Protector (55 page)
Authors: Laurel Dewey
Tags: #Police Procedural, #Denver (Colo.), #Mystery & Detective, #Psychic ability, #Women detectives, #Crime, #Suspense, #Women Sleuths, #Children of murder victims, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural, #Espionage
Turning quickly, Jane saw Emily’s disoriented behavior and her obvious terror toward the man with the mask. Instinctively, Jane went for her gun. “Who’s that guy?” she yelled at Dan.
Dan squinted toward the man. “That’s just Bernie. He’s cool. What’s wrong?”
Jane took her hand off her gun. “Hey!” Jane yelled toward Emily.
Just as she heard Jane’s voice, Emily saw Bernie turn toward her and take a step. Like a thoroughbred bolting from the gate, Emily fled from the scene, racing through the crowd.
Jane jumped to attention. “Oh, Christ!” she yelled at Dan. The two of them took off after the kid. Dan ran to the left around the crowd while Jane took the right-hand flank. Emily broke through the streams of carnival visitors.
“Patty! Sweetheart!” Dan yelled out. “It’s okay!”
“Patty!” Jane called out to her, desperately trying to keep up with Emily.
Jane’s voice caught the attention of Sheriff George who happened to be patrolling the park on foot. He spun around just in time to see Emily frantically run by him, followed by Jane. He took off after the two of them, loping as fast as he could.
Emily rounded a corner near the edge of the park. Boom!
An explosion of fireworks burst into the night sky. Emily screamed and dropped to the ground.
Boom! Boom!
Another set of red fireworks painted the skyline, illuminating the park with an eerie scarlet glow.
Emily looked up as the crimson blossoms floated downward. She looked at her hands, reflected against the scarlet sky. In her mind, they were covered in blood. Buffered by the applause and roar of the crowd, Emily let out a terrified scream as she took refuge in the narrow hollow of a nearby tree.
Jane heard Emily’s scream. Pushing her way through the crowds, she made her way to the perimeter of the park, looking around helplessly for any sign of Emily.
Boom!
A riveting set of red and blue fireworks pounded into the air, eliciting another shriek of terror from Emily. Jane spun around and saw the kid crunched into the cavity of the tree. “It’s okay!” Jane yelled as she lunged forward, knelt down and attempted to wrap her arms around the kid.
“No!” Emily screamed, in mortal fear for her life. Everything was a blur to the child as she pushed and punched Jane’s body away from her.
Sheriff George arrived on the scene in time to see Emily’s frantic reaction to Jane’s presence. He held back, hiding in the shadows of an outlying game booth.
“Stop it! It’s me! You’re okay!” Jane pleaded. Emily stopped screaming at the sound of Jane’s voice. She blinked hard. Gradually, Jane’s face came into her view. One chaotic eruption of fireworks after another blasted into the air, sending Emily into Jane’s arms. The sheriff remained fixated on Jane, waiting for her to make a violent move toward Emily. Emily held on to Jane for dear life. The child was hysterical, almost to the point of hyperventilating. “It’s okay!” Jane said quietly, stroking Emily’s head. But Emily’s hysteria reached a fever pitch until she passed out in Jane’s arms.
Dan arrived on the scene, quickly assessing the situation. Sheriff George pulled away against the wooden backing of the booth. “Come on, Jane,” Dan said, out of breath. “We gotta get her outta here before somebody starts askin’ questions!” He knelt down and picked up Emily’s limp body.
Back at the house, Jane directed Dan to Emily’s front bedroom. “I’ll get her some water!” Jane said, rushing off to the bathroom down the hall. Dan knelt by Emily’s bed, gently stroking her moist brow. Jane quickly returned with a glass of water and took Dan’s place by Emily’s bedside. “Wake up,” Jane urged Emily.
“Patty, darlin’, it’s okay,” Dan added with an encouraging voice.
Jane considered her words before she spoke. “Her name is Emily.”
Dan brushed his hand against Emily’s forehead. “What triggered this?” Dan asked Jane in a half-whisper.
Jane didn’t think before she spoke. “She probably thought she saw him.”
“Her father? She fears him that much?”
Jane couldn’t believe she slipped up. “He’s a dangerous son-of-a-bitch.”
Emily stirred. She opened her eyes, not quite knowing where she was right away. “What happened?” she said in a weak voice.
“Here,” Jane said, tipping the glass of water to Emily’s lips.
Emily took a sip and looked at Dan. The realization of what occurred hit her, as did the consequence of Dan observing everything. “Oh, no.” She looked at Jane with apologetic eyes.
Jane patted Emily on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Dan understands that you thought you saw your dad.” She gave Emily a look of “Please play along.”
“Your dad’s not gonna hurt you again, Emily,” Dan said sympathetically.
Emily looked questioningly at Jane. “I told him your real name,” Jane assured her. “I also told him how we had to leave Denver because of Dad.”
Emily glanced at Dan then back to Jane. “Dad. Right.” “You rest, okay? I’m gonna walk Dan to the door.” Dan leaned down, cupping his hand across Emily’s forehead. “Don’t you worry, sweetheart. Ol’ Dan’s gonna make sure nothin’ bad ever happens to you again.” He planted a kiss on her cheek and followed Jane outside the front door.
The cacophony of carnival noises echoed from across the street. “I can stay if you want me to,” Dan stated in earnest.
“Thank you but I think I need to be alone with her.”
“Will you call me if you need me?”
“Yeah. I will.”
Dan took a step off the porch. “You remember our ‘trouble signal,’ right? Garage and front porch lights on?”
“Got it,” Jane said nodding. She walked back into Emily’s bedroom and sat on the edge of her bed. Tears began flowing down the child’s cheeks. “Hey, come on,” Jane said in a reassuring tone. “I did some fast talking. He doesn’t know the truth.”
“I don’t know why,” Emily said through her tears, “but that man at the fair. He looked . . .” Emily couldn’t put words to what she felt.
Jane didn’t want to pursue it but she had no choice. “He looked like what?”
“He had something shiny in his right hand. Then it was like cherry juice was on the shiny thing. Cherry juice . . .” Emily tried to reconcile the idea of cherry juice, not wanting to even consider the alternative. “Then suddenly, I had cherry juice all over my hands . . . Why would there be cherry juice?”
“I don’t know,” Jane said quietly.
Emily traced what she could of the memory against the experience at the carnival. “When I was in the closet at my house, I think I saw the man who . . . the man who . . .” The memory ceased. However, the terror drove Emily into Jane’s arms. “When is it going to stop?” Emily said through her sobs.
“When you see it, I suppose.”
“I don’t want to see it! I don’t want to see it!” Emily pulled back. “I want things to be the way they were. I want my mommy and daddy back. I want to go to the park with A.J. I want everything right again!” Emily fell back into Jane’s arms.
“I wish I could make it so, kiddo. You’ve just gotta remember those happier days. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about . . . ah, you mentioned going to the park with—”
“With A.J.” Emily said sniffling.
“Who’s A.J.?”
“My best friend. I told you? Don’t you remember? She moved away with her family and never said good-bye!”
“Right. I remember. Tell me about her.”
“She was the best friend ever! Her mommy and daddy and my mommy and daddy all went to park together for a picnic. I have pictures from that day. Remember?”
“Sure.”
Emily slipped off the bed and located her Starlight Starbright navy blue vinyl case on a nearby chair. She unzipped the case and handed the photo packet to Jane who turned on the bedside lamp. The first photo featured Emily’s parents and herself sitting on the picnic blanket. Emily tenderly stroked her mother’s face in the photo with the tip of her finger. “Dad ate two big servings of Mom’s potato salad that day,” Emily said lovingly.
“So, who took this picture?” Jane asked, trying to pull Emily out of her funk.
“A.J.’s daddy. There’s a picture of him in there.” Emily sifted through the photos. “Here he is with A.J.’s mommy.”
Jane politely took the photo, glancing down at it. At first, the full effect of what she saw didn’t hit her. But her mouth went dry as she held the photo closer to the lamp. It was Bill and Yvonne Stover staring back at her.
“And here’s me and A.J.!” Emily said, revealing the final photo.
It was Amy Joan Stover.
Chapter 24
Jane felt as though someone had kicked the crap out of her. The realization that the Stover and Lawrence families were best friends was a frightening turn of events. When Jane saw the photo of Emily and Amy Joan Stover sitting together, an ominous sensation came over her. The photos—the answer to part of the massive puzzle—were at Jane’s fingertips for over a month and she never thought to look at them.
Once Emily fell asleep, Jane gathered the photos and walked into the living room, closing Emily’s door behind her. She placed the twenty-four photos in sequence on the coffee table and sat on the couch. The impact and implications of a Stover/Lawrence association suddenly came full circle. As far as Jane was concerned, this changed everything. She checked the imprint date on the back of the photographs. May 2. Jane thought back to specific dates in May and, after counting backward, realized May 2 was a Sunday. It was also exactly one week to the day—Sunday, May 9—before Stover and his family was granted around the clock protective custody along with twenty-four hour house arrest. Jane retrieved her leather satchel from her bedroom and carried it back into the living room. She pulled out the Stover file, along with the various newspaper clippings regarding the case. Jane poured over the fine print in search of dates. Buried within the police report, Jane came up with several insights. By late April, Bill Stover had agreed to testify against the Texas mob in exchange for keeping his cocaine and meth addiction out of the papers. While Stover never disclosed how much he was planning to reveal, there was a notation in the police file that he had “agreed to reveal judicial corruption and drug connections that went to the core of Denver’s influential residents.” Jane had read that sentence ten times and always assumed that Stover was going to spill his guts about fellow entrepreneurs and businessmen who provided laundering fronts for the Texas mob and who possibly lied in court about their actions. That was still a viable possibility. However, Jane ruminated on the possibility that the nefarious trail of corruption started where crimes are supposed to be solved—the Denver Police Department.
Immediately, Ron Dickson’s name popped into Jane’s head. Here was a guy who had constant access to evidence—everything from pounds of cocaine to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry. Jane knew that tampering with that evidence was somewhat easy if you knew the ropes. As thorough as the booking process was, there were always the inevitable loopholes that a smart and often desperate evidence tech could use to their advantage.
The process was fairly straightforward. Once detectives logged evidence on the Property Report Form, certain items were then transferred into plastic K-Pak bags. These are thick, heavy-duty, heat-sealable bags that offer the ultimate protection in preserving the integrity of crime scene evidence. When drugs are placed into the K-Pak bag, the bag is weighed. That weight is then notated on the outside of the bag, along with the item number of the evidence, the case number, the date and the detective’s initials. From this point, crime scene items are transported downstairs to evidence where the K-Paks are sealed and stored on one of the many metal shelves that house hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence. Due to the overwhelming amount and the inherent confusion that can cause, it was not out of the realm of possibility that evidence techs could tamper with items and not get caught.
However, there were two ways their criminal actions could be discovered. First, to get inside the K-Pak bag, the heat seal on the packet must be broken. Resealing the packet and making it look as if nothing was touched is almost impossible. If the K-Pak had to be opened for official business such as court trials, the action was always noted on the outside of the packet, along with the date. It was not worth it for the evidence tech to forge a fake “official purpose” on the K-Pak since that could be easily tracked. Due to the sheer number of items and backlog of evidence from years ago, it was easier for the evidence tech to take the risk, open the K-Pak, reseal it as best he could and cross his fingers that no one would notice.
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