The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (19 page)

              I parked in the lot behind the school.  The lot was packed with cars but I managed to find a spot in the second row.  Lindsey wanted to head to the office to search the master binder, which were all located in a filing cabinet in the office.  I wanted to pay Garvey yet another visit.  Odds were that he’d be in the mix of the crowd of the fundraiser and having a field day with the ladies.  I had other intentions in mind.

FORTY SEVEN

By no means am I a tough guy.  No professional boxing or martial arts training.  No tai chi or tae kwon do. However, I can throw a punch whenever necessary.  I tend to get by on my wit, my intelligence, and my swift ability to use a gun.

             
Yeah, real swift.  Where did that get you?

              Come to think of it, I need to get in a better habit of carrying my gun on me whenever I go out now that I am a self- employed investigator.  Luckily, I hadn’t yet been in a situation where the thought crossed my mind to even use my weapon and I’d bet the farm on not needing a weapon against a guy like Garvey.

I hadn’t been able to even hold my unloaded gun in my hand since the incident.  What once felt like cool metal in my hand now felt like the burnt embers of a sizzling camp fire against my palm.  It took months of Sharper’s jargon and some convincing from Fitzgerald to get me to the shooting range again.  But once I heard the blasts of the bullets and saw the explosions of the targets I bolted out of the range like a frightened squirrel.  I haven’t been back since.  It took some time, all by myself at home, to gradually work my way up to just holding the gun in my hand. 

              The door to Garvey’s office was closed when I approached and I was able to peek through the small rectangular window above the door handle without Garvey noticing.  Garvey was actually sitting at his desk on a Friday night, which shocked the hell out of me.  It led me to question whether or not there actually was a church function taking place.  Then I heard the echoes of voices coming from the gym down the corridor.

His back was to me, facing the windows at the rear of the office, and I could see he was on the phone call from the cord stretching its length over his left shoulder.  I quietly turned down the handle and pulled the door open, hoping it wouldn’t creak to blow my covert operation.  Initially, I was surprised to see Garvey at his desk working, albeit in a sloppily buttoned dress shirt and faded jeans that should have been retired a decade ago.  Then, I figured he was talking about anything but school- related business.  With the way he was flailing his arms about and all. 

              I heard Garvey speaking.  “Well, I don’t give a shit.  If he doesn’t like it then make a move.  Get rid of the little bastard.  I don’t care how valuable you think he is.  There’s probably a dozen others out there just like him.”  Garvey hadn’t moved a muscle except to put his feet up on his desk since I’d opened the door.  I stuck more of my body inside the office, only to notice an adjacent closet immediately to the left.  The door was open so I quick- stepped into the closet, leaving the office door slightly ajar.  The closet was a supply closet doubling as a storage room for the building’s security camera system. 

              “I don’t how much more time you want to give him.  What about the others?  Have they given you any information?” Garvey asked. 

              I wanted to know who he was talking to.  I pulled out my phone and texted Lindsey, saying that she needed to get Garvey out of his office.  She instantly replied that she will come knock on his office door and that I should stay put inside the closet.   

              “All right, Chooch.  Make sure he gives us what we want,” Garvey said before hanging up.  Lindsey knocked on the door.  I could hear the chair rolling on the linoleum floor and Garvey grunting as he hefted his girth out of the chair.  Knowing he was on the move I faded further into the dark closet to conceal my identity.  I felt like Batman lurking in the shadows.  Garvey was taken aback to see one of his staff members waiting for him at the door.

              “Mrs. Barnes, what are you doing here?” Garvey asked when answering the door.

              “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, especially on a Friday night.  Believe me I’d rather be at home with my husband but I need you to let me in the front office,” Lindsey said.

              “Of course, of course.  Let me just grab my keys,” Garvey replied.  He did and they left.  That was simple.  No questions asked.

              Once they left I sat at Garvey’s desk and hit star- sixty- nine to retrieve the latest incoming call.  I wrote down the number.  I pushed a few buttons on the phone to figure out how to check for numbers that Garvey might’ve dialed out.  I found it and wrote down the latest numbers that weren’t interoffice direct lines.  I browsed through the drawers of Garvey’s desk as quickly as I could but I knew Lindsey would need to keep him occupied until I came and got her.  One drawer was neatly organized with binders.  The next was filled with file folders of what appeared to be the personnel files on all of the staff members in the building.  I saw Lindsey’s but left it alone.  The bottom drawer had some miscellaneous folders and reference books.  Towards the back of the drawer were some files that were made to be hidden.  I found a file with Esteban’s name on it.  I slid it in the back of my waist band under my shirt before I left. 

              I found Lindsey talking to Garvey in the front office and I gave her a nonverbal cue that I was ready to leave.  Garvey turned to see me and gave me a fake politician’s smile.  He shook my hand.  “Mr. Barnes, I didn’t see you come in.  How are you?”

              “Did you find what you were looking for?” I asked Lindsey, ignoring Garvey’s question.  She shook her head.

              “I did,” I whispered to her on our way back to the car. 

FORTY EIGHT

I could sense the anticipation in Lindsey’s gait. 

              “What did you find?” she quickly asked. 

              “Maybe a lot, maybe nothing,” I said.

              “Chase Barnes, the super sleuth.”  We laughed.  I told her about the phone conversation I overheard and shared my thoughts about what it might mean, which wasn’t much.  I included my Batman- like moves to sneak into the closet to hear more of the conversation.  She listened while I told her about my thoughts of checking for phone numbers and the file I found in the bottom drawer of his desk.  We stared at the folder resting on her right thigh while I drove. 

              We listened to Billy Joel sing about all the ways he would make the person of his dreams feel his love, the amount of sacrifices he’d make just to get someone to love him.  He’s convinced he could make anyone happy, I thought.  Every time I heard this song it made me wonder what a man has to do to achieve such a sense of confidence.  If everyone just lived in a musical fantasy land.  However, it did remind me of all the things I was willing to do just to get Lindsey to love me. 

             
Watching Jake die certainly didn’t help your causes.

              I tapped the folder on Lindsey’s lap, gesturing her to peruse it.  She used her thumb to quickly flip through the pages.  Hoping she’d find something interesting, she licked her thumb to ensure she flipped through each page as quickly as possible.  People who licked their fingers to sort through papers and leave gobs of spit behind was one of many pet peeves of mine but I didn’t mind when she did it.  I tried to watch her and the road at the same time.  It was times like these that I hated making all the lights. 

              “What is it?” I asked.

              “Give me a second,” she said.

              I had trouble keeping my eyes on the road. 

              “This is it.  This is Esteban’s social history.  I wonder why Garvey kept it under lock and key in his office and not in the IEP binder where it’s supposed to be.  He could get into so much legal trouble doing something like this.”  Garvey didn’t strike me as someone who cared much for legal troubles.

              Lindsey then read the entire social history out loud to me, beginning with the basic demographics and where Esteban was born and a brief description about the pregnancy and delivery.  There were no reports of illegal drug or substance abuse during pregnancy and the mother carried to term with a normal delivery.  Esteban was six when his teachers started to notice “abnormal” and “atypical” behaviors begin to surface.  He threatened to stab several students with scissors and pencils, connecting and puncturing skin on two occasions.  Esteban began exiting the classroom and even the building on a daily basis.  After not being allowed to participate in recess Esteban picked up a chair and threw it at his teacher. This educational rap sheet was enough to order the child study team to administer a psychological evaluation, which revealed that Esteban was classified with a behavioral disorder.

              “I’ve read about the psych evaluation and heard through the grapevine about the laundry list of incidents at his other school but I’ve never actually seen this document.  I don’t know what I thought I read in his file then,” Lindsey said.  She continued to read, “Esteban exhibits hyperactivity on a frequent basis and has difficulty coping with difficult situations and often exhibits dangerous and aggressive behavior when expressing his feelings.  Esteban consistently allows his thoughts to control his emotions and actions.  He has low frustration tolerance and a poor ability to control his verbal impulses.”

              “Damn, all that at age six.  I can’t imagine,” I said.  “What would cause a kid like that to suddenly act out?”
              “Could be a number of things,” Lindsey said. 

              A thought immediately crossed my mind.  “I think I know who might have a good idea.”

              Equally puzzling was the question, Why was Garvey so protective of Esteban?

FORTY NINE

Esteban couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything to eat.  The whole scenario was beginning to genuinely scare him.  Klein had held the gun to his head on several occasions but made even more false promises.  Esteban was starting to get permanent dime- sized indentations on his temples and cheeks from the amount of pressure and time Klein was holding the end of his gun against the kid’s head and face. 

Klein knew even he couldn’t kill a kid.  Esteban’s resiliency even surprised him.  He continued to withhold information because he truthfully didn’t know anything but Klein wasn’t buying it.

              Klein returned after his round of golf.  On his way he put a call into his partner, one Glen Garvey.  Garvey didn’t answer the first time and Klein left an urgent message for him to call at once.  The call was returned within a few minutes.  

              “What the hell is going on, Klein?” Garvey asked.

              “Will you cool it.  Everything is fine.  The kid is in a rented storage unit I paid cash for and I got Source on him when I’m not there,” Klein asked.

              “What’s he saying about Jamal?”

              “Nothing.  He keeps saying he doesn’t know anything.  I’m starting to believe that he really doesn’t know anything about him,” Klein said.

              “Well, I don’t give a shit.  What about the others?  Have they given you any information?”

              “They won’t budge either.  I’m gonna give Esteban another try.”

              “All right, Chooch.  Make sure he gives us what we want,” Garvey said then ended the call.

              Esteban watched Source check his phone after a text message must’ve come through and Source instantly unlocked the metal door and lifted it up.  A sudden burst of air, not hot or cool, just air, wafted through the expanse of the storage unit.  He had no idea what number night this was.  He sat up as straight as he could in his folding chair with his hands tied behind his back, swallowed hard, and prepared for what was coming. 

              “How’s my boy doing?” Klein said to Source as if he were a proud dad returning from a too- long business trip.  Source shook his head.  Klein removed the gun from his waistband and studied it the way some people examine fruit at a supermarket.  “That’s not good,” Klein said.  “This is what we’re going to do, Source.  Move Esteban to the other spot.  Turn up the heat and let him sweat the information out.”