I stopped cold in the snow. Tam turned around, opened his mouth to say something but then saw what I was starring at. There were bits of glass around my feet, sitting comfortably on the snow. Then I smelled it; rum. The bottle had smashed against a tree trunk, spraying the rum to make a half loop to the east, indicating that the person who threw it was standing down the hill, facing west. There was also the same set of footprints Tom had found leaving the area. Only these were leading up the hill, towards the schoolhouse, not away like the others. The rum was still slightly wet against the tree. He must have smashed it right before he took Kylie. My heart skipped a beat at the thought that I could have disturbed these footprints by my carelessness, but I pushed the feeling aside and told myself to be grateful that I saw them when I had. I took some photos of the glass shards and the rum spray and Tam collected as many pieces of the glass as he could, all the while snow lightly floated down on us, making our job very difficult.
“Do you think we got everything?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so. The snows really coming down, now. If we stay out here much longer we won’t find anything new anyway. Take those shards up to Tom, will ya? Ask if he can get any prints or DNA off of them.”
“Sure thing, boss,” he said as he started to climb up the hill. I stood still in the snow, just looking around. Tam looked back at me, “You coming?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You want me to wait for you?”
“Nah, go ahead. Ask Tom for a ride back.” My voice drifted of somewhere, couldn’t tell you where.
Tam nodded, “Ok.”
“And Tam?”
“Yeah?”
“Make you first priority Jane Doe. See if you can find anything on her- if anyone in town was expecting her...” My voice trailed off again and my mind started to spin.
“You got it, boss.”
I stood there for another minute, just looking around, watching the snowfall; watching it land softly on the ground. Thoughts went spinning through my head, yet I didn’t really think of a thing. I started to make my way up the hill, but the under-layer of snow was slightly frozen and very slippery, so of course, I slipped and fell about ten feet before I caught my foot on a sapling. My heart was racing and I tried to calm down. Stupid. I should have known better. I grew up on these hills, snow and no snow. I knew the ways of winter, but at that moment, I knew nothing. I sat there in the snow, ass freezing, but in a way it felt good; it was just what I had needed- a moment of frozen thought; the man came from the east. Did he drink the rum? Was he drunk? Is it worth my time trying to figure out where he came from instead of trying to focus on where he had gone with Kylie? He had a car belonging to someone who didn’t live in the town... an out of state license... of course! I smacked a mitten-clad hand to my forehead. I called out to see if Tom or Tam were still around. No one answered. As quick as my 33-year old legs could move, I scrambled up the hill back to my squad car. Damn me for not having my phone on me and I had stashed my radio back in the car at lunch. I was out of breath as I made it to the Jeep...
“Colleen?”
Static.
“COLLEEN!!”
Static.
“DAMN IT!! Is there anyone out there? Please respond!”
“Sorry, Molly. Potty break. What’s up?”
“Colleen, where is Kelly?”
“He’s getting us some coffee. Tam just came in frozen to the core. That fool walked back-”
“Put Tam on.”
“Ok, but let him warm up first...”
“NOW! Colleen, this is important!”
“Ok. Ok, hang on... Tam? It’s Molly...” I could hear the receiver rustle as it was handed over to Tam.
“Yeah, Boss. What’s up?”
“Is the paperwork Kelly filled out on his Red-light Runner there?”
“Yeah, right on top.”
“Read it to me.”
“Ok- Car- Tan 1996 Chevy Impala Four-door Sedan. License Plate XLK897 Iowa. Heading North on Main; ran the red light at Main and Hatfield; driver male, Caucasian, brown hair, blue eyes, unshaven with strong jaw line.” Tam snickered. “Strong jaw line?”
“Tam, find me that car.”
“What about Jane Doe?”
“She belongs to that car.”
“The Red-light Runner?”
“And I think that man killed her and has Kylie.”
“I’m on it. Tam Out.”
My head felt woosey. I leaned against the Jeep to steady myself, lost my consciousness in thoughts when BAM! Something hit the side of the Jeep. “SHIT!” I accidentally let slip. I looked up to see Kat laugh at me. “You scared me.”
“I could tell. Where were you?”
“When?”
“Just now. I’ve been watching you for the last ten minutes and you haven’t moved, staring at the ground. You didn’t even hear me calling you.”
“Huh,” I said, still lingering in my thoughts.
“What were you looking for, black holes in the pavement?” She gave me a couple of seconds to answer but I didn’t. I did hear her give a little laugh to herself. “Hello? Where are you?”
“Kat, come on. I’m working on a case.” I started to walk around myself in wide circles. I could hear the kids inside the school getting their books and jackets ready for their walks home. A van, in lieu of an official bus, was near by waiting for Dave to take a few of the kids back to their parents’ farms. I could already hear the whispers and murmurs.
“So what is it this time, detective; a murder?”
“Yeah. And a kidnapping.”
“All right! Cool! This is right up your ally! What do we do first?”
“We?”
She smiles at me. Cars started to slowly stream onto the small blacktop parking lot/playground to make sure their kids made it home.
“First, we get into the Jeep and get out of here before we are swarmed with children.”
“And Parents.” Kat made a grimaced face and slid into the passenger seat.
“You know, Kat, it really is good to see you, but... I find it a little disturbing that you think a murder/kidnapping is ‘cool’.”
“You know how much I love to watch you work. Such brilliance, such dedication! You’ve solved every case you had in Chicago.”
“Not every case.”
“Nearly every case.” She sighed, “You’ll do fine. I expect you’ll have this case solved by tomorrow.”
“Oh you think so, huh? I’m glad you have such confidence in me.”
“You are the best. Besides, you have me on your side.”
“Did you bring your crystal ball with you?”
She snickered with irony. “Yeah, sure, and my voodoo doll, too.” She smiled at me and pointed to the corner just before the police station. “Drop me off here. I’ll see you later.”
“You bet.” I watched her walk away.
Kelly was waiting for me in the parking lot. He looked white as a ghost. How can I ease it to him; tell him it wasn’t his fault that he let the Red-light Runner go.
I need a drink.
“Molly!”
“Yes, Kelly?” I barely closed the door as he ascended on me.
“We have the car!”
“Yeah? Where is it?”
“It was found abandoned about 13 miles north of here- near Lake Wilde.”
“Anything found inside?”
“Yes! Lots! We found several bags, a purse- a name for Jane Doe, some books, and a jacket.”
“Anything belonging to the man you saw driving the car?”
“Uh, no.”
“Fingerprints?”
“At the lab. Fingerprints were found on the door, the steering wheel and also on the trunk, which is where we think...”
“... he had Kylie?”
“Yeah.” He sounded so desperate, so sad.
“No one blames you, Kelly. It would have happened the same way if Tam or I had pulled him over.”
“You would have asked for registration. You would have asked for a driver’s license. I wished him to have a good day and sent him on his merry kidnapping way!” He shouted. Ok, yeah, I would have done it differently. I was just trying to be nice.
“You can help me now by telling me everything he said, everything he looked at while you were talking to him, What he looked like- everything, Kelly, do you understand?”
He nodded. He looked like a little boy waiting for his final punishment. It was a costly mistake, but it was a mistake. We’ve all made them and I am no exception. We walked inside the building to find a grim look on Colleen’s face as she filed her papers.
“Kelly, wait for me in my office.” He turned away with his head hanging low. “Colleen?”
She turned to me slightly, papers and files still in her hands. “He’s still on the loose, isn’t he?” she asked in a very hushed voice.
“Looks that way.”
Her hands started to tremble a little. “You will catch him, won’t you?” I could understand her fear. She had three children under the age of fifteen who attended school with Kylie White.
“I’ll do my best.” I didn’t resist the urge to place my hand on her arm. “Your kids will be fine, Colleen. Don’t worry.” She nodded at me with tight lips. “Did Ron pick them up?” She gave me another tight lip nod. “Ok, then. They’ll be fine. We’ll find Kylie.”
For the first time in a long time, I had a bad feeling about the events that took place. I couldn’t explain it, but I’ve had these feelings before and they’ve always been right. I walked into my office to find Kelly paging through mug-shot books. I smiled to myself. Good boy, Kelly. He is so desperate to prove himself. I felt a little desperate for him, too.
“Find anything?”
“No,” he said, flatly.
“Could you say how old he was?”
“It’s hard to say. He looked young at first, but when he turned his head, he looked really old. And then when he turned back to me, he looked younger than the first time I saw him.”
“He turned his head? Did you see what he was looking at? Or in which direction he faced?”
A loud rumble interrupted us. The glass panes started to shake. I quickly turned to see several leafless trees bending drastically in the wind outside. Fear struck me. Thunder rolled over the station, and as fast is it began, it stopped. I could feel my heart beat in my chest. It felt like a tornado had just passed over my building. What a horrible feeling.
“He was going north on Main and just past Hatfield. He looked over his left shoulder- past me. It seemed like he was just looking around. I didn’t think, at the time, that he was m-m-menacing.”
I turned my attention back to Kelly. “Are you ok?” I put a hand on his shoulder. He shook a little. “Do you want some water?” He nodded yes. “Some nice cold water on this nice cold, blustery day.”
“The wind really kicked up didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I responded as I poured some water for each of us.
“Is it still snowing?” Kelly strained his head to see out the window.
“I don’t think so.” I handed him a cup and took a few sips of my own cup. It tasted fresh, so chilled and clean. The coolness reached my nose cavity and stung a little. “In any case,” I recovered, “if the snow hasn’t covered evidence, the wind will blow it away.”
“We’re really flying blind, aren’t we?”
“Aren’t we always?” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Let’s get back to the stranger- is there anything else outstanding that you can remember?”
Kelly took a minute to think until the look on his face was one of eureka. “He had the bluest eyes I had ever seen; even bluer than my dad’s. These were so piercing, so icy blue; they startled me.”
Blue eyes, icy blue. The thought of them made me shiver. “What else, Kelly? His hair- what color was his hair?”
“Yeah, his hair...” he proceeded with caution. “His hair. At first, I thought it was blonde, but like I said before when he turned his head, his face looked older- the same goes for his hair. It turned darker, almost like Tam’s hair- that rich, dark brown. But when he faced forward again, he looked blonde again. It was really weird- like one of those holograms that change when you tilt it to the side. This doesn’t make any sense to you, does it?”
“I have to admit, it is weird. But I know you’re not lying to me.” I looked at him straight in his eye. “I know you would tell me everything you know.” I think I used too much stress because Kelly’s eyes grew a little wider. He seemed to be afraid of something- most likely me.
“I’m telling you everything I know, Molly. I swear. I don’t know anything else.”
I immediately broke off my gaze. I was scaring the poor boy.
“I know, Kelly. Thank you. If you do remember anything else, though, please let me know.”
“Of course, Molly.”
“Why don’t you take these books into the lounge? I need to make a few phone calls.”
“Ok, Molly.” He gathered the mug shot books and a few stray bits of paper and left my office quietly. I exhaled long and bit harder than normal. The air hurt slightly as it escaped my lungs, like the burning sensation of the first time I tried a cigarette with my best friend Sherrie behind her father’s tool shed in 8th grade. I hadn’t thought about that memory in a long time. It made me laugh. We were in more trouble for stealing her father’s cigarettes than getting caught for smoking at such a young age. “Get your own,” he said in a gruff voice, “and leave mine the hell alone.” And that was it. Nothing more was said about the matter, and neither of us ever tried it again. How odd it is that I should think about that now.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“Hey, Kat. When did you get here?”
“Just now. How long have you been gone this time?”
“Not long. Just a stray memory.” I smiled.
“Any progress on the case?”
“Not much at the moment, but I’m waiting for the lab to get back to me on some fingerprints.”
“Well, that’s good! It will give you an I.D. on this asshole, at least.”
“Yes, but it won’t tell us where’s he’s taken Kylie.”
“How do you know that it won’t at least give a clue?”
“He’s not from around here. He might not even know the area.”
“Do you know that for absolute sure?”
“No.”
“Then there is a possibility...” She tapped her finger against her mouth as she leaned on the wall by the door.
“There are always possibilities, Kat. I think, maybe...” I lost my thought.
“Well there’s your problem! You’re thinking too much.”
“I am?”
“Oh, hell yes. I say, stop all of this thinking and get out there and do!”
“Do what?”
“Do what you do best! Solve the case.”
“I suppose I could go for a drive.”
“That a girl!”
“Excuse me?” Kelly knocked on the door.
“Yes, Kelly?”
“I don’t want to interrupt you, but I sketched out a ruff face of the suspect. And I was also thinking about what you said before- about what he did in the car- what he saw or what he said.”
“Do you remember something?”
“Yes. He said some things. A few things actually.”
I can’t believe forgot to ask him about what the guy had said, or if he said anything. Good boy, Kelly. “Go ahead,” I said calmly.
“When I pulled him over, he said, ‘Is there a problem officer?’ and I said, ‘Sir, you ran a red light.’ And then he didn’t say anything, like he knew very well that he had, but didn’t want to admit to it or deny it. And I did ask him for a license, but he said that he didn’t have it with him. He also said that his wallet was at the hotel he and his girlfriend were staying at and that the car was hers. He was using it to get some groceries.” Kelly scratched his head in thought. He continued, “I remember thinking that he didn’t have any grocery bags in the car, and that maybe they were in the trunk. And I told him that he needed to be careful around here, especially in an out of state car. He said that he was sorry and didn’t realize what he had done. But then he said something funny, just after he turned his head to look out of the window. He said, ‘Sometimes, we do things when we aren’t aware when we do them. Like we’re on autopilot; letting someone else drive our minds for a while. We don’t react like we should.’ I wonder what he meant by that.”
“I don’t know.” I tried to scratch everything he said down on the bit of paper. ‘We do things when we aren’t aware... we don’t react like we should.’ It’s true. I haven’t been reacting like I should. Though I’m sure he wasn’t talking about me, personally. But in general, the world- the world wasn’t reacting to things like it should. We’ve all been walking around like zombies lately, reacting lackadaisically to everything that’s been happening across the globe. Or it could be just the ranting of a lunatic.
“Thanks, Kelly. I really appreciate this.”
“Will it help? What he said to me, do you think it will help?” Kelly asked in excited anticipation.
“I’ll let you know. Thanks, Kelly.”
“Sure, anytime.”
Kat smiled at me from other side of the room. She was still leaning up against the wall behind Kelly. She lifted her wrists up, let her hands fall, stuck her tongue out and mimicked the panting of a dog with the same kind of excitement in her eyes as Kelly did. I smiled to myself, knowing that if I’d laugh, I’d have to explain. And I never was able to explain Kat.
“You can go now, Kelly. I’ll call you if I need you,” I said calmly as I pretended to leaf through some papers.
“Oh, Ok, Molly. I’ll be in the office room.”
“Ok.” Kelly left and half skipped to the room my officers shared. Kat immediately burst out laughing.
“Stop it!” I scolded her.
“I can’t help it! He is so cute! With his big puppy dog face- he is so adorable.”
“You are so mean...”
“I am not! He is cute! Don’t you think he’s cute?”
“He’s not my type.”
“You’re just angry because you haven’t been laid in a while.”
“Shut up!” I jokingly snapped at her. She rolled her eyes at me as she sat in the chair across from my desk. I sat down, too. The lunatic’s words still hung in my head. ‘Not aware of what we do- autopilot- don’t react like we should.’ I looked at Kelly’s sketch- the face was jumbled like the pieces didn’t fit, like they didn’t belong on a real face, but the eyes were interesting. They were round and square at the same time. I wondered to myself if these were really his eyes or just a part of Kelly’s imagination.
“Are you gone again?”
“Yes. And you should be, too. I need to get to work.”
“Please let me go with you. I love...”
“...to watch me work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some other time, my love.” I got up and walked around to her chair. Kat pouted at me with her own puppy dog eyes. I kissed her on the forehead and patted her hair. I did miss spending time with her, but this time, something from the far back crevasse in my brain told me that I had to go on alone. I think best when I’m alone, however, I could have used another pair of eyes. My head started to hurt. “I’ll see you later?”
“Fine.” She huffed as she gave me hug goodbye. “You better make me something fabulous for dinner.”
“Deal.”
I was alone. Finally.
I stood in the middle of my office and looked around the room. Suddenly, everything felt so unfamiliar, as though I had never been here before. Where was I? Who was I? My head swirled a little, spun slightly, a tightness gripped at my chest, and then the weight of it all crashed down upon me. I’m not sure how long I was there, but when I came to, I realized I was on the floor. At least I felt like I was back, or at least conscious. It was my office, my name is Molly, and I really need to sweep in here. The dust collected in the corners and around the legs of my desk. The door was slightly open and I could see Colleen walk around the office with papers in her hands. She hadn’t seen me go down. My right arm started to throb a little. I helped my self up on the chair and immediately went for my keys. The small drawer at the bottom of my desk was always kept locked. I opened it to see the array of bottles I kept hidden in there: Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Naproxen, oxycodone, chocolate, small bottles of airplane alcohol, and more chocolate. I reached for the Ibuprofen and the chocolate.
As I loaded a fist full of small chocolate bits into my mouth. I noticed the papers lying on my desk; fanned out to show most of their secrets, the papers themselves held nothing for me, but rather it was the shape that they made. The words on the pages, the lines of direction from Kelly’s crude drawing of what he thought the stranger looked like, the charts and diagrams of the objects found at the school, all looked extremely familiar to me- it was a map. Lake Wilde: the left eye was the island in on the north end of the lake, the edge of the face traced the edge of the water, the diagram of the objects found showed the points of the curves in the road that runs alongside of the lake, and the words from Kelly’s testimony looked like the splattered trees that surrounded it. There it was, as well: the cabin. What was Stalva’s cabin on the diagram represented the old cabin that sat in ruins along the West shore of the lake. I knew that cabin well. It was my Grandfather’s. He had built it in the 1940s. My father’s father’s cabin, we would spend the summer there, which I always thought was strange since our house was only sixteen miles down the road. Often I would ride my bike back to my house and sit in my room and listen to records and later bike back for dinner. If there were one day that I could re-live, I would pick a day when we were all at that cabin. Each one of us kids, mom, dad, grandpa, tons of aunts and uncles and a spattering of cousins. It wasn’t a big cabin, it wasn’t a glamorous cabin, but the family together made it perfect.
My heart began to beat hard. I was also finding it difficult to breathe. Why would this image appear to me? I felt a bit nostalgic for the place. I know it’s only a shell and everything around has grown up to make the yard unrecognizable, but I would still like to see it again. Perhaps I can stop by sometime when I have time. I don’t think the ghosts will bother me. I’m family, after all.
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