The Absence of Screams: A Thriller

by Ben Follows

  “Tell me what happened," said Jameson.

  Todd stared at him. “Who are you?"

  “They were trying to make you incriminate yourself, Todd. Which is something they can't legally do, by the way. It's against the fifth amendment. However, if they get a confession they can start building the case around that. They want to arrest you for the murder. They're coercing you, something they're also not allowed to do.”

  Todd shook his head. “They were trying to find Danielle."

  “You are currently classified as a person of interest," said Jameson, "although I can guarantee that they have you as their one and only suspect."

  Todd thought back over what O'Reilly had said. “Does she think I killed Mrs. Shembly?"

  Jameson returned his glasses to his face and adjusted them on his nose. “O'Reilly and I have had some disagreements in the past. They found Tatiana’s body this morning. No one can find Danielle. They find out that the Shembly’s weren’t too fond of you. They looked into you and found out you have a criminal record.”

  Todd tossed his head back in frustration. “It was one joint. They can't think that makes me some hardened criminal.”

  "According to your file," said Jameson, "it was one joint which you sold to Chief Dryden's niece, a seventh grader at the

  time."

  Todd leaned over the table, exasperated. "How was I supposed to know that?"

  "Regardless," said Jameson, leafing through the pages in front of him and adjusting his glasses, "the detectives put two and two together and came up with five. They figure you killed Tatiana and kidnapped Danielle so you could be together, or you and Danielle did it together and were going to elope.”

  Todd stared at him, open mouthed. “Her parents weren’t breaking us up. They just didn’t like me. There's a big difference. Not to mention that I'm not a fucking murderer. Where do you get off on saying shit like that?”

  Jameson put his elbows on the table and put his hands together. “What did you tell them?”

  Todd rubbed his eyes. “I had everything under control. I wasn't going to tell them anything that would make me guilty.”

  Jameson took a card from the inside of his jacket and slid it across the table. It was a card for "Jameson and Associates".

  Jameson’s name and title as a criminal lawyer were displayed below his name. Todd took the card and read it, then looked up at Jameson, wondering why the lawyer was showing him the card.

  "That card proves I know what I'm talking about," said Jameson. "I've seen a million cases just like this. You need to trust me and believe I know what I'm doing."

  Todd flicked the card. “Don’t I have to pay you or something?”

  “I’ve already been paid.”

  “Who paid you?"

  Jameson smirked. “Charles Shembly has had me on retainer for about a decade.”

  Todd frowned. “Why would a wheat farmer have a criminal lawyer on retainer?”

  Jameson snapped and pointed at him. “You’re already one step ahead of the police.”

  Todd frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “Charles has promised to explain everything when we meet up with him," said Jameson.

  Todd leaned back in his chair, staring at the business card. “They really think I killed Mrs. Shembly?”

  Jameson shrugged. “You’re the convenient suspect. In most murder cases, the obvious suspect is the right one."

  "Do you know who killed Mrs. Shembly?”

  Jameson shook his head.

  “Does Mr. Shembly?”

  Jameson reached into his briefcase and took out a tape recorder and a notepad. “Let's talk about this morning.”

  “They knocked on my door," said Todd. "I was watching TV. I answered the door and they were there." He looked up at the ceiling. "Do you know where Danielle is?"

  “Danielle is safe.”

  “How can you be sure?"

  “Charles assured me she is safe," said Jameson. "For now, tell me everything. Look at me, Todd. Look at me."

  Todd met Jameson's eyes.

  "Todd," said Jameson. "Tell me everything. Let me save your life.”

  6

  The mess hall at McKinley Military Base had been reorganized into an auditorium. The tables had been pushed to either side and the chairs were rearranged into a dozen even rows. A raised stage had been set up at one end of the room, with a ramp on one side for handicap access.

  Marcus and Angela were to the right of the stage, reading through the notes on the speech Marcus had given hundreds of times all over the country, in military bases like this one as well as universities, high schools, libraries and political rallies. It was always the same speech. At this point Marcus could do it in his sleep.

  "So," said Angela, kneeling beside his wheelchair and speaking softly, like a kindergarten teacher speaking to a student, "you need to remember that we are doing this the same way we've done it every time before. Nothing that happened last night changes anything. You're a paralyzed veteran raising money for missing children and looking for your daughter. Remember the character."

  "I got it," said Marcus.

  "Remember, Marcus, this is about the missing children. Think of all the children this has helped."

  "I got it."

  "If you get arrested, your justification won't mean anything. They will view you as a murderer and both of us as liars who have scammed our way to a million dollars. Where the money's going won't matter. Our reasons won't matter. Do you want that?"

  Marcus turned and looked at her. "I said I fucking got it, so get off my back, Angela."

  "Remember this is about the both of us, and Danielle," said Angela in the same measured tone. "I'm just saying you need to stay calm. Don't let this get to you."

  "I got it," said Marcus, looking up at her, "now fuck off and let me give the speech."

  "Fine." She stepped back and leaned against the wall of the mess hall.

  The soldiers were pouring in and taking their seats, conversing amongst themselves. Most of the soldiers on the base were attending, save for necessary personnel. The man in charge of the base, General Henry Thompson, had made sure of it.

  Normally Marcus and Angela wouldn't have done a speaking engagement at such an isolated location, but Thompson had personally reached out to them and expressed his admiration for Marcus and what he had been through.

  Initially, they had ignored Thompson, but he had persisted, even offering to pay for their air fare and give them private accommodations on the base for the duration of their stay. They had relented and headed to Harper's Mill.

  After the events of the previous night, Marcus was beginning to wonder whether it was fate that they had ended up in Harper's Mill.

  General Thompson came through the crowd and walked up to them, a giant grin across his face. He was a broad-shouldered man with a square face and a prominent scar under his right eye.

  "Marcus," he said, his smile widening. "I'm so glad you are able to come and give a speech to these young men. What you've been through is so difficult and amazing. My god, it's miraculous that you still manage to smile."

  "Thank you," said Marcus.

  "Thank you for coming." Thompson patted him on the shoulder. "Are you ready to begin or do you need more time to prepare? If you need anything to help calm your nerves, my people will be more than happy to oblige."

  Marcus could feel Angela watching him.

  "No," he said, smoothing out his collared shirt and dress pants. "I'm ready."

  "Excellent." Thompson clapped his hands together. "I'll get these guys all amped up for you."

  Thompson turned and walked onto the stage. He stopped in the center and looked out over the crowd, his hands behind his ramrod straight back. He cleared his throat. The soldiers stopped their conversations, stood at attention and saluted.

  "Thank you," said Thompson, grinning. "Now sit down and listen to the speech Marcus Devereaux is going to deliver. I've spoken about him before, and it is a great honor to h
ave him here." He cleared his throat and spoke normally. "Please be seated. Without further ado, I present, Marcus Devereaux."

  Thompson stepped to one side and the audience took their seats, clapping politely.

  Angela pushed Marcus up the ramp and turned him so he faced the audience.

  "You'll do great," said Thompson, giving Marcus a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a big smile before walking off stage.

  Angela locked the wheels of his wheelchair and rested a hand on his shoulder for just a second longer than normal before joining the General.

  “Let’s give a big hand to my assistant Angela," said Marcus, his voice carrying over the crowd without the need of a microphone. "I couldn’t have done any of this without her.”

  The audience clapped. Angela waved at the crowd from where she leaned against the wall.

  “I could never have imagined this,” said Marcus, looking back out at the audience. His voice became wistful. "I had a plan for how my life was going to turn out, and this wasn't a part of it. I was going to be an accomplished military veteran with two or three tours of duty under my belt, a wife, a few kids and a comfortable house in the suburbs. I would work a job which allowed me to spend time with my family. That was the life I planned, but the world is talented when it comes to messing with our plans."

  Marcus grabbed the bottle of water in the wheelchair's cup holder and took a sip.

  “Eleven years ago," he continued, returning the water bottle to the cup holder, "I was living on an army base much like this one. I was being deployed to Afghanistan three days later and had been given the weekend off. I planned to spend the time with my wife, Cassandra, and my nine-year-old, daughter, Danielle. I was confident nothing would happen in Afghanistan and after my tour of service I would come home. In a way, I was right. Nothing happened in Afghanistan.”

  He took another sip of water.

  “I went home,” he said, "and I spent an amazing Friday evening with my wife and daughter. Danielle, my daughter, was obsessed with Lion King at the time, so we watched that twice in a row. Our plan for Saturday was to drive a few hours to a beach I'd gone to when I was a child. Danielle had never been.”

  He looked over at Angela, who was soundlessly mouthing the words. General Thompson stood beside her, transfixed by Marcus.

  “We went to bed early,” said Marcus, turning back to the crowd and wiping a tear from his eye. “Cassandra shook me awake around three in the morning. Lion King was playing in the living room. I offered to go and check on it. Cassandra explained that Danielle had snuck downstairs in the middle of the night to watch movies before, and she knew how to deal with it. So she left the bedroom.

  “I was falling back asleep, my mind drifting to what we would do at the beach the next day. A scream came from downstairs, jolting me awake. The bed was still empty beside me. I didn’t have a gun, so I grabbed a baseball bat from the closet where I kept my gear and snuck down. I heard another yell from the living room. I immediately recognized it as my daughter's.”

  Marcus remembered the fear he had felt in that moment. “I stepped into the living room," he continued. "Danielle and Cassandra were being held by two intruders, a man and a woman, wearing all black and holding guns. Danielle was crying and screaming in the man’s arms. Cassandra was desperately trying to break free of the woman’s grasp. To this day, I can still hear that high-pitched cackle of the female intruder when she saw me."

  "I shouted 'don't hurt my daughter, what do you want?'" continued Marcus after a pause. "The woman pointed at my daughter. The man seemed uneasy. I realized he was the weak link. I did what any father would do. I ran toward him and swung the bat."

  Marcus took a long sip of water, letting the question of what happened next hang in the air. The cliffhanger in the middle of his story had been Angela's idea, and he saw her breathe a sigh of relief out of the corner of his eye as he did so.

  He wiped the water from his mouth and continued. “A single gunshot rang out. At first I thought it had missed. Then my legs gave out and I fell to the floor. The bat flew from my hands. Danielle screamed. Only then did I realize I'd been shot. I could see lights and hear screams coming from our neighbor’s houses.

  "It wasn’t until later that I would discover the bullet had planted itself in my spine. Everything below my waist was paralyzed. When I think back, those few seconds feel like an eternity. I can recount every detail."

  He took a deep breath.

  “The woman holding Cassandra,” continued Marcus, “shouted that they needed to get out. I was bleeding and losing strength fast. I couldn’t stand up. Another gunshot rang out. The intruders ran past me. The man covered Danielle's mouth to muffle her screams. I wanted to run after them, but my legs weren't listening to me anymore."

  He paused. The audience was leaning in.

  “They fled through the back door. I can still see Danielle reaching back toward me, her muffled screams carrying across the yard. That was the last time I saw my daughter. The police arrived a few minutes later and found me crawling toward the door, tears running down my face, a trail of blood behind me.

  “I woke up in a hospital three days later. The doctors told me I would never walk again. I didn't care about that as much as what the cop told me next. He informed me my daughter was still missing, and that Cassandra had died of complications resulting from a gunshot wound to her shoulder."

  Marcus took another drink of water, almost emptying the plastic bottle, and looked out at the audience.

  “A few days later, A reporter interviewed me. I begged the kidnappers to return Danielle, but nothing came of it. A week later, I was released from the hospital in a wheelchair.

  “I considered suicide a few times. My wife, my daughter, my legs, and my career were gone. I had nothing left. I was only leaving my house for physical therapy sessions. Months passed without any news. I sunk into depression. The only person I had to talk to was Angela, who was living with me to help make the adjustment to being paralyzed."

  He smiled at Angela and she hesitantly waved to the crowd.

  Marcus tapped his fingers along the chair. "It was Angela's idea to start the Cassandra Devereaux Foundation for Missing Children, and to tour to raise money for the cause. It has given me a purpose, and I hope that one day I will be reunited with my daughter. The Cassandra Devereaux Foundation has raised over a million dollars to find missing children to date, and we have returned forty-two missing children missing to their families.”

  The audience applauded. The loudest was General Thompson.

  Marcus sped up as he reached the end of the speech. “If you want more information, please check our website. We accept donations via phone, by mail and online. We hope to create a world where no one will ever have to worry what became of their children."

  The audience stood and applauded.

  "Thank you," said Marcus, basking in the applause. "This means so much to me. Thank you for making me feel at home."

  The applause doubled, and Marcus felt a grin of pride breaking out on his face.

  General Thompson walked up onto the stage beside him. He put a hand on Marcus's shoulder and leaned down beside him.

  "Great job," he said. "That was truly inspirational. It was a splendid presentation. "

  General Thompson cleared his throat and the applause died down, although the soldiers remained standing.

  “I have something to announce," said Thompson. "Marcus doesn’t know about this.”

  He turned to Marcus, who frowned and wondered if somehow the cops were about to burst through the doors and arrest him.

  “For your exceptional service to this country and its children, and for making the army proud,” Thompson said, reaching into his pocket, “I would like to award to you, Private Marcus Devereaux, the Army Commendation Medal.”

  He leaned over and pinned the medal, bronze with a green ribbon and a picture of a bald eagle on the emblem, onto Marcus's shirt.

  The crowd applauded politely.

&n
bsp; Marcus looked down at the medal. Tears welled up in his eyes.

  He had dreamed of this moment many times. In his dreams, however, he was always standing on his own two legs and it was the President giving him the medal. This was just as good.

  This was real.

  “Thank you,” he said as he wiped his eyes. “Thank you so much.”

  “You’ve earned it,” said the general, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Doesn’t he deserve it?”

  The crowd applauded, and Marcus had to cover his eyes to staunch his tears of happiness. He snuck a look at Angela. She gave him a thumbs up.

  He looked down at the medal and, for just a moment, let himself be happy.

  Then the same rush of guilt that always accompanied giving the speech came rushing in.

  The story he'd told was mostly true, with three lies which made it more appealing to the audience.

  He hadn't rushed at the man and swung the baseball bat. He had been petrified by fear, unable to force himself to move.

  He hadn't been paralyzed by the bullet. It had hit his hip bone. He had experienced psychosomatic paralysis for a few months before regaining his ability to walk.

  The greatest lie in the story, however, wasn't about him. It was about Danielle.

  When he had come downstairs with the baseball bat, Danielle hadn't screamed. She had pulled closer to the male intruder. When they had fled, Danielle's mouth hadn't been covered. Even still, she hadn't made a sound. His nine-year-old daughter had been ripped away from him, and she hadn't seemed to care.

  That was what haunted him most when he lay awake in the darkness.

  He was terrified by the absence of screams.

  7

  “You're sure there’s absolutely nothing else?” O'Reilly said, rubbing her eyes. “Anything you can think of could be crucial in finding Danielle.”

  Todd felt a hand on his shoulder and turned toward Jameson.

  “My client,” said Jameson, “has said everything he knows. We have cooperated with the investigation. You were close to coercing a confession from an innocent man, Detective O'Reilly. I will remind you that you've been chastised for this before."