Paradise Falls (16 page)

His sister was on his lap, in a pink frilly dress, grinning wildly. Her jet black hair was braided in frizzy pigtails. Looking at it, Jennifer was sure that this was the only picture the photographer managed to catch without her moving or making a weird face. Jacob was visibly trying to hold her still. His father was a big man, not height-wise but in body, and wore his hair long, the way Jacob did.

Jacob snapped away from the photograph and took a few steps across the room. He swept his hand over his face and blinked rapidly, and took a deep ragged breath.

“After I finished basic, before I was deployed, I talked to the chaplain. It was over a year, then. I’m not religious, but I had to talk to somebody. I wanted to know when it was going to stop. He said the pain would fade eventually, but the joyful memories and love would stay. My family would live on through me and I’d be able to look back…” his breath came back out as a ragged sigh. “Yeah. That hasn’t happened at all. It’s like it was yesterday. Sometimes I wake up and… and I forget they’re gone. Like there’s this spot between being asleep and really being awake, and…” he trailed off.

Jennifer scrubbed at her eyes, and sniffed.

“I know how that feels.”

“It’s four in the morning,” he said. “The press conference is at noon. Go get some sleep. I’ll wake you.”

“What about you?”

Jacob shrugged. “I have work to do.”

Jennifer shifted on her feet for a moment, unsure of whether to stay or go, say something or stay silent.

She touched his shoulder. He flinched. She could feel the scar under his shirt. The one on his shoulder was particularly bad, from a bullet wound. The sudden tension of his muscle made her instincts scream to pull back, but she let her hand rest there anyway, until it felt almost comfortable. Then she left, pulling the door shut behind her.

It was about five in the morning when she finally managed a fitful, light sleep. If Jacob ever left that room, she never heard him.

2.

Commerce Street could barely contain all the cars. There was a sea of people on the sidewalks, all moving towards the far end of the street. The old city hall, the most ancient building in town, loomed at the far end. It was built in the style of a church and the top heavy design always looked ready to topple forward and crush anyone approaching it.

 
Jennifer had never seen it this crowded, not even on Saturday nights when the teenage population of Paradise Falls made endless circuits of the main drag in their cars. From the abandoned JC Penny and empty theater at one end, all the way up to the old green and the ring of city buildings around it, the whole street was packed.
 

Despite all the people, Jacob’s Aston Martin was not the center of attention as he wedged into a parking spot. No one even noticed them as Jennifer hobbled out, wincing at the pain shooting up her leg from her twisted ankle.
 

Jacob quickly rushed around, offering her a hand, but she ground her teeth and waved him off, and felt a quiver in her stomach when she did. She didn’t mean to blow him off, but she wanted to stand on her own and walk, even if it was a couple of blocks up to the steps of City Hall, where Adam Katzenberg and Calvin Carlyle were going to make a statement. They had two dead kids to explain.

Jennifer felt sick to her stomach, like she was full of sour milk. The atmosphere around her was confused, all jumbled up. The reporters were with their crews, laughing and conversing loudly with each other before they put on their false faces of concern. Jennifer’s father would have called what they were doing ‘Cokin’ and jokin’’ and she knew he’d be just as upset to see people behaving so lightly around the death of a pair of innocent kids. Jennifer swelled with uncharacteristic small-town anger at the uncouth outsiders.

Jacob moved close to her, and though he slowed to her hobbled pace, radiated frantic energy. His sharp green eyes darted everywhere, as if some threat would jump out from behind a car or between the low brick buildings and steal her away. The two of them made quite a pair- Jacob towering and lean with his scarred face and long dark hair, Jennifer tall and skinny with auburn hair in a loose French braid that hung past her waist.

He hovered over her, as if something was about to snatch her away from him. It was reassuring, in a strange way. People shied away from him, and looked away from her. She met a few face she recognized. Students and parents, all wearing the same look of disgust at the circus unfolding around them.

Further ahead the news vans had already set up. Two kids murdered in Philadelphia was nothing notable. Two kids murdered in Paradise Falls, that was regional, even national news. The news vans all had their big retractable antennas reaching for the sky, and reporters and camera crews were milling about, angling for a shot without another channel’s van in the background. The news crews disregarded courtesy and traffic laws and set up in the middle of the street, like they owned it. More of them were hovering around the police barricades erected before the steps of City Hall, towing their cameramen around with them. The ones that were’t engrossed in their preparations regarded the
 

“Vultures,” Jacob muttered.
 

Jennifer shared his anger, but gazing over the crowds of reporters, she felt a kind of satisfaction. Let them see.
 

The crowd in front of City Hall was still mostly locals. A few familiar faces caught her eye and she nodded. Her kids, her students. Half the high school was there, and their parents, too. One of the dead kids was a transfer with no real connection to the community, but Krystal Summers was one of those kids everyone knows in one way or another. Jennifer and Jacob took up spots at the back of the crowd, and waited. Jennifer edged closer to Jacob, until their arms brushed. He glanced at her and quickly looked away, and Jennifer felt a tiny little flash of heat, somewhere deep in the numb cold she felt inside.

The press briefing was scheduled for eleven in the morning and it was twenty after when the mayor and the chief of the city police department emerged, followed by a cluster of his subordinates, all in creamy white dress uniforms. Jennifer knew most of them, even if only in passing. Behind them were a small group of men in dark suits that Jennifer had never seen before. Jacob shifted on his feet and rose up a little on the balls of his feet for a better look, and sank back down. He leaned over and growled in her ear.
 

“Federal agents.”
 

Jennifer nodded. His breath was hot on her neck, ticklish under her hair. She shifted on her feet and folded her arms over her chest as a little tingle flickered down her spine.

Adam Katzenberg took the podium first. Jennifer didn’t flinch at the sight of him the way she did at his nephew, or his brother. It was Adam’s house where Elliot assaulted her and Franklin stopped him, but Adam wasn’t home, and never spoke to Jennifer about the incident. It was James Katzenberg that handled that.
 

A word of this to anyone…

Adam had the sandy blonde hair of his nephew but was sallow and paunchy, and would be fat by the time he retired. He was the very image of the small town mayor, though he’d traded his loud wardrobe for a subdued black suit and tie, which he carefully adjusted before leaning over the microphone. He was putting on a strong performance today, the very embodiment of fatherly sorrow.
 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” his voice boomed from the big amplifiers set up on either side of the steps, “as you know, our community has suffered a great tragedy. Late Saturday night, two of our high school students were brutally murdered on State Road 85. This terrible tragedy comes as a profound blow to our small town, and I am here to assure you that all available resources are being brought to bear to bring the killer or killers to justice. I’d like to turn to our city chief of police, Calvin Carlyle.”

Adam stepped back, and Carlyle took the podium in his meaty hands. He was in a dark suit and dark sunglasses and his balding head shined in the morning light. His youngest son was among the knot of local police standing behind him. Ellison Carlyle was tall and narrow.
 

Carlyle read from a paper he spread out on the podium, smoothed with an exaggerated motion of his hands.
 

“At approximately two in the morning on Saturday night into Sunday morning, Paradise Falls police responded to a call reporting a vehicle illegally parked in the game lands. Our officers discovered the two students and called for assistance. Emergency medical technicians pronounced the pair dead from gunshot wounds, and transported the bodies to Paradise Falls Memorial for identification. The two were identified as Krystal Summers, age seventeen, and Cole Hauser, age sixteen. At this time we believe this to be the act of a single person, another student at the school named Hunter Fiore, who has not been seen since he was released from the holding facility at the police annex on Saturday morning.” He turned, and one of his aides handed him a photograph. He held it up. All the cameras swung to zoom in on it. “Anyone with information on Fiore’s whereabouts should contact the authorities immediately.”

The doors behind him opened, and James Katzenberg walked down the stairs, flanked by his son, Elliot, and the other Carlyle brother. Elliot had a bandage on his nose. Grayson held his arm in a sling, there was a bandage wrapped around his head, and his hand was a mass of gauze. Jennifer could feel Jacob tightening up as he saw them. James walked down and casually tapped Calvin Carlyle on the shoulder, and the chief of police moved aside for him.
 

“I hope everyone will excuse my interruption,” he said. His voice was smooth and buttery, matching his appearance.
 

James Katzenberg was the ideal of a politician, immaculately dressed in a tailored dark suit and tie, a tiny American flag pinned to his left lapel. His dirty blonde hair was fading into the resilient silver kind that never falls out or thins, and he could have been mistaken for thirty even at fifty-seven. Crows feet surrounded his eyes, and the mask of concern on his face was perfect. Jennifer’s nails dug into her palms, and she bit her lip and looked away.

James’ face was a mask, and she’d seen it come off. One time, but once was all she needed. Jacob looked down at her from the corner of his eye. He pushed her braid over her shoulder and touched her lightly between her shoulder blades. She moved a little closer and pushed down the anger and the sorrow welling up behind her eyes.

“As soon as I learned of this terrible tragedy, I rushed home at once,” he said. “I’m not ashamed to say that I used to my influence to bring in help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Along with the state police and the local authorities, we will leave no stone unturned until the perpetrator of this heinous crime is brought to justice.”

As soon as he finished speaking, one of the reporters almost jumped and waved her hand.
“Senator Katzenberg!
Is there any truth to the rumor-
”
 

He waved her off. “This isn’t a campaign stop, miss. I’m not taking any questions.”

Turning from the podium, he scanned the crowd, smiling. His tight bloodless lips twitched for a bare second and his eyes locked on Jennifer. She flinched, as if an invisible hand and pressed into her chest and shoved. Katzenberg quickly turned away and headed back up the steps, taking Elliot by the arm. By the look on his face, their conversation was not a pleasant one.
 

“Bullshit,” Jacob said.
 

Jennifer glanced over at him.
 

“What?”
 

“Not here,” he said, his eyes darting around again. “Let’s talk in the car.”
 

With a resigned sigh, she leaned on his arm as he walked her back to the car, opened the door and steadied her as she lowered herself into the low-slung seat. When he dropped in to the driver’s side he quickly brought the car to life and whipped out of the spot, making a u-turn right in the middle of the street before pulling away.
 

“Too convenient,” he said.
 

“I know,” said Jennifer. “How’d they find the kids so fast? Who called the police? Why the hell was that Hunter kid let out of jail on Saturday morning?”

Jacob looked at her from the corner of his eye, and something flickered in his gaze. “I was thinking the same thing. It’s too neat. Somehow, someone gets a call not long after the kids are shot, and it’s the locals that go up to find them, even though the game land is out of their jurisdiction. It should have been the state police, or a game warden.”

“What are we doing to do?”
 

“I need to see the crime scene and the car.”
 

“We need to see it,” Jennifer corrected.
 

He looked at her. “I can show you pictures. You’ll slow me down.”
 

Jennifer crossed her arms, rose to her full height in the seat, and stared him down. “I already told you, Jacob. I’m not going to wait in the tower while you go out and do everything. If we’re going to be partners we’re going to be
partners
.”
 

“If we get caught, we’ll get in a lot of trouble.”
 

“We won’t get caught,” she said. “You know what you’re doing.”
 

He sighed and fell back into the seat. “Tonight, then. We’ll go see the car first. It’s probably in the impound lot. I’ll have Faisal go out and take a drive and make sure it’s there first, and get me some details on the security. This is sloppy.”
 

“What do you mean?”

“Those kids could have sat out there for days. Who would find them? The whole point is that it’s secluded up there. The kids go up and park and they don’t bother each other. They all know why they’re there.”
 

“I never actually, um, went up there,” said Jennifer. “I just heard about it.”
 

“Right,” Jacob said. “Anyway, the point is, they could have been missing for a week before somebody found them, but the PFPD goes out of their jurisdiction to seal everything off and have locals take the…”