“What are you doing?”
Jane stood on a stepladder and unlocked the high cabinet. “I’m not sure. Collateral? Maybe blackmail.” She removed the red photo album and then noted an additional brown box marked,
OLD PHOTOS
. She grabbed that too, locked the cabinet and replaced the key. “What are your plans today?”
“I brought plenty of paperwork to keep me busy. Then I’ll have lunch with Bo.”
“You guys are reconnecting, eh? That’s good. Once he moves to Florida, you probably won’t see him again.”
“Probably not. More reason than ever to make this a good case for him.”
Jane started out of the kitchen when she turned back to Weyler. “One more thing… why does Bo call you ‘Beanie?’”
“I kicked in a door and entered a property with no real cause. What would you technically call that?”
Jane thought. “Breaking and entering?” Weyler nodded. “
B ’n’ E
…Beanie.”
“That’s how Bo’s mind tends to work.”
Upstairs in her room, Jane hid the red album and box of photos under her bed and then collected the paperwork she would need when she got to the library. She heard a scratch of paper under her doorway and turned. It was the small collection of printed emails between Jake and Mollie.
Jane opened her door and unexpectedly found three T-shirts and a couple dressy shirts on hangers resting on the door handle. She looked up just as Mollie was heading downstairs.
“Mollie!” The kid kept walking. Jane remembered. “Liora!”
Mollie stopped and turned. “What?”
“Come here.” Jane took a peek at the youthful assortment of shirts. One of the T-shirts had cap sleeves and pronounced in gold lettering,
I LIKE BOYZ!
Another was a tie-dye T-shirt with the word,
Groovy
across the front. Yet another proclaimed,
I Must Be Trippin’ ‘Cuz You Look Cute!
The other two were dressy, somewhat vintage-looking, with chiffon fronts, flutter sleeves and delicate lace and embroidery around the collars.
Mollie walked back to Jane. “What is it?”
“I appreciate the offer, but I can’t wear these.” Jane handed them back to Mollie.
Mollie refused to touch them. “Are they your size?”
“Yeah. Sure. But they’re not my style.” Jane attempted another transfer.
“Oh,
geh vays
! There’s a shock. Don’t be a
nudnik
and stop your
kvetching
!” Mollie let out a tired puff of breath. “Are you a dyke?”
Jane was taken back. “For Chrissake…what is it with everybody?! No, I am
not
a dyke!”
“Then I suggest you wear those shirts.” Mollie leaned closer. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to
girl
it up a bit. Know what I mean? Start with this one…” Mollie removed the T-shirt with
I LIKE BOYZ!
“Just to quiet the rumors, ya know?”
Mollie turned on her heels and left. Jane looked at her three identical, soaking wet poplin shirts still dripping water on the carpet by the window. She glanced down at her unkempt nightshirt. The choice was undesirably clear to her.
CHAPTER 23
A headache-inducing medley of chemicals, silently offgassing from the hoards of new plastic-encased equipment, computers, furniture and recently installed carpeting, hit Jane square between the eyes. Her heightened senses were getting to be a pain in the ass.
Instead of your typical small-town, musty and dank library, the Midas branch was one of the most modernized small-town ones she’d ever seen. It
was
true. Money
did
buy a lot of stuff and in this case, it bought state-of-the-art workstations and an incredible amount of printed resources for the townspeople.
The only inhabitants were Jane and the beleaguered librarian. The poor woman, who Jane guessed was in her late fifties, wore a pair of glasses on her head and another on her face, attached with a black cord that had a ceramic book dangling from the neckpiece. She was busy opening boxes and reading through technical manuals for the newly installed computer system. The stress was evident on her face as Jane approached the counter and laid down her satchel.
“Oh, you know, we’re not supposed to be open today.” The woman removed her glasses and secured them on top of her head, next to the other pair. “This is one of my last days to go
over all the new systems before we get rid of the old ones.”
Jane knew a gentle but pointed approach was needed. She casually unbuttoned her jacket to reveal the Glock in her holster. “I was hoping you’d have microfiche files available? I’ll stay out of your hair. I promise.”
The librarian sized up Jane. “You’re one of the Denver cops up here about Jake?”
“You got it.” The woman silently observed Jane once more. God, it was like she was asking to see the Dead Sea Scrolls and this woman had the golden key. “Look, I’ll just tell Bo you were too busy.” Jane grabbed her satchel to leave.
“No! No!” The woman walked around the counter. “This way.”
Obviously, the townspeople knew that when Bo Lowry needed something, they jumped. They walked to a windowless backroom where Jane found stacks of boxes, all marked
Microfiche
with the corresponding years noted. A lone microfiche viewer and printer sat unplugged in the corner. The librarian explained that everything had been packed up and would soon be shipped to a lab for digital transfer—just another example of Bo Lowry’s town jumping feet first into the Twenty-First Century.
The librarian left Jane alone in the room and she went about the arduous task of locating the box that held microfiche for the
New York Times
for July through October of 1968. After an hour, Jane finally found what she was looking for. She brought out the printed material from her satchel, quickly reviewing the exact dates. Plugging in the microfiche viewer and printer, she slipped the film sheet under the glass viewer, slid the glass under the machine and sharpened the image using the
focus
button. The microfiche screen was scratched and stained with ink in places, but it magnified the forty-one-year-old publication with fairly good clarity. Jane spent another ten minutes painstakingly going from page to page in the August 10
th
edition that corresponded to the article that was in Jordan’s information
file. She located the large photo above the story that showed a cleaned-up eighteen-year-old Jordan moving through a crowd of reporters on the courthouse steps, accompanied by his horribly harried parents. When she looked at this same photo four days prior, Jordan Copeland was just another convicted killer doing the perp walk in court. Now that Jane knew more about his splintered family life, the boy in the photo appeared more lost. He had a vacant, dissociative look in his eyes. Jane wasn’t sure if it was shock or post-traumatic stress. Whatever it was, it pervaded his young body.
Jane scanned to the next page of the story, which had been missing from the file. She skimmed the text.
Mr. Copeland’s son sat quietly in the courtroom, looking up only to address the judge with short ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers…The teenager appeared thinner than his first court appearance last month and seemed to be exceptionally withdrawn from his counsel…
Jane skipped further down in the article.
When Jordan Copeland entered a plea of ‘Guilty,’ the judge asked him to speak louder. After repeating the words, the teenager sat down and buried his head on the table in front of him, clearly distraught. Defense attorney, Ira Cornett, told reporters outside the courthouse, “It’s clear that Jordan Copeland is wracked with guilt over what he has done. It would serve the best interest of everyone concerned if we could bring this case to a speedy conclusion and allow the Copeland family to retreat from the spotlight and let the family of Daniel Marshall grieve in peace…”
Jane checked the index listings for articles pertaining to Jordan Copeland in the large book near the microfiche viewer. One titled, “Scene of the Crime in Millburn Township” from
Time
magazine piqued her interest. It took her half an hour to locate that microfiche file but it was well worth it. The first line of the article was chilling:
Murder has never come this close to Millburn Township
. It featured an aerial illustration of the Copeland’s neighborhood in unincorporated Short Hills, indicating with a circle where Daniel Marshall’s body was purportedly shot on the Copeland’s property. From what Jane could determine, it looked like it was just inside the back fence at the rear of the property—near the half-acre stretch of wooded ground that Jordan described to her. It was also the same spot, Jane surmised, from where Jordan stood and had his
mind-reading
conversations with the mysterious child named
Red
six or more months previous to Daniel’s murder.
Jane peered closer at the page. She wasn’t certain how accurate the artist’s illustration was, but it looked like the Copelands’ back fence was linked in a straight line through the forested area with the back fence of the house located directly on the other side. This had to be the house where David Sackett lived and whose number was spoofed by the kidnapper. Jane dug into her jean pocket and brought out the crumpled piece of paper that held Sackett’s phone number and Warwick Road address. Warwick Road was indeed directly behind the Copelands’ house. The illustration inferred that the only way into this forested spot was either through the private fences of the two homes or by jumping the fence that lined the streets where the wooded area extended in the other directions. Jordan mentioned that he’d hear kids playing inside the area, building forts and running around.
Jane connected the printer and attempted to print out the illustration. Unfortunately, the clarity of the copy was streaked and blurred, but it gave her something to hold and analyze. For whatever reason, Jane kept being drawn to the house on the
opposite side of Copelands’ property. It had to have value or the kidnapper wouldn’t have taken the time to spoof the number that belonged to that house. Jane knew Daniel Marshall didn’t live in the house since it had been stated before that the child resided next door to Jordan. Sackett lived in that house since February of 1968, five months before Jordan killed Daniel. Jane stared at the printed page and circled the house on Warwick Road with her pen. If her theory that the kidnapper was telling a story with his clues, then perhaps the house attached to the spoofed phone number was also part of the story. She dialed Sacket’s phone number and he picked up on the second ring. Jane introduced herself again and he remembered her through fitful coughing spells. It was obvious the elderly gentleman couldn’t linger on the phone, so Jane cut to the chase.
“Mr. Sackett, I need to know who you bought the house from in February of ’68.”
“It was a couple in their late forties. I forget their name.”
“Did they have children?”
“I can’t remember…Let me think…My wife and I were only at the house when the family was there a couple times.” Sackett thought about it. “Yeah, they had a daughter. She was in her late teens.”
“Did they ever mention why they were moving?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know. We’re talking forty-one years ago!”
“I know, sir. But anything you can remember could be really helpful to us.”
Sackett hung on the phone in silence, trying to bring up a useful memory. “I can tell you it was a quick sale. We were the first people to see the place and make an offer and they took it right away. They wanted a thirty-day escrow and they were packed up and gone in three weeks.”
Jane figured that even high-priced executives who get transferred suddenly and have to move don’t usually vacate a house that quickly. “Do you think their behavior had anything to do with Jordan Copeland?”
“Jordan? Oh, I doubt it. I didn’t know Jordan existed until he shot that little retarded boy that summer. Besides, Jordan was into
boys
, not girls. And, like I said, this family had one child and it was a teenage girl.”
Jane stared at the circle she drew around Sackett’s house. It
had
to have significance. “Mr. Sackett, are you absolutely certain there were no other children living at that house? We understand that young boys played in the wooded area behind your house…”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I forgot about that. Hang on, now. Wait a second…” Sackett coughed hard and then returned to the phone. “Christ, I hope this cancer kills me soon.” Jane winced at his comment. “Yeah…there was a boy… He lived in the back house with his mother. She was a Russian immigrant. Single mother, I suppose. I think she was the family’s live-in maid.”
Jane felt her heart race. “Did he have a shock of curly red hair?”
“Yes! Yes, he did. Short kid. Little red-haired kid. About eight years old… I only saw him once though. They were packed up and gone by our second visit to the house.”
Jane thanked Sackett for his help and hung up. A quick sale of a house and the speedy disappearance of the live-in maid and her eight-year-old red-haired son—Jane knew that child killers don’t usually start with murder. They work up to it slowly. And those who target children, typically start with stalking or seemingly innocuous chatting in order to gain the child’s trust. Once the kid feels comfortable and even safe, the criminal has a better chance of luring them into the net. Perhaps this
Red
who lingered by the Copeland’s back gate was Jordan’s first conquest? Jane recalled Jordan’s disturbing description of the boy he called “Red.” “He was very confused and angry…” Jordan told her. At least, that’s what Jordan claimed the boy told him
telepathically.
“Nobody helped him. He cried like a baby. He screamed and no one cared… He stands at that fucking gate and stares at me
and tells me how much pain he feels. ‘Listen to me!’ he keeps screaming. ‘Why won’t anyone listen to me?!’”
“Shit,” Jane said out loud as Jordan’s voice echoed in her head. Something happened to that kid. The boy’s Russian immigrant mother felt victimized and fled with her son. In turn, the family decided it wasn’t the safest neighborhood for their own daughter. But you don’t leave your comfortable house because of simple harassment. You get the cops involved first and only when a criminal act is committed do people often make the decision to leave the area. Looking through the file on Jordan that Jane carried in her satchel, it was clear that he had no prior criminal history or complaints against him. “So what scared you people?” Jane asked the illustration in front of her.