Silence on Cold River

by Casey Dunn

  There, inside the hutch, Eddie could remember the way his wife and his daughter belly laughed at his utter inability to hear the difference in the string as he twisted the knob back and forth, loose and tight. It had all sounded the same, like how all shades of blue were just blue. For Hazel and Raelynn, sounds were a spectrum of the color. Looking down at the tuning pegs, Eddie nearly cried, blindsided by a memory he hadn’t thought of in years. It was a gift, a painful, heartbreaking gift to remember something again, as if seeing it for the first time.

  Blinking back tears, he felt around in the loose earth, and found another one, and then a third. Next, he pulled a steel string from the ground, coiled like a little gray snake, and he jerked back with recognition as if the wire had struck out to bite him. The girl from the board, who panhandled and played a fiddle on the town square, who walked away from the promenade one night in the direction of Tarson Woods and was never seen again.

  Eddie lumbered out of the hutch, his spine howling from being hunched over, his nails filled with dirt, and his eyes wide with speculation. He held out his hand for Martin to see what he’d found. Martin went still, then reached a finger for Eddie’s palm, and his gaze leaped to Eddie’s face.

  Without saying a word, they each peered behind each other, searching the woods like two lost kids with night coming and proof a monster was somewhere close.

  The girl with the fiddle.

  Hazel.

  Ama.

  Proof someone had left a memento of each behind.

  “Put it all back,” Martin said.

  Eddie closed his fist around it. “Why?”

  “Whoever is out here, whoever has your daughter, he is methodical, obsessive. He may be able to tell that someone’s been in here digging around, but I’m damn sure he knows what’s buried here, and if he sees it’s still here, he may not be as concerned. But if his ritual ground is dug up and things are missing, we will lose him,” Martin said carefully.

  “We’d be breaking the law, wouldn’t we? Tampering with evidence?” Desperation hummed in Eddie’s chest, his hands.

  “Do you remember when I said nothing about this case is usual? This falls into that category.”

  Eddie exhaled, his palms breaking out with new sweat. Then he ducked back inside the cave and replaced the spoon, the coins, the pegs, and the string exactly where he’d found them. He hated himself, and he hoped like hell all at the same time.

  Wordlessly, Martin and Eddie buried the evidence of the dead, stamped the earth flat, and covered it in a blanket of fallen leaves.

  AMA Chapter 64 | 2:00 PM, December 6, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  AMA PACED HER ROOM. HER path from the window to the bathroom door felt shorter with every loop. A cramp knotted her side, but she kept moving. She had to do something to feel like she was preparing for the auction in some kind of way or she would go absolutely insane.

  Lindsey, with the help of Ama’s bank account and humanitarian angle, had managed to bump up the auction date to the coming Saturday and had convinced the caterers and the musicians to follow suit. She was now ensuring every media outlet in the greater metro area would be pushing the event to their audiences.

  Meanwhile, Ama was stuck in this cramped, dark motel room, wearing a trail in the carpet and spinning her mental wheels.

  She exhaled slowly and rubbed her thumb against her aching shoulder socket as she mentally went over what she knew of her plan so far: the fundraiser would open with a performance by Tarson High School’s choir, singing the solo Hazel was supposed to have sung at the winter festival the year before. Then the piano player would begin his set, and they would open the silent auction to bidding. Ama would stay on the platform and read descriptions of the donated items so she could watch the crowd from above for any sign of Michael. Then they would have a thirty-minute window for the open piano while dessert was served. After that, and before the winners were announced, Ama would sing “Stairway to Heaven.” She would have Lindsey take over as MC so she would be free to follow Michael, should she spot him in the crowd. Ama felt sure he wouldn’t leave before her song. He would be there to record her voice. But there would be no reason for him to stay afterward.

  Then she would have a choice to make. She would be standing there onstage with a microphone. She could call him by his real name, let people know there was a monster in their midst. Maybe they’d tackle him.

  There was one big flaw in her plan, one she hadn’t yet been able to bring herself to face. The only way to find Hazel was to be led there by Michael himself. If he was caught away from where Hazel was, he would never tell them where she was being held. They would have no chance of finding her alive. Ama had to be taken to Hazel purposefully by Michael, and then hatch a plan of attack and escape from the inside.

  But how the hell was she supposed to plan an escape against a psychopath who had gone completely undetected for seventeen years? She didn’t have the first clue where he was keeping Hazel or how it was safeguarded. Who in their right mind would take that kind of gamble?

  Her thoughts went back to where they always did: Eddie Stevens, standing there in the mist, the barrel of his gun looming so big and yet so small. He’d walked into Tarson Woods in the black of night through sheets of rain just to try to find Ama.

  The weight of needing to repay him pushed down on her, and she nearly wished he’d never gotten out of his van, when a thought struck her: If Michael took her again, maybe she didn’t need to escape. Maybe she just needed to be found.

  She stared at the circle of evidence from her father’s trial still sitting in piles on the floor. Someone had known where the wreck had occurred—someone who wasn’t on the scene, who didn’t have access to her father’s logs or his drivers’ routes. The jackknifed truck had been the bait, not the hook. Someone had to have known when to pull. Someone had known he was there.

  Rocking back on her heels, the truth hit her full force: someone had planted a locator on the rig and on her father. Someone he trusted. It’s the only way they would’ve known when he had reached the truck. Someone else, somewhere else, knew the exact moment he needed to be found.

  Ama leaped for her phone, ignoring the bite of pain that clamped down on her side, and dialed Lindsey’s number. Lindsey answered on the second ring.

  “Come pick me up,” Ama said.

  * * *

  Three hours later, Lindsey drove Ama through a gate in a chain-link fence where little storefronts sat in a squat row, their doors and windows barred.

  “There,” Ama said, and pointed to Happ’s Hot Spot, a gaming and electronics shop. Lindsey did a double take, her stare rebounding between Ama’s face and the storefront, which was covered in fantasy characters and computer game logos.

  “I’m going in for you,” Lindsey said, shifting the car into park.

  Ama shook her head. “I need you to wait here,” she said.

  “Ama, God knows who’s in there.”

  “I know exactly who’s in there. That’s why I came,” Ama said, and lifted herself out of the car.

  She did her best not to limp as she walked inside the shop. The front of the little building was checkered with collapsible tables and chairs, where people played Dungeons & Dragons or chess. In the back there was a glass counter, about eight feet in length, and a familiar face behind it: Durante Happ, the boy from her childhood staircase, now the owner of the shop, and the best tech guru in Atlanta.

  “Ama,” he said, grinning, and dropped his glasses in place. “It’s good to put eyes on you in person. I seen you on the news. I tried to call, but you didn’t pick up.”

  “I needed to disappear for a minute,” she said.

  “I get that,” he replied, and she knew he did. Ama smiled at Durante, remembering when he was the only person who showed up to her birthday party the year her father was convicted, the only kid who would play with her at recess. He’d grown up slow in an accelerating world, raised by a single dad who worked at a tech development company by day and wrote r
omance novels under a woman’s name by night. Durante spent his afternoons perched in tree branches reading books, wandering through the woods in search of magical creatures, or scouring the neighborhood creek for discarded trinkets and jewelry.

  Their friendship became a fortress, and their skin grew leather tough against insults and accusations hurled their way so long as they withstood them together. They would go on to withstand lonely weekends together, homecoming dances, and proms. They called each other after first dates, first kisses, first breakups, Ama’s first car accident, and Durante’s first college acceptance letter.

  After graduation, invisible power still enchanted Durante, but his interests turned the way of his father’s—technology—and he went on to Georgia Tech while Ama went out of state to Auburn University, hoping a state line could somehow strain her past and her father’s infamous legacy from her future. It wasn’t lost on Ama she’d attended the school rival to her father’s alma mater. Maybe even then she’d been angry with him and just hadn’t known it yet, silently, blindly furious for everything she’d lost.

  Somewhere along the way, Ama had lost Durante, too. It hadn’t been intentional or acute. It had been slow and quiet, time between calls growing longer, conversations—when they did happen—shorter. She stopped going home for summers and holidays, stopped tending the past, her hometown, and anything and anyone to do with it. She had become Ama Shoemaker, top of her class, heading to Auburn’s law school.

  After the Michael Walton case, she’d moved to Atlanta, and within a year, she’d needed a resource for wires and discreet recording devices. A colleague had pointed her in the direction of Happ’s Hot Spot, a little gaming spot in the middle of one of Atlanta’s more dangerous areas. Ama had nearly run through the door of the building, not daring to hope, and there he was, his smile all teeth, hair stacked a foot high on his head. He’d wrapped her up in a hug, and she’d nearly come apart at the seams.

  This time, he came around the counter and held her gently. “I can’t believe you’re up and out already.”

  “I’m up against an evil wizard. There’s no time to rest,” she said into the divot beneath his collarbone.

  “How can I help?”

  She pulled back so she could look at him. “I need a GPS tracker. I need it small. And I need it to be able to send a location, or have some kind of frequency on it that can be sent to a second party remotely and easily.”

  “Why don’t you tell me the situation you need it for and I can tailor to suit.” He squeezed her hands before returning to his position behind the counter.

  “I need to go somewhere I shouldn’t be, and I need to be found, but no one can know I’m going until I get there.”

  “Okay.” Durante narrowed his eyes, studying her. “This sounds like some risky business you’re getting into. You need company?”

  “No company, just your expertise. Can you do it?”

  “It’s going to have limits as far as range and how many numbers it’ll access. It’ll have to be limited to one-way communication, too.”

  “That’s fine. One more thing.” Ama leaned over the counter. “Can you make it waterproof and able to fit inside a tampon applicator?”

  “Are you questioning my skills or the security of my masculinity?” Durante pulled a box of Tampax tampons out from under the counter.

  “I’ll need it delivered to me in person. I’m up in Tarson at the Sleep Inn Motel. How fast can you have it to me?”

  “Twenty-four hours. I’ll bring it to you myself. Leave the phone numbers you want it to be able to communicate with and I should have everything else I need, or I’ll call you.”

  “Do you want me to leave a deposit?”

  Durante pursed his lips. “Ama, how long we go back?”

  “All the way back,” she said. She kissed him on the cheek, breathing him in. He was nearly forty-four years old in the middle of a city made of brick and stone and noise, and yet he still smelled like trees and the pages of a new book.

  MARTIN Chapter 65 | 5:00 PM, December 6, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  MARTIN WAS SEARCHING SURROUNDING STATES’ DMV databases for any registrations for Jonathon Walks when Captain’s face appeared above his screen.

  “Look, Martin, the DA is on my ass. We either need to charge Eddie or turn him loose,” he said.

  “I don’t like either of those options. What about protective custody? We’ll tell the DA he’s a witness to a major crime and we’ll have more for them ASAP.”

  “That might work. But I am not keeping that man locked up in that office anymore. You’re here, he’s here. You’re home, he’s home—at your home. We don’t let anyone else know where he’s staying. Now go home, and take Eddie with you. And take a shower. You smell.”

  An hour later, Martin was sitting in his living room staring at his notes, wishing Mrs. Walton had been able to locate just one picture of Michael from the year he allegedly died, when his cell phone rang.

  “Martin,” he answered.

  “Lindsey drove Ama to Atlanta. She stopped by a storefront off Bankhead, like an electronics pawnshop or something,” explained the deputy he’d assigned to tail her. “We went in after she left, but nobody was really handing out information. Some people were playing games. They had some old computer parts and gaming systems for sale.”

  “What the hell is she doing?” Martin muttered, more to himself than to the deputy on the other end of the line. Between speculation about Ama, Michael Walton, Janie Walton, and Jonathon Walks, the only solution Martin’s mind kept rolling back to was an Ambien and a Valium. He was too wired to sleep, too tired to think.

  Another call beeped on the line. Martin looked down. It was Ama. “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Everything okay?” Eddie asked from where he was sitting on the floor in the corner, a box of cheese pizza in front of him. He’d gone so long without saying something that Martin had forgotten he was there.

  Martin nodded, then told the deputy on the phone, “I gotta go,” and clicked over to Ama’s call.

  “Detective Locklear,” he said.

  “You know who this is. Don’t play pro with me.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need Eddie Stevens’s phone number.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “To invite him to the fundraiser, personally, and to apologize for the hardship this incident has created for him. I plan to publicly clear his name, so I want to make sure he’s there.”

  “I’m going to have to get back to you on that,” Martin said in order to stall, eyeing Eddie.

  “Well, I’ve changed the date to this Saturday, so get back to me quickly.”

  Martin froze. What kind of strings did Ama have to yank to move the event? He couldn’t imagine the money she was putting up in rush fees. The event was going to cost more than it made. Martin was right—this auction was a smoke screen for Hazel.

  “I can help you here,” he said. “Whatever it is you’re trying to do. I won’t involve the department. It’ll be just me and you. No other brass. I swear.”

  Ama went silent, but the line was still there, a faint buzz in his ear.

  “Ama, please.” He wanted to tell her he was figuring it out, pieces of it, anyway, but he didn’t want to push. She was sitting dead center on the fence of indecision, and he knew the more he said, the faster she’d jump back to her own side and keep the boundary between them.

  “Saturday, during the auction, Eddie is going to get a message from an unknown number. Tell him to expect it. When he gets it, help him figure out what it means, and then go with him. Don’t bring anything or anyone but a gun. Maybe two. Yes, bring two. And give one to Eddie. He’s a good shot.”

  “I need more than this.”

  “That’s all I can tell you,” she said quickly.

  “Here’s his number—are you ready?” Martin asked, keeping his words slow and calm, trying to draw her off whatever mental ledge she was standing on. He relayed the number twice throug
h, confirming she’d heard it right.

  “Ama, let me help you,” he whispered. He knew he sounded like he was begging, but he didn’t care. He was begging.

  “I think event planning is probably out of your job description,” Ama replied, and Martin could tell she was pulling her face away from the phone, ready to hang up.

  “Ama!”

  The line went dead.

  “Dammit.” Martin scowled, furious with himself for burning the bridge with Ama in her motel room, for throwing her father’s past in her face. It had been an unfair shot to take, and he knew it.

  He’s a good shot. Ama’s words bloomed inside his mind, drawing all focus. Eddie was right—Ama had jumped in front of that bullet, and now she was aiming for her abductor or Hazel, or maybe both. He had to admire her. She was pulling off a socialite extravaganza in a matter of days, all to cover up a bigger, more important move. There was no way the department could’ve moved as fast.

  He also hated her guts. It was very likely that she was going to get very close to a serial killer’s location, and Martin didn’t want to come with just an old, limping man and two guns. He wanted to bring down the fires of the GBI and a SWAT team so they had every chance to take the perp into custody and survive doing it.

  “Damn that woman,” he said. He wondered how she would react when he told her he’d interviewed Mrs. Walton… when he told her Mrs. Walton was very sure Michael was still very alive.

  “Who was it? And why’d they want my number?” Eddie asked.

  Martin nearly lied, but he couldn’t bring himself to mislead the poor man again. “It was Ama Chaplin. She wanted your phone number so she could invite you to the fundraiser personally.”

  “Can I go? Are you going?”

  “Eddie, you’re not a prisoner. This isn’t house arrest. It’s just an arrangement, for now. We’re trying to limit the outside world’s access to you, and we promised the DA we’d keep you under supervision. It’s the only way they’d delay charges.” A drop of sauce from Eddie’s slice of pizza landed on the floor. Eddie dabbed his napkin into his water cup and scrubbed it clean before it could stain.