Silence on Cold River

by Casey Dunn

  “Brennen Briggs, you know me!” Eddie shouted, reeling.

  Briggs shoved his hands into Eddie’s pocket and pulled out the gun. He smelled the barrel. “Is this what you shot her with, Eddie?” he pushed.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be her!” Eddie shouted. “I told you, another man was here with her. He had her gagged and tied up. I was trying to stop him before he could run away. I couldn’t just let him go,” Eddie pleaded. “What if…”

  What if he knew what happened to Hazel?

  The train of thought didn’t leave his mouth. They wouldn’t believe him. Not now. They needed to get this woman to a hospital. She had to live so she could tell them Eddie didn’t do this. What if she didn’t remember?

  Briggs searched his other pocket without answering. His hand went still, and then he slowly withdrew it. The little silver watch dangled from his fingers.

  “What are you doing with a lady’s watch?” he asked.

  “I found it in the old stone hutch,” Eddie said.

  “Sure you did,” he answered. “Want to know a secret?” he continued in an angry whisper. “Chief told me our new big-city detective has Hazel’s file on his desk right now, Eddie, and the only person he wants to talk to is you.”

  Fear, cold and wet, trickled from the base of Eddie’s throat, through his body, and down his limbs. This was his last chance to help Hazel. Her killer was in these woods right now; of that, Eddie was sure. And yet the likelihood of the police taking him seriously now, and being willing to comb this mountain range one last time, seemed impossible.

  “Stanton, you tell the captain to get a chopper here no matter what it takes. We need Ms. Ama to wake up long enough to tell us Eddie shot her. Eddie”—Briggs turned his attention to him—“you’re coming with us.”

  Briggs began to recite the Miranda warning. The sound of Eddie’s breathing decelerated in his ears. He stared at the woman, blinking slowly, his eyelids like lead. Her jaw was slack. Her eyes weren’t open or closed. Briggs was right. If she died without regaining consciousness first, he’d never be able to clear his name, and any hope of Hazel being found would be locked up with him.

  MARTIN Chapter 25 | 1:55 AM, December 2, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  MARTIN STOOD IN FRONT OF the one-way glass, peering at Eddie Stevens. Eddie had been sitting alone in an interrogation room for the past couple of hours while Martin gathered as much evidence as possible and decided how he wanted to approach the interview. He preferred to let a suspect simmer. The truth spilled out easier and faster that way.

  Eddie looked older than Martin had imagined, even noticeably older from the picture in Hazel’s file. A year of unrelenting stress did that to the body. His hair had silvered around his temples, and the lines around his eyes were deeper and had doubled. Plus it was nearly two in the morning. Stanton had told him it took almost two hours to walk Eddie out of the woods, and then another hour spent on travel to the station and processing. Every person still left in the precinct looked as though they’d aged a decade.

  Martin wondered if he’d see the telltale hollowness in Eddie’s eyes he often noted when he’d finally caught a criminal long on the run, but Eddie hadn’t yet raised his head high enough for Martin to be able to tell. He hadn’t touched the cup of water they’d left for him, either.

  Eddie lifted his arms and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. The chain connecting his handcuffs to the floor clanked against the side of the table. The cuffs slid down his wrist until the width of his forearms caught them. Eddie was a solid man. His knuckles were leathered and oversize, evidence of a life of labor. They hadn’t cleaned the blood off his skin, although they’d stripped him and put his bloodied clothes in evidence bags, then had him dress in a gray prison jumpsuit.

  Martin opened the file. At the very top was Ama’s silver watch in a plastic bag. This was as open-and-shut as a case could get, whether Ama woke up or not. Yet while he’d waited for Eddie to be brought to the station, a thought had surfaced in his mind that he couldn’t shake. How could Eddie have been so careful about the murders of his wife and daughter yet been so messy with Ama? Raelynn Stevens hadn’t been shot, and what details he’d dug up in the disappearance of Hazel didn’t point toward a quick end by a bullet. What had gone wrong when Eddie tried to take Ama? He drew in a breath and held it while he organized his thoughts. Then he exhaled and shouldered open the door.

  “Mr. Stevens, I’m Detective Martin Locklear. Thanks for your patience.” He slid into his seat and scooted himself closer to the table. Eddie showed no reaction. Martin tapped the file on the tabletop. “Mr. Stevens, do you know why you’re here?”

  “Is she dead?” Eddie murmured without looking up.

  “Ms. Chaplin is in surgery, last I heard.”

  “Is she going to die?” Eddie’s brow lifted.

  “I don’t know. Would it matter to you?”

  “Of course it matters!”

  “What’s she going to tell us if she wakes up, Eddie?” Martin asked as he propped his elbows on the table.

  “I shot her, but I didn’t mean to. A man had her in a bad way. I aimed at him, and I pulled the trigger. But I swear on my life, she jumped in front of the gun, or she jumped thinking she was moving out of the way. I didn’t shoot her on purpose. I was aiming for him.”

  “Why shoot either one?”

  “I just wanted to stop him. I wanted to ask him…” Eddie trailed off and shook his head.

  “Ask him what?”

  “If he had Hazel,” Eddie answered in a whisper.

  “Why would he have Hazel?” Martin pressed.

  “Somebody does. You think it’s me. You think I did it.” Eddie looked up. Tears ran freely down both sides of his face. “You and everybody in this building think I killed my own little girl.” Eddie’s voice faded into a strangled rasp. “She was my light. She was my life.”

  “She is your light. She is your life,” Martin replied carefully, and narrowed his eyes.

  “What?”

  “You seem to think she’s out there somewhere to be found, kidnapped by a man in the woods. Yet you referred to her in the past tense, like you know she’s dead.”

  “She ain’t been home in a year. I don’t want to believe she’s dead, but I swear she talked to me today. She told me to go look for that lady. I’ve been sitting here for Lord knows how long, thinking about Hazel, about the woods, about that woman. I messed up.” His face twisted, and a sob of grief escaped his mouth.

  “What do you mean, she told you to go look for that lady?” Martin asked, and his drumming fingers fell still.

  “It’s been a year today since Hazel disappeared. I’d dropped her off at that trail. I didn’t go with her.” He squeezed his eyes shut, and fresh tears spilled out. “I went in to look for that lady, and I nearly turned back, but Hazel told me to keep looking. I swear she did. So I kept going because I would’ve wanted someone to keep looking for Hazel. She didn’t run away from me.”

  “But they organized searches for Hazel,” Martin argued as he flipped through her file. “The official search lasted months. It sounds like they looked pretty hard for her.”

  “You’re new here, right?” Eddie said. “Maybe they haven’t told you how people vanish in those woods. They fade away like smoke in the wind and nobody says anything too loud or for too long. It doesn’t make the paper or the nightly news. They’re just gone. Hazel got more attention than most. Uniforms came from all over the state. She was still in school. She made pretty good grades, except for math. But she got that from me. That’s not her fault. So people noticed when she didn’t come home… for a while, anyway. Then people forgot. They talked about her, like you said, in past tense. They didn’t think she was dead. They just didn’t think she’d be back.”

  “So what were you doing in that parking lot?”

  “She wanted me to hike that trail with her last year.” Eddie’s features slide lower on his face. “I didn’t go. Had a job in town. One hour. I
couldn’t give her an hour.” He shielded his open mouth in the crook of his elbow as a new round of sobs escaped him. “I was gonna kill myself today,” Eddie whispered. “The gun was for me. One bullet to draw attention to me. One bullet to draw attention to her.”

  “How would that have helped Hazel?” Martin asked. His mind sorted through what he remembered finding in Eddie’s van.

  “I tried to give the police the evidence I told you about. They didn’t see the links. But I do, Detective. I see them all over the place, like threads of a spiderweb. Hazel is in that web. I figured… if I died with all that information sitting beside me, maybe they’d look one more time.”

  “You were going to kill yourself to make them look?”

  Eddie nodded. His chin quivered. “I couldn’t even get that right.”

  Martin pushed back from the table. Nothing about the conversation was going at all like he thought it might. Eddie hadn’t glanced once at Ama’s watch, the trinket the officers were convinced he’d taken as a trophy. He also seemed genuinely hopeful Ama would live, which didn’t make a damn bit of sense. Still, the case files, the timing, the death of his wife. Martin didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “Why haven’t you asked for a lawyer?” Martin asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “I’m innocent.”

  “Innocent people need lawyers even more than guilty ones.”

  “I ask for a lawyer, you and every cop in this place is going to start looking at each other like you got me red-handed.”

  “We do have you red-handed.” Martin pointed at Eddie’s crusty hands.

  “I didn’t mean to shoot her!” Eddie balled his bloodstained fingers into a fist and slammed it down on the tabletop.

  “Right. You were aiming at a man. And she jumped in front of it?”

  “I don’t know what she did! I had a shot, I took it, and she got in front of the bullet. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was on purpose. I don’t know.”

  “Why would she jump in front of a bullet meant for someone you claim was hurting her?” Martin pressed.

  “You’re the detective. You tell me.”

  They stared at each other, the silence between them charged.

  “Let’s take a break. I’ll see if there are any updates, on Ama or otherwise.” Martin stood and moved to the door. “You’re not asking if you can leave?”

  Eddie looked up then, and his gaze locked on Martin. “Are you going to keep looking into Hazel’s case?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then there’s no other place I need to be.”

  “Was that what this was all for?” Martin mused, turning to face him again. “You couldn’t pull the trigger on yourself, so you shot the first person you saw?”

  Eddie sat back. A storm of emotions changed the slope of his features. He licked his lips. “I got a bad knee. Don’t you think if I wanted to shoot that lady to get your attention, I just would’ve done it in the parking lot when I first saw her? Saved us all a lot of trouble?” he answered quietly.

  “Maybe.” Martin stood still for a second longer, then walked out of the room.

  MARTIN Chapter 26 | 2:10 AM, December 2, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  MARTIN HEADED FOR THE CAPTAIN’S office. If anyone in the department knew Ama’s current condition, it would be him. Through the half-drawn blinds covering the captain’s office window, Martin could see him sitting at his desk, propping himself up on both elbows. His lights were on, but his eyes were closed, his fingers in a steeple in front of his nose. Martin kept his face in view and tapped twice on the door, which was open a sliver. Captain waved him in without speaking. Under the glare of fluorescent lighting and the weight of what would surely become a high-profile case, Captain’s face was sinking. Martin eased the door shut behind himself. He didn’t venture deeper into the office.

  “You know, if you’d told me yesterday Eddie Stevens would be in police custody and had admitted to shooting someone, I would’ve given you a Breathalyzer. But the more I sit here and think about it…” He stopped talking and shook his head. “It makes more sense than I wish it did.”

  “Honestly, the more I think about it, the less sense it makes,” Martin responded.

  “You seemed pretty damn sure of yourself in that parking lot.”

  “Do you honestly think Hazel ran away?” Martin asked point-blank.

  “No. But it was a popular opinion. People disappear around here, Martin. That’s a fact. Every month somebody new is missing. Most of the time, honestly, it’s some kid leaving a bad home for an even worse situation and they just don’t know it yet. I don’t have to tell you there’s a drug problem here. Anybody with one good eye who stays here for twenty-four hours could tell you that.”

  “So what do you think happened to Hazel?’ ” Martin asked.

  “That trail she was on isn’t easy or safe. Any number of things could’ve happened. She could’ve fallen in an old mine shaft or gotten lost or fallen into Cold River. We had three days of hard rain after she went missing. That kind of water can move and cover up a lot of things.”

  “So you think it was just some tragic accident?” Martin narrowed his eyes.

  “Yes. It’s not something I ever said straight out to Eddie, but in my heart, until about four hours ago, that’s what I thought happened to Hazel Stevens. The woods swallowed her up. It’s happened before. It’ll happen again.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I don’t know. I can’t see Eddie doing something to Hazel. But I can’t imagine him shooting a lady, either,” Captain answered.

  “What about the man Eddie says was there with her? Do you think there’s any truth in it?”

  “I want to believe it. But let’s say it is true. He tries to shoot the man holding Ama and instead of just saying he missed, he says Ama jumped in front of the bullet. What abduction victim would take a bullet for the assailant? Especially with the shape she was in. The doc in the ER said she has burns all over her legs like somebody tried to brand her. What would make her save his life?”

  “That’s what I keep asking myself,” Martin said. “How is Ama? Any news?”

  “Still in surgery as far as I know. Is Eddie saying anything new in there?” Captain asked.

  “His story is the same. He mentioned trying to bring outside case information to your attention. He thought it was related to Hazel.”

  “I remember that.” Captain blinked, his focus traveling somewhere unseen. “He was sure there was a connection. He called it…”

  “A spiderweb,” Martin finished for him.

  “That’s it. Anyways, I glanced through it, but I didn’t see much. The cases he picked, there was no common victimology. The missing people ranged from fifteen years old to well over fifty. I remember there was an Asian woman and a migrant worker from El Savador with false identification, but most of the other victims were white. There wasn’t another black person in his file.” Captain paused and rubbed his face. “Eddie’s name can’t be released to the public on this yet, and do not discuss the link between Hazel and Ama with anyone outside of this building. Not until we’re sure. I don’t want to set Eddie’s world on fire if he didn’t do this.”

  “But he did shoot a woman in the woods. His name is going to be hard to keep out of the press.”

  Captain glared at Martin. “Accidental shooting is a lot different than attempted murder and killing his daughter. Let’s know what we’re accusing him of, first.”

  “I’ll call the hospital and make sure no one speaks to any media and that this stays off the public scanners as much as possible,” Martin offered.

  The phone on Captain’s desk rang. He plucked the receiver from the base. “Captain,” he said. His eyes tracked the shape of the ceiling as he listened, then he squeezed them shut. “What’s the prognosis?” The quiet in the room was as still and tight as a violin string, as though any movement could make all the walls vibrate. “Keep us posted of any further change. I’ll let the DA know.”

  Capt
ain replaced the receiver and rested his hand on it. His jaw shifted from side to side. “Ama’s out of surgery. They said no major organs were damaged, but the bullet nicked her axillary artery and she lost a lot of blood. She was hypothermic when she came in, which they said is the only reason she didn’t bleed to death out there. But she is taking longer to wake up than they expected. A lot longer.”

  “Is she going to wake up?” Martin asked.

  “Only time will tell. But the longer she goes…” Captain broke off and shook his head. “I think with the evidence we have, finding him guilty wouldn’t be hard even without her.”

  “I really need her to wake up,” Martin said. “Do you have a second, Captain? I want you on the other side of the glass when I tell him Ama may not wake up. I want you to read his face. You know him better than I do.”

  “Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t,” Captain answered, pushing up from his chair.

  Captain followed Martin back to the interrogation room. Martin felt strange with Captain behind him. He’d felt superior to this man from the moment he met him until about two minutes ago. Captain’s new faith in him was a heavy thing. Now that he had it, he wasn’t sure he wanted it.

  Captain stepped to the side as Martin walked through the door and closed it. Martin stopped at the corner of the table, making sure the entire window behind him was exposed for Captain to watch Eddie through. Eddie looked up at Martin. His eyes went wide with knowing, and he slouched in his chair.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Only his mouth moved.

  “Technically, no. But there’s a very good chance she’s never going to wake up,” Martin said.

  Eddie threaded his weathered fingers, pressed his thumbs into his eyes, and let out a big, jagged sob. His forearms gave way, and his head came down to the tabletop. Tears streamed down his lined face.

  Martin studied him, watched his heavy breaths make circles of vapor on the brown laminate. This reaction was completely at odds with how a compulsive killer following a ritual would behave. The only angle that would make sense was if he was mourning the fact that she was still alive at all.