by Laurel Dewey
Jane checked the front door. There was no sign of forced entry. Stepping back, she searched and easily found two security cameras. Property protected by S.O.S.—Security On Site the decal read. One camera was poised above the front door and the other located at the corner of the house directed toward the rear of the property. Entering the home, Jane gazed at the gleaming marble floor that gracefully skirted the entry. A French reproduction crescent-shaped walnut wood table stood to the left with a Waterford vase atop it filled with nine strikingly fragrant stems of Oriental “Stargazer” lilies. Jane leaned closer and took a deep whiff of the aromatic flowers. She figured they were damn near fresh due to the sturdy wax coating still remaining on the petals. The heady scent was alluring and certainly disguised the stink of death, urine and fear that awaited her up the magnificent marble stairway and in the master bedroom. Jane steadied herself, fastening her armor around her heart so she’d be able to view what she was about to witness without losing whatever was left in her stomach of the pad thai dinner from the previous evening.
“Evil requires the sanction of the victim,” she said to herself, recalling the line from Atlas Shrugged. It was a powerful statement and one that Jane was too often reminded of when she viewed the battered and often unrecognizable corpse at a violent crime scene. The way she interpreted Ayn Rand’s words, in order for a murderous act to take place, somewhere in the chain of events, there had to be compliance by the victim. That compliance didn’t have to be conscious. In fact, it was usually unconscious. But the adage that you attract to yourself what you put out rang true for Jane, no matter how politically incorrect that belief was. Whether it be naively allowing the wrong people into your life or putting yourself in situations that are rife with nefarious outcomes, the one who is labeled the “vic” on the sheet down at Headquarters, usually made some lapse in judgment that allowed evil to take them out of this world in a black body bag.
Sergeant Weyler met Jane just outside the bedroom suite door. Inside, she could see the flash of a camera documenting the crime scene. Several CSIs lifted prints. In the far corner of the room, a street cop sat next to a petite woman who looked to be in her early seventies. The moonfaced woman stared aimlessly at the carpet, seemingly detached from the grisly scene just twenty feet away.
“What do we know so far?” Jane asked Weyler.
“Not much. Except it sure as hell wasn’t a suicide.”
Jane was familiar with gallows humor, but Weyler wasn’t normally one to participate in it. When she walked further into the bedroom and saw the body, she realized his comment was meant more as a statement of the obvious.
There on the king-size bed was a woman, early sixties, nude, lying on her stomach and hog-tied. Her mouth and nose were taped shut with several pieces of duct tape. One eye was still slightly open and seemingly staring at Jane from across the room. The fear and understanding of death was still imprinted on the woman’s orb. Her body may have been cold but somewhere in that shell, Jane felt as if this victim was still transmitting the last impressions she took in before the specter of death choked her final breath. Jane could taste it in the air—the freshness of madness and chaos.
Revelations
Weyler slid the letter onto his desk in a nonchalant manner. “Sorry. Can’t give you any time off now.”
Jane’s back went up. A second ago she was hesitant. Now she was pissed by Weyler’s offhand attitude. “I have more time on the books than anyone in the Department! I’m just asking for a week…”
“I’ve already committed you to a case. Well, both of us, actually.”
Jane felt the walls caving in. That all-too-familiar edge began to creep up. God, a cigarette would taste damn good right now. “I really need this time off…”
“Is someone dead or dying?” Weyler stared at Jane, waiting for her answer.
For a moment, Jane wondered if Weyler could read her mind. Dying. His words yanked the freshly formed scab off the news she’d received just an hour earlier. “I…” She was at a loss for words.
“Because someone else is,” Weyler stated, taking a seat in his plush, leather office chair and motioning for her to sit across from him.
Jane reluctantly sat down. “We work in homicide. Someone’s always dead or dying.”
Weyler drew the yellow pad toward him. “But this one is way outside the norm. Goes against the statistics.”
Jane hated the fact that Weyler knew how to play her so well. She loved cases that dwelled outside the box and made her think. She took the bait. “What stats?”
“A fifteen-year-old boy was kidnapped…after what appeared to be his attempted suicide.”
The thought briefly crossed her mind that some poor kid was having a worse day than she was. “He tried to kill himself…”
“By hanging. On a remote bridge.”
“And then someone kidnaps him? What are the odds of that?”
“Million to one.“
“Make it two million to one, given his age. Fifteen-year- old boys don’t get kidnapped. They’re full of testosterone and attitude…”
“His name is Jacob Van Gorden. He goes by Jake.’ Even though he’s fifteen, he’s small for his age,” Weyler offered, checking his notes.
“So what? He’s fifteen! He’s a boy! Fifteen-year-old boys run away, hop a train…”
“Hop a train?”
“You know what I’m saying. The suicide wasn’t real. Jacob…Jake obviously set it up and ditched town.”
“That’s what everyone thought. But here’s where it gets interesting. The family and police are being sent odd clues as to the boy’s disappearance.”
“Asking for ransom? Come on! The kid’s in on it. He’s pimping his family to get attention and some money.”
“No request for money, Jane…just odd deliveries of statements to the family.”
The day was quickly catching up with Jane. She pinched the skin between her eyes. “You said a remote bridge? Didn’t know Denver had any of those left.”
“It didn’t happen in Denver. This occurred up in Midas.”
Jane let out a tired puff of air. Midas, a town of less than 10,000, was located about 90 minutes northwest of Denver.
“That’s a tad out of our jurisdiction!” She was preparing to volley another lob for a week off when Weyler spoke.
“They’ve got their eye on a local guy…Jordan Copeland. Name ring a bell?” Jane shook her head. “Way before your time, I guess. It was a huge tabloid story back in the summer of 1968.” Weyler filled her in on one of the more infamous murder cases of the late 1960s. It had “sensational” written all over it. Copeland was eighteen and found guilty of killing his next-door neighbor, a mentally retarded, thirteen-year-old boy, Daniel Marshall, in the backyard of his home in Short Hills, New Jersey. For no particular reason, Copeland shot the kid in cold blood with his father’s rifle and then hid the boy’s dead body under his bed for several days before the smell gave him away. “He did thirty-four years hard time,” Weyler added. “Got out of prison seven years ago and settled in Midas about two years back.”
“If they think Copeland did it, then why are we getting involved?”
“They don’t have enough evidence to hold Copeland… even though his behavior is pretty damn strange. They took everything they needed from him before letting him go—handwriting sample, blood, hair, DNA. Bottom line…time’s ticking away. This all went down five days ago. The family didn’t jump on it because they thought it was a suicide.”
“With no body?”
“Figured he slipped out of the noose and fell into the river. But the day after the disappearance, the family started getting the strange notes.”
“How come no news coverage?”
“Family insists on keeping it low key. So does the town.”
“Wait a second. What happened to whoring yourself across primetime TV to get help? Maybe Copeland dumped the kid across state lines…”
“T
his is Midas, Jane. People don’t move to Midas, Colorado to get attention. They move there to blend in and live a quiet, unexposed existence. The family and the police chief want to respect those wishes. The last thing they crave is a goddamned media circus. Can you blame them?”
Jane certainly had been part of media circuses. Too many times, she’d reluctantly played a pivotal role in high-profile cases and had the spotlight directed her way. She hated it and rejected all offers to cash in on her celebrity—except once, almost two years ago, when she agreed to an appearance on Larry King Live. The owner of the local coffee joint still gave her a free refill for that. “If they like this Copeland asshole for it, why don’t they have some cops sit up on him to watch his moves 24/7, harass him, see if the weird notes stop arriving and then pummel him into a confession?”
“They’re short staffed. You have the police chief, his secretary and a few deputies.”
“Midas is one of the wealthiest small towns north of Denver. They can certainly afford to hire out extra help.“ Jane noted Weyler’s expression. “Oh, shit. We’re the extra help?”
Unrevealed (Four Jane Perry stories)
I tend to read people fairly quickly. You have to be able to size others up in my line of work—to separate the real victims from the liars. But I’ve been sizing up people’s actions since I was small child. When you’re abused as a kid, you learn that you better assess people and their possible actions quickly because if you don’t, you’re going to be on the receiving end of one helluva punch. So I became what some therapists call hyper-vigilant. Sometimes, I had to judge a violent situation within seconds of its erupting. So I spend a lot of time stepping back and observing people. I’m always on guard; always waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. That’s probably why I smoke. I think the nicotine takes the edge off but allows me to still focus.
One way I learned to read people was through their body language and voice tones. People’s mannerisms and subtle voice alterations are massive “tells” in determining whether someone is being truthful with me. My dad, Dale Perry, taught me all about body language, and he was damn good at it. That is about the only good thing I can say about him because he also taught me how to be a great drunk, how to fear, how to hurt, how to hate, how to see life as continual struggle and how to never feel that I’m good enough. Jesus, now I sound like a damn victim and that’s the last thing I want to be. I despise victims. Not victims of crimes…victims of life. People who can’t build a bridge and get over their inner turmoil. I’m actually particularly drawn to people who’ve had to walk the harder path and come out better or worse on the other end. Survivors. Yeah, that’s who I champion. Maybe that’s because I see myself in them. I have great empathy for the survivors of this world because I know what it takes to climb out of severe trauma and reach deep within your heart and soul and resurrect yourself into a new reality.
My road to resurrection has been a long and strange one. During that trip, I’ve encountered some—how can I say this without sounding crazy?—otherworldly phenomena that I can’t explain but that have operated within my life and the lives of those around me. Mostly, it’s the bizarre synchronicities—coincidences—that defy logic. Sometimes, I’ve experienced prophetic dreams or feelings that have materialized in the waking world. The first few times it happened, it scared the shit out of me. I attributed it to too much booze. While the booze may have loosened me up to make me open to the phenomenon, there was something else operating outside of the bottle. I no longer fight it, because in many ways, I’ve always allowed my intuition to guide me, even on hard-to-solve homicide cases. So these days, when I encounter the odd person or the odder circumstance that borders on the unexplainable, I don’t fight it. I don’t try to explain it, and I try to work with it instead of against it.
Also by Laurel Dewey:
Betty’s (Little Basement) Garden
Betty Craven is the epitome of elegance, class, and perfection.
Her prize-winning garden is the envy of her neighbors; her impeccable manners and epicurean skills have made her the “hostess with the most-est.”
But all is not what it seems.
The truth is this fifty-eight year old’s seemingly idyllic world is quickly disintegrating. Widowed and left with a modest income, Betty’s Colorado gourmet chocolate shop has gone belly up, leaving her floundering for purpose and meaning. Tied to a house in disrepair that she can’t sell, and mired in unrelenting grief for her dead son, this patriotic former Texas pageant queen comes to the shocking and debilitating conclusion that her entire life has been wasted. As that realization hits her hard between her well-manicured brow, the rebellious spirit that Betty has silently kept under lock and key explodes to the surface.
When that happens, her staunch conservative world changes drastically, causing Betty to question every belief and opinion she’s ever had. The path she chooses is paved with secrecy, eccentric characters, toe-curling love, life-changing events, and a connection to her unconventional garden that she never could have imagined. No matter how hard she tries, Betty Craven will never be the same again.
Peggy’s hospice nurse answered the door and solemnly ushered Betty inside. She was a black woman with a tidy bun of braids bundled in the crook of her neck. Betty lingered a tad too long in the front entrance, clutching the cooler that held the box of chocolates. The house smelled toxic, like dirty metal burning.
“How’s she doing today?” Betty managed to say as her stomach churned.
“Not good, I’m afraid,” the nurse replied with the hint of a Caribbean accent. “She’s got company right now but she’s in a lot of pain.”
This was already too much for Betty. She removed the elegantly wrapped box of chocolates from the protective cooler. “Perhaps, I can leave these chocolates with you and I’ll come back another time –”
“Another time?”
Betty looked at the woman, not sure what to say. Her reply suggested that time was of the essence if one wanted to see Peggy outside of a casket. With reluctance shading each step, Betty walked down the dim hallway and around the corner. The foul aroma grew more penetrating the closer she got to Peggy’s bedroom. Betty knew it all too well; Frank Sr. reeked of the same odor just days before he died. Reaching the doorway, she stopped in her tracks. There was an older gentleman around eighty years old on one side of Peggy’s bed. But the young man with his back to Betty, holding Peggy’s hand looked like…Betty clutched at her heart, fixated. Peggy was clearly out of it, tossing her head to the side and mumbling incoherencies. But Betty couldn’t take her eyes off the young man.
He gently rested Peggy’s hand against the comforter and turned. Betty stared at him. He was about five feet eight inches tall, with a chaotic swath of dark brown hair that hadn’t seen a comb in quite some time. His loose fitting t- shirt sported three large letters in black: G.y.o. His jeans hung dangerously low on his slender frame, giving her concern that the slightest tug would force them down around his ankles.
The young man quietly moved away from Peggy’s bed and stood next to Betty. Once there, she noted a peculiar scent that seemed to be attached to his clothing. It wasn’t awful but it wouldn’t fetch much at the cologne counter.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
Betty realized she must have stared far too long. “No. You just look like…” She peered down at her sweater. The cuff had obviously gotten caught on something and was beginning to unravel. This particular embarrassment had never happened before, and Betty blamed the regular wear and tear on this dreadful mishap. She quickly folded the cuff so as to conceal the unsightly damage.
He leaned forward and looked at her more intently. “Like what?”
Betty turned away. Yes, there was an eerie similarity but on closer inspection, his eyes were different and his lips were thinner. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“I’m Peyton.”
He waited but Betty remained silent, staring straight ahead but avoiding Peggy with
every ounce she could muster. “And you’re….who?” he asked with an unusually purposeful manner.
“Betty,” she said in a hushed tone, never looking at him. He checked out her dress. “Did you just come from church?”
“Church?” Now she turned. “No.”
“Oh. It’s just that you’re dressed kinda formal.”
Somehow she relaxed a bit. “Formal? This is not formal. I simply believe that it’s important to present oneself in a proper manner when one is visiting a sick friend.”
Peyton eyed her closer as if he were reading tea leaves. “Well, you may not dress formal but you sure do talk formal.” His voice was nowhere near as low-key as Betty’s. “And, to be dead honest, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. Aunt Peggy won’t know who you are, let alone what you got on. Seriously, dude, I’m not kidding.”
Any imagined sense of kinship she might have felt for this boy was lost at that moment. “Dude? Do I look a dude to you?”
Peyton looked confused. “No. I think you, like, misunderstood me. It’s just, like, a word. You know, like…‘hey.’”
“Can’t you throw another ‘like’ in that sentence. I don’t think you’ve exhausted the word enough.”
“Are you, like, a school teacher?”
This was growing tedious. “No, dude, like I’m not.” Peyton caught the sarcasm and let out a stifled laugh.
He looked at the elaborately wrapped box in Betty’s hand. “What’s that?”
“A box of chocolates.”
“Oh, yeah? Where from?”
Betty let out a tired breath. “Behind the preposition.” Peyton cogitated briefly. “Huh?”
“Never mind. I made them.”
“No shit? Are they any good?”
