Callis Rose

by Mark Tufo

  The old woman was hastily making her way across the street. A car coming in the opposite direction had actually stopped, the driver getting out to lend assistance, but to whom he did not know. There was one girl on the sidewalk, another being attacked by a dog, and still a third person who looked like she might need a grave digger before she made it across the roadway.

  Mindy brought her knife-wielding right arm up and into the chest of Geraldine. The dog let go of her arm, yelped once, and fell to the ground. Mindy’s arm was bleeding and somewhere in the back of her mind it hurt a lot, but she had other bigger things on her agenda.

  “Mindy? Is that you?” It was Steve Saunders, the offensive tackle for the Rebels. “Mindy, are you alright?”

  “Damn it,” Mindy muttered as she put the knife back under her jacket. “We’re not through here, Callis.” And she walked away from the rapidly increasing crowd.

  The old woman was screaming. “She killed my dog! She killed my dog! Stop her!”

  Mindy took the first side street she could.

  For a few moments, it was unclear who was going to bleed more: Geraldine or Callis.

  “Are you alright?” Steve asked, running up to Callis’ side. He saw the Taser leads sticking out of her. “What the hell, Callis! Did Mindy do this to you?”

  Callis reached behind her and pulled them out. She groaned as she did so. She rolled onto her back and was rewarded with a view of the cold, distant stars being supplanted by the sun, wishing she was there among the large lifeless bodies rather than burdened with the pain of existence.

  The wail of a siren could be heard in the distance.

  “What are you doing?” Steve asked as Callis stumbled to her feet. “You should stay here until help arrives.” He tried to put his arm around her to steady her.

  “Don’t touch me!” she hissed.

  “Whoa.” He took a step back. “I was only trying to help.”

  “My Geraldine is dead.” The old woman was wailing now.

  Lawrence waited patiently in the hospital waiting room alone. Talea’s next of kin had been notified and they were even now driving in from Kansas. He kept pulling out the note, more convinced than when he had read it the first time of its true meaning. He felt like he was wasting time there, and was moments away from leaving when the doctor came out.

  “Hello, Detective Tynes,” he said as he delicately shook the other man’s hand.

  Tynes was aware of his size and also of the importance of the man’s hands he was shaking as he returned the gesture in kind. “Doc.”

  “She’ll be fine physically,” he started. “I’ve given her some pain meds and a sedative. She can’t talk, but you can see her for a couple of minutes before she falls asleep.”

  “Thanks, doc, lead the way.”

  The doctor led him down the hallway and opened the door for him. “Just a couple of minutes, detective. She’s been through a lot.”

  “Won’t even need that,” he answered, ducking his head so he could get into the room.

  Talea’s eyes briefly opened wide when she took in the size of the man at her bedside before settling down into her drugged stupor.

  Tynes reached into his back pocket and pulled out her note, Talea’s eyes went wide again, this time staying there. “Callis Rose?” he asked, referring to the first letter of each word in her note.

  A single tear came down the right side of her face as she nodded once.

  “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m going to take care of this,” he told her as he left the room; this time almost taking off the top of his head, in his haste to leave.

  Lawrence got into his car and immediately called the dispatcher on his cell. “This is Detective Tynes, badge 312, I need you to put me through to Child Protective Services.”

  “Patching you now, detective,” the dispatcher confirmed.

  “Child Welfare Services, this is Mandy how may I direct your call?”

  “Hello, Mandy, my name is Detective Tynes. You have a child in your care named Callis Rose. She must be fifteen or sixteen by now. I need her address of record.”

  “Detective, surely you of all people should know that is private information.”

  “Put me through to your supervisor.”

  “Right away,” she said thankfully.

  “Sandy Cummings, Social Services Director.”

  “Hello, Sandy.”

  There was a pause. “Detective Tynes?”

  “Sandy, I need an address.”

  “Detective Tynes, you know that is privileged information. Do you have a warrant?”

  “How damning to your career would your drug bust be if it became public knowledge?”

  “You’re a son of a bitch.”

  “A senior social services worker busted buying crack cocaine on a side street in downtown Aurora.”

  “That was fifteen years ago, detective.”

  “I know. I was the arresting officer.”

  “What’s the child’s name?” she sighed.

  “Callis Rose.”

  “I remember her. Pretty girl…lost her parents when she was eleven or twelve I think,” she said, thinking out loud as she searched through her database. “Here she is. But before I give you this…”

  “Wow, it looks like I lost my file on you.”

  “I don’t believe you, but that will have to do. The name of the couple is Helen and Ben Lowrie. They live at 78 Stream Side Road in Parker. Are we through here?”

  Lawrence had already hung up. The address was sending alarms crashing through his mind. Once again he called his dispatcher. “This is Detective Tynes again.”

  “Hello, Detective Tynes. You don’t need to keep announcing yourself and your badge number. I’ve been picking up your calls for three years. Not too many other people sound like you.”

  “Sorry.” He wanted to laugh, but the gravity of the situation was weighing heavy on him. “There was a homicide today. A woman answered her door and was stabbed for her troubles. Do you have an address for that?”

  “I had just come on to shift. Hold on, it’s written down on my log sheet.” There was some rustling of paper in the background. “78 Stream Side.” The line went dead as Detective Tynes hung up, or went through a tunnel.

  “Shit, Callis. What the hell is going on?” he said as he started his car and headed towards Parker down Route 25. Was the girl in the hospital somehow involved in the murder at Callis’ home? How is that possible? Or is Callis on some sort of rampage and she started at her own home? He had his lights and siren going.

  He pulled up to the trailer. Not much looked out of place. It didn’t look like the home of a crazed killer, but he’d seen less suspecting homes that housed monsters. You could never judge a person by the house they lived in. There were some signs of blood spatter on the front step he noticed as he knocked on the rickety screen door.

  “Helen, someone’s at the door. Hurry up and answer it. The commercials are almost over. Is the popcorn ready yet? It seems like I’ve been waiting for hours,” a voice shouted from inside.

  “Mr. Lowrie!” Tynes shouted, banging harder on the door. “My name is Detective Tynes, I need to speak with you or Callis.

  “Goddammit.” Tynes heard from inside as presumably Mr. Lowrie extracted himself from his chair. The door swung open quickly. “I told you Jehovah’s Witnesses, if you won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance with me, then I don’t want anything to do with you. Whoa!” he said as he brought his gaze up a little higher. “They bringing in the big guns now to do their converting?” Mr. Lowrie asked Lawrence.

  “Mr. Lowrie, my name is Lawrence Tynes. I’m a detective with the Denver Police Department. I’m not nor have I ever been a Jehovah’s Witness…Southern Baptist in fact. I’m sorry to bother you on this day of all days.”

  “Oh, so you watch CSI Miami, too?”

  “Excuse me?” Tynes asked.

  “It’s premiere night for CSI Miami, figured you were apologizing for making me miss the teaser for it. I’d l
ike for you to state your business so I can get back to it, I don’t have one of them fancy TiVo thingies. Been bothering the missus to switch over so we can get one, but she’s stubborn like that.”

  “I’ll be out of your way in just a moment. I’d just like to have a word with your foster child, Callis Rose.”

  “Beautiful girl, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer kid. Hardly notice she’s around.”

  “Speaking of which…is she around?”

  “No she cleaned up...” Mr. Lowrie paused, a pang of pain struck his features and then cleared up quickly. “Then went out.”

  “Do you know where?”

  Mr. Lowrie turned when he heard the familiar opening credits song for his favorite show. “I don’t know. Are we done?” The door was already closing.

  “I guess so.” Tynes looked around, his cop radar pinging. “You can come out,” he said as he casually brought his hand closer to his shoulder-holstered pistol.

  A woman stepped out from the shadows on the side of the trailer. She had her hands upraised.

  “May I ask what you’re doing there?”

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “You reek of sage and some other spice. Is that fennel? You smell like a sausage.”

  “Very astute, Detective Tynes,” she said as she approached.

  “Well, you know my name. What’s yours? And what business do you have lurking around the Lowrie household this early in the morning?”

  “My name is Wendy Whitman I am the owner of Sit for a Spell.”

  “The mystic shop down around 16th?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Alright I’ve got half of the information I asked.”

  “I don’t think you’ll believe me if I tell you, detective.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll find me a little more receptive to your tale than your average cop.”

  Wendy spent the next few moments relating her first and subsequent encounter with Mindy Denton and how she and her brother had tried to gather some information on Callis and how her brother had been seriously hurt from that endeavor.

  “I can’t explain it, detective. We were locked, I had no control over myself whatsoever. It was a terribly disturbing feeling. I came here today trying to figure out exactly what she’s doing and how she’s doing it. So are you planning on calling the men with the white jackets now?”

  “I first met Callis almost four years ago. Her mother said pretty much the same thing you did. Of course it was in a much more hysterical tone, but the same words. I didn’t believe her then, but the more I piece together the puzzle that is Callis Rose the more I see that there is something extremely different about her. And now it appears that she has begun to let loose her talents in a less than lawful manner.”

  “What are you planning on doing?”

  “Stopping her. What’s the sage and fennel for?”

  “It wards off witches.”

  “You just admitted you were a witch.”

  “I know. It’s giving me a hell of a headache,” she laughed. “Can I come with you?”

  “Do you know Mindy Denton’s address?”

  “As a matter of fact…” She produced a charge slip.

  “Hop in.”

  Within ten minutes they were walking up the impressive walkway to the Denton household. A motion detector turned on the front porch lights.

  Tynes rang the doorbell.

  “I can only see your chest. State your business,” a man said from the other side of the doorway.

  “Hello, my name is Detective Tynes, I need to speak with Mindy Denton.”

  The door opened up. Mr. Denton craned his head. “What do you want with my daughter?” he asked. Tynes noticed that the man’s eyes looked like he had been crying.

  “I have some questions I wish to ask her, is she home?”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “Not yet. Right now I’m basically on a fact-finding mission.”

  “Who is it, Hank?” a voice rang out.

  “He says his name is Detective Tynes, he’s looking for Mindy.”

  “What has she done?” Mrs. Denton asked coming to the door.

  Lawrence noted that the woman didn’t protest that her daughter was up to no good. Didn’t even question it as a matter of fact, but rather wanted to know the nature of her crime.

  “Nothing that I know of, ma’am. I just really need to ask her some questions.”

  “Mindy!” Mrs. Denton said from the bottom of the stairs. She waited a moment. “She must have gone back to sleep, she stayed home from school, said she wasn’t feeling well. Hold on, detective, I’ll go get her.”

  Mr. Denton seemed to be warring with himself on whether or not to let the giant man into his household. To his credit he let manners win out and let him in.

  “Hank, is Mindy down there? She’s not in her room.” Mrs. Denton asked as she was coming down the stairs.

  “She’s not down here,” he told her. “I’ve been in the living room reading. There’s no way she could have got past me.”

  “She’s snuck out,” Mrs. Denton said.

  “She’s already in enough trouble, why would she add to it?” Mr. Denton asked purely perplexed.

  Tynes knew that the stupidity of teenagers was not bound to any limit. The depths of their bad actions were unfathomable.

  “Do you know where she may have gone?”

  “Well…she’s only got a few friends. She’s the captain of the cheerleading squad and she’s about as popular as a pit viper. And the two she calls friends she treats with contempt. I feel like we’ve failed somewhere with her.” Mrs. Denton looked like she was on the verge of tears.

  Tynes was wondering if that was the source of Mr. Denton’s earlier tears.

  “The only two people I can imagine her being with are Laura McMahon and Talea Fields,” Mrs. Denton continued.

  “Mrs. Denton, Talea Fields is in the hospital, and her family is dead.”

  “Oh, my God!” Mrs. Denton needed to grab the banister as she was swooning.

  “Even Lacey? She’s dead, too?” Mr. Denton asked.

  Tynes gave him a strange look. “Yes, sir.” There was a deeper sadness of loss there, but he didn’t have the luxury to dwell on it right now. “It’s imperative that I speak with your daughter. Do you have any other ideas?”

  “I...I don’t. I…we can go looking for her,” Mr. Denton said.

  “I’d rather you stay here and call me if she comes home.”

  “If?” Mrs. Denton asked.

  Lawrence wanted to say ‘when’ but he also didn’t want to give false hope. “Another thing, do you know Callis Rose?”

  “What’s happened to her?” Mr. Denton cried. “Oh, dear God.” The color drained from his face.

  “She’s our son’s girlfriend, detective. Is she alright? If something happened to her I don’t think my son would survive.”

  “Wouldn’t survive?” The wording seemed a little too extreme to Tynes. He had to ask.

  “Our son was crippled in a football game a couple of weeks ago, our lives have been spiraling down the drain since. Callis is one of the few remaining bright spots we have. Our own daughter has turned into a creature we hardly recognize.” Mr. Denton was now sitting on the bottom step, his right hand on his face, trying in vain to wipe the veil off that had enshrouded him.

  There were puzzle pieces all over the place and Detective Tynes had no idea of how to put them together quite yet, in fact he honestly had no clue what the picture was supposed to even represent. “Right now, folks, I want you to consider Callis Rose dangerous and to call me and the cops if you should see her.”

  “Impossible.” Mr. Denton stood, he was angry. “I will not believe that.”

  Mrs. Denton was able to start piecing things together. “Did she have something to do with Talea’s family?” she asked as she placed her hand on her chest.

  “What?” Mr. Denton asked his wife. “How could you even think that?”

 
“Right now she’s a person of interest. I need to speak with your daughter and Callis. Could you tell me where your son is?”

  “Why? Is he a person of interest, too!” Mr. Denton said hotly.

  “I understand your anger, Mr. Denton, but there is a possibility that one or the both of the girls could be going to see him.”

  “Well, I can assure you it isn’t Mindy, she’s been less than supportive.”

  “Hank! I don’t think the detective needs to know all our dirty little secrets!” Mrs. Denton said angrily.

  “Beth Israel, he’s at Beth Israel downtown,” Mr. Denton said wearily.

  “Thank you both for your time,” Detective Tynes said as he turned to get back into his car.

  “How’d that go?” Wendy asked.

  “Worse than I had expected. What’s on your to-do list?”

  “I want to see this through,” she told him.

  “On to the hospital then.” Tynes picked up his radio. “Hey, dispatch, this is Tynes. Can you put me through to Kendra?” Kendra was the dispatch shift supervisor and also Detective Tynes’ live-in girlfriend.

  After a moment, Kendra came on the radio. “Hello, sweetheart,” she said.

  “You know these calls are recorded right?” he said with a little bit of embarrassment.

  “Should I go on record that what happened the other—”

  “Whoa, not alone!” he interrupted, almost crushing the microphone in his hand.

  She laughed a little. “Sorry, hon. What can I do for you? This must be an official call.”

  “Need a favor.”

  “Like the other night?”

  “Kendra, please.” Tynes was glad Wendy wasn’t looking in his direction so she couldn’t see him blush.

  Wendy had turned to the side and was looking out the window trying to stifle a laugh. It was tough to imagine that anything got to the giant of a man she was sitting next to.

  “Fine, have it your way,” she told him. It was easy to hear the mirth in her voice.

  “This could take a minute, but I need any strange calls your department may have received today, involving one or possibly two high school-aged girls, in and around the Highlands Ranch and Parker area.”