Silence on Cold River

by Casey Dunn

  “Yes, here it is. The fundraiser is on the books for Saturday, December sixteenth,” the court clerk told Martin.

  Martin squeezed his hand to a fist—that wouldn’t be soon enough. The AJC would beat them to it, and Hazel would be as good as gone.

  “Looks like she convinced them to move a party they’d already committed. I guess it’s hard to turn down someone with a gunshot wound, huh?” He flashed a grin.

  Martin tried to wipe all judgment from his face. “I guess so,” he replied, if only to keep the conversation going.

  “She’s supposed to email me a flyer to print out,” the clerk said. “She definitely knew her way around. I guess all courthouses are set up mostly the same.”

  “What makes you think she knew her way around?”

  “She was very specific about where and how she wanted everything set up, what parts of the building she wanted guests to have access to. She even knew where the bathrooms were and which doors would need to be left unlocked. She didn’t ask where anything was.”

  Martin tapped a finger on the countertop. “Would you mind looking to see if she’s tried a case here?”

  “Sure.” The clerk typed something on the keyboard, and his eyes flickered back and forth across the screen. “Nope, Anna Chaplin never tried a case here.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Martin turned on his heel to leave and then stopped, keeping his hand on the counter. “Did you say ‘Anna’?”

  “Yes. Anna Chaplin?”

  “Ama. Her first name is Ama with an ‘m.’ ” Martin held his breath.

  “Nope. No Ama Chaplin. There were a few old listings for an Ama Shoemaker,” he said, his brow lifting.

  “What are the specifics on the more recent cases?” Martin worked his lip under his teeth, a sudden craving rising in his blood.

  “She’s listed on a few trials in the late eighties.” He trailed off, reading. “Her last listing is a criminal case back in 1989.”

  “What info can you give me on the last case?” Martin pressed.

  “The defendant was Michael Jeffery Walton.” The clerk dragged out the “n” sound as he moved the computer mouse around on the pad, clicking feverishly. Faster still was Martin’s pulse, his mind painting the row of pictures taped to the whiteboard in room two. “Records are sealed on that one. Sorry I can’t give you more.”

  “Thanks.” Propelled by the new connection, Martin had to stop himself from bolting for the door. The two Amas were one and the same, no doubt, and this seventeen-year-old case was no coincidence. He needed to go back to the beginning of Ama’s career, to the time when she was Ama Shoemaker. Had she married and divorced? The new attack didn’t read as simple as a spurned ex-lover, but the lead certainly pointed to her past.

  Was it someone who was angry Michael had walked away with a chance to start over? Was his death not of his own doing? Did someone push him into Cold River? The words found carved into a tree nearby would make more sense for a homicide: I’m not sorry. Ama would be a likely second target, having been the reason Michael went free. But where did Hazel fit?

  Martin’s thoughts traveled back to Jonathon Walks, a man who was known to have hiked every inch of Tarson Woods. Could Jonathon have been in the woods fourteen years ago and shoved Michael off a cliff? If that was true, Jonathon wasn’t an outsider—Jonathon had returned.

  AMA Chapter 57 | 9:05 AM, December 5, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  AMA HUNG UP AND WROTE down a few more items a colleague had been willing to donate: a Prada handbag, a Chanel belt, and a sterling bangle from Tiffany’s. Even if her plan didn’t draw Michael out, she would definitely raise money for Hazel’s school and try to clear all the mud off Eddie’s name.

  A cramp laced up her ribs and pulled tight, and she had to concentrate to breathe through it. She was pushing too hard, she knew, but she also knew it still might not be enough. She didn’t know where Michael was, only that he’d been carrying her in the direction of the factory. She’d had rain and darkness on her side, no doubt slowing him down. She’d learned a police officer had been parked on the access road to the factory that night, too, in case she came out of the woods on that side, and she wondered if Michael had gotten close enough to see him, if that was a reason he had been so willing to wait when she had asked.

  Overnight, she’d scoured maps of Tarson Woods and circled where she had fallen on the trail, the factory, and where the police had found her and Eddie Stevens. There were a few houses on the other side of the woods, too, including Michael’s childhood home, but she doubted he was headed back there. Wherever he was, she needed to make sure he knew about the concert.

  She looked again at her media checklist. She’d contacted every local news station in the state and emailed the news editor of the AJC, promising an exclusive interview after the event—and to forgive the misconduct of the reporter who’d snuck into her hospital room—if they’d run a full-page ad for the fundraiser, but she hadn’t heard back yet. She needed to hit a few radio stations with advertising requests, too. Top 40 stations for the nameless, faceless crowd she hoped to draw beyond the perimeter of Atlanta for a philanthropic day in Small Town, USA, and classical and jazz stations for Michael.

  Even still, there was a very real possibility Michael would see all of this for what it was and run in the other direction. Ama wasn’t sure what would happen if she was able to draw him out, and she was glad to have a couple of weeks to figure it out. She hated to think of Hazel spending more time as his prisoner, but if Ama rushed in with a half-cooked plan, Hazel could be lost forever. At least now Lindsey could take over all the party logistics while Ama figured out how to set her trap.

  Her phone rang. The screen flashed a number and the location it was tied to: Savannah, Georgia. Detective Martin was calling again. She looked away and out her motel window, watching cars sail down the state route. Someone moved in front of her view. Detective Martin Locklear peered back at her from the other side of the glass, his phone pressed to the side of his head.

  “You have got to be kidding me.” She dropped the curtain.

  Her phone beeped. Martin had left a message. Ama punched in her passcode and listened: “Ama Shoemaker, this is Detective Martin.”

  She startled at the use of her old name, paused the message, and started it over again. It hadn’t been a figment of her imagination; he’d called her by her old name. She’d known leaving her name on the reservation for the courthouse was a risk, but she had to use any detail that would tempt Michael to come out.

  The only way to get Hazel out was to get someone in—and if Ama was right, there was only one person Michael needed for his song, one person he’d risk himself to catch. If the cost was a pill-popping, washed-up detective finding out she’d changed her name, so be it.

  Martin tapped the glass on her window, and her phone rang again. She picked it up and accepted the call.

  “You found my old name. Congratulations,” she nearly spat.

  “That’s not what I’m calling about, at least not yet. I need to speak with you about Michael Jeffery Walton.”

  Ama’s fingers went slack, and the phone slid through, thudding against the thin carpet. Martin must have linked her old name with the old case, but to what end? She limped to the door, drew herself as straight as she could stand, and let him in.

  “Surprised you’re staying in town,” Martin said. “But then again, you do have a big event to plan. Thank you for the kind words you said about the PD and Eddie Stevens to Mrs. Anderson, by the way. Hate it when a guy goes away for attempted murder when he doesn’t have to.”

  “What can I do for you, Detective?” She had to remind herself not to touch her side, not to press her hand against the dull ache that throbbed every time she breathed.

  “Actually, I’m not here to ask about you. I need to ask you a few questions about a former client.”

  “You know that violates attorney-client privilege.”

  “The client in question is dead.”

  A
ma looked down and touched the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth in an attempt to freeze her expression. She could not let the police know Michael was still alive. She could not let them in on her plan. They would take over, make it too big, too loud. She would lose all control over it and the entire situation, and Michael would see it coming from a mile away.

  “That doesn’t negate attorney-client privilege, and you know it,” she finally answered.

  “His face is on my board, and I know nothing about him. Seems like nobody does,” Martin said.

  “What board?” Ama’s curiosity was piqued. “My investigation board? Why?”

  “I have a row of pictures of people who walked into Tarson Woods and never came out. I think we have a serial killer on our hands, and I don’t think it’s Eddie Stevens. You’re on that board. Maybe you shouldn’t be. Maybe you are the factor that’s throwing this whole thing out of whack. I’ve thought about this over and over, and I am going to level with you, Ama. I think something really fucking terrifying happened in those woods, so scary that you do not under any circumstance want to draw the attention of whoever grabbed you off that trail.”

  Ama sucked her cheeks in. The truth was right there, screaming in her brain, knocking on her teeth.

  “Let’s pretend you’re right,” she started. “What does that have to do with Michael Walton?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” He leaned forward, and a pen clicked in his hand. “I don’t think he jumped into Cold River.”

  Ama felt all at once exposed and on the cusp of falling, plunging from somewhere impossibly high.

  “What do you think happened?” she asked.

  “I think he was pushed. And standing here now, watching you fidget, I’m wondering if you knew. I’m wondering if you know who did it.”

  Ama snorted then, too on edge to control herself.

  “That’s funny to you? Interesting. I’m obviously getting warm here. Hell, maybe it was you. Maybe you carved those words in the tree after you shoved Michael off the highest point. I wasn’t going to bring up your past, which I spent my entire night researching, by the way. Shit childhoods aren’t generally targets I take aim at, but you did just laugh about a dead kid.

  “Did you have a hand in Michael’s death, Ama? Did your father teach you how to cover stuff up? He was good at making some truly heinous, soulless shit look and smell like a garden of roses. That’s what he was known for, what he was hired to do, right? People who are dealing illegal weapons, trading them for ten-year-old girls and bricks of cocaine, they generally want the best when it comes to creating a smoke screen to cover up what they’re doing.” Martin finally paused, shrugged. “I mean, we’re all good at something.”

  “He didn’t know,” was all Ama could say, gasping for breath, pain ripping through her as if she’d been shot all over again.

  “Of course he didn’t. What father would cover up a trade of other men’s daughters?” Sarcasm turned his voice to venom, and Ama immediately felt paralyzed. “They had him by the throat, blinders on his eyes, right? He was just doing his job. He didn’t know. He wasn’t involved. He was just keeping a completely separate log for all those vans and didn’t ask any questions because he was a naïve, innocent, good man, right?”

  In her mind, Martin fades away, and Ama saw her mother screaming at her father in their yellow kitchen, air sliding under the cracked window behind the sink, ruffling the sheer curtains. Is that how we can afford this house on a dispatcher’s salary, Paul?

  Her father had reached over and slammed the window shut. It was the only time she’d ever seen him use force on anything. He’d pointed his finger in her mother’s face then, whispering so loud Ama could feel his voice in her bones: We’ll pack up, cash out our accounts, leave here. Start over. I just need a week, Grace. Give me a week. Then everything will be okay.

  Ama could still imagine her nine-year-old self, corn silk hair and freckled cheeks framed with two white balusters, tears sliding down as she watched them from the top of the stairs. Her best friend, Durante, had sat beside her as she listened to her parents yell. He’d threaded his fingers through hers, leaned his head on her shoulder. She’d pressed her forehead to their hands and noticed how his fingers smelled like tree bark and books.

  Now, thirty-five years later, with twenty of them spent in the justice system, there were still pieces of her father’s case and alleged crimes she didn’t wholly understand. He dispatched trucks, plotted routes, and handled payments. He answered to higher-ups, did what they told him to do. He didn’t decide, couldn’t have known, what was actually in the cargo loads. But then he found out. A driver lost control of the truck, and, as per strict company guidelines, called dispatch instead of 911. Her father, Paul Chaplin, had answered. The driver reported hearing strange noises coming from his cargo. Paul had driven out to meet him, and they’d discovered two girls in wooden crates crammed near the front of the closed cargo compartment.

  He wouldn’t have gone if he’d known what they’d find. If he was guilty, he would have sent someone else. This was the one truth that had kept Ama’s faith in her father afloat in a sea of doubt and accusations.

  He wouldn’t have gone.

  Now Ama was a woman who knew a girl was in danger, in the hands of a monster, her life and body being traded for sound, and Ama wasn’t going to the police, wasn’t following the rules. What if she died between now and the auction? What if her plan didn’t work and Michael didn’t come?

  “Ama, I am begging you here,” Martin said, and the sound of his voice wrestled her from her haze of memories. “I know you know more than you are saying. You of all people know firsthand what kind of damage covering up the truth can do, the innocent people who get hurt as collateral damage. I can help you, but you have to help me.”

  “Get out,” she said. Her wound throbbed. She pushed a hand against it and leaned into the pressure.

  “Ama,” he said, and reached a hand for her.

  “Do not touch me. Get out of my room,” she said through her teeth. “This conversation is over until you have a court order to continue it.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” Martin said quickly. “One thing and I will leave.”

  “No.”

  “Is Hazel still alive?” he asked anyway.

  The question hung between them, and the air was just as still inside Ama’s lungs. She didn’t dare breathe in case her mouth shaped the exhale into the truth.

  “The AJC is running a story outlining a theory that Hazel’s still alive, based largely on the fact that you said her name when you woke up from surgery,” Martin said. “I’m sure you have an idea of what that kind of pressure might do in a captive situation. I know you have some kind of plan here. I’d like to help you, and help Hazel. Please.”

  Ama stayed silent, concentrating on breathing past the pain swelling in her chest. She squeezed her fingers together to keep her hands from shaking, tried to ignore the sensation of sinking through the floor.

  “You have my number,” he continued. “It’s in your call history about a dozen times. If you decide you want to help Hazel, you know how to reach me.”

  Martin put a hand on the door and paused a final time. “The story is running in the Sunday paper, front page,” he said, his voice soft. “If this auction is meant to help find Hazel, December sixteenth will be too late.” He let himself out of her room without closing the door behind him.

  Ama slid to the floor, everything inside her, every moment, every memory, dissolving into a pool of doubt. What if she couldn’t pull this off? What if Hazel was already dead? What if Michael got to Ama first and no one cared enough to look, the families of victims rejoicing in their online chat rooms and websites?

  Above all of it, though, one question rose like a ghost from the fog, hung in the air, stole her breath, stilled her heart: What if her father hadn’t been innocent?

  She hugged her knees, weeping and shaking, her father’s voice in her head and the heart
of a nine-year-old girl cracking wide-open in her chest.

  MARTIN Chapter 58 | 10:00 AM, December 5, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  MARTIN SAT IN HIS CAR outside Janie Walton’s house, watching her feel for a flowerpot with a cane, a golden retriever with a service harness perched on the stoop. His thoughts were still in Ama’s motel room. He replayed the conversation in his head, closing his eyes the moment he saw her come unglued—the moment he reminded himself of his own father. Martin had to admit to himself he would’ve responded the same way Ama had: shutting down, closing him out. He could only hope he hadn’t lost her for good.

  He exhaled, refocusing, and pushed his door open, then gently closed it after climbing out. He was acutely aware of every sound and every move he made. He walked up, nearly waving in greeting, and clasped his hands behind his back. The dog let out a quiet bark. Mrs. Walton stood upright and cocked her head a bit.

  “Who’s there?” she called out.

  “Mrs. Walton, I’m Detective Martin with the Tarson Police Department. Would you mind if I take a few minutes of your time?”

  “What’s this about?” she asked.

  “Your son.”

  Mrs. Walton deflated. “Come on in.”

  Martin trailed Mrs. Walton and her dog inside, the going slow, the cane tapping in front of her.

  “Please sit,” she said, feeling her way toward a wingback chair.

  Martin sat down on an old velour couch. There were no pictures in the parlor room—not on the wall, not on a table surface. It felt more like the waiting room at a doctor’s office than a home.

  “Mrs. Walton, I am sure this is a difficult subject for you, but I need to ask you some questions about Michael. What was he like? What were his interests? Those sorts of things.”