To Probe A Beating Heart (37 page)

             
Ben thought for a minute and said, “Give it eight years, one for each year that Annette was left alone in a cold unmarked grave, and our guest will be given back to the system. I’ll be long retired and gone by then and the other key players will be well blended back into the woodwork, but our Mr. McClarry will have the satisfaction of knowing that justice was served and he played a part in it.”

             
Sean finished his coffee and headed back to Cleveland Heights. Ben checked a few more schedules and made some notes in a logbook and locked up the office. He got into his truck and drove out to the hill with his windows open and listened. He heard nothing. He drove up the road about a mile and turned into a gravel area that was labeled Authorized Vehicles Only and stopped next to a state trooper watching his radar.

             
“Hey Jesse, how’s it going?”

             
“Boring night, Ben, but I think that I’ll stay right here for a while anyway.”

             
“Try not to fall asleep, if you do I’ll wake you in the mornin’.”               They both laughed and Ben pulled back onto the highway and headed home. An hour passed since he was left in the pit and Averell was cold, hungry, scared and completely and utterly alone. He tried talking to his long time companion, Stelian, to no avail. He was truly alone for the first time since he lived in the orphanage in Romania.

             
The sun had moved in the sky and light no longer found its way into the pit. Averell could not see, he could not climb out and all that was visible was the opening above. Total darkness came earlier in the pit than the surrounding area and with that darkness came the sounds. The sounds of the little insects scuttling about the floor and walls, crawling on Averell, looking for food. The scratching sounds of animals clawing in the dirt. The sounds of the rats, digging, scratching, in search of food.

             
No one knows how long Averell lasted in that pit. How long it took for the first critter to reach him, then the second, third, and the rest, to smell him, to bite him and taste his flesh, then to return and feed on him. How long could he fend them off? How long did it take for his mind to snap? How long before the rest of him died and how long did the critters feast on his remains? It could have been hours or days, no one came to look, to check on him, no one knows, no one cares.

             
Adam had finished his cleanup of the Buffalo building and went to the airport. His flight was at 8:45 that evening and he would be back home in Northern Virginia in a few hours. He used his project cell phone and called his contact to give him a final update. Then, the phone was stripped of its battery and memory card, wiped clean and tossed in the trash.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

Do I call you Aaron . . .

Time passed, September of 2000 saw Averell go into the pit on the Ohio freeway. As was the case with Carl Mason, Averell was left to nature. The insects and other critters that roam the median between the paved lanes going north and south or east and west, found their way to the feast in the pit. Averell was slowly devoured, just how he came to that end is not known. How many crows or roaches or rats participated in the consumption of all but his bones is anybody’s guess. As the years passed and new people came to work for the highway department, nobody had occasion to be near the pit, much less to look inside. Ben Creighton retired and moved to North Carolina where he lives today and Jesse is still with the Ohio State Police. The several men who participated in each of the teams activities blended back into the world from which they came and Adam was busy back at that un-named agency with other work involving terrorists. Jim McClarry moved up in the ranks of the Cleveland Heights Police department and he and Margo moved into a house and started a family. They now have a son and a daughter and live in the neighborhood where Annette and her family lived. The man called Aaron did catch a flight back to Ireland that night in 2000 and returned to his home near Dublin where he lived for the next three years before finally succumbing to a cancer that had been identified while he was living in America.

             
In the Spring of 2009, another call was made to Jimmy O’Leary, now an associate with the O’Leary firm in Boston and well on his way to becoming a partner. His secretary leaned in his office door and said, “There’s a man on the phone who says he wants to talk to you, his name is Aaron.”

              “Whoa, tell Tom that Aaron is on the phone, hurry, I’ll wait a second before picking up.”

             
“Okay,” said Kate and she pushed a few buttons on her phone and gave Tom the message. Tom dropped a file on his desk and as he was walked down to Jimmy’s office, he told Kate to get the partners to join them. “This might be interesting.”

             
Tom went into Jimmy’s office as he was picking up and putting him on speaker. “This is James O’Leary, how can I help you?”

             
“Would you like me to wait a minute while you call the others into your office Jimmy boy?” said Aaron with an Irish brogue.

             
“I would appreciate that.”

             
“Not a problem, I’m callin’ from a prepaid phone that was given to me for this occasion, so no sense tryin’ to trace the call. When we’re done I’ll be throwin’ it in the trash. You do understand Jimmy boy.”

             
“I do, do I call you Aaron?”

             
“Well we use the name because of the history, I’ll not be tellin’ you my real name, but you knew that.”

             
“Yes, I knew that.”

             
After another minute, Aaron said, “Well now, that’s about enough

time for the troops to gather.”

              “Gentlemen and any ladies present, my name is Aaron, and the call today is to let you know the whereabouts of Mr. Averell Danker. At least the last place that we knew him to be. Start with Interstate 90 in Ohio, between Madison and Mentor, in the median strip there is a hill, a rise with a thick growth of brush at the top. In the middle of the brush, there is a pit. Look in the pit. That’s all I have for you gentlemen. I’ll be takin’ my leave now, good day.” The line went silent.

             
Tom said, “Okay ‘Jimmy m’boy’, this is yours to handle,” and he laughed as he walked out of Jimmy’s office.

             
Jimmy called the CHPD and spoke to Jim McClarry. “James, I have word from one of our cousins. Fella’ named Aaron. You know who I’m talking about?”

             
“I think that I do, What’s did he have for us this time?”

             
“Grab a pen and I’ll read it off, ready?”

             
“Go ahead.”

             
Jimmy O’Leary read off the location and Jim McClarry wrote it down. “I’ll contact the local FBI office and get them in on this, I think the agent in charge was Matt Carver,” said Jim.

              “Let me know what happens, and Jim—.”

             
“Yeah.”

             
“You know this is all out of bounds stuff. I mean, the clan really stepped out on this and I expect some kind of heat. Not sure where it will come from, but heat nonetheless.”

             
“I hear ya’ cousin, I’ll give you a call when we know what’s in the pit, if anything.”

             
They hung up and Jim dug out the number for Matt Carver at the FBI office in Cleveland. Matt Carver was pleased to get another lead to follow on this case and eagerly accepted the information Jim had to offer. He asked Jim if wanted the lead on this part of the investigation, “Sure, I’ll take it. I’ll set up a site visit for tomorrow around 1:00 pm. That should allow everybody to assemble and have the right forensic guy’s there.”

             
The following day at 12:30 the group was gathering at the equipment yard near the site. Jim was counting noses and making sure that the forensic team was getting prepped on driving into the median strip. A parade of five vehicles was lined up for the ride to the site and highway workers were going to lead and follow with their yellow lights flashing. Jim met Matt Carver at the yard office and the two of them rode with Vince Galley in the second vehicle. They were followed by the forensic van and that was followed by a state trooper car with a couple of local officials. Next came the medical examiner and his assistant and then the other highway truck.

             
The forensic van and one highway vehicle with ropes and ladders backed up the hill, stopping about twenty feet from the pit. The remainder of the people walked up the hill and gathered at the highway truck to wait for clearance to approach the pit. The forensic team moved ahead with cameras and plastic bags, photographing everything and picking up whatever appeared to be worthwhile trace evidence. Jim knew, as did the forensic team, that any trace found at this point had a very low probability of being of value, but procedure was procedure and there was an audience there watching them. When enough preliminary photographing and collection of trace was done, the team came back to the truck to get the ladders, rope, lights and other equipment needed to enter the pit. The crime scene specialists wearing the appropriate protective suits climbed down into the pit setting lights and photographing everything in sight.

             
The pit fully illuminated and photographed, was now scanned for human remains. The collection of bones retrieved were photographed where found and carefully tagged and bagged for analysis in a nearby morgue. Some minor excavation was needed to collect the remains that were buried by the several years of weather and critters moving bits about. The remains of several rodents mixed in with Averell’s were assumed to be those of meal seekers who followed their noses into the pit in pursuit of food. They were either victims of their intended meal or other critters after the same feast. Whatever the case, Averell Danker, in the pit for nine years had been found and now had been returned to the system that could not arrest, try and punish him.

* * *

EPILOGUE

Jim McClarry called Jimmy O’Leary in Boston and told him that Averell Danker had indeed been found and now with a few entries in the file, the case of Annette Shelton’s murder would be officially closed. This also closed the missing person cases surrounding the other seven girls that Averell had taken. Jim called the other police departments and informed them of the developments. He then called Dave Shelton, “Dave, this is Jim McClarry, can I stop by for a few minutes, I want to see you and Clare?”

END

* * *

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John B. Wren is a consulting engineer
turned author, living in Northern

Virginia with his wife, Lois and children. He grew up in a

large Irish-Catholic family in western New York.
“To Probe

A Beating Heart”
is his first published novel. His second novel,
“Killing His Fear”
was released in 2012 and his third,
“Darryl's Reunion”
is due out in the spring of 2013.