Frozen Past (10 page)

Chapter 19

Jaxon and Sally had spent the rest of the morning with the forensics team at the Lolly residence collecting the video data and scouring the yard and bushes next door for any clues. They had been able to preserve the video surveillance data but had pretty much struck out on any evidence left by the killer around the surrounding environment. Burt looked very anxious as the crew trampled through his and his neighbor’s yard. Jaxon kept reassuring him they would damage as little as possible. When it was all said and done, the grass looked a little beat down and the neighbor’s hedge had some leaves misplaced, but the majority of the yards looked unscathed. The neighbor had not been home.

They were just about to leave the scene, saying their goodbyes to the Lolly’s, when they heard what sounded like a gunshot. Jogging off toward the sound, Jaxon radioed in as he ran that possible shots had been fired and they needed back-up. That order was quickly canceled when they discovered the scene at the foot bridge. Jaxon was highly amused.

After the eldest of the teenagers explained what had happened and what they had done, Sally smiled at Jaxon and he almost chuckled as he turned away from the kids and the Stinson family.
Kids! What next?
He thought.

Turning back to address the small group, he tried to put on as stern a face as he could. “You kids do know this could be considered assault, right? Maybe even assault with a deadly—uh—rocket engine.” He heard Sally snort behind him and struggled to keep it together. “This is serious stuff.”

“Yes sir,” they all chimed in. All except the one kid who fumed off to the side. John was his name if he remembered correctly. Jaxon sent his best glaring stare John’s way and the kid eventually looked down at his feet.

“And you two,” Jaxon pointed to the kids with the bikes, “kicking someone off of a bridge into a flooded creek could also be considered assault. You have to learn to share the road—uh path—with other pedestrians. They have the right of way. You hear me?”

They both nodded but said nothing. One of the kids, the one covered from head to toe in mud, looked about to cry. He was doing his best to hold it together.

“Alright, I want to hear apologies from all of you and then sweep this thing under the rug. Let’s go.”

Mumbled ‘sorrys’ worked their way around the group and Jaxon was glad to see the John kid even joining in.

“Good. Let’s all try to get along now. Don’t make me have to pay a visit to your parents.” Jaxon pointed to Jimmy and then John. “You two, dismantle this little project you have attached to the bridge and carry it back to your house. Harrison and Pemberton, I need to talk to you.”

The girl and boy looked at each other and then walked over to where Jaxon and Sally were standing off to the side. Stinson walked up and said, “That’s it? You aren’t going to do anything to these kids? Maybe I should talk to their parents if you aren’t. They almost got someone killed!”

“It was a prank gone wrong,” Jaxon said. “I’m not going to make this more than it was and create more hardship for these kids than already exists. They seem to be genuinely sorry for what happened and it doesn’t appear they meant any serious harm. It’s your prerogative if you want to seek out their parents. I can’t stop you. I just think it’s best to let it go.”

“Fine,” Stinson said, and turned to leave. “Come on kids. We need to get home. Who knows who else will rig some bomb or trap and get someone else hurt.”

“Daddy! I want to stay with Ellie!” Mel said.

“No!” Stinson said, pulling her by the hand, “Ellie is not coming over again, ever!”

The little girl started crying as her parents led her home. Ellie Pemberton watched her walk off and started to cry herself. Jaxon actually felt a twinge of pity for the girl.

* * *

Luke watched Jimmy and John dismantle the rocket launcher and thought to himself,
How in the world could it have come to this?
He couldn’t believe how quickly things had taken a turn for the worse and he never would have predicted the outcome.

Jaxon was saying something to his partner, who Luke now knew as Sally, but couldn’t hear the conversation. He knew they were talking about him and Ellie, but he hoped they were going to let them go. Luke looked over at Ellie who had fresh tears running down her cheeks and reached out and grabbed her hand.

“Are you gonna be ok?” Luke asked.

She nodded but didn’t speak. He couldn’t tell what was going through her head, but he knew she was angry at him for getting her into all this. Hell, she was probably angry at all three of them. Now, she had lost a babysitting job and embarrassed herself in front of a family she really liked. Luke felt she would probably never be able to gain her respect back from them. She probably wouldn’t even try.

Jaxon turned back toward them and scowled as he looked them over. “You two keep showing up in all the action in this neighborhood. Do I need to be concerned?”

“No, sir,” Luke said. Ellie just shook her head. She had dropped his hand when Jaxon started talking.

“I like you two,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I enjoy our little get-togethers. The less I see of you two, the better. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Luke said. This time Ellie spoke too.

“Good. Now what really happened here? Is there more to this than I’m seeing?”

“No,” Ellie said. “Not really. It’s just like Jimmy said. We didn’t mean for anything bad to happen. I realize now how stupid we were.”

“Me too,” Luke said. “The two kids on the bike just made us mad and we wanted to get them back. It was dumb.”

“This friend of yours, John,” Jaxon said, pointing, “do I need to be worried about him? He seemed pretty angry.”

Luke shook his head. “No. He’s probably more scared than angry. I think his close call in the creek shook him up pretty good.”

“He’s lucky to have friends like you guys,” Jaxon said. “You saved his life. He could’ve died in there.”

Luke shrugged, not sure what to say. He knew John had been lucky.

“Do you guys remember our little conversation a couple of months back?” Jaxon asked.

Luke could see Ellie nodding and he said, “Yes.”

“Anything jog your memories since then?”

“No, sir,” Luke said.

Jaxon looked at Sally. “It’s important guys,” Sally said. “Even the smallest thing might help us. You didn’t see anything?”

Luke and Ellie remained silent.

“We’ve been given some new evidence,” Jaxon said, “and we know you two had nothing to do with the murders, just so you know. You aren’t suspects. We just need a little help filling in the blanks.”

Luke watched Ellie open her mouth, look at him and then shut it again. Jaxon shook his head. “Alright, let us know if you think of something. Here is our number again in case you lost the other one.” He handed them each a business card, then turned and left, heading back toward the pool area.

Chapter 20

Jaxon and Sally were at the station going over pictures from the missing person’s files. They had been searching through the files since late December without a single hit. They had even expanded to the surrounding counties and were currently going through Prince George’s County in Maryland.

Looking at pictures of thousands of missing persons was a tedious and time consuming task and Jaxon was about to go blind from it. He put down the shot he was holding and rubbed his eyes. He had a headache spreading from the back of his neck into the crown of his scalp. He needed a Coke.

“I’m getting a drink,” he said. “You want anything?”

“A Diet Pepsi,” Sally said. “Here…” she grabbed a dollar and stuck her hand out to him.

“I got it.” He waved her hand away and walked around his desk.

“Thanks!” she yelled after him.

The John Doe had been a thorn in their sides. He had never had this much trouble identifying an individual before. He couldn’t understand why they were having such bad luck. The fingerprints came back negative and this led to a suspicion Jaxon had in regards to the age of the boy. Nowadays every mother out there had their kids fingerprinted, photographed, and even DNA typed, anything they could think of in the unlikely event they would have to report their child missing or even provide some kind of identification should the worst happen. He’d even heard of some parents having chips implanted underneath the kid’s skin so they could be scanned into a computer system like a dog or a cat.

This trend was only about fifteen to twenty years old though, and this made Jaxon sure they were searching for a name that had been in the database for over twenty years. Somebody had kept the kid frozen for a hell of a long time.

The decapitated dog had provided little usable evidence as well. The fingernails they had pulled from the skin of the dog had in fact belonged to the John Doe. After running DNA on the skin found underneath the kid’s fingernails, the lab called and told Doc Barstow it was animal DNA. Specifically that of a dog. A poodle mix. It only took a few minutes afterward to match up the missing fingernails of the kid to the ones they pulled from the dog. The problem was the kid had been dead for quite a while and the dog was recent. Dead end. This asshole was smart. He was throwing all kinds of empty leads at them to slow them down and it was working. He felt like he was spinning his wheels for naught.

Doc Barstow had been frustrated too. He was used to seeing things that most people considered appalling, but when he explained what the perp had to go through just to get the John Doe’s fingernails embedded in the dog’s skin, it set him off.

That had been five months ago and they had little reason to visit the morgue since then. John Doe was still on ice there and would remain in the morgue until they either identified him or they no longer needed the body.

Jaxon walked back into the investigations department and put Sally’s Diet Pepsi on her desk.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Don’t mention it,” he said and grinned.

Sitting back down at his desk, he grabbed another stack of photos and started leafing through them.

“I’m getting a headache,” she said.

“Can’t be worse than mine.”

His phone rang. “Jaxon.”

“It’s Halson. Found something interesting on the fibers in the Doe/Bannon case.”

“Shoot,” Jaxon said.

“Some of the fibers pulled from the filtered pool water match the clothing on the Doe boy and then some do not.”

“So…”

“I’m getting there,” Halson said. “The fabric from the Doe clothing is manufactured using a very new and modern technique. The textile mills in India began developing a type of nanotechnology to enhance their fabrics. Basically they were looking for ways to improve softness, durability, inflammability—that kind of thing. It’s almost like genetic engineering for cloth.”

“What are you saying? The clothing is special?”

“Sort of. It’s only sold through one chain in the U.S. Old Navy stores, of which there are three in Fairfax county. Jaxon—these are modern clothes on a kid who has been dead for a long time.”

“Ok—so he dressed him in new duds for the swim.”

“Wait, I’m not finished. We found a few other fibers which were also unusual. Two small samples of a Dacron/cotton mixture which are no longer manufactured and a rubber type compound that is also obsolete. Both of these types of materials were found to be toxic in some form or another and the production of them was halted in 1985.”

“But if the…”

“Hold on. Both the rubber and the cloth were new to the market back then and were only made for a short time before they were pulled. Specifically, the production of the cloth began in March of 1984 and the rubber in April of that same year. They were both shut down in September of 1985.”

“How confident are you these fibers are from our John Doe?” Jaxon asked, a grin forming on his face.

“Pretty damn sure. The management company says they drain the pool yearly for maintenance. I mean you could have some old ‘has been’ with his rejects from the 80’s hanging out by the pool looking for babes, but that’s highly unlikely. I’d say about 80% sure.”

“Halson, you are my hero as of this moment.”

“Don’t get too excited. You still have some work to do to find out who the kid is.”

“We’re on it.”

* * *

Luke and Ellie were at her house sitting in a swing in her backyard. They both had a glass of lemonade in their hands and were leaning shoulder to shoulder against each other sipping the drinks. It was hot.

He could tell she was still upset at him about the rocket episode, but at least she was talking.

“I’m sure after this cools off a bit,” Luke said, “Mr. Stinson will be a lot more forgiving. He’s just upset at us right now.”

“I doubt it,” Ellie said. “He looked pretty angry. Adults seem to hold on to grudges almost as long as girls.” She smiled.

At least she could joke about it. “We’ll see. I’ll bet you’re babysitting for Mel and Robby again before the summer’s over.”

“I’m not counting on it, but it would be nice. I like those two a lot.”

She was quiet for a minute, then said, “Are you worried about the missing pets?”

“No—not really. It might just be coincidence. I know you’re worried.”

“Do you really think five missing dogs and cats is a coincidence?”

“Is it that many?”

She nodded. “Three from your court, one from mine, and one from Oak Street.”

“Three from my court? Damn—I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Does sound like a lot. Have any of them been found?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t go around asking anybody. They would think I was weird.”

“True.”

“What? I’m weird?” she asked.

“Totally. The weirdest person I know. I mean, look at the company you keep.”

She punched him in the arm and he spilled his drink in his lap.

“Hey!” he yelled, laughing. He threw the rest of the lemonade at her and it hit her right in the face. She sat there with her mouth open in shock.

“Oh crap! I’m sorry, El! I didn’t mean to.”

She laughed and dumped her lemonade over the top of his head. It ran down his face and back and he cringed from the cold. “That’s it weirdo! You’re in for it now!” He reached for her but she jumped up and ran. He caught up to her near a big maple tree in her backyard and she squealed as he tackled her to the ground. She rolled over on top of him and he let her pin his arms to the ground. The sticky lemonade made grass and dirt cling to their faces and clothes.

“Who’s a weirdo?” she teased.

“You!”

She tickled him in the ribs and he squirmed uncontrollably underneath her. “No! Not tickling! I can’t control myself!”

“Who’s the weirdo?” she repeated.

“I am! I am!”

“Damn right you…!” She stopped.

He squirmed for a second longer and then realized something was wrong. He looked up at her above him and saw her staring at something behind his head.

“What?” he said, breathless. “What is it?”

Silent, she got up off of him and stood staring. He rose up and looked behind him. He didn’t know what he was looking for at first, but then he saw it. Sticking up about two inches above the ground, just under the maple tree, was an animal’s paw. The brown fur and black nails clearly visible above the dirt. A single fly buzzed around it and then landed on a toenail. He stood up next to her and then walked over to the tree. It was a dog’s paw. Pretty good sized dog from what he could judge. The soil he was standing on was loose and squishy and he stepped back away from the area, uncomfortable with the way it felt beneath his bare feet. Ellie stood next to him and stared.

“Do you have a shovel?” he whispered, his voice sounding funny in the shade of the tree.

She looked at him. “In the garage, but…”

“Go get it.”

She looked at the dog’s paw again, her lip trembling, and then she left to get the shovel. He looked at the area around the paw and could tell it had been disturbed. The grass looked funny. He reached out and pulled a piece and it shifted easily in the soil. It had been dug up and then put back. He would never have noticed it unless he was standing right on top of it. Another fly buzzed around the protruding paw and then a third. Luke could now smell a whiff of decay and he backed away, unsure if he wanted to dig up the rest.

Ellie came back with the shovel and she handed it to Luke. “Are you sure?” she said.

Luke grabbed the shovel and started to dig. It only took a minute for him to realize the dog was not the only thing buried here.

* * *

“Bingo!” Sally shouted. “We got him!”

Jaxon rushed over and peered at the picture she was holding in her hand. Dead Ringer. Their John Doe now had a real name.

“Stewart Alan Littleton,” Sally said. “He’s been missing since October 31, 1984. Last seen by his Mother, June Littleton, before he went out Trick-or-Treating.”

Jaxon scanned the statistics on the sheet. “He lived right here in Fairfax. Reston. Last address Southgate Square.”

“Twenty seven years ago,” Sally said.

“Yeah,” Jaxon said. “Unbelievable huh? Let’s see if we can get a contact. Parents, brothers, sisters, anything.”

“Last known phone number and address are current as of September,” Sally said. “They kept it updated every year. The number listed is for June Littleton.”

“This time we do it the right way,” he said. “You contact her and we’ll bring her in to identify the body.”

“Thanks, boss. I find him and you make me do the dirty work.”

“You’re better at it than me. Remember what happened?”

“I’ll handle it.” She smiled.

His cell phone rang. “Jaxon.”

“Mr. Jennings?” A kid’s voice.

“This is Detective Jennings. Who is this?”

The kid paused for a second and Jaxon thought they hung up.

“You told us to call you if we had any more information on the pool kids.”

“Harrison?”

“Yes, sir. This is Luke Harrison. Ellie’s with me too. Can you come to Ellie’s house? Something bad has happened.”

“We’re very busy right now, Harrison. Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

“We found more decapitated animals.”

“You say animals? Plural?”

“Yeah. Five of ‘em. Three dogs and two cats. They were buried in Ellie’s yard.”

“Don’t touch anything else. I’ll send some people over there now.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I can’t at the moment. We have something very important to do.”

“What?”

“I can’t talk about that with you.”

“Did you find out who the other kid is? Because there’s something buried with the animals you need to see.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a picture. A school picture, but it’s old. I think it’s the kid from the pool. I’m not sure though. That picture you showed us a while back? The one you asked if we knew? Is that him?”

“Yes.”

“You need to come out here. There’s a name on the picture, but it’s all covered in—uh—dead gunk and guts. The one name I can read is Little.”

“Littleton?” Jaxon asked.

“That could be it, yes. How did you know?”

“We’ll be right there. Don’t touch a thing.”