The Last Time She Saw Him (20 page)

“I don’t have a choice. You love Aunt Kim.”

“I know, but her house is boring. I promise I won’t bother you at the police station. I brought my backpack, and I have my marbles and books. I won’t cause any trouble, I swear.”

My cell phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Navarro. I go to answer the call, but it has already gone to voice mail.

“Damn it. Logan, I’m sorry. You need to stay with Aunt Kim. No more questions.”

“You don’t care how I feel,” Logan says.

“Can we talk about this later? I’ll be back before you know it.”

Kim unknowingly breaks the tension and walks toward the car with a big smile for Logan. “I’m just setting up a game of croquet for us to play, and Leslie is making us a wonderful early evening picnic dinner. Do me a favor, Logan. Can you please go into the house and get us two sugar cookies?”

Logan looks back at me and concedes with a small smile. He gets out of the car, pauses on the top of Kim’s front step, and gives me a wave as if all is forgiven and heads inside the house.

“Thanks for watching Logan again on such short notice,” I say.

Kim leans in close and rests her elbows on the open driver-side window.

“Your sister, Sarah, was just here.”

“Sarah?” I ask, as my mind goes into emergency alert. “How did she find you?”

“Please don’t be mad at me. When she called your house and you wouldn’t talk to her, I just felt terrible. We talked for a minute on the phone, and Sarah told me she just got into town and didn’t know anybody here. I gave her my address and phone number and told her to let me know if she needed anything. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

Kim’s Emily Post crap went way too far this time.

“You don’t know what you’re doing. Sarah’s a con artist. She’s working you. Stay away from her and don’t let her anywhere near Logan. I’m not positive, but I’m looking into whether she was involved in Will’s kidnapping.”

The blood drains from Kim’s already pale face.

“Holy mother of God.”

“Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. I’m just going to take Logan down to the station with me.”

“No, Julia . . .” Kim begins to protest.

I look down at my cell phone as it begins to ring again. I need to make a split decision. “Okay. Logan will stay here. But don’t answer Sarah’s calls. Don’t open the door if she rings the bell. And if she tries to contact you again, let me know right away and I’ll have the police come by.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“You don’t know my sister. She tried to hurt me a long time ago. Sarah and her boyfriend threatened to hurt Logan if I went to the police,” I say.

“Your sister did that to you?”

“Not all family is nice.”

Kim’s thick oak front door swings open, and Logan emerges on the front step with Leslie. He holds two cookies in his hands, including one that is already halfway devoured.

“Hello, Julia,” Leslie calls out. “Thanks for bringing Logan over.”

“Hello, Leslie,” I answer and then look back at Kim.

“Do we have an understanding?”

“You’re scaring me,” Kim says quietly.

“You should be scared. Watch your back.”

“I won’t let anything happen to Logan. And I’ll call you right away if your sister shows up again. I’m not sure if this is important—when your sister came by earlier, I saw a man sitting in the driver seat of her car.”

“Olive complexion and dark hair?” I ask.

“They were parked at the edge of the driveway so it was a bit hard to see, but yes, I think that’s him.”

“That was probably Sarah’s boyfriend. He served time as well.”

“Oh, God.”

“I may be wrong about my sister’s involvement, but you need to have this on your radar. Most likely, Sarah stopped by here as a way in so she could get to me. She tried to con me earlier so she could score money from the tabloids and cash in on Will’s disappearance.”

Logan approaches so the conversation stops.

Kim pulls away from the car, looking somewhat shell-shocked, and grabs Logan’s hand. “Why don’t we head inside, sweetheart?”

“You don’t want to play croquet?” Logan asks, sounding somewhat relieved.

“Not now. Let’s go inside to have some treats.”

My cell phone flashes a message across the screen from Navarro. I quickly fit the key into the ignition and watch Logan, Kim, and Leslie disappear into the house and I head toward the city as fast as I can.

CHAPTER 14

I
nside the evidence bag is a pair of yellow pajamas with a giraffe on the lapel. I put Will in them last night before he went to sleep. I already identified the evidence over thirty minutes ago and now am forced to wait in Navarro’s office until he finishes interrogating Brewster to see if he will flip.

Navarro’s desk is covered with a mass of clutter and sports memorabilia that fill every square inch of the horizontal space. Some things never change. When Navarro and I were together, dust bunnies the size of small zoo animals and piles of dirty clothes stuck around for weeks at a time until I couldn’t take it anymore and cleaned his place up. I take my index finger and dust off a framed photo of a very young Navarro, maybe twenty years old or so, in a blue patrol uniform. Navarro is sporting a well-manicured beard that makes him look like the character “Serpico” from the classic Al Pacino movie. The photo must have been taken when Navarro first started out in the Newark, New Jersey, police department fifteen years earlier. I drum my fingers on top of the desk and lock eyes with a New York Mets Jose Reyes bobblehead doll with a permanent toothy smile. I smack the bobblehead on top of its helmet and set the oversized noggin into full tilt.

“This is no time to smile, Reyes,” I tell the jiggling figurine.

I stare up at the clock for the twentieth time in the last minute. It’s already 6:30
PM
.

I’d search Navarro’s computer, but he locked it, realizing I would probably try and pilfer through his files. I just want one more chance to sift through Parker’s information to hunt down any clues I might have missed. I gamble on the fact Navarro has Parker’s paper file somewhere since I know he would want it readily available for review. I switch into investigative reporter mode and open Navarro’s top desk drawer. Inside the drawer, he has squirreled away a pack of legal pads and pencils. The second drawer is filled with police training manuals. I sift through them in case Parker’s file is tucked somewhere inside. At the very bottom of the drawer is a photograph. In the picture, I am sitting on Navarro’s lap, waving at the camera. It was taken at the police Christmas party, more than ten years earlier and pre-David.

I start to second-guess my hunch about the paper files. But in the last drawer, I find pay dirt. The drawer is filled with case files Navarro worked on through the years, including active ones. Parker’s file is on top, with Cahill’s file directly underneath it. I bend down even lower in the chair and leave the file in the drawer in case someone walks in and sees me doing something I probably shouldn’t be doing. I thumb through the file quickly and hunt for anything new or that might have eluded me the first time around. But it’s all territory I have already covered: Parker’s rap sheet, time served, arrest reports, copies of the Polaroid photos, and his probation record. I start to close the file when I notice a piece of yellow legal paper stuck in the back. Scribbled across the paper is a sloppy handwritten note with someone’s name and phone number scrawled unevenly in childlike block letters. On the right-hand top of the paper is a notation from Navarro,
Parker’s sponsor
. The almost illegible handwriting is Parker’s from the first interrogation session, when Navarro told him to write down the name and number of his sponsor to confirm his alibi.

“We’re taking a break, trying to sweat him,” I hear Navarro tell someone from the other side of the closed door to his office. I stuff all the pieces of paper back into the file and slam the desk drawer shut. I bounce back up in the seat, but Navarro is already inside his office.

“I dropped something on the floor,” I explain and try to redirect his attention elsewhere. “How did it go with Brewster?”

Navarro bites off a stray cuticle and spits it on the floor.

“Snooping again, huh, Julia? Let me know if you find anything good,” Navarro responds. “That childhood friend of yours is a real winner.”

“Brewster was never my friend. He was the school bully and terrorized everyone, including Ben and me. We were poor kids, so we were always an easy target for guys like him.”

“Yeah, karma is a bitch, right? Look at that loser now. That was a monster headache he was nursing when I pulled him out of the drunk tank.”

“What did he say about Will?”

“Brewster said he passed out last night at about seven p.m. and didn’t wake up until this morning. He swears on his dead mother’s soul he knows nothing about Will’s kidnapping and that he didn’t hear anything unusual in the house last night. No kids crying, nothing like that.”

“But if Brewster was passed out drunk, chances are he wouldn’t have woken up even if a child was screaming in his house. Did he give you anything at all?”

“No. I need you to do something if you’re up for it,” Navarro says.

“I can watch the interview?”

“Not exactly. Do you have anything official with your name on it?”

I dig through my circus of a purse and pull out my driver’s license and passport.

“You have your passport in your purse? What are you planning to do? Jet off to Paris after we’re through here?”

“I just like to keep things on hand in case I ever need them,” I answer.

Navarro looks carefully at both forms of my identification and tosses them back down on his desk. “These won’t work. Do you have anything with your byline? You use your maiden name, Gooden, for your press credentials, right?”

I paw down deep in my bag and pull out my press passes.

“I told you I keep everything.”

Navarro looks at my ID and nods his approval.

“Follow me,” he says.

I expect Navarro to steer me toward the other side of the two-way mirror again, but much to my surprise, Navarro leads me directly into the interview room instead.

Inside the room is Parker, a much-changed man since the last time I saw him just hours before, when he was cocky and confident and sure he would beat the charge. Now Parker is a melting mess of perspiration and fear. I wonder how many children he made feel that exact same way.

Parker taps his foot against the cement floor in rapid succession like a nervous jackrabbit in front of a pack of hungry dogs. He abruptly stops his anxious tic when he notices the new arrivals. His eyes dart nervously from Navarro to me, the stranger in the room.

“Who’s this? Is she from the D.A.’s office?” Parker asks.

Navarro pulls a chair out for me but remains standing.

“Even without the DNA evidence back yet, the D.A.’s office has enough to charge you with two counts of kidnapping and one count of murder, not to mention about a half a dozen more add on charges. You know how that goes,” Navarro bluffs and looks in my direction.

Parker stares at me like a nervous child about to discover his punishment from the principal.

“You like the water?” Navarro asks.

“What do you mean?” Parker asks.

“You went down to the lake last night to baptize the little boy you kidnapped. You planned on baptizing him for some sick religious ritual, but you got spooked when you heard someone coming. We know you did it. We found the little calling card you left behind.”

Parker drags his fingers through his sweaty comb over and shakes his head. A few drops of perspiration fall from his forehead onto the plastic interview table.

“I wasn’t down by the lake, and I didn’t take no baby. I was with my sponsor last night. I told you that already.”

“The longer you play this game and the longer you don’t tell us what you did with that child, the longer your jail sentence is going to be, if you don’t get the death penalty first,” Navarro says and glances in my direction again. “A serial kidnapper and child murderer doesn’t get many chances. Tell us where the little boy is, and we’ll see if we can work out a deal.”

Navarro pulls out the manila envelope from inside his leather jacket and places it down on the table. He reaches inside, pulls out a Polaroid, and flips it over so it is right side up and then pushes it across the table until it is directly in front of Parker. The picture is one of the photos of Ben and me. My brother holds my hand in the picture as we stand just outside the entrance of Funland.

“You know these kids?” Navarro asks.

Parker shakes his head.

“Real easy to prey on kids with no money, isn’t it?” Navarro asks. “You spotted these kids when you drove the bus, and you knew they lived in the poor part of town so you targeted the boy, right?”

“I don’t remember these kids. That was thirty years ago. I may have fiddled with kids. I admit I got a problem with that, but I never kidnapped no boy and I never killed anyone in my life. I swear.”

“Then why are you hanging on to their pictures? Pedophiles can never part with their treasures, huh?”

“I like taking pictures is all,” Parker says.

“I bet you do. So on Labor Day 1977, you see these kids on the boardwalk, and you remember the boy, Ben Gooden. He caught your eye, didn’t he? You got your bus route for the new school year, and you see his name on there again with a new address. So you follow the kids home, but they don’t take a ride from you because they’re too smart. But you know where they live already, so you come back to get the boy that night after you’ve shot up. That gave you the courage you needed, right?”

“I don’t take drugs no more,” Parker says adamantly.

“But there was one thing that went wrong with your little plan. You didn’t know someone else would be in the room when you came for the boy. You’ve been looking over your shoulder all these years wondering if that girl was going to come back and identify you.”

“You got nothing on me. It’s all circumstantial evidence.”

“And the bones under your hunting camp came from where?” Navarro asks. “You’ve got the remains of a dead adult body on your property that someone took the time to bury. Who’s the body belong to, Parker?”

“How am I supposed to know? I’m not the only person who lived on that property. My aunt and uncle lived there before me. Why don’t you ask Mark Brewster? For all I know, he might’ve offed somebody and stuck them down there.”

“Well, tell you what, I won’t waste your time then. Let me just ask you one more question though. You sure you’ve never seen her before?” Navarro asks, pointing to the picture of the girl in the photo.

“Never.”

“That’s Julia Gooden. Ben Gooden’s little sister. She’s sitting across the table from you right now,” Navarro says and shoves my press pass in front of his face.

Parker stares at the picture and then twists his head in my direction, looking like a crazed, feral animal as a caged door closes behind him.

“My friend here can identify you as the one who took her brother, Ben, thirty years ago. She saw you, Parker. She can identify you, and that’s what you’ve been scared of all along, right?”

“You said she was from the D.A.’s office. You lied!” Parker yells. “You didn’t tell me she was the girl from the room. That’s entrapment right there. I’ve seen this kind of crap on TV. It’ll never hold up in court. I told you, I wasn’t in that kid’s house. You’re setting me up.”

“Hey, genius, I never said my friend was from the D.A.’s office. You came to that conclusion on your own. Now you’ve got bigger problems to worry about.”

Navarro stands up and puts his hand on my shoulder and begins to steer me to the door when Parker gives.

“Jesus Christ! All right. I took pictures of those kids. That’s all. I saw them at Funland, and I liked the looks of the boy. I saw his name on my bus route and trailed the kids to Funland and then back home. But I didn’t kidnap the boy. I told you, all I did was take pictures of kids and play with them a little. But I never broke into someone’s home and snuck a kid out.”

“Then how do you explain how you wound up with his necklace? You’re screwed, Parker. Now give up where you have Will Tanner and I’ll see if I can work any kind of deal for you if there’s still time.”

Parker snatches strands of his greasy hair between his nicotine-stained fingers and looks back at Navarro with savage fear as he searches for the truth tangled up in a dense thirty-year thicket of lies.

“I followed those kids home, but they wouldn’t take a ride. I wanted to bring the boy back to my house to take some photos, you know? That’s it. Just some pictures. I wasn’t going to touch him or anything. Or maybe I would have, depending on how things went with him. The boy, the Ben kid, copped an attitude with me when I offered them a ride, though, so I took off.”

“That’s not all of the story,” Navarro says and slams the leg of Parker’s chair with his motorcycle boot.

“I didn’t say I was done. I drove back to the kid’s house that night. I wasn’t going to break in. That’s not my style.”

“What were you going to do then? Jerk off in front of the kid’s house while he was sleeping?”

A steam of red shoots up Parker’s face as if Navarro nailed his motive.

“I was just driving the neighborhood. I was about five blocks away from the boy’s house, and I see a car driving toward me. Something struck me strange about it. The car’s lights were off, and it was late, man. Then a backdoor of the car . . . wait, it was a van . . . pops open and something falls out and kind of skitters across the ground. I stop my car and see the thing that hit the ground start running. Then I recognize him. It’s the kid, the Ben boy. He’s bleeding from his mouth and he’s only got one shoe on, but this kid is running for all he’s worth in my direction, waving both his hands at me, like he wants me to help him.”

“What did you do?” Navarro asks.

“I was frozen, like I couldn’t believe what was happening. I had been thinking about the kid, but I wasn’t expecting anything like that. So the kid is halfway to my car, and then the van starts moving fast and stops right next to the boy. A big guy jumps out from the back of the van. It was dark, but I could see a little bit because the guy was right underneath a street light.”