Frozen Past (6 page)

“It’s a picture.”

“Oh no…what’s it of? Is it bad?”

“I don’t know how he did this…it’s me…well, at least my face…it’s me they’re pulling out of the pool last night. I’m dressed in the dummy’s clothes and I’m dead.”

Chapter 10

Jaxon felt like an idiot. He had made a horrible, rookie mistake and was kicking himself for it. Kicking over and over again. How could he have been so stupid? In his twenty five years as a policeman he had never screwed up so bad.

He downed his twelfth Bud, crushed the can in one hand with a vengeance, and grabbed another one out of the cooler he had sitting by his chair.

His doorbell rang.

He didn’t want any visitors so he stayed where he was and ignored it. It rang again and then knuckles rapped on the wood of the door.

“Come on, Jaxon. It’s me. I know you’re in there.”

Sally. He was surprised. She never came to his place. He got up, opened the front door and was greeted with a twelve pack of Bud held out to him by his partner.

“Thought you could use this, but I see you’ve already started.”

He looked at the beer he held in his hand, shrugged, and then held the door wide, gesturing for her to come in. She handed him the twelve pack and walked past him into the small apartment he shared with his dog, Reverb. He closed the door and followed her into the living room. She sat and grabbed a cold beer from the open cooler.

“What brings you to my lovely abode?” he said. “Surely not the company.”

“I thought you might like to hear the latest on the kid.” He didn’t answer so she went on. “And I thought you could use
my
company.”

“I don’t need you trying to boost me up. I’m fine,” he said.

“Yeah, you look fine. How many have you had already?”

He ignored the question and said, “So, what’s the latest on the kid?”

She took a drink of the beer and set it down. “Preliminary cause of death is asphyxiation,” she said. “But not from drowning. The ME wants to wait on the autopsy to confirm it until the family is notified.”

“So, the body was moved?”

“That’s what it’s looking like. He died somewhere else and was put in the pool. Now, as far as notifying the family, they haven’t been able to positively identify the body. We’ve run fingerprints and come up with a big goose egg.”

“What about the FBI fingerprint database, IAFIS?”

“We haven’t hit it yet. That’s next.”

“Dental records?”

“Yes, but nothing has popped up yet. And no one has reported a missing child. At least not within the local and surrounding states.”

“So he’s still a John Doe?”

“Yes.”

“We need to widen the search. If he was killed elsewhere and dropped in the pool, he could have come from anywhere. Let’s start working national databases and see if we get any hits.”

“Already started it boss. I submitted the query in the computer system before I came over.” She smiled, took another drink, and waited as silence took over the conversation. “You know, it was an honest mistake.”

He shrugged.

“How else were we going to find someone to positively I.D. the body?” she asked. “It’s normal procedure. Do your best to I.D. the body on your own, contact the family and have them do the positive I.D. You know it’s the fastest way.”

He popped another beer and took a long pull on it as she sat and waited. “But I went about it all wrong,” he finally said. “I could see it in your face, as soon as I made the abrupt announcement their son was dead.”

“It’s your way. Not my place to question.”

He gave her an exasperated look and she turned away. When she turned back her expression was one of patience, as if with a small child who needed a lesson. “Look, I wouldn’t have done it that way, no, but that’s me.”

“You should have stopped me.”

“What? How was I supposed to do that?”

“You should have been the one doing the talking.”

“You’re the lead. You lead. I follow. If you wanted me to do the talking, you should have told me. Now you’re trying to blame me?”

“No—you’re not understanding. I’m saying I agree with you. I should have let you do the talking. I’m not blaming you for something you didn’t do. Am I that much of an asshole?”

She smiled at him. “No, boss. You’re just a little rough around the edges.” She took a long drink of her beer and looked around the room as if for the first time. “Nice place. Where’s Reverb?”

“Probably hiding from you. He’s not very social.”

“Great watchdog.”

He shrugged. “I trained him well.”

She stood, walked over to the bookshelf and looked at the pictures. She grabbed the one of his dead son, looked it over and then set it down again in its spot. She knew about Michael, but thankfully never brought it up with him. Everyone knew about Michael.

She wandered around the rest of the room, glancing at his limited knick-knacks and furniture and he watched her in a way he had never seen before. She had great legs and the skirt she was wearing showed them off. He figured the alcohol was contributing to this new perspective, but he didn’t care. She turned and noticed him noticing her. A tiny, little smile formed on her lips, but she said nothing. He quickly looked away.

“What about the footprints in the snow? Anything on that?” he asked.

She nodded. “All consistent with children or teenagers, unless the perp is a very small man or woman, which can’t be ruled out, of course. No other footprints were in the vicinity except for the rescue crew and ours.”

“What’s your gut feeling?”

“I think some kids were there. I don’t know what they were doing, but I bet they know something. If we can find out who, we can probably learn something about what actually happened.”

“What about the accidental death scenario?”

“Explain,” she said.

“A group of kids kill their buddy by mistake, panic, and try to ditch the body. I’ve heard about it happening before.”

“The only thing about that scenario that doesn’t make sense is the lack of a reported missing person. If the kid is local and had some horrible accident that’s being covered up, why hasn’t some distraught mother called us looking for her baby?”

He saluted her with his beer. “Good point. Unless it’s some parent that doesn’t care or isn’t expecting their kid to be home. Maybe he was away at a sleepover or party and he wasn’t due back home until today. Could be overlooked for a day or two.”

“Yeah. I guess we’ll see in the next twenty four hours. Should we check out the neighborhood kids tomorrow?”

“That’s my plan.”

“What about the Harrison kid? Think he knows anything?”

He paused. “My gut feeling is yes, but I’m going to leave that can of worms alone for a while, don’t you think?”

She nodded, drained her beer, crushed it and then added it to the pile of destroyed empties he had already accumulated.

He laughed. “Have another,” he said, holding up the beer to her. She grinned and took it from him.

Chapter 11

School on Monday was abuzz with the story of the boy pulled from the pool. It hadn’t made the news, not even a blurb in the paper, but that didn’t keep it from spreading like wildfire around the campus as the day went on. Luke kept out of the conversations, but kept his ears open hoping to catch some clue about who the kid was. By the end of the day, the rumors flying around about his identity amounted to nothing more than gossip and couldn’t be judged reliable.
Could anything a teenager said be held truthful,
Luke thought to himself? He wasn’t above criticizing his generation, who he knew to be fickle and irresponsible, himself included.

At lunch he sat with Ellie, joked with her about everyday nothingness and held her hand as the rest of the kids noticed the new closeness between them. He spotted, more than once, whispers and giggles among their friends and even a few evil looks from some of the other girls, but for the most part, his eyes were only on her. She had slept a little better on Sunday night and so had he. She looked beautiful with her short hair pulled back in a red band and her blue eyes clear and bright. He whispered to her that he really wanted to kiss her here in front of everyone and she smiled and turned red.

“Well, why don’t you, Mr. Harrison?”

“I think I will, Miss Pemberton,” and he plopped one on her right there in the cafeteria. It was cool.

Luke, Jimmy, and John walked her home from the bus stop, keeping to the plan of sticking together. Patrick, who still looked pissed asked, “What the hell are you guys doing with my sister?”

“I’m walking her home,” Luke said, “and they’re with me.”

“What are you guys? Stupid or something?”

“Shut up, Patrick,” Ellie said.

He laughed at them but didn’t push it.

They dropped Ellie off, and as they turned into their court, they saw the cop, Jaxon, and the woman, talking to Ralph and his sister. They were showing him a picture. They looked up at Luke and seemed to dismiss Ralph while they turned and walked to their car. They got in and drove off without a second glance.

“Hey Ralph!” Luke yelled. “Wait up!”

Luke, John, and Jimmy jogged up to Ralph and his sister and Luke asked, “What were they doing?”

“Asking us a bunch of questions,” Ralph said.

“Like what?” John asked.

“Did we notice anything weird or any weird people around lately, and did we see anything at the pool that was strange or suspicious?”

“What else?”

“They showed us a picture of a boy and asked if we knew him or recognized him, but we didn’t.”

“Did they ask anything about us?” Luke asked.

“No. Why?”

“Nothing,” John said. “See ya’.”

Ralph looked at them funny but didn’t say anything more. They walked the rest of the way home, slogging through the slush in the road and Luke said goodbye as Jimmy and John turned into their house. Luke’s dad was waiting for him at the top of the drive and he looked angry.
Oh crap,
Luke thought.
Now what?

Luke and his dad had an ordered relationship at best. His dad ordered him around and he did whatever he was told. He learned a long time ago not to question his father. It didn’t go well when he did.

“Hey, Dad,” Luke offered as he made his way up the icy drive.

“What kind of crap have you boys been up to?” his dad asked.

“We’ve been at school.”

He gave Luke a look that said, ‘Don’t take me for an idiot.’ “I’ve been watching those two cops for the last hour and they stopped every kid coming home except you four. As a matter of fact, they almost ran off when they saw you. What the hell is going on?”

Luke hesitated for a second, then said, “I don’t know, Dad. Maybe they got the information they needed.”

“What do you know about this boy in the pool?”

“Nothing.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know. Nobody at school knows.”

His father eyeballed him and he tried to keep eye contact but finally had to look away.

“You seemed awfully nervous when you saw the cops at our house.”

“Everybody gets nervous around cops,” Luke said.

“But how did you know they were cops? They could’ve been anybody visiting your mother and I.”

“I recognized the one from Ellie’s dog and the pool. The woman was at the pool too.”

His dad frowned, and then said, “You had better not be lying to me. This is serious stuff and you could get yourself into big trouble. Now, get on in and get your homework done.”

Luke nodded and went into the house relieved the confrontation was over. His dad could usually see right through him. Maybe he was getting better at lying or his dad was willing to let it go for now.

* * *

The next day Luke was at Ellie’s house watching TV in her basement. They were huddled up under a nice warm blanket and he was enjoying the feeling of being close to her. Plus he got to feel those lips against his as much as he wanted. At least until her stupid brother showed up.

“Ellie, you got a phone call,” Patrick said, handing her the cordless phone and disappearing up the stairs, but not before he gave Luke an evil look.

“I never heard the phone ring,” she said to Luke as she covered the mouthpiece. “Hello?”

“Help me…”

Luke could hear the voice faintly and watched her face go white and her mouth fall open. Then she freaked out.

“Leave me alone!” she shouted into the phone and threw it across the room. Luke could hear laughter coming from the speaker as it lay against the wall. He went over and picked it up.

“Who is this?” he said, but the line was dead. He hung up and went over to Ellie who had her face in her hands.

“He’s gone,” he said softly.  “Are you ok?”

She shook her head. “Every time I think everything’s going to be fine, something else happens. How did he get my number?”

“He knows our names and your number is in the phone book. It’s just that easy.” Luke’s cell phone started ringing and they both froze, staring at each other. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. It read ‘Unavailable.’ He showed it to her.

“Don’t answer it,” she said.

“I want to,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don’t want him to know I’m afraid.”

She shrugged and he pressed ‘send’ and said, “Hello.”

He couldn’t figure out why, but the voice that came across the cell phone made his teeth hurt and seemed to vibrate directly down his spine. It was so abrasive, yet so quiet, it hurt more than someone shouting into his ear. He actually pulled the phone away from his head a little.

“Help me…”

“What do you want?” he said, trying to sound tough but it came out thin and shaky.

“For you to help me…” and then a thin laugh.

“Help you with what?”

“To kill your girlfriend. What else?” More laughter, almost like a child giggling.

“I’d never do that.”

“You already are.”

The line went dead in his hand. He looked at the phone and saw it shaking in his hand. Ellie saw it too.

“What did he say?” she asked.

He turned away from her, paced to the opposite wall and then turned back to face her. He couldn’t tell her. He wasn’t supposed to keep secrets, that was part of their pact, but he couldn’t find it in him to tell her. Not this.

“He was just messing with me. He said ‘Help me…’ and then laughed. The voice was horrible. It made my teeth hurt.”

“You said you’d never do that. What did he want you to do?”

Luke paused. “To help him.”

“Do what?”

“Whatever it is he does. He didn’t say. Kill someone I guess.” Luke hated lying to her. It was the worst feeling in the world. Apparently he didn’t do it very well.

“Luke,” she said softly, “what are you not telling me. Please don’t lie to me. No matter how much you think I can’t stand to hear, we promised not to keep secrets. Please.”

His felt his shoulders slump and he sat down next to her. He couldn’t look at her. “He asked me to help him kill you.”

“Oh, God!”

He turned to her quickly and said, “I won’t let him hurt you! Ever! I’ll stay outside your window every night if I have to. I’ll go everywhere with you. I’ll get a gun. I promise I won’t let him touch you!”

“You can’t do all that. You’re not superman. We have to tell someone. We need help.”

“But he told you not to tell anyone.”

“It doesn’t seem to matter. Apparently he’s out to get me anyway.”

Luke’s cell phone beeped showing he had a new text message. He held it up so they could both see. It read
Tell
a soul, and you both die.

He looked at her and she started to cry.