Killing Red (7 page)

Though the calendar read October 7, 1992, it still smelled a lot like summer in the Midwest. Smoke rose from suburban Illinois backyards, as folks were sneaking in one more night of barbecuing before the inevitable chill took hold. Roger Sykes worked late and came home to find his pregnant wife lying on the couch, slowed by another bout of the indigestion that was becoming a daily ordeal. He volunteered to run to the store and pick up a couple of necessities, namely milk, toilet paper, and a box of crackers to offset the nausea.

He was at the end of the driveway when his daughter Annie came bounding out of the house.

“Mom said I could go with you.”

It was a short drive to the store and Annie filled it with talk about school, her friends, and Halloween. When they pulled into the mostly empty lot, the child asked her father if she could run in and get what they needed.

Annie had just about convinced him someone would help her take the gallon of milk to the register, and that she would count the change to make sure it was right. Then his mobile phone started ringing, and he handed Annie a ten dollar bill and watched her run into the store.

The call lasted less than five minutes, so Roger wasn’t alarmed that Annie wasn’t back before he was finished. He turned the radio on and listened to an oldies station while waiting. When Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” came on Roger flipped over to sports talk. The old 70’s hit was getting more airplay than usual since it had become presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s theme song.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, and the discussion between the former jocks had grown stale. Roger wasn’t quite worried yet, just a bit frustrated that maybe Annie had forgotten which type of milk to get. She’d be too stubborn to admit that, and would likely end up buying the wrong kind. He got out and went to help her.

Roger planned to pretend that he’d forgotten one other item, so as to not embarrass his daughter, or give her the idea he was checking up on her. There were more employees than customers milling around the midsize grocery store. Roger was a little surprised when he didn’t see Annie standing near one of the registers.

He walked the length of the aisle that ran across the front of the store, then more slowly down the one that was parallel at the back. Roger’s pace picked up as he weaved up and down the rows that connected the front to the back. When he’d walked each of them, several more than once, he hustled over to the customer service desk.

Had she gone to the bathroom?

“Could you page my little girl? Her name is Annie.”

An older woman with unnaturally dark hair framing a blank expression complied. After more than a minute passed without a response, Roger asked one of the employees to check the bathroom, and followed her to where it was located in the rear of the store. He watched as the squat, middle-aged woman pushed the door open, called out to Annie, then returned, shaking her head.

Could she have finished and walked out? Might he have missed her?

When none of the four people working the registers could remember a small girl checking out, Roger switched into panic mode.

“Annie!”

Roger yelled out her name several times as he sprinted down the same aisles he’d confidently walked just minutes before. He then ran toward the store’s backroom against the protests of the owner. The smell of stale fruit greeted Roger as he pushed through the door. The large, dimly lit space was littered with boxes and refrigeration units. Roger moved through the room without a sense of direction, stopping at a small brown table that had newspapers and a used Styrofoam cup on it. One of the folding chairs around the table was lying on its side.

Calling out for her again, Roger ran spastically through the cluttered room, tossing boxes aside. He scrambled over to the large freezers and looked inside each one. Roger was sweating, his mind racing, he knew he had to get a grip. He stopped moving just long enough to see a container of milk and a package of toilet paper sitting on the floor, next to a box of Annie’s favorite cereal. A box of crackers lay a few feet away from the other discarded things. It had been ripped open, and one of the wrapped stacks was missing.

He squatted down and gently touched the items, as though they were connected to his daughter. Then Roger looked up and saw that the storeroom’s back door was just a few feet away, and that it was ajar. He ran outside and into an empty stretch of asphalt.

“Annie! Can you hear me?”

Following the wide drive to where it met the street, Roger found himself along the side of the building. He could see his car at the other end, and for a moment he hoped Annie would be sitting inside, waiting for him. But he knew better now, and he dropped to his knees and screamed like a wounded animal. Weeping uncontrollably, he drove his fist into the pavement until it went numb.

During those wretched minutes, as he was gutted by emotions that came from some place dark and primitive, Roger Sykes felt himself cross a line that few ever dare to approach.

Though dozens of cars passed by him on the busy street, and some even slowed down a little to stare at the desperate man, Roger had never felt so alone.

Five hours later, Roger Sykes and his wife drove home from the police station in separate cars. All of the store’s employees had been accounted for, and the only security cameras were positioned over the registers. Still, the cops did their best to give Annie’s parents a bit of hope.

As Roger turned onto his street, that overplayed Fleetwood Mac song came on the radio again. But he didn’t notice, and he probably would not have had the strength to reach over and switch stations anyhow.

Six torturous days after the abduction, and twenty hours after Annie Sykes had walked into Dominic Delacruz’s store, Alex Chapa took the call that would change his professional life.

The day after Chapa broke the story of Grubb’s capture, reporters from other papers went after the crime scene, the killer, and the police investigation. Chapa did that as well, but he instinctively focused on the girl’s family, and Annie herself, knowing that the human interest angle would draw in readers. He was right.

As a result, his stories brought the child far more notoriety than any ten-year-old victim and her parents should ever have to deal with. His editors, however, were so impressed with Chapa’s work on the initial piece, how he’d managed to talk to the girl, though he refused to quote her directly, as well as her parents, that they allowed him to continue as lead reporter on the story. Soon after, Chapa landed a better job with a bigger paper.

For weeks after Grubb’s capture, and then again around the time of his trial, police had to create a barrier around the Sykes’ home to keep the curious at something close to a reasonable distance. One person in particular, a grieving father named Jack Whitlock, became especially obsessed with Annie. Whitlock believed Annie and his son had been imprisoned by Grubb at the same time, and he wanted answers to why she had escaped and his boy hadn’t.

Forensics proved that Carson Whitlock had been Grubb’s fifth victim, brutally murdered more than two months before Annie was taken, but not found until after her capture. Those facts did nothing to sway Whitlock, who confronted Annie as she walked home from school one day, an act that earned him a restraining order.

Chapa had always been concerned about any lingering effect his story might have had on the young girl’s already damaged life. For years he had wanted to make it up to Annie Sykes. The guilt would rise up in him each time he was assigned a new story about Grubb.

Maybe Annie had forgiven him by now. The police certainly hadn’t. Though Chapa had used only those quotes that were on the record, some of the brass in the various jurisdictions involved with the case saw it otherwise.

There was some aggressive ass-covering involved, which always happens when a reporter breaks a story before it gets spun. And a bit of quiet embarrassment over the way a child helped break a case that had stumped the authorities for months. In time, police departments all over the Chicago area would turn on Chapa for questioning their investigation methods and describing, in detail, how they had failed to put together several significant leads.

No matter the cause, the results were severe. Chapa struggled, more than most reporters, to get any sort of information or even the most basic cooperation from authorities. For years he’d been routinely harassed at crime scenes. That simmering tension spilled over one night when the subject of an exposé he’d been working on assaulted him at a bar, and Chapa was the one who spent the night in jail. It was made clear to him then that he was on his own.

Sometimes Chapa missed the days before the Grubb story, when he was still carving out a career. Back then, his life, personal as well as professional, made a lot more sense to him.

Chapa was thinking about that time now as he drove to the
Record
’s main office to do some research on Annie. He was lost in his thoughts of the past as well as his troubling visit with Michelle Sykes, but still noticed the green sedan in the rearview mirror. Chapa was almost sure it had been there since he pulled out of the Sykes’ neighborhood, some twenty minutes earlier.

The green sedan was still there ten minutes and a dozen turns later. Most of those changes in direction had no purpose other than to prove Chapa’s suspicions. Though it figured that whoever was following him already knew where Chapa worked, he was feeling territorial, and wanted to lose this asshole before driving on to the
Record
.

Chapa switched off the radio right in the middle of a vintage Warren Zevon howl. He then turned a sharp left onto what he knew was a short street, followed by a quick right, then punched the accelerator. It was midafternoon, and traffic was light.

As he swung left and merged into the flow on northbound Randall Road, Chapa caught just a slice of green in his mirror. He’d left the tail back around the last corner. Maybe the driver hadn’t seen him. He kept looking back for about a half mile, but couldn’t make out if a green sedan was somewhere in the pack of cars lagging behind.

He turned off Randall a few streets sooner than usual, into a lazy residential area. For two blocks Chapa saw nothing but tree-lined asphalt in his wake. But as he pulled up to a four-way, he spotted the car casually closing in about a block and a half back.

Chapa drove through the intersection and past the next one, then pulled over. The green sedan slowed down, then paused before rolling through the first intersection and coming to a stop against the curb.

Whoever was driving that car had to be connected to Grubb, Chapa figured. Maybe it was the killer Grubb had told him about. The one who was stalking Annie Sykes.

Eyes locked on the busted side-view mirror, wondering what the other driver might do next, fidgeting, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, and growing tired of this bullshit, Chapa decided to make his move. He drove away from the curb, and turned into the next driveway. A small woman wearing a pale green smock and a lavender bandana looked up from the garden she was working on along the front of her house. He tossed a nod her way, then pulled out and reversed direction.

Chapa figured that as much as the driver of the green sedan wanted to stay on his tail, it had to be even more important that they avoid being seen. Chapa was going to make that more difficult. He had to get a look at the sedan’s license plate.

But as he raced back to where the car had come to a stop, Chapa saw no sign of the vehicle. That changed once he reached the next intersection. He turned right and sped up until the green sedan was no more than a block away.

That must’ve been when the driver spotted him, because he matched Chapa’s speed, then accelerated even more. Chapa wasn’t comfortable doing fifty, fifty-five, now sixty down narrow neighborhood streets. He slowed at each intersection, a precaution that cost him precious distance every time.

One block gave way to another as the two cars danced around parked vehicles, and maneuvered through curves, conceding a bit of speed until the next straightaway. Tri-level houses and two-car garages rushed by as the Toyota’s engine moaned with each press of the accelerator. The gap between them was holding steady, and Chapa’s only hope was that the driver would run into a red light or a crowded four-way.

Then he caught a break. Three intersections ahead and almost a full block beyond the green car, a stop-light turned yellow, and Chapa knew there was no chance the driver would get through before it went red. Even if he turned right at the light, it should still slow him down a little, maybe just enough for Chapa to read his plate number.

Chapa watched as the green sedan approached the intersection. The light turned red, but the vehicle kept going, weaving around a car that was making a left turn, serenaded by angry horns as it just barely avoided another.

The car was still in Chapa’s sights as he arrived at the intersection. Chapa paused for a moment, just long enough to see that the nearest oncoming car was at least thirty yards away. Then he hit the gas and blew through. A car horn wailed from somewhere behind him.

The green sedan had slowed down some, the driver apparently deciding that he’d ditched Chapa at the light. A block and a half became a dozen car lengths, then even fewer, and Chapa started focusing on the plate. Just a little bit closer.

But the heavy roar of the sedan’s engine and the screeching of tires told Chapa he’d been spotted. In an instant, the gap between the two vehicles doubled, then Chapa lost sight of the car as it made a left turn without slowing down.

Chapa was pushing seventy as he closed in on the same corner. He kept his foot off the brake and took the turn at full speed, jamming the wheel hard to the left. But instead of seeing the green sedan, Chapa’s vision became a blur of blue as he swerved to miss the massive garbage truck that was a few short feet away and bearing down hard.

He avoided a collision by the narrow width of a heartbeat, but overcompensated in the process. The Toyota’s right front tire crashed hard into the curb, and the car went airborne for a moment before slamming back down to the pavement.

The truck rumbled through the intersection as though nothing had happened, but Chapa wasn’t sure his car would be able to continue as easily. Chapa’s palms, like the middle of his back, were slick with sweat. This had gone far enough. He put the car in park, and took his first good breath since he’d turned around in that driveway.

Two blocks’ worth of neatly kept middle-class homes away, the driver of the sedan responded by slowing all the way down to a crawl. He was mocking Chapa, taunting him. Not the least bit shaken by any of this. It was as though the other driver had lured him into another reality, one Chapa wanted to break free of immediately.

But Chapa remembered why he’d gone on the offensive in the first place. The threat to Annie Sykes, maybe others too. Could be the person in that car wanted to hurt Michelle Sykes’ little girl. Could be they planned to tear apart whatever was left of Roger Sykes by finishing what Grubb had started. Chapa wasn’t going to let that happen. He shifted into drive, straightened the wheel, and accelerated as the green sedan sped off.

A few blocks ahead, the suburban neighborhood opened into large field. In the distance, Chapa could see there was more traffic and movement than what they had encountered up until now.

Then he realized why.

The green sedan was less then a block ahead of him when Chapa drove past the school traffic sign. Chapa immediately slowed down, then abruptly pulled over as Balenger Elementary rose out of its usually tranquil surroundings.

If he thought putting his hands up or waving a white flag would have done any good, Chapa would not have hesitated in doing it. Anything to tell the other driver that this was over. But Chapa knew better. The green sedan wasn’t slowing down. It was accelerating.

Chapa watched helplessly as it sped toward a crosswalk. A group of children, still buzzed about the end of their school day, was heading straight for the street. The crossing guard, an older woman whose white hair contrasted with her brightly colored uniform, was paying attention to the kids she was there to protect. Seemingly unaware that death was raging in their direction at more than sixty miles per hour, she began to lead the children into the crosswalk.

One of the kids pointed toward the speeding car as the woman raised her stop sign and took a backward step into the street. Chapa pulled out and headed toward the school, desperate to figure out a way to make the car stop, knowing that he couldn’t.

He punched his horn, four quick jabs.

The woman turned as the green sedan charged through the crosswalk at full speed, then she fell down hard. Chapa sped toward her, ready to help in whatever way he could, as the sound of children screaming sliced through the afternoon calm.

But as Chapa got closer he saw the woman sit up, then scramble to her feet like a gymnast who just took a spill. She withdrew a pencil and small notepad from her orange vest, turned toward the green sedan as it disappeared in the distance, and quickly scribbled something.

Chapa rolled down his window as he pulled up and stopped.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’ve fallen before and I’m sure I’ll fall again. We all fall down sometimes.”

She smiled at the kids, and Chapa could see the woman was holding it together for their sake.

“No, really, are you hurt?” Chapa asked, lowering his voice.

“I’m okay, thank you.” She brushed a patch of dirt off her hip, picked up her stop sign, and waved the children across.

“I saw you writing something. Did you get the plate number?”

She looked down at her notepad.

“I’m afraid not, but I know it was a green Dodge, and the driver was a large man. Next time I’ll get the son—” she started to use a term that was not appropriate for young ears, and stopped herself. “The next time that careless gentleman drives by this school, I will get his license plate and I’ll report him.”

Chapa liked the woman’s grit, and had no doubt she would spend weeks and maybe months looking out for the green sedan. But he was also certain there wouldn’t be a next time.

As Chapa drove away, he fought to steady his breathing and pulse rate. Both were racing at speeds faster than any car he’d ever owned could reach.