tied back in the messy buns of the ‘90s, she’s holding a fat toddler on her lap. She’s wearing a hat and dark sunglasses. She cheers as a batter steps up to the plate.
“I’m going to have a chat with her. Keep an eye on Robert.” I head over to the bleachers. Burke doesn’t move because he knows what I’m doing.
In fact, it clicks in, just now, that he must have been at the Mulligans when the shots were fired. Huh. Maybe he followed me. We’ll get to the bottom of that later. For now, I’m just having a casual conversation with Angie.
It’s a good thing I stopped in the bathroom to wash my hands before we left because now I look just like a regular guy watching the game.
There’s a little space on the end of the row, so I gesture to it and ask to sit down.
She nods and I settle in.
“Go Hornets!” she yells and it’s the perfect opening.
“You have a player on the team?”
She looks at me. She’s pretty. Late twenties. A little weariness around the eyes, maybe. “No. My husband is the coach. But I used to play, so I can’t stop myself. I sort of want to get out there.”
“What position?”
“Short stop.” She looks at me. “For the Hopkins Lions.”
The hitter smacks the ball high out to right field, and it’s easily nabbed.
“Did your husband play baseball?”
“Yep. We were high school sweethearts.”
The next batter comes up. She helps Junior clap.
“Cute. How old is he?”
“Fourteen months.” She gives him a kiss. “Samuel Ezekiel Swenson. Long awaited child.” She looks at me. “We’ve been married seven years, so Samuel is a real gift.”
She leaves out the details, but I can guess. Infertility struggles probably, given the delay.
The batter hits a line drive through the shortstop’s legs and the crowd groans at the base hit.
“Gretta would have caught that,” says someone nearby and beside me, Angie stiffens.
“Gretta?” I keep my voice easy.
“Our short stop. She was…well, she, uh, she passed away.” She looks straight ahead, and swallows. “Yesterday.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Mmmhmm. C’mon, Hornets!” She glances at me, cuts her voice down. “She was a little troubled. Ran away from home. Robert was trying to help her. He met with her once in a while to talk.”
I think she sees Burke standing a few feet away because she stills, then glances at me. “Are you with him?”
I nod slowly. “But we’re just having a friendly chat. I was a little curious, however, about something.”
She looks back at the game. It’s two-and three, full count. The crowd is cheering. “Who are you?”
“My name is Rembrandt Stone. I’m a detective.” I slide out my ID, let her have a quick glance, then tuck it away.
“What do you want?”
“Just a couple quick answers to a couple quick questions.”
She doesn’t respond so I dive in. “What’s your husband driving these days?”
She looks at me, one brow down. “A Corvette.”
“Except on practice days, I’ll bet, huh? Because he has to take the caravan to the field to haul equipment.”
Her mouth tightens. “Yeah, I suppose.”
“Hard to get the car seat in a Corvette.”
She looks at me and frowns. “Mmmhmm.”
My mind is pinging back to Teresa’s comment about the cars outside. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“Strike three!” The words from the umpire turn my gaze back to the field. And it’s now that I see Robert off to the side talking with a man.
No, talking with Jeff Holmes.
What is he doing here?
I get up and glance at Burke. Because Jeff has put his hand on Robert’s chest, pushing him. A father never stops caring.
Especially a father obsessed, grieving and desperate for justice. I’m familiar with the type, so, oh boy. “Burke—”
“Yep,” he says and we take off around the back of the dugout toward the altercation.
Someone screams when Jeff grabs one of the bats lodged into the fencing. His voice raises. “I’ll kill you for what you did to her!”
Robert has picked up a bat too and the two are facing off. “I didn’t kill her!”
“You raped her!” Jeff takes a swing at Robert, who dodges.
“I didn’t!” He backs up, sweating. Jeff takes two quick steps toward him.
“Jeff! Stop!” I shout, but he’s beyond hearing. Really, I don’t blame him. He takes another swing at Robert who meets his bat with a resounding clang that rattles even my bones.
The vibration makes him drop the bat and he staggers back, his hands up.
“Stop—”
“She was a kid. Just a kid, and you—I don’t care if she agreed—you got into her head. You—” Jeff drops a description that is apt but probably has the mothers in the stands gasping.
Not me. This scum deserves whatever Jeff dishes out.
But I can’t let Jeff go down for murder, so— “Jeff! Let us handle it!”
He ignores me and swings again.
This time, as he back peddles, Robert trips.
He’s a sitting duck. Well, lying I guess. He rolls over and is crawling across the ground when Jeff runs him down. Grabs his collar, raises the bat.
He’s going to break ribs—or, if he hits his head, Robert really is dead.
I’m just three steps away, so of course I launch myself at Jeff.
The man goes down under me. But let’s not forget he’s a bit of a loose cannon and wasn’t afraid to hurt me before. He roars and slams an elbow into my side. It bulls-eyes on the still-healing stab wound, and I submit to an inner howl. But I grit my teeth, grab his arm and lay on him. “Stay down!”
No murder in front of the kiddos, pal.
“He didn’t do it!” Angie has run up behind us, and she’s crying, holding her baby, standing away from both men, but shouting over and over. “He didn’t do it!”
And he didn’t. Because the crime has already formed in my head.
Robert didn’t kill Gretta.
Angie did.
Or at least she was there.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe a caravan, or a couple sedans, Teresa said.
Burke is there, again, with cuffs and I roll off Jeff to let my partne
r subdue him.
I’m breathing hard, and in a little pain as I glance at Angie. She might have run to his defense, but there is nothing of rescue in her expression now. She’s staring at Robert in a way that looks like she’d like to pick up the bat, have a go at him.
“You were the one at Lulu’s yesterday morning,” I say, my voice quiet. “You went to talk to Gretta,”
Angie looks at me. “Of course I did. I thought maybe—”
“You could talk her into having an abortion.”
She took in a breath. “She was already thinking it—I know it. She was at that clinic. I picked her up and we argued. I gave her some money and I told her we’d pay for it, but she was angry and she got out and ran—” She looks at Robert. “You did this. You stole our lives from us.”
Robert is still breathing hard, still on the ground and I wouldn’t mind picking up the bat, either. “How did you know?” he asks Angie.
A wife knows, is what Eve would say. I can hear her voice, and suddenly long to get back to her.
Please, don’t die, Bets. I still can’t believe I screwed up that badly.
Angie’s voice, so full of vitriol shakes me back to the now. “She called me, Robert. She told me everything.”
“I tried to take care of it. I tried to talk to her—”
“You tried to strangle her,” Burke says to Robert. “That’s where she got the bruises. You scared her. And that’s why she called Angie. And then, she called her mother.”
Poor Karen. If she’d only waited a few more minutes. She’d gone looking for Gretta, but her daughter was trapped in Angie’s caravan, having an argument outside the clinic.
The same caravan Robert drove to the game the day Jeff had it out with him. After his deal. Where he was wearing his cuff links, all cocky, like he was some hotshot, Jeff had said.
Just to confirm my racing deductions—“Jeff, when you and Robert had that fight—was he driving the caravan?”
Jeff frowns, looks at Robert. “Yeah.”
“You grabbed his shirt, didn’t you? Maybe his sleeve?”
Jeff lifts a shoulder, then nods.
“Robert, did you lose a cuff link?”
His eyes are widening. “How did you—”
“It fell out at Lulu’s, when your wife got out to chase Gretta.”
Angie is crying now. “She was running, and I was desperate, so I did chase her, but then, Sammy was crying, and I couldn’t leave him, and I shouted at her that we weren’t finished.” She puts her hand over her mouth, her eyes widening. “She looked back at me and—”
“You saw her trip. Saw her hit her head.”
Angie stiffens. “I didn’t know she was that hurt. She screamed and fell and I…I got back in the caravan and drove home. If I’d known she was dying…” She tightens her jaw, and her eyes spark. “She was a tramp who shouldn’t have my husband’s child.”
Jeff makes a sound, something of a keening, but I get it.
It’s the sound of despair, and somewhere inside me, it connects with the subconscious memory of losing Ashley.
I’m broken for him.
“I’ll call Booker and have him send a squad car,” I say to Burke. I give Angie a look. “You stay here.”
Then I walk over to Robert and help him up from the grass.
“Thanks,” he says.
I don’t have cuffs, but Booker will.
For a second, I wonder what I’ll say to my old boss, the instigator of this mess. Look him in the eye and say enough? Because Jeff is weeping, and so resembles a man I saw in the mirror two days ago.
I can’t take any more loss.
Maybe justice isn’t enough.
But as Jeff looks up, and takes a breath, I realize…maybe it’s a start.
You spend all your time trying to figure out if you could have done something different, rewriting your responses, imagining a different outcome. At least now they know.
“You’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Gretta Holmes.”
“Wait—” Robert says.
“Shut your mouth and listen. You have the right to remain silent—”
But that’s all I get out because I hear the train. The rumble of the future reaching out to grab me.
No, oh no, I need to get back to Eve. To fireworks and everything we have before us.
This time, we’re going to make it.
I look over at Burke, then let go of Robert and head over to the chain link fence and hold on. The wind surges around me, the world is dropping away.
I close my eyes and fight a scream deep in my core.
Because I haven’t a clue what I might find waiting on the other side.
20
I hear screaming—and it could be me—as time blinks me back to reality. Or my new reality. Present day timeline. Whatever you want to call it.
Thankfully, I find myself in the conference room again, and on instinct, I catch myself with my hands to break my fall. I’m listening to my heartbeat, but shrieks erupt from the hallway.
And then I remember—
My Porsche. The explosion. Burke!
I scramble to my feet, then to the door.
The screaming has stopped, and out in the bullpen, guys sit at their desks, no one panicking at a man burning to death on the street. “Who’s screaming?” I say and someone I don’t recognize looks up and frowns at me.
Huh. But I know I heard it—I turn back to the conference room and head to the window, glancing at the board on the way.
Wait.
The board is crammed with photos of victims of the Jackson killer.
He’s been busy in my jump back to the present, and a hot ball of horror forms in my gut. Over a dozen more victims, from my quick count.
He’s been busy because I did something.
The scream rises again, sharp and fast and I run to the window.
No burning Porsche. But across the street where used to be an empty lot is a…park? Kids are playing on swings, climbing the jungle gym, running around the space.
Screaming.
I stare at the activity a long moment, caught suddenly in a fading distant memory of my seven-year-old, her blonde hair flipping behind her as she digs into a swing on the set I built for her…less than a week ago. My chest tightens.
Maybe she’s back.
Please…
Although with the cases on the board, something inside me says no. Still, to confirm, I turn and take a look at my desk.
It’s clean. The files hanging in their own partitions in a long file box that sits parallel to a real desk. And on the front I see a nameplate.
Captain Stone.
What? So apparently, I haven’t completely screwed up my life. I sort through the files, looking for anything familiar.
Ashley’s folder is gone.
Gretta’s is too, so maybe—
“Hey Captain, I got those reports you were looking for.” The knock at the door lifts my head and I don’t recognize the man who strolls in. He’s young, mid-twenties, dark hair queued back in a man bun, and he wears a suit jacket over a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and Cons.
I’m looking at a younger version of myself, and for a second, I wonder if maybe I’ve cloned myself, sent it to the future—no, that’s the stuff of sci-fi novels. Be real, Rem.
I notice the name on his badge. Kincaid.
He hands me the file and I look at it. “Remind me…?”
“It’s the first Jackson murder.” He gives me a puzzled look. “You asked the CSI Director to revisit the DNA samples found under her fingernails?”
“Right.” I haven’t a clue what he’s talking about, of course. “Thanks.”
I set the file on my desk, and Kincaid just stands there, looking at me. “Um—”
“We’re sparring today, right? After work?” He looks at his watch.
Me too, but mine has stopped working, of course. “We are?”
He frowns. “You said you’d show me that counter punch move you do.”
I’d love to know what that is, too. Maybe I can Google it.
“Yeah, sure.” I say. “I’ll see you then.”
“Super.”
From the hallway, someone stops at the door and sticks their head into my office. “Hey, Zeke! Some of the guys are getting pizza. You want some?”
“Sure,” The man named Kincaid says. Zeke Kincaid.
“Nice. I’ll tell Burke you’re in.” The officer nods and heads away, but the name sends an arrow of relief through me. Burke is still here.
He hasn’t been burned alive.
“Let me know if you need anything else, boss,” Zeke says.
How about a sit-rep on my life? But I don’t say that as I let Zeke walk away.
So, the Jackson killer is still at large, and I walk to the board and do the math. Thirty-seven total. That’s fourteen new names.
What have I done?
I focus back on the facts. Apparently, I’m hunting down a lead on victim number one. Who wasn’t Gretta Holmes.
I’m a little curious, so I return to my computer and wiggle the mouse. It’s locked, and I put in my password, Ashley.
It doesn’t work and I’m a little surprised because even in my last timeline, the one of her murder, I used it. I try Eve.
Nothing.
A tiny sweat breaks out down my back because I haven’t a clue, not one, of what else I’d use.
Mulligan. Nope.
I’m drumming my fingers on my desk and my gaze falls on a picture of me and Mikey, grease-covered and grinning. I’m about ten.
Michelangelo.
The screen opens. Interesting.
I get into our criminal files and search Robert Swenson’s name. The results take a swipe out of me. He served a dime for attempted murder and three counts of sexual assault—the report names two other women besides Gretta. Was paroled ten years ago, put on the sexual predator list, and was caught with a fourteen-year-old girl a couple years later. He’s currently in Stillwater, chewing up a twenty-year sentence.
There’s also a brief mention of Angie. She wasn’t charged with Gretta’s death, in return for her testimony against Robert. I do the math and guess her son would be in mid-twenties by now. I hope she moved on and found someone who wouldn’t betray her, hope little Samuel found a good man to raise him.
No Unturned Stone Page 16
