Kurt
He was still fuming when he pulled his vintage red Camaro into the driveway of his little modern ranch house at the end of the cul-de-sac. It was nearly eight o’clock and well past dark this time of year. Kurt needed a shower and a change of clothes if he was going to be up all night working this case. And it was becoming more and more apparent he would be doing just that.
He ambled through the garage door, threw his keys on the kitchen counter, and leaned with both hands against the sink. He was tired, and his back hurt like a bitch. Standing there with his head hung low, Kurt thought about the events of the past several hours, and he had to fight the urge to punch the wall. He might have done it twenty years ago, but at the age of fifty-six, he’d probably break every bone in his hand, and then some.
Frankie was driving him bat shit crazy. How could he not see that he was making things much worse for himself and for Mollie by insisting on finding her on his own and punishing her kidnapper the same way he had punished the man who’d killed Addie?
He’d been thinking of her all day, ever since Frankie had strolled into his office and thrown her name out like a grenade. Thinking of all the fun times they had together growing up. How they looked nothing alike, though they were fraternal twins. Kurt had always been shorter and a bit stocky with shaggy brown hair and standard-issue hazel eyes, while Addie had been tall and slender with long blonde hair and bewitchingly pale blue eyes. It was no wonder Frankie thought of Addie when he looked at his own granddaughter. Kurt had seen the resemblance in the very first photograph of her he’d seen, and it had taken his breath away.
And the similarities didn’t end with their stunning good looks, either. Both girls had been kidnapped in their late teens. Addie by Julian McAllister and Mollie by his son, whatever his name was. They’d both been taken in the dead of night on their way home from work. The only difference in their stories was that Mollie could still be alive. Addie hadn’t been lucky enough to live more than twelve hours. At least, that was what the police had told his family back in 1978. Kurt’s parents had sheltered him from the worst of the details about his twin sister’s murder, but years later, when he’d become a cop, he’d used his resources and connections to open his sister’s file and was able to see and read much more than he was prepared for.
According to the autopsy report written by then ME Harold Fortney, Addie had been severely beaten, raped, and eventually strangled with the killer’s bare hands before being dumped in the mouth of the Kentucky River, only a mile from the Jamison farmhouse. Kurt had thrown up in the wastebasket near his desk when he’d read this and seen the autopsy photos. His once beautiful eighteen-year-old sister’s body was white as alabaster. Green, purple, and blue bruises covered her arms, legs, torso, and face, and dark fingermarks were evident on her throat. It was the one and only time in his life he’d been thankful to Frankie for handling Julian McAllister his way instead of letting the law deal with him.
Remembering the file and the photos of his sister brought bile up the back of Kurt’s throat, and he spit it out into the sink. As he rinsed away the sickness, his mind went back to the day Frankie’s mother had come down into the basement where the two best friends were sharing a joint and arguing over whether Jimmy Page or Robert Plant was the true frontrunner of Led Zeppelin.
When Mrs. Cartwright said, “It’s Addie,” and told Kurt that her body had been found at the creek, Kurt stood frozen like a deer in headlights while Frankie had pushed past them both and bolted up the stairs. He didn’t know where Frankie was going, and he didn’t care, either. He stood there like a statue wondering how on earth it could have happened. As far as Kurt and his parents knew, Addie was spending the night with a friend after her shift at the local ice cream shop. No one had even known she was missing, let alone how her body wound up in the river.
His first assumption had been that she and her friends had gone down to hang out by the river, as most kids in the area did in those days. Perhaps she’d been drinking with her buddies and lost her footing or drowned in the treacherous undercurrent while swimming at night. It never once occurred to him that she’d been abducted, held prisoner, beaten, raped, and murdered by a madman. Kurt would go on assuming this until later that night when Frankie showed up at his doorstep insisting on seeing him, though Kurt had told his parents no visitors.
Kurt could still see the rabid look on Frankie’s face when he’d stepped out into the warm summer night and found his friend out of breath and rambling on about how he was going to catch the psychopath and make him pay.
“What psychopath?” Kurt had asked, still puzzled by his friend’s fury.
“The one who killed Addie,” Frankie had replied.
“She wasn’t murdered. She drowned in the river. She must have been goofing off or swimming or—”
“Shut up, Kurt!”
Kurt was taken aback. Frankie had never so much as raised his voice at him. Although they’d grown up together like brothers, they’d never squabbled the way some guys did. They never argued over a girl, or sports—or anything, for that matter.
“What’s wrong, Frankie? What are you talking about?”
“Addie was murdered. You seriously didn’t know?”
“Murdered? What? That can’t be true. She just drowned, that’s all.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Frankie’d said. “But I overheard my parents talking to the sheriff earlier. I’m sorry, buddy. Someone definitely killed Addie. But don’t worry. I’m gonna handle it.”
Kurt had been stunned into silence once again. It was as if he’d been punched in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He’d stumbled backward and nearly toppled off the front porch, only catching himself on the railing at the last minute. “Who…who killed her?”
“I don’t know yet. But as soon as I find out, I’m gonna kill him with my bare hands. I know she was your sister, Kurt, but I loved her too.”
The ringing of his cell phone brought Kurt back to the present. He reached into his pocket, fished it out, and held it to his ear. “Detective Jamison.”
The voice on the other end belonged to the cyber forensic tech he’d spoken to earlier, telling him he’d managed to triangulate the last ping of Mollie’s cell phone. The tech gave Kurt the address of a run-down grocery store out on Delong, and as soon as he hung up, he plugged the address into his phone’s GPS and darted out the front door, completely forgetting about his shower.
He arrived at the isolated location less than twenty minutes later. He’d phoned Lonnie with the update on the drive there, and Kurt saw Lonnie had made it there before him and was walking the perimeter. As he got out of his Camaro, he took in the sight of the old grocery store. It was certainly run-down and hadn’t been inhabited in years, maybe even decades. The paint on the white clapboard siding was peeling, and termites had evidently had a field day with the wood. It reminded Kurt of an old shotgun shack with a small porch that was caving in on the left. A weathered sign that read ‘HARVEY’S GROCERY’ was barely hanging on to the front of the store by a couple of rusty nails. Lonnie had put up yellow crime scene tape around the ramshackle building.
Kurt walked up to the porch and whistled to get Lonnie’s attention. Lonnie came around the front and met him at the front door.
Kurt held out a black iPhone with his gloved hand. “Look what I found inside.”
“I’ll be damned,” Kurt said under his breath as he slapped on a blue latex glove and reached for the phone. “Is this hers?”
“Got to be. Look at how the screen is shattered. Our perp obviously attempted to destroy the phone by smashing it. Found it on the floor by the register.”
Kurt turned the phone over and tried to power it on, but nothing happened. It was definitely dead, which would explain why there were no more pings after this location. But Kurt couldn’t figure out for the life of him why the kidnapper had brought Mollie here, only to move her again. He looked it over more closely and noticed, to his horror, a speck of blood on the back cover.
“Did you see this?” Kurt pointed at the spot and looked at Lonnie.
“Yeah,” Lonnie said. “Probably Mollie’s. Let’s bag it and tag it and get it back to the lab ASAP.”
“It’s not going to tell us anything we don’t already know, but we definitely need to process it anyway.”
“I’ll go get a bag.” Lonnie turned and headed toward the cruiser. When he passed Kurt’s Camaro, he smiled and said, “I see you’re still driving the Red Fox.”
Kurt shook his head. “I never understood why you call my car the Red Fox.”
“Cuz” Lonnie turned his back to Kurt and shouted over his shoulder, “it’s a sly old fox who’ll drive a vintage sports car at your age.”
“Very funny, asshole.”
While Lonnie was retrieving the evidence bag, Kurt looked around the shop, searching for any sign of a struggle or a clue that might tell him where the kidnapper had taken Mollie next. To his right was a refrigerated display case that probably once held dairy products. Some of the shelves which were still attached to the wall had a few canned goods sitting on them. Just ahead of him was the register which was affixed to the top of a scarred wooden countertop, and behind that was an old cigarette machine. Kurt remembered back in the day when he, Addie, and Frankie used to get their smokes from machines just like this one.
Kurt shook off the memory and turned to walk outside. When he stepped out onto the rickety porch, he saw Lonnie standing in the grass to the side talking to an elderly man who was bent over and leaning on a gnarly wooden walking stick. Curious, Kurt approached the pair and introduced himself to the man.
“This is Gerald Harvey,” Lonnie said with a self-satisfied smile. “As in, Harvey’s Grocery?”
“Nice to meet you.” Kurt extended his hand to the octogenarian. “Name’s Detective Kurt Jamison. Are you the owner of this grocery store?”
“Guess you could say that,” Gerald Harvey said. “Been in my family for three generations. Went outta business back in the late eighties, though. When them big box giants started sproutin’ up on every damn street corner. No one seemed to want to shop here anymore. Roll back prices, my ass.”
Kurt stifled a chuckle. He liked the old fart already. But now wasn’t the time to make a new friend. “Seen anyone suspicious around here lately?”
“You’re the second feller who’s asked me that today,” the man said.
Kurt looked at Lonnie, but he just shrugged. “Who else asked you?”
“Some slick feller come around here coupla hours ago askin’ me if I’d seen anyone lurkin’ around. Said somethin’ about his granddaughter bein’ missin’.”
“Frankie,” Kurt muttered under his breath. “God damn it.” He looked back at Gerald. “What did you tell him?”
“Told him I seen a little red car parked over here late last night. I live right up yonder on the top of the hill, and I seen headlights comin’ through my window.”
“About what time was this?” Lonnie asked.
The old man scratched his chin and looked down at the ground. “I’d say about eleven o’clock. I know this cuz I’s up takin’ a piss. Looked at the clock when I noticed the car cuz no one’s ever down there at the store these days. Been closed down for damn near thirty years.”
“Did you see anyone get out of the car? A man, perhaps?”
“Yessir. Seen a tall man with girlie hair…you know the kind the kids are wearin’ these days. Anyway, he was walkin’ around like he was lookin’ for something. Just as I’s about to grab my gun and shoo him off, he got back in his car and drove away.”
“Did you see anyone else with him? A young girl?”
“Nossir. Didn’t see no young girl. Told that other feller the same thing. I reckon that was his granddaughter?”
“Yeah,” Kurt said.
“Girl’s missing,” Lonnie said. He pulled out his phone and turned it to face the old man. “Looks like this. Are you sure you didn’t see her?”
“Naw. Ain’t seen her. Reckon I’d remember if I’d seen her. She’s a pretty girl.”
“That she is,” Kurt said, trying to hide his frustration. If only Gerald Harvey had thought to call the police last night, maybe they could have found Mollie. Lonnie must have read his mind.
“Why didn’t you call someone? You see a strange man walking around your property, and you didn’t think to call the police?”
Kurt winced. It was not the tack he would have taken with the old geezer. Pissing him off wasn’t the way to get the information they needed.
“Hang on there, young ’un. Now, I know you city slickers call the police every time you see something ain’t right. But not out here, son. Out here, the law has two names. Smith and Wesson. You hear? And by the time I even thought to get my gun, he was drivin’ away anyhow.”
“We understand,” Kurt said, trying to keep the peace with Gerald. “Did you tell the other man the same thing you told us?”
“Don’t see why I shouldn’t have.”
“That’s all right,” Kurt said with a smile. “Is there anything else you can think of that might help us? Did you see the direction the man drove off in, by any chance?”
“Sure did. He drove off attaway.” Gerald pointed north up Delong Road, headed out of town. Kurt’s heart skipped a beat when he remembered that Delong Road ended at the border of Fayette County. There was only so much undeveloped land that way, so if Kurt’s hunch was right, Mollie could be within mere miles of the grocery store. He wondered if Frankie had come to the same conclusion.
“Thank you, sir.” Kurt shook the old man’s hand once more then handed him a business card. “My number’s on there. If you think of anything else at all that might help us find this girl, give me a call.”
“Will do,” Gerald said with a curt nod.
Kurt and Lonnie turned and walked back toward their cars.
“Think we ought to go back to the precinct?” Lonnie asked as he opened the cruiser’s door.
“Probably should. We need to look at the land records for this area. Maybe we’ll get lucky and figure out where this bastard took Mollie.” Kurt hadn’t shared with his partner what he’d learned from Frankie about Julian McAllister’s son. He wasn’t exactly sure why he hadn’t, but something told him it was premature.
As he climbed back into his Camaro and pulled out onto Delong, he wondered at his own motives for not sharing all he’d learned with his partner. Was it because he didn’t believe Frankie? Or was it that he did believe him, and a small part of him was hoping, despite his protestations to the contrary, that Frankie would be the one to find Julian’s son and handle him the way he’d handled his father?
No. Surely not. He was a cop, after all. And there was no way he could condone what Frankie had planned for the man if he found him. Kurt cursed himself for considering it for even one second and pressed the gas pedal down to the metal. He needed to make it back to the precinct and research Julian McAllister and find his son before Frankie did. He could not, would not, let history repeat itself. Not as long as he was wearing a badge.