The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (8 page)

              Paterson, at one time, was the shopping capital of North Jersey but has been outdone by large retail malls in Paramus and Wayne.  Most recently, in 2011, the entire city was ravaged by Hurricane Irene.  The Passaic River severely flooded, causing historic amounts of damage to homes and bridges, which displaced thousands of residents.  The city has slowly recovered since and been able to return to normal. 

              I found my way on Market Street after a few minutes of driving and came to a stop at the corner of Market and Madison.  I felt my phone buzz.  It was Fitzy.

              “How’s it going, Barnes, PI?” He said before I could say hello. 

              “Fine, Fitz.  What’s up?” I said.  I turned the car stereo down and was pissed that I was missing one of my favorite Van Morrison songs on my iPod.  I paused it.   

              “I may have your first case for you.”  I asked him to repeat what he said, just to clarify.  Fitzgerald had always been a true- to- word type of guy, to me at least, so I guess I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

              “What is it?” I cautiously asked, trying to show some excitement in the fact that Fitzgerald actually lived up to his word of tossing me a few cases just to get me started.  Fitzy definitely scored a few points in my book. 

              “A missing boy.  From right our own neck of the woods,” he said.  “Parents called it in a hour or so ago.  Said he went out with a few friends even though the parents told him he couldn’t.  The parents think the boy climbed out the first floor bathroom window.  Said he’d done it a hundred times before but would always be back before the mother was up for the day.  This time he never came home.  Peterson took the call.”

              “Where does the boy live?” I asked, thinking this might have some real possibilities.  The adrenaline started to overload my brain waves.  And when Fitzgerald told me the boy lived in Paterson the adrenaline quickly started to flow and I started to get a little wary.  It really radiated through my body once I compared Esteban’s address to the address Fitzgerald had just given me.

              “And what’s the boy’s name?” I slowly asked.  I heard Fitzgerald slump around some papers on his desk.

              “Esteban Machado.”

NINETEEN

At two, late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, depending on your own perspective, a black van pulled up to the baseball field on Lafayette.  Two men exited the sliding side door, both in ski masks, and jogged to where Esteban had fallen asleep.  Esteban’s right arm was tightly dangling as he had dropped to the ground when he dozed off.  His head lolled below his left shoulder while his left hand was still balled into a tight fist.  He couldn’t remember when he’d lost feeling in his right shoulder but knew it was numb by now.  Esteban was awoken by the sound of the chains being cut by a large set of bolt cutters.  His body shook as the chains were shaken loose through the holes in the fence.  The guys whispered something to each other but Esteban couldn’t make out what was said.  One of the guys casually kicked Esteban in the leg.

              It took a moment to realize, but Esteban was free.  He wanted to run.  He wanted to kick.  He wanted to scream but Esteban, for the first time ever, had a sense of reasoning control his mind.  The impulsive rage had temporarily subsided.  Esteban wasn’t sure if it was because of how tired he was or that genuine terror and fear had finally set in.  Either way,  common sense had slapped him in the face, if only for a few moments.  Maybe a part of Esteban’s inner rebel was excited by the amount of attention he was receiving, albeit from thugs and kidnappers, and he wanted to see where this was going and why this was happening to him.  Why was
he
the subject of such violent, thuggish street behavior?

              “Who are you?  And what the hell do you want with me?” Esteban asked.  The sense of pride was growing.  He spit on the ground in the direction of one of the thugs’ feet as a sign of toughness and even puffed up his chest a little bit.

              “Shut the fuck up!”  The taller one shouted and clobbered Esteban with a vicious backhand across the right side of his face.  The other unidentified thug giggled.  They wrestled Esteban to his feet and carried him back to the van.

              The van sped down Lafayette, passing through a residential neighborhood.  Lafayette came to an end at Passaic County Road 647.  The van slid into a space in the parking lot of the Food Mart.  The passenger hopped out and spent no more than five minutes in the store.  From Esteban’s vantage point it didn’t look like the guy bought anything and was wondering the purpose of the pit stop.  There wasn’t much Esteban could see from his lying down position while his wrists were tied to his ankles.  The way his arms were drawn tightly against his body he thought he’d much prefer the chains.

              “Fuck you!” Esteban shouted, his impulses returning.  Before he could speak again, he heard the sound of a gun being cocked.  The passenger casually turned around, pointing the muzzle of a Smith & Wesson at Esteban.  He didn’t say anything because Esteban’s expression told the thug that the gun was enough.

              The newfound sun felt warm but Esteban couldn’t tell if it was just the stifling temperature in the back of the van.  Any other day would have been prime for skateboarding or hanging on the stoop.  Today wasn’t one of those days.  In Esteban’s mind, dark clouds had formed and had no intentions of ever leaving.

              Out of the parking lot, the van made a left on to 647 and drove top speed to the corner of 647 and Market Street, pulling into another parking lot.  This lot was for a Checkers fast food restaurant.  The driver killed the engine and rolled down his window.  Casually hanging his elbow out, he turned to his partner and spoke for the first time.

              “Now we wait for the Chooch.” 

PART II- Blame

TWENTY

The night is dark.  But it’s almost a darker shade of blue rather than black.  I haven’t figured out why I only have one shoe on.  No idea where the other one is or how I lost it.  I am walking on a beach.  A beach I recognize from the boardwalk attractions but I don’t know where I am.  I recognize smells from delectable boardwalk foods.  I can taste the beach air.   I can see the moon making a magnificent reflection on the serene Atlantic Ocean.  I hear children screaming in excitement on the Tilt- a- Whirl.  I also hear what sounds like fireworks exploding somewhere in the distance but I cannot see the color bursts anywhere.  I smell carnival food again.  Cotton candy.  Funnel Cakes.  Popcorn. 

              Suddenly, the children stop screaming and the fireworks fizzle out.  I smell nothing but the salty ocean air.  I stop walking, not feeling what’s underneath my feet.  It’s almost as if I am levitating off the cold silky sand.  The only thing I can hear is a voice.  So soft and innocent.  It sounds like he is crying for help.  My vision shifted to a short distance into the ocean.  And bobbing up and down and side to side like a lost beach ball is what my mind cannot quite fathom.

              Jake is calling out for me to rescue him, holding my other shoe. 

              This is one dream I’ve had on numerous occasions.  It took me a long time and many sleepless nights to finally reach the end of the dream.  When I finally saw the vision of Jake encircled in the moon’s reflection, resembling an angel’s halo, I didn’t sleep for a week straight.  Jake’s image was burned inside my mind.  I still have the dream but my nighttime candies help treat me better.  Dr. Sharper gradually analyzed the progression of the dream.  She fed me the usual crock of cockamamie psycho- babble bullshit that left me questioning her credentials every time I left her office. 

              I had the dream again that Wednesday night and Lindsey knew it.  She could always tell when I had a bad dream because I woke up with the same look on my face. 

              “What can I get you?” she asked.  She kneeled behind me on the bed, rubbing my shoulders.

              I craned my neck and looked up at her.  She knew I didn’t have to answer.  There was nothing she could get me.  Nothing would bring Jake back.  Nothing would change the night that he used a gun and attempted to rob a convenience store while doped up on LSD.  It was just something I’d have to live with forever.  There’s this crazy rationale that gets tossed around my brain that tells me there is no way the incident could be my fault.  It’s so irrational that I find it comical and laugh it off.  Here I am attempting to rationalize what happened that night by placing blame on someone else.  The real blame should be placed on me.  I see the flashes of the muzzle- both of them- every time I close my eyes.  It’s like staring at the flash of a camera.  It gets stuck in my irises and there’s no way to shake them off and make them disappear. 

In previous sessions with Dr. Sharper, I would mention this line of thinking and, like always, Sharper remained neutral to my thoughts and attempted to let me figure them out on my own.  Some fucking doctor.  At the same time, I guess I can’t blame her own irrational analyses since I won’t let her piece together the entire story.

Lindsey took a seat across from me at the kitchen table.  Neither of us drank coffee so I had orange juice while she had a cup of herbal tea. 

              “I still can’t believe Fitzy wanted to give me Esteban’s case,” I said.  Whenever I had a dream that would keep both of us up I never liked to talk about it.  Besides, we both knew why we were up.  Why beat a dead horse?

             
In your case, Jake, right?

              “I still can’t believe Esteban is missing,” Lindsey replied.  “What did you find on your trip to Paterson?” she asked.

              “Nothing.  I drove around for a while, just sort of getting the lay of the land from Esteban’s perspective.  I was on my way to Esteban’s house when Fitzy called me.  There wasn’t much else to do; I was shocked at the coincidence.”

              “God, I hope he’s ok,” Lindsey said, once again showing her emotional passion for her students.

              “I’ll find him.  I promise.”

TWENTY ONE

Like any normal- and I use that term loosely- married couple, Lindsey and I had our fair share of problems and fights from time to time.  Who didn’t?  And we fought over your typical marital issues: money, house cleaning, bills, money, social events, and money.  But within the last six months we fought over one issue:  Jake.  I could do nothing but blame myself and loathe in my own self- pity, feeling sorry, not only for myself, but for Jake, too.  Lindsey tried as much as she could to be sympathetic and convincing herself that it was just as I pleaded, an accident.  She, too, had her own grieving to do, regardless of the incident, Jake was still dead.

              The incident.  That’s all we use to discuss Jake’s death.  We hardly mention his name or how he died.  I certainly knew how he died and Lindsey certainly wanted to me to tell her and fill in the blanks.  It was an ugly battle for months and I just outright refused.  I wanted to let it die with me.  Let it fester inside of me.  Eat away at my insides and let me wither away to nothing. 

She knew about the LSD and the attempted robbery.  She also knew the fact that Jake was shot- twice.  There are some other minor details about how and why Jake was shot but that was it.  There was no more I could tell her.  No reason to have her relive the same nightmares as I do. 

I always had a feeling that Lindsey, deep down, blamed me for what happened to him but she never said it outright.  As soon as I told Dr. Sharper about how I felt sorry for myself and for Jake, she immediately asked why I hadn’t felt sorry for Lindsey.  I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know.  Or did I know the answer but didn’t want anyone to know how I felt about her anymore?  I mean, shit, she wasn’t the one that handed him the gun.  She didn’t show him how to load the gun.  She didn’t lace his bloodstream with LSD, send him out into the ghetto, and point him down a path of crime.  So why didn’t I feel a certain way about my wife?