The Devil's Closet (6 page)

“You betcha. I’ll let you know if anything else turns up.”

I hung up and told Michael about the other shoe. We’d have to go down to the lab to confirm the shoe was a My Size, but it was a good bet.

“He’s playing with us. I was right in that he’s doing all he can to get caught. He knows the family would turn the shoe over to us. He’s saying, ‘I’m sick and need to be put away, but let’s see if you’re smart and worthy enough to do it.’”

“Captain Norris told me the box was mailed locally. Do you genuinely believe he’s still here?”

“Possibly.” Michael ran a hand through his thick brown hair to relieve some of his tension. “Or he could’ve mailed it a couple of days ago and taken off.”

Before leaving for the day, I needed to swing by the uniformed patrol squad room to see if Eric was out of roll call yet. I still hadn’t been able to reach him on the phone, and wondering about the fallout from our little chat last night had been killing me.

Just outside of the squad room was a restroom that I desperately needed to use, my bladder feeling like it would explode after sitting in such a lengthy meeting. Washing up and cursing the extra five cups of coffee I’d had today, I heard the squad room door open. A group of officers walked into the hallway. It was impossible to miss their loud conversation, and I soon heard it concerned Eric and Jordan. Turning off the faucet, I pressed my ear against the bathroom door, feeling like a complete ass in the process. Children eavesdrop like this, not mature adults. But under the circumstances, a little pride wasn’t going to stand in my way. It wasn’t clear which officers were talking, and only bits and pieces of their conversation came through.

“Hell, I’d do her if I was training her! Eric’s got it made. I’ll give him a week before he hits that.”

“A week? Shit. I heard he already has. She follows him around like a puppy, and I’m sure he could do anything he wants. The other night he told me she wanted him to go home with her.”

My heart raced, and now I was trembling uncontrollably. As their voices faded and their conversation switched to another topic, I slumped down onto the bathroom floor wondering if I should confront my husband. It would be hard not to, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. And how much did my own guilt about Michael play into my tolerance? Guys in patrol assume things and spread rumors. Uniformed police officers are the cattiest, most gossipy group of individuals around. They put nosy women to shame. The part that bothered me most was the one officer said Eric told him directly that Jordan asked him to go home with her. If it was all hearsay, like the comment that he had slept with her, I might get over it. Maybe. I knew Eric was upset over Michael, but the way these guys talked, this had been going on for a while.

“Hey…What are you doing out here? Everything all right?”

“I was looking for you, and no, everything is not all right.” I tried to hide the anger on my face, but Eric couldn’t help noticing it.

“Did something go wrong with your murder case?” He stood with his hand resting on the hood of the cruiser, and he looked slightly concerned.

“This isn’t about the case. I just heard some gossip in the hall that was extremely disturbing.”

By now Jordan had rolled her window down about an inch and was listening to our conversation.

“Look, CeeCee, I don’t have time for games right now, so do you want to spit it out or not? We have to get going. There’s calls for service pending in our zone.”

I glanced at Jordan and back at Eric, hoping to give him a nonverbal, but very blatant hint. He got the idea, took his hand off the car, and just stood there.

“I know where you’re going with this,” he said, “and now is not the time or place. Please wait until I get home.”

“I need to talk about it now if you don’t mind, minus the audience, of course.” I scowled directly at Jordan, which prompted her to roll up her window mighty fast.

“I said not now. We’re late. We have to leave,” he said, before walking to the other side of the car and getting in.

It was my turn to be shocked and angry. They drove away, and I remained where I was, completely dumbfounded. Eric said he knew what I was talking about? That scared me to death and also led me to believe the rumors might be true. I felt quite ill, but I pulled myself together so I could drive home without getting into an accident.

At home I could think of nothing else. By the time 10:00 rolled around, the end of Eric’s shift, I was in a panic. By 10:47, I was almost psychotic when the phone rang. It was him.

“Sorry I didn’t call earlier, but we had a late arrest. I’m gonna be tied up for a while. You might as well go to bed.”

“No, I’ll wait up. Like I said, we need to talk, and you obviously know what about. And, may I add, I didn’t appreciate getting blown off in the parking lot today either. Or maybe that was just another way to impress your girlfriend?”

Eric was silent. Not a good sign. I can be haughty, sarcastic, and childish like the best of ’em, but it was out of character for me to act the way I was then: mean and spiteful toward the man I supposedly love. I think he was probably somewhat surprised, but more likely angry and even hurt.

“I will not have this conversation over the phone, and if you want to discuss it like a rational adult, I suggest you settle down,” he whispered into his cell. “Good night, CeeCee. I love you,” he said, and hung up.

I felt like a fool. I’ve been in law enforcement long enough to learn not to fall prey to the evil rumor mill, but this time I had.

I slept fitfully, waking around two in the morning to find Eric next to me sound asleep. I finally got up around five, tired of my nightlong tossing and turning. I wanted to shake him, wake him up, and tell him I was sorry, but I knew he needed to get some sleep. Before I headed to work, I left a note on the kitchen counter asking him to call as soon as he woke up.

Michael was already in my office when I arrived, complete with a box of doughnuts, scones, and bagels.

“You look tired.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, grabbing a bagel.

“Is everything all right, CeeCee?”

“Just fucking fantastic.”

“Okay. Never mind, I won’t ask. Where should we start today?”

“I think we should go through the entire case file again to see if there’s anything we missed before we re-interview anyone.”

“What?” I snapped, anticipating the worst.

“Someone just tried to kidnap Austin Brewer.”

“No, he’s fine. He’s at home. I’ll follow you both over there.”

Michael was barely in my car with the door closed before I peeled out of the parking lot. On our way I called Kincaid, specifically to chew her out about why no patrol car was keeping an eye on the Brewer house like I had requested.

“I had a patrol car there, CeeCee. The guys have to be able to break and eat lunch, for Christ’s sake! I don’t appreciate you questioning me about it either.” Oh, she was snippy.

“If they left for lunch, then you should’ve assigned someone to replace them until they were finished.” I was even snippier.

“I’m not going to debate this matter on the phone, especially since I don’t answer to you. I’m the captain, remember?”

“I’m reminded every day,” I said with my low, dry sarcasm.

“Melissa Brewer waited an hour before she called us,” she said, ignoring my last remark. “She thought she was overreacting and being paranoid.”

I relayed this information to Michael.

“She did what? What the hell is wrong with that woman?” Michael was taken aback.

Turning onto the Brewers’ street, we saw Kincaid’s SUV parked in their driveway. I was hoping to beat her there because, knowing Naomi, she probably started questioning Austin Brewer already, scaring him to death in the process. Coop pulled in behind us and as we started toward the front door, I heard a man yelling. Dr. Parker was standing in his front yard, waving for one of us to come and talk to him.

“I’ll take care of him. You guys go ahead,” Coop said, walking toward the doctor. Melissa Brewer was already waiting at the front door. When I walked into the living room, Kincaid was sitting on the couch with Austin. I hated being right. She was talking to him like he was a nine-month-old baby; directly in his face and loudly, like a toddler herself. Austin looked trapped and horrified until he saw me. He leaped off the couch and ran straight to me with his arms wide open. Being the wide receiver, I caught him immediately.

“Hey! Poweece lady! I almost catched the bad guy today!” Austin grabbed tightly around my leg, his chubby face gazing up at me eager to please.

“I heard, Austin! You did a very good job. You’re going to get a special badge for the job you did today. You’ll have to tell me all about it and how smart you were!”

“I will! I will!” he yelled. Then his voice dropped to a whisper and he pulled my shirt so I would bend down to him. “I don’t like that other lady. She thinks I’m a baby and not a big boy with a badge!”

Austin’s whisper was a small yell, loud enough for the entire room to hear, Kincaid included. Kincaid, red faced and going through her hourly ritual of being a world-class dumbass, walked toward the door.

“CeeCee, just fill me in on what he says. I’ll be driving around the area looking for anything suspicious. Just call my cell.”

“Okay, Cap.”

I looked back down at Austin, who was now eyeing Michael with an air of suspicion. Throw a cap on his head and a pipe in his mouth, and Austin could be a regular junior Sherlock Holmes. Michael had remained quiet, though not resisting a smirk at Kincaid’s ignorance and lack of finesse.

Melissa Brewer nervously asked if we would like anything to drink. She seemed as uneasy now as when I’d first interviewed her about Hanna Parker. I told Michael and Austin to get to know each other better while I talked to Melissa in the kitchen—where I let her have it with both barrels.

“You better have one hell of an explanation for why you waited one hour to call the police after someone just tried to kidnap your son.”

She looked terrified and immediately started bawling, holding on to the countertop for support. I felt for her, but not all that much. Her passive responses to the last several incidents still had me steaming. The thought that we might have actually been able to catch the man who killed Hanna Parker infuriated me even more. I didn’t want to hear sobs and cries; I wanted an explanation.

“You might as well get it out now, Melissa. Quite frankly, you could be facing felony charges, as well as an investigation by children’s services.”

“I-I know! I’m sorry!”

Austin led Michael into the kitchen. Upon seeing his mother a basket case, the child began crying and ran over to her. The hysteria was spreading and getting louder. Trying not to add to the confusion, Michael gave me a questioning look and I promptly waved my hand, sign language for
don’t worry about it.
It would be useless to talk to Austin now that he was a blubbering mess. I signaled to Melissa that I needed to talk to Austin and would be out in the living room waiting. Michael brought up the rear.

“What was that all about?” he asked quietly once we were out of earshot from the kitchen.

“Not much, I just unloaded on her, essentially saying she’s been a piss-poor mother and lucky if she doesn’t go to jail.”

“Knowing you, I’m sure that’s exactly what was said. No sugar coating from you, right?” He put his hand on the small of my back and chuckled.

“Right.” I turned out of his reach, feeling the familiar explosion of desire and need I experienced whenever he touched me.

Melissa and Austin walked in, both appearing to have settled down and now ready to talk. Melissa sat on the couch and motioned for Austin to sit next to her, which he ignored, climbing onto her lap instead. Melissa began telling us her version of what happened earlier.

Austin’s preschool party was the following day, and Melissa had been in the kitchen making cookies while he was in the living room playing with his trucks. Austin was being his normal four-year-old self: loud, whistling, making siren noises and yelling “fire!” As with any parent who has a child that age or younger, silence brings about an immediate concern if the child is not directly in sight. Such was the case today.

“I didn’t hear Austin making his fire sounds anymore. In fact there was no sound at all coming from the room.”

Thinking he may have gotten into something he wasn’t supposed to, Melissa left the kitchen, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw the front door of her house wide open. In a panic, she ran outside, fearing Austin had managed to open it and walk out, something he was able to do on two prior occasions. It was then she saw an older white station wagon backing out of her driveway and heading up the street at a high speed. The man driving was white and had blond hair.

“There was a temporary registration tag in the back, but I didn’t get a close look at it.”

Standing in the front yard, she began yelling Austin’s name. He called out to her from inside the house, where she found him in the living room, playing with his trucks and once again making ordinary childish noises

“I asked him if he opened the front door, and he said it was the tall man that did it. I thought he might have been making things up and the wind blew it open, or he really did open it, then used his quite vivid imagination to come up with the story about the tall man. I guess I brushed off the car as someone just turning around in my driveway.” She eyeballed me, waiting for a response. “I wasn’t thinking, I guess. I mean, Austin does have an active imagination. There was one time our toilet got backed up with almost six cans of Play-Doh in it. When I asked Austin, he told me an old lady with a cane and a beard pushed him down, stole the Play-Doh, and tried to flush it down the toilet…”

Michael grunted, trying to suppress his laugh.

“There also isn’t the slightest bit of wind today, Melissa,” I interrupted.

“I know, but I thought maybe my husband or I hadn’t latched it properly, so anything could have blown it open. Anyway, I went back to making the cookies, but the whole incident kept nagging me. I went back and talked to Austin a little more about it, and that’s when he told me a man came in and asked him if he wanted to go play with Hanna. That’s when I ran to call the police.”

It was very, very quiet in the room. Michael was studying Melissa, analyzing her every word, something he is very good at. And he was clearly making her uncomfortable. Austin looked like he was on the verge of a deep sleep before I called out to him.

“Austin? Do you want to help me catch a bad guy again? You did such a good job the first time.”

“Okay! I played with my fire twucks. The bad guy was standing wight there.” He pointed toward the door.

“What color shirt did he have on, Austin?”

“White. He knew my name too! He asked me if I wanted to play with Hanna!”

“What did you say?”

“I wanted to play wif Hanna, but he runned away.”

With my attention still on Austin, I explained to the child that he should never go with someone he doesn’t know. In the middle of my little safety speech, my phone rang. Kincaid.

“CeeCee! Get out of there and start toward Bellville. A seven-year-old was just taken walking home from school. Keep an ear to your radio, we’re getting a description now,” she yelled before hanging up.

“This was a setup!” I announced to Michael and Coop (who had recently returned), rushing toward the door. “Another child was kidnapped. Melissa, do not take your eyes off Austin for a second, and lock all your doors and windows.”

Speeding away from the Brewers’, I filled Coop and Michael in on Naomi’s call. Bellville was a small village about fifteen minutes south of the city. It was very obvious the suspect used Austin Brewer to distract us while he took another child. He was toying with us, luring us just close enough to think we got him and then disappearing yet again. This guy was brilliant. And fearless. Driving to the village, doing at least seventy-five mph, I radioed in the suspect description for the Austin Brewer case and told every listening officer to look for a white station wagon. As I was talking, I realized it wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start. This guy changed cars, and evidently, his hair color. Right now he could be driving a yellow school bus and wearing a dreadlock wig for all I knew.

All we could gather on the radio was bits and pieces of what happened. Ashley Sanders had been walking home from school. A neighbor in the rear of her house heard the scream, went to her front window two minutes later or so, and noticed items from the child’s backpack spilled out on the sidewalk. Again, no one saw anything more specific. Several uniforms on the scene were giving out the child’s description, so I radioed for one of them to call my cell ASAP. We were almost at the scene when an officer called and told me what was found on the sidewalk. The child’s backpack was fully open with the contents all spilled out. Papers, lunchbox, pencils, and candy were strewn in a very small area, maybe two by three feet. When the officer answered my question if anything else was there, I hung up, slowed the car, and looked at Michael.

“Shall I take a guess?” he asked.

“Of course you know the answer. They found a My Size shoe sitting on top of the child’s backpack.”

“Son of a bitch” were Michael’s only words as we turned onto the street where Ashley Sanders was last heard from.

It was getting to be an all-too-familiar scene, and I hated to admit it, but the suspect had already started wearing us all down. No law-enforcement agency is ever prepared for multiple kidnappings no matter how well funded, trained, staffed, or anything else we are.

The crime lab processed what was on the sidewalk, and an Amber Alert was issued. I spoke with the woman who called, another imbecile who waited until her soap opera went to a commercial break before checking on what she thought was a child screaming. A few seconds after that, Ashley’s mother had driven around the corner and seen the backpack and its contents on the sidewalk. She had finished her errands early and decided to pick Ashley up, knowing the route she took home. It was only when Ashley’s mother was screaming hysterically that the woman called the police. Without a doubt, I believe the woman would never have called the police had Ashley’s mother not shown up.