Revelations (20 page)

“Well, Boss…” Jane stood up. “…what if your ol’ buddy isn’t being honest with you? Would that alter your promise?” Jane followed through with what she witnessed in Bo’s office when Vi went out to get the files on Jake and Jordan—the way she ripped off the top page that was stapled to the outside of the folder and slipped it into her top drawer before heading back into Bo’s office. Jane’s assault on Bo continued when she questioned his need to keep the whole case quiet. It was a fact that raised too many red flags for a guy who claimed to want to
solve
the case before his retirement. And what about his early retirement, she added. Was it a strange coincidence that he and his trusted ally, Vi, were cutting and leaving the joint simultaneously? In her rant, Jane wanted to include the mysterious bright yellow folder on Bo’s desk that he purposely covered up but she could see that Weyler wasn’t buying her suspicions.

“I think your nicotine withdrawal is causing you to create conspiracies where there are none.”

“Then take the edge off my suspicion and tell me the story
between you two!”

Weyler pulled himself up to his full 6’ 4” frame. “Is there anything else you want to show me?”

Shit
, Jane thought. Maybe it
was
the nicotine withdrawal. God knows her body was speeding through some crazy sensations. Between smelling gardenias where there were none and her heightened senses, she was clearly rotating more outside her body than in it. She jumped off the bed and handed Weyler the blank sheet of paper with the writing in urine. “It says,
Why you piss me off, BAWY?
Every single clue doesn’t waste a word. Why does he write this and suddenly sound like he can’t speak proper English?” Jane pointed to the riddle about the Packard. “Is it just a coincidence that the answer matches an old Packard postage stamp that he conveniently affixed to one of the envelopes? Is it a coincidence that one of the answers in the riddle, the word
cap
, just
happens
to be what’s drawn on the boy’s head in both pictures?”

“Copeland likes riddles. What was that one he mentioned on the interrogation video? ‘I am the ruler of shovels. I have a double…”

“’I am as thin as a knife. I have a wife. What am I?’ Yeah. King of Spades,” Jane acknowledged off-handedly.

“Very good.”

“Look, Boss. This guy doesn’t make mistakes. That’s what brings me to my second discovery. We always say to look for patterns, right? We all have them and we act and react to them unconsciously. Watch this…” Jane moved to the book,
You Can’t Go Home Again.
“First clue shows up at the Van Gordens’.” He nodded. “Second clue is the first voicemail message. That one comes into Bo’s office.” Jane touched the third clue, “Back to the Van Gordens and then,” she touched the fourth clue, “second voicemail to Bo’s office. And then, we’re back to the Van Gordens for clue number five. Clue number six, the Packard riddle, shows up under Bo’s front mat. Clue number seven,
I BEARED MY SOUL
, also suddenly shows up under Bo’s front
mat.” Jane took a hard breath. “It’s out of sequence. Somewhere between clues six and seven, the Van Gordens should have gotten something. This makes sense because if I’m right that this a linear story, the clue that says
I BEARED MY SOUL
, relates to whatever came before it.”

“I understand patterns, Jane, but…”

“Boss, there’s zero connection between the riddle about the Packard and
I BEARED MY SOUL AND YOU STILL IGNORE ME???
I mean, he’s saying it right there!
YOU STILL IGNORE ME???
”

“Jane, he’s not being acknowledged for any of them!”

“Bo told us that the Van Gordens are only aware of the clues that they received themselves. That’s the book and sympathy card and the two drawings. I’m telling you, Boss, there are
really
eight clues and the Van Gordens have number seven and didn’t give it up to Bo.”

“Why in the hell would they intentionally hold back a clue that could potentially save their son’s life?”

Jane said the first thing that popped into her head. “Disgust? I mean, the last clue they supposedly got was that picture.” She pointed to the sexually graphic drawing. “Maybe the next clue was even worse. Remember, this family is all about honing that surface impression. If the missing clue was embarrassing to them, I can understand how they’d want to ignore it so save face. And, you know, it’s not like they haven’t already lied to us.”

“Who lied?”

“Bailey. I checked inside his SUV…”

“You went inside his car?” Weyler was stunned.

“Yeah. He likes a lot of Greatest Hits CDs. And the car smelled funky. But he lied to us, Boss. He said the last time he was out was six days prior to go to the gym during the day. But his rear view mirror was flipped for nighttime driving and the vehicle looked freshly caked with mud. And today? Same story about going to the gym. Yeah, right. All dressed up with a half tube of gel in his hair to go to the gym? I think not. The reason I
hung back after you left was to check out his story…”

“Jane…” Weyler’s cadence was warning.

“His SUV was nowhere near the damn gym!”

“These are the
victims
, not the suspects! He’s free to go wherever he wants. Maybe he wanted to go on a drive and clear his head…”

“
Dressed up
?!” Jane wasn’t backing down.

“Jane, you’re scattered! You’re not focusing!”

“I am focusing!” She was falling apart, but she didn’t want Weyler to know it. Her head was exhausted from juggling all the unknowns in her own life, as well as the life of a missing boy she was starting to really care about. She wondered if
she
cared about him more than his own parents did. A thought crossed her mind. “Why aren’t the Van Gordens offering a reward for Jake’s return?”

“I asked Bo that question. He said they were planning on it, but withdrew the plan last night.”

“What happened last night?”

“I don’t know. Bo said they just decided that they wanted to keep this thing low-key.”

“What the fuck?” Jane was disgusted. “They’ve got
beaucoup
bucks! They could afford to plunk one hundred grand out there. Hell, in this economy, they could get someone to squeal for twenty-five!”

“Jane, we’re both bone tired. Let’s hash it out in the morning when we’re fresh. We’re meeting Bo for breakfast at the diner…”

“Oh, shit, he’s not going to listen to me, Boss! He doesn’t even want me here!”

“Let’s do this by the book, okay? Get some sleep.”

Weyler wearily left her room, quietly closing the door behind him.

“Fuck!” Jane half-whispered in frustration. Sure, this wasn’t technically
her
case, but she was brought in to help solve it and now her
outside the box
considerations were being questioned.
She glanced toward the clothesline of clues.
Who in the fuck lives at 1401 Imperial,
she thought,
and where in the hell is it
? Crossing to the last two clues, she slid her hand between them. She recalled that Bo told them he had received the last one with the
I BEARED MY SOUL…
sentence
that morning
under his front mat. If she was right about patterns and if the Van Gordens actually
did
receive a clue that they didn’t disclose, it made sense that that mysterious clue could have been delivered the day before. Perhaps she was right about them feeling disgust at it—so much disgust that they abruptly cancelled the reward.
Jesus Christ
, she thought, you don’t withdraw a reward for your only son because you want to keep things low-key.

Jane’s head was spinning a million miles a minute. Weyler was right. She
was
scattered. She had to slow down her brain and there was only one way she knew to do that. She spied the single cigarette pack on the table. The torture was too much. She slid the cigarette out of the pack and searched for the lighter she used to decipher the words on the urine-stained page. Suddenly, a wave of pain permeated her lower gut. She grabbed hold of the bedpost to steady herself as she bent over and grabbed her belly. Tossing the cigarette back on the table, she was hit with the strong scent of gardenias once again. She fell to her knees and rolled into a fetal position on the floor. The persistent pain was agonizing. Her pelvis felt as if it was about to break in two. She briefly wondered if this was what it was like to give birth. Then she wondered if something was seriously wrong inside of her.

Jane managed to crawl up onto the bed. She turned off the light and drew the comforter over her aching body. She began to gently brush her fingertips across her forehead, repeating the motion continuously—the same way she did in the doctor’s office. The odd, uncharacteristic gesture felt soothing to her, especially as a wave of nausea overwhelmed her. Ribbons of pain engulfed her as the scent of gardenias lingered. She finally fell asleep, the pain abating and the aroma disappearing.

All was silent until she awoke to the sound of creaking in her room. Jane opened her eyes and was met with a mat of blackness and the eerie glow of the bedside clock that showed
3:11
. Somebody was there. She could feel it. And with it, that goddamned sickly sweet floral scent that had dogged her for nearly twenty-four hours. The creaking continued, back and forth, back and forth. It was coming from the corner of the room near the window.

Jane couldn’t remember where she’d set her Glock but she was pretty sure it wasn’t next to her bed. She could feel her heart beating so hard that she was certain whoever was in the room could hear it too. Sliding her hand out from under the sheet, she contacted the tiny lamp on her bedside table and flicked it on.

She sat up, ready to take on the intruder. But all she saw was the rocking chair in the corner, creaking back and forth, back and forth.
It’s the wind
, she told herself, coming from the window not far from the chair. She peered closer at the window but it was closed. With that, the rocker came to a sudden stop.

After a fitful few hours of sleep, Jane awoke with a start at 6:00 am. She’d had a dream but the people in it and the situation were clouded. All she could remember was a sense of something unraveling and of outright chaos. She rubbed her eyes and stared across the room at the rocking chair by the closed window. Was it a dream? It felt like it right then. The whole memory of waking at 3:11 am felt distant and remote.

Jane cupped her palm against her lower belly expecting to feel pain, but she felt surprisingly fine. How could something so profoundly agonizing come and go so quickly? It was as if the pain did not belong to her and that she was shouldering it
for someone else. What’s that they say about sympathy pains? Perhaps, she pondered, she had gotten herself so wrapped up in the menagerie of clues and her concern for Jake Van Gorden and projected it into her belly?
Sure,
she thought.
That’s possible.
It sure as hell was easier to accept than the more likely possibility that her body was turning on her and she was slowly dying.

She heard the purposely soft closing of the back screen door and quickly moved to the window. Aaron Green ambled outside with several stapled pages in his hand and a large red photo album under his arm. He walked to the farthest end of the backyard, sat down on a bench and opened the album. Jane watched as his face gradually lit up with each turn of the page.

Jane threw on the first shirt she could find—which happened to be the mud-caked one from the night before—and pulled on the dirty jeans and her leather jacket. She quietly inched her way down the short hallway to the staircase and gingerly moved downstairs so as not to wake anyone. Figuring it made sense to walk out the backdoor, she stealthily moved toward the kitchen. The speckled linoleum floor, large table and varnished narrow cupboards framed in glass reminded her of a true boardinghouse of yesteryear. Except for the few modern amenities such as the dishwasher and microwave, nothing looked as if it had changed from the years the place served as a home for women. She opened the back door and quietly closed it. Walking around the house, she tried to look as nonchalant as possible as she strolled across the large yard. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aaron’s reaction to her unexpected presence. He quickly snapped the album shut and purposely slid it under the bench. It was the same gestural extension of shame that she’d witnessed in Bo’s office when Bo covertly buried the bright yellow folder.

“Morning, Detective,” Aaron chimed.

Jane pretended to take a deep yawn and stretch as if getting up at the crack of dawn to greet the sunrise was a habit. “Call me Jane,” she said in the easiest-going tone she could muster. She
had to appear as nonthreatening as possible so she could dive in for the kill later and catch him off guard.

He lifted the stapled pages. “I’m going over my sermon for tomorrow morning. You and Sergeant Weyler are welcome to attend.”

The idea of sitting in church was about as appealing as being forced to listen to a precocious child sing off-key. “We’ll take a rain check. We’ve got to spend every second on the case.”

Aaron’s eyes fell to the ground momentarily. “Yes…of course.”

Jane saw a look of guilt fall across Aaron’s face. God, she wanted to pounce on that moment and ask the question but she knew she had to hold back. She felt a crick in her back. “Shit,” she muttered. Aaron looked up at her. “Oh, excuse me. It’s just that my back’s kinda funky this morning. I fell yesterday.”

He glanced at the dried mud on her shirt and jeans. “I noticed. Here…” He moved over on the bench. “Have a seat.”

Jane obliged. She couldn’t help but peer down at the red photo album. It was obviously old with its cracked cover and faded lettering. “What’s that?” she asked, hoping her pitch wasn’t too confrontational.

A second of fear gripped his face. But he quickly recovered and turned to the album. “Oh, that’s just my inspiration. Whenever I’m feeling a bit of writer’s block, I bring it out and it inspires me.”