12:20 PM 8 miles outside of Roswell on Silvermine Road
She lay in the darkness. Terrified as she was, she knew turning on the little flashlight would only make it worse. But as she fingered it….she found a comfort…of sorts….
She’d felt it back when she’d put the handle of the valve in her pocket, but hadn’t remembered what it was. Not even when she had retrieved the handle…had it really struck her what it meant. But the last time she had opened the valve of the oxygen bottle, the hissing had been slower…noticeably slower. The first bottle was getting low….half her life nearly gone.
Not half, perhaps. She knew she’d wasted it at first…with the first large blast of oxygen from the bottle. And she’d used it several times just to clear the smell away from her nostrils, the smell of sweat…and vomit…and urine…and…fear….fear most of all. She could probably stretch the second bottle longer, when this one was gone. Maybe if she was willing to endure the smell and carefully manage her last bottle, she could last half again as long as she had already lasted underground.
‘But to what end?’ Liz asked herself. Was there really any chance? If anyone had seen him bury her here…wouldn’t they have dug her up by now? And how could anyone KNOW who had done it? Hell, she was there, she was the one who had been abducted, and she didn’t even know who he was or why he'd done this. How could anyone else figure this out?
‘To what end,’ the thought came to her again. She knew to what end. ‘Hell, Liz,’ she told herself. ‘..you may not understand who he was or why this happened, and you damn sure don’t understand Max Evans,….but biology…biology you’re pretty good at.’
Yeah, she understood the biology. She understood that the oxygen wouldn't really run out….that the carbon dioxide would build up first…that it would give her a feeling of air hunger…forcing her to breathe faster and faster…making her lungs ache as they tried harder and harder to extract get rid of the carbon dioxide her own body produced. She understood to what end….to the horror of those last few hours….those hours when she would go insane with the need to breathe as the buildup of carbon dioxide poisoned her, when she would scratch hopelessly at the roof of the box, when she would thrash, kick, scream…..when Liz Parker would cease to be a human being at all….when she would die..die like a crazed beast…tortured to insanity.
But as she took it from her pocket and fingered it in the darkness, it brought her comfort. It was strange, really. The Crashdown had gone non-smoking years before the state had passed the law, she could only just remember when they had a smoking and non-smoking section when she’d been four or five. But her dad still kept getting the matchbooks with the funny little alien face and the broken saucer. The tourists loved them…they all had Crashdown matchbooks in their collections of alien souvenirs. She’d only put it in her pocket to take upstairs. Maria had given her an aromatherapy candle….Sandalwood oil,….supposed to bring you inner peace. She had taken the matches to light that when she got back from the bank. It was still in her room, most likely…although that might as well be a world away.
Yes, this was her world now. A tiny little world of maybe 20 cubic feet. The oxygen from the bottle must have pushed almost all the nitrogen out of the container by now. There would only be oxygen in the box….oxygen and the carbon dioxide she produced by her breathing. It was the carbon dioxide that would cause the panic as the pH of her body went down…..as her air hunger went up, despite all the oxygen around her.
But she didn’t have to die like an animal…slow…over agonizing hours. Not with the book of matches. Just a spark…that was really all it would take. Just like those three astronauts that died in training that day….it would be over in less than a minute..not the hours of terror and pain.
It was so strange the things that could bring you comfort, she thought as she fingered the matchbook. For so many years she’d dreamed of finding comfort in his arms…..and she had to admit, that last dream had been spectacular. But sometimes you had to live in the REAL world where the choices were not nearly as pleasant. But this choice could wait…unless the walls closed in too much…unless the terror overcame her. It could wait until the second bottle started to fail…but not much longer than that.
‘I won’t die an animal,’ she thought, remembering the arrogance of her captor. ‘I won’t give him that victory over me…’
Incubus, Succubus, & Demon AU/Mature M/L 2/8/07 complete
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Rowedog, ISLANDGIRL5, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, FSU/MSW-94, Hunter, Island Breeze, Forum Moderators
1:00 PM The Law Office of Philip Evans, 242 West Second Street, Roswell New Mexico
“Daddy..” Philip Evans could hear the fear in his daughter’s voice even over the phone, “… some men were here from the Sheriff’s office. They had a warrant, Daddy, …they took our computer…some…some research Max and I had done. They arrested him, Daddy….they arrested Max.”
“Isabel. Where is your mother?”
“She went to Clovis this morning, Daddy…with Mrs. Middlestone. Remember, they’ve had that planned for two weeks. What can I do, Daddy…about Max? They took him, Daddy…I need to do something…”
“OK honey, listen to me. I don’t want you to do anything. I want you to sit right there. I’ll have my secretary cancel out my afternoon appointments. I’ll be right there, then we’ll get this straightened out. But I don’t want you to do ANYTHING, Isabel. Just sit there and wait. I’ll be home in ten minutes. Promise me, honey, promise me you’ll just sit there and wait. We don’t need to make this situation any worse.”
“OK Daddy, but hurry….”
“I will, princess…..”
“Daddy..” Philip Evans could hear the fear in his daughter’s voice even over the phone, “… some men were here from the Sheriff’s office. They had a warrant, Daddy, …they took our computer…some…some research Max and I had done. They arrested him, Daddy….they arrested Max.”
“Isabel. Where is your mother?”
“She went to Clovis this morning, Daddy…with Mrs. Middlestone. Remember, they’ve had that planned for two weeks. What can I do, Daddy…about Max? They took him, Daddy…I need to do something…”
“OK honey, listen to me. I don’t want you to do anything. I want you to sit right there. I’ll have my secretary cancel out my afternoon appointments. I’ll be right there, then we’ll get this straightened out. But I don’t want you to do ANYTHING, Isabel. Just sit there and wait. I’ll be home in ten minutes. Promise me, honey, promise me you’ll just sit there and wait. We don’t need to make this situation any worse.”
“OK Daddy, but hurry….”
“I will, princess…..”
1:10 PM Interrogation Room Chaves County Sheriff’s Office, Roswell New Mexico.
Any observer could have told that both Sandra Fowler and Bob Humboldt were uncomfortable with where this was going, even without actually hearing the conversation.
“You are really going out on a limb here, Jim,” said the Lieutenant, “..and I’m not sure either Sandy or I want to be out here with you…”
“This is my call, Bob, and I’ll take responsibility for it.”
“Jim,” said Sandra Fowler, “I’m not a lawyer…but even I know that the kid gets a call to his parent and one to his lawyer. Even if he tells you something…you can’t take it to court….a judge would just throw it out.”
“I understand all that…I really do. But there’s a little girl buried out there somewhere….a nice friendly lovely little girl…someone my own son used to date. And something about this boy just isn’t right. He knows way more than he should..and you saw the research he did…he was studying this. I think he is a copycat. I think he did do this. And if I can get information out of him in tome by leaning on him a little….even if the judge throws it out…even if he gets off this time…if it saves Liz Parker’s life, well it’s worth it.”
“Even if it does, doing this could still cost you your career, Jim. You do realize that?” asked Humboldt.
“I guess I can live with that if it happens…”
“Jim," said Sandra, “Maybe you are a little too personally involved in this if she was dating your son. Maybe you ought to step back, assign someone else to the case.”
“I can’t do that, doctor. There’s something about this kid that just isn’t right. I need to get to the bottom of it. Please, I’m asking you two to help. I’ve already said it’s my call, I’ll take the fall if it all goes to hell…but, please…help me on this, OK?”
Fowler and Humboldt looked at each other with questioning glances but seemed to come to a decision. “OK Sheriff, we’ll help. But if you go too far over the line…we’ll stop you ourselves.”
“Fair enough. Officer Lambright, would you bring the prisoner in please?”
1:30 PM The Evans Residence, Roswell New Mexico.
Isabel was still shaking with fear for Max as she finished telling him the story.
She was surprised at how good her father was at this, how his mind cut right through to the issues. He’d always been just ‘Daddy’ before. She’d known of course, that he was a lawyer, but had never really thought of that …of what it really meant.
In seventh grade social studies they’d taken a field trip to the court house to see a trial. It hadn’t been very important, just a property right of way dispute. But the other kids had told her how impressed they were with him. She actually hadn’t paid much attention to the trial, too busy keeping herself between Max and Liz, probably. But she was impressed today.
His eyebrows had lifted a little when she’d told him the story about having a dream about Liz being buried alive, when she'd explained that that was what had started all the research. He’d let her talk, let her finish the whole story, right up to where they’d put Max injto the back of the police car. He’d asked if they’d read Max his rights, and he sort of smiled when she said no. But she could tell he would come back with a question about the dream…and he did. But it wasn’t quite the question she had expected.
“OK, Izzy, this is important and I need to know. Did you just HAVE a dream about Liz being buried, or did you go in to Liz’s dream and see that she was buried?”
“Daddy? What do you mean….go in to her dream…???”
His eyes held her for a moment, then looked up as if looking back in time.
“I don’t know if you ever really knew how much it meant when we found you and Max, Izzy. Your Mom and I both wanted kids, ..when we found out we couldn’t have any….we tried to just live with it, pretend it wasn’t that important to us….then we found you two…two naked little kids walking along the road in the middle of nowhere.
I remember the look in your mother’s eyes as she put her jacket around the two of you, sitting with you in the back of the car on the way to the Sheriff’s office. We never even discussed it, I just went and started filling out the paperwork to adopt you two even before you two were legally declared abandoned.
They let us foster you until the waiting period was up. You bonded with us almost immediately. Max, well..you know Max. I honestly don’t think Max decided he was really going to stick around with us until he came home from school that first day in third grade.
But in the early days, Isabel, you were scared of most everything. It was like the whole world was new to you, you were frightened of cats …even old Rags, your mom’s cat, remember him? You were frightened of dogs, you were frightened of motorcycles, you were frightened of almost everything. It was like the whole world was new to you, Izzy. And you were frightened of thunder and lightning…most of all, you were frightened of that.
You two didn’t speak English back then, didn’t speak any language apparently, we got people to try all the languages we could. So we tried to make you understand with pictures. We had pictures taken, pictures taken of all of us, and put them in frames on your dressers, telling you that this was your family now. Your mom got a little toy house for your brother then too, trying to tell him that he was now home. The child psychologist said we should have you two sleep apart..in your own rooms….help you to adjust to being part of a family, rather than just the two of you.
Sometime during the night there was a thunderstorm. I was sound asleep, I guess you were too. All at once I had a little girl in my dream with me….someone who wanted company…someone who wanted to be protected from the thunder and lightning.
It was strange, you hadn’t ever said a word, but I could hear your voice in my dreams…talk to you for the first time. I told you that kitties were wonderful, so were dogs, that motorcycles wouldn’t hurt you and that your Daddy would never, ever let thunder and lightning hurt you.
You told me about caves and pods and of being so lonesome..just the two of you. I told you that you never had to be lonesome again, that you had a family. You faded out of my dream, then, and I woke up. I thought it was all just a dream, but I went in to check on you anyway. The thunder and lightning was still going on, but you were sound asleep, smiling, looking like an angel, holding my picture to your chest.”
Isabel watched the tears roll down her father’s eyes, they rolled down hers as well, as he continued.
“The next day, I went in to your room and you were playing with Rags. And suddenly dogs and motorcycles didn’t bother you anymore and you seemed to try hard to make Max behave like part of the family.
You came into my dreams twice more, both times before you learned how to talk. But it never happened after that…not after you learned English. I still miss it to this day….it’s not like my daughter isn’t welcome in my dreams, Isabel. And you will always be my daughter, no matter where you come from...your mother and I will always love you and Max.”
“Oh Daddy, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you.., that I didn’t trust Mom..”
He pulled her into a gentle hug. “Nothing to be sorry about, Princess. We’re family…we’ll always be family. Which reminds me, we better go get your brother out of jail…then we can talk about how we might be able to figure out how to help that young girl.”
“Oh Daddy, she is so scared. I wish so much that it would have been me, ….not her, that the man abducted. Max will die if Liz does, I’m sure of that now.”
“We need to find him and stop him, Isabel. I don’t want him loose abducting any defenseless young girls, not Liz Parker, and certainly not my Princess.”
“Defenseless, Daddy? Maybe there are just a few more things you need to know about Max and me..….”
Any observer could have told that both Sandra Fowler and Bob Humboldt were uncomfortable with where this was going, even without actually hearing the conversation.
“You are really going out on a limb here, Jim,” said the Lieutenant, “..and I’m not sure either Sandy or I want to be out here with you…”
“This is my call, Bob, and I’ll take responsibility for it.”
“Jim,” said Sandra Fowler, “I’m not a lawyer…but even I know that the kid gets a call to his parent and one to his lawyer. Even if he tells you something…you can’t take it to court….a judge would just throw it out.”
“I understand all that…I really do. But there’s a little girl buried out there somewhere….a nice friendly lovely little girl…someone my own son used to date. And something about this boy just isn’t right. He knows way more than he should..and you saw the research he did…he was studying this. I think he is a copycat. I think he did do this. And if I can get information out of him in tome by leaning on him a little….even if the judge throws it out…even if he gets off this time…if it saves Liz Parker’s life, well it’s worth it.”
“Even if it does, doing this could still cost you your career, Jim. You do realize that?” asked Humboldt.
“I guess I can live with that if it happens…”
“Jim," said Sandra, “Maybe you are a little too personally involved in this if she was dating your son. Maybe you ought to step back, assign someone else to the case.”
“I can’t do that, doctor. There’s something about this kid that just isn’t right. I need to get to the bottom of it. Please, I’m asking you two to help. I’ve already said it’s my call, I’ll take the fall if it all goes to hell…but, please…help me on this, OK?”
Fowler and Humboldt looked at each other with questioning glances but seemed to come to a decision. “OK Sheriff, we’ll help. But if you go too far over the line…we’ll stop you ourselves.”
“Fair enough. Officer Lambright, would you bring the prisoner in please?”
1:30 PM The Evans Residence, Roswell New Mexico.
Isabel was still shaking with fear for Max as she finished telling him the story.
She was surprised at how good her father was at this, how his mind cut right through to the issues. He’d always been just ‘Daddy’ before. She’d known of course, that he was a lawyer, but had never really thought of that …of what it really meant.
In seventh grade social studies they’d taken a field trip to the court house to see a trial. It hadn’t been very important, just a property right of way dispute. But the other kids had told her how impressed they were with him. She actually hadn’t paid much attention to the trial, too busy keeping herself between Max and Liz, probably. But she was impressed today.
His eyebrows had lifted a little when she’d told him the story about having a dream about Liz being buried alive, when she'd explained that that was what had started all the research. He’d let her talk, let her finish the whole story, right up to where they’d put Max injto the back of the police car. He’d asked if they’d read Max his rights, and he sort of smiled when she said no. But she could tell he would come back with a question about the dream…and he did. But it wasn’t quite the question she had expected.
“OK, Izzy, this is important and I need to know. Did you just HAVE a dream about Liz being buried, or did you go in to Liz’s dream and see that she was buried?”
“Daddy? What do you mean….go in to her dream…???”
His eyes held her for a moment, then looked up as if looking back in time.
“I don’t know if you ever really knew how much it meant when we found you and Max, Izzy. Your Mom and I both wanted kids, ..when we found out we couldn’t have any….we tried to just live with it, pretend it wasn’t that important to us….then we found you two…two naked little kids walking along the road in the middle of nowhere.
I remember the look in your mother’s eyes as she put her jacket around the two of you, sitting with you in the back of the car on the way to the Sheriff’s office. We never even discussed it, I just went and started filling out the paperwork to adopt you two even before you two were legally declared abandoned.
They let us foster you until the waiting period was up. You bonded with us almost immediately. Max, well..you know Max. I honestly don’t think Max decided he was really going to stick around with us until he came home from school that first day in third grade.
But in the early days, Isabel, you were scared of most everything. It was like the whole world was new to you, you were frightened of cats …even old Rags, your mom’s cat, remember him? You were frightened of dogs, you were frightened of motorcycles, you were frightened of almost everything. It was like the whole world was new to you, Izzy. And you were frightened of thunder and lightning…most of all, you were frightened of that.
You two didn’t speak English back then, didn’t speak any language apparently, we got people to try all the languages we could. So we tried to make you understand with pictures. We had pictures taken, pictures taken of all of us, and put them in frames on your dressers, telling you that this was your family now. Your mom got a little toy house for your brother then too, trying to tell him that he was now home. The child psychologist said we should have you two sleep apart..in your own rooms….help you to adjust to being part of a family, rather than just the two of you.
Sometime during the night there was a thunderstorm. I was sound asleep, I guess you were too. All at once I had a little girl in my dream with me….someone who wanted company…someone who wanted to be protected from the thunder and lightning.
It was strange, you hadn’t ever said a word, but I could hear your voice in my dreams…talk to you for the first time. I told you that kitties were wonderful, so were dogs, that motorcycles wouldn’t hurt you and that your Daddy would never, ever let thunder and lightning hurt you.
You told me about caves and pods and of being so lonesome..just the two of you. I told you that you never had to be lonesome again, that you had a family. You faded out of my dream, then, and I woke up. I thought it was all just a dream, but I went in to check on you anyway. The thunder and lightning was still going on, but you were sound asleep, smiling, looking like an angel, holding my picture to your chest.”
Isabel watched the tears roll down her father’s eyes, they rolled down hers as well, as he continued.
“The next day, I went in to your room and you were playing with Rags. And suddenly dogs and motorcycles didn’t bother you anymore and you seemed to try hard to make Max behave like part of the family.
You came into my dreams twice more, both times before you learned how to talk. But it never happened after that…not after you learned English. I still miss it to this day….it’s not like my daughter isn’t welcome in my dreams, Isabel. And you will always be my daughter, no matter where you come from...your mother and I will always love you and Max.”
“Oh Daddy, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you.., that I didn’t trust Mom..”
He pulled her into a gentle hug. “Nothing to be sorry about, Princess. We’re family…we’ll always be family. Which reminds me, we better go get your brother out of jail…then we can talk about how we might be able to figure out how to help that young girl.”
“Oh Daddy, she is so scared. I wish so much that it would have been me, ….not her, that the man abducted. Max will die if Liz does, I’m sure of that now.”
“We need to find him and stop him, Isabel. I don’t want him loose abducting any defenseless young girls, not Liz Parker, and certainly not my Princess.”
“Defenseless, Daddy? Maybe there are just a few more things you need to know about Max and me..….”
Last edited by greywolf on Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Twenty minutes earlier, Interrogation Room Chaves County Sheriff’s Office, Roswell New Mexico.
Max looked at the three people sitting across the table from him. He only knew the one, he’d seen Jim Valenti show up at school functions, especially football games. Kyle was the back-up quarterback this year. The Sheriff seemed to be the only one that looked actually angry with him, the other two seemed to be looking at him with disinterested professionalism, with occasionally a sidewise wary glance at the Sheriff. The woman even at times looked as uncomfortable as Max Evans felt.
The woman was small…probably smaller than Liz even he thought, his heart giving a twinge as his brain reminded him of her circumstances. And as quick as that his attitude changed. He’d spent a decade fearing someday being arrested, looking across the table at people who suspected him..suspected who he was…what he was. But that seemed so trivial really, this seemed so trivial…compared to what Liz was going through. Mostly, it just pissed him off, partly because it was taking up his time, and he had so little time to find Liz, and so much area to cover,..and no good idea how to do it. But also because these people’s job was to find Liz, and they weren’t doing it. The three of them sat there, wasting their time, wasting his time, while Liz’s air was slowly running out.
He thought about just getting up and walking out. The Sheriff was armed, and so was the large man sitting next to the woman. But it wouldn’t matter, Max knew, if he really wanted to leave. But what would be the point? They still wouldn’t be looking for Liz, even if they survived, and then the whole police force would be looking for him…when they needed to be finding Liz. No, he decided, the better course of action was to be patient…for awhile. But he wasn’t going to be patient very long. Liz didn’t have very long left.
“Max, my name is Sandra,” the woman said. “I’m a psychologist. I’d like to talk to you about your feelings toward Liz Parker.”
“My feelings toward Liz Parker? What do you mean, my feelings toward Liz? Liz is a friend…she’s my lab partner at school. What has any of this to do with feelings? She’s stuck in some hole in the ground somewhere, and you’re wasting time here. You're wasting time with me. Why aren’t you out there trying to find her?”
“and how did you know she was stuck in a hole somewhere, Mr. Evans?” asked the Sheriff.
“What do you mean, Sheriff. It’s all over town..”
“But you knew it first, Max. Before we even opened the letter.”
“I told you about that, Sheriff. Just a dream I had last night…a nightmare. You asked me yesterday when you questioned me about that night….I dreamed about it ….that was my nightmare. That’s why I talked to your Sergeant this morning…. We’ve already been through all this.”
“And what about this, Max?” the Sheriff asked, putting the papers on the table. "Forensics says this is the same kind of copy paper that was used on the note…the same type of envelope…printed by the same type of printer.”
“This is crazy, Sheriff. There must be millions of those printers…we get all that stationery from Staples, my Dad buys it for his office. That stuff is just research that we did…Isabel and I did, after I had the dream.”
“Are you sure you want to bring your sister in to this, son? To get her to lie for you? Even as an accessory after the fact….well, it could go hard on her. Why don’t you just tell us what you did with Liz Parker?”
Max knew it was stupid, even as he felt the power gather within him. Jim Valenti wasn’t the enemy…he hadn’t done this to Liz. But he was making himself the enemy now….his suspicions….his…his just being here, rather than doing his job and looking for Liz….he struggled to restrain himself…struggled to dissolve the power that was gathering.
Doctor Sandra Fowler had been a profiler for over ten years and when she’d seen this young man brought in, she’d felt intuitively that the Sheriff was making a mistake. And when she’d heard him talk about Liz Parker, the caring in his voice…no, more than caring…the love for her in his voice, it had seemed so real. And she didn’t like what the Sheriff was doing, even though she understood how he felt. The boy seemed so vulnerable…so defenseless.
But as the Sheriff had continued to push him…to bait him about his sister being considered an accomplice…to accuse him of hurting the girl he seemed to care about…the boy changed.
‘He’s struggling,’ she told herself. ‘..struggling in pain and frustration..’ She looked sidewise at Jim Valenti. ‘Damn,’ she thought. ‘Those two are so much alike…the Sheriff and that boy.’
She looked at his face and saw something in the eyes of Max Evans, something she was pretty sure both the Sheriff and Lieutenant Humboldt were missing. Max Evans had changed…he was struggling for control…struggling internally to not take out his frustration..his anger…his desperation on Jim Valenti.
Sandra Fowler’s skin crawled as she looked into his eyes, she could almost read his mind. He was only just managing to hold himself back…..his mind just barely restraining his anger …his frustration of being here…while somewhere the girl was in misery. He loved that girl..and Valenti was so close to crossing a line with Max Evans…so close to bringing him to a state where he would become violent….and Max didn’t fear Valenti…didn’t fear Humboldt….certainly didn’t fear her.
Somehow Sandra knew that if this kept up, Max would lose that struggle…that he’d attack the Sheriff. Perhaps the Sheriff knew that too, perhaps he was goading the boy to violence, hoping he could then justify using force against him…hoping he would be afraid…hoping he would crack.
If so, the Sheriff was erring badly. Max Evans wasn’t going to crack….Max Evans wasn’t going to be afraid, and that surprised her. He’d been afraid when they’d brought him in the room, he’d looked at first like this was his worst nightmare come true. But that had all changed when the talk had become about Liz Parker.
‘He’s not afraid of the Sheriff,’ she thought, ‘.. not afraid of any of us. Not even afraid of dying. His only fear is that Liz Parker will die....no, not even that...that she'll die all alone...’
Sandra Fowler saw him make a fist with his right hand, then cover it with his left. It wasn’t the usual body language before violence. Usually both hands made fists…it seemed like he was struggling to stop his right hand from opening as he fought to control his rage.
Sandra really didn’t understand how, but she knew. She knew she had to defuse this. If she didn’t…something terrible was about to happen....maybe someone was going to die.
“Sheriff, maybe I could talk to Mr. Evans a little bit…just the two of us…get to know him a little better maybe. Could you give us ten minutes or so? Officer Lambright can stay….you two go get lunch or something.”
Jim knew he had to calm down. He was almost ready to take a punch at the kid. Sandy was right, dammit. He was about two sentences from doing something violent to the kid…then he’d be off the case.
It wouldn’t help Liz Parker if he were suspended while Max sat there like some statue of Buddha. Sandy was the profiler, maybe she could get something out of him by being the good cop. He wasn't having much luck being the bad one.
“OK, Sandy. Bob, let’s go get a sandwich or something.”
Max looked at the three people sitting across the table from him. He only knew the one, he’d seen Jim Valenti show up at school functions, especially football games. Kyle was the back-up quarterback this year. The Sheriff seemed to be the only one that looked actually angry with him, the other two seemed to be looking at him with disinterested professionalism, with occasionally a sidewise wary glance at the Sheriff. The woman even at times looked as uncomfortable as Max Evans felt.
The woman was small…probably smaller than Liz even he thought, his heart giving a twinge as his brain reminded him of her circumstances. And as quick as that his attitude changed. He’d spent a decade fearing someday being arrested, looking across the table at people who suspected him..suspected who he was…what he was. But that seemed so trivial really, this seemed so trivial…compared to what Liz was going through. Mostly, it just pissed him off, partly because it was taking up his time, and he had so little time to find Liz, and so much area to cover,..and no good idea how to do it. But also because these people’s job was to find Liz, and they weren’t doing it. The three of them sat there, wasting their time, wasting his time, while Liz’s air was slowly running out.
He thought about just getting up and walking out. The Sheriff was armed, and so was the large man sitting next to the woman. But it wouldn’t matter, Max knew, if he really wanted to leave. But what would be the point? They still wouldn’t be looking for Liz, even if they survived, and then the whole police force would be looking for him…when they needed to be finding Liz. No, he decided, the better course of action was to be patient…for awhile. But he wasn’t going to be patient very long. Liz didn’t have very long left.
“Max, my name is Sandra,” the woman said. “I’m a psychologist. I’d like to talk to you about your feelings toward Liz Parker.”
“My feelings toward Liz Parker? What do you mean, my feelings toward Liz? Liz is a friend…she’s my lab partner at school. What has any of this to do with feelings? She’s stuck in some hole in the ground somewhere, and you’re wasting time here. You're wasting time with me. Why aren’t you out there trying to find her?”
“and how did you know she was stuck in a hole somewhere, Mr. Evans?” asked the Sheriff.
“What do you mean, Sheriff. It’s all over town..”
“But you knew it first, Max. Before we even opened the letter.”
“I told you about that, Sheriff. Just a dream I had last night…a nightmare. You asked me yesterday when you questioned me about that night….I dreamed about it ….that was my nightmare. That’s why I talked to your Sergeant this morning…. We’ve already been through all this.”
“And what about this, Max?” the Sheriff asked, putting the papers on the table. "Forensics says this is the same kind of copy paper that was used on the note…the same type of envelope…printed by the same type of printer.”
“This is crazy, Sheriff. There must be millions of those printers…we get all that stationery from Staples, my Dad buys it for his office. That stuff is just research that we did…Isabel and I did, after I had the dream.”
“Are you sure you want to bring your sister in to this, son? To get her to lie for you? Even as an accessory after the fact….well, it could go hard on her. Why don’t you just tell us what you did with Liz Parker?”
Max knew it was stupid, even as he felt the power gather within him. Jim Valenti wasn’t the enemy…he hadn’t done this to Liz. But he was making himself the enemy now….his suspicions….his…his just being here, rather than doing his job and looking for Liz….he struggled to restrain himself…struggled to dissolve the power that was gathering.
Doctor Sandra Fowler had been a profiler for over ten years and when she’d seen this young man brought in, she’d felt intuitively that the Sheriff was making a mistake. And when she’d heard him talk about Liz Parker, the caring in his voice…no, more than caring…the love for her in his voice, it had seemed so real. And she didn’t like what the Sheriff was doing, even though she understood how he felt. The boy seemed so vulnerable…so defenseless.
But as the Sheriff had continued to push him…to bait him about his sister being considered an accomplice…to accuse him of hurting the girl he seemed to care about…the boy changed.
‘He’s struggling,’ she told herself. ‘..struggling in pain and frustration..’ She looked sidewise at Jim Valenti. ‘Damn,’ she thought. ‘Those two are so much alike…the Sheriff and that boy.’
She looked at his face and saw something in the eyes of Max Evans, something she was pretty sure both the Sheriff and Lieutenant Humboldt were missing. Max Evans had changed…he was struggling for control…struggling internally to not take out his frustration..his anger…his desperation on Jim Valenti.
Sandra Fowler’s skin crawled as she looked into his eyes, she could almost read his mind. He was only just managing to hold himself back…..his mind just barely restraining his anger …his frustration of being here…while somewhere the girl was in misery. He loved that girl..and Valenti was so close to crossing a line with Max Evans…so close to bringing him to a state where he would become violent….and Max didn’t fear Valenti…didn’t fear Humboldt….certainly didn’t fear her.
Somehow Sandra knew that if this kept up, Max would lose that struggle…that he’d attack the Sheriff. Perhaps the Sheriff knew that too, perhaps he was goading the boy to violence, hoping he could then justify using force against him…hoping he would be afraid…hoping he would crack.
If so, the Sheriff was erring badly. Max Evans wasn’t going to crack….Max Evans wasn’t going to be afraid, and that surprised her. He’d been afraid when they’d brought him in the room, he’d looked at first like this was his worst nightmare come true. But that had all changed when the talk had become about Liz Parker.
‘He’s not afraid of the Sheriff,’ she thought, ‘.. not afraid of any of us. Not even afraid of dying. His only fear is that Liz Parker will die....no, not even that...that she'll die all alone...’
Sandra Fowler saw him make a fist with his right hand, then cover it with his left. It wasn’t the usual body language before violence. Usually both hands made fists…it seemed like he was struggling to stop his right hand from opening as he fought to control his rage.
Sandra really didn’t understand how, but she knew. She knew she had to defuse this. If she didn’t…something terrible was about to happen....maybe someone was going to die.
“Sheriff, maybe I could talk to Mr. Evans a little bit…just the two of us…get to know him a little better maybe. Could you give us ten minutes or so? Officer Lambright can stay….you two go get lunch or something.”
Jim knew he had to calm down. He was almost ready to take a punch at the kid. Sandy was right, dammit. He was about two sentences from doing something violent to the kid…then he’d be off the case.
It wouldn’t help Liz Parker if he were suspended while Max sat there like some statue of Buddha. Sandy was the profiler, maybe she could get something out of him by being the good cop. He wasn't having much luck being the bad one.
“OK, Sandy. Bob, let’s go get a sandwich or something.”
It appeared to Sandy that the boy calmed down a little bit once Valenti left the room, but not much. She needed to get to know him better…to get in to his mind. And a direct confrontation sure didn’t look like the right way to do that now.
“I can tell you are upset Max…, with me, with Lieutenant Humboldt,.. with Sheriff Valenti. We are only doing our jobs, Max.”
“Jobs? This isn’t your job. Your job is to find Liz.”
“I know everything we do doesn’t make much sense some times, Max, but we are trying. We want Liz saved just as much as you do.”
“I doubt that,” said Max sullenly.
And suddenly so did Sandra. ‘He’s really in love with her. All those clippings…that’s what they are about. Maria DeLuca said she thought he was too shy… but what’s happened to the girl has pushed him right to the edge.’ “Were you really going to take on three armed officers Max? That was what it looked like…”
She watched as he looked nervously at Officer Lambright, shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t have hurt Officer Lambright…or you…and I would never hurt Liz.”
Although Officer Lambright smiled at the teenager, that didn’t reassure Sandra a bit. The unspoken meaning was clear. He would have taken on the Sheriff and the Lieutenant but with Officer Lambright in the room….that didn’t make sense. Did Max truly think he could somehow take out the two armed male officers, then take out the armed female officer too…but not hurt her? And him unarmed? Even Bruce Lee couldn’t do that. That almost sounded like megalomania….but at the same time, that really did sound like the idea of hurting a woman was just….alien to him.
“So you don’t approve of violence against women?”
“I don’t approve of violence against anyone..unless they’ve done something to deserve it.”
“and Liz, Max, do you think she deserved it?” Sandy’s heart skipped several beats when she saw the fire come into those big brown eyes, wondering if she hadn’t pushed him over the line herself with that question.
“Of course not. Liz is…Liz is …”
But when she saw the tears come, she knew that she’d pushed him over the edge alright, but not pushed him to violence. Max fought back sobs as he continued…
“Liz is kind and sweet and she’s so good to people…even me…of all people Liz least deserves for this to happen to her…”
‘Well this just sucked,’ thought Sandy, looking toward Officer Lambright who seemed about to forget the kid was under arrest and start hugging him. Of course, she felt the same way.
“Max, I’m so sorry…so sorry for Liz….so sorry for you. No one should have to go through this.”
He looked up at her, tears falling unashamedly. “You’re a doctor..a psychologist. Why? Why would anyone do this to anybody…why to Liz, of all people.”
“Max, I don’t know. Even after three years of studying this guy, I really don’t know. I know why some people do it. Some people do stuff like this for excitement…for the rush. That sounds crazy I know, maybe it is. But it happens…like firemen sometimes commit arson. The thrill of the fire is what got them in to it…and they need that thrill, even if they have to light the fire themselves. Sometimes the violence is targeted at someone…someone who has done something…made the perpetrator feel inferior some how. Other people, well…sometimes it’s because it just makes them feel important. Maybe they’ve had some disappointment in their life, didn’t get the promotion they wanted, the girl they wanted, the recognition they thought they deserved….doing something like this gives them a sense of power…makes them feel important. The first two cases were random…so is this one apparently. I doubt that Liz even knew her attacker. He was going to grab the first girl that went by that alley most likely. Liz was that person.”
“But the third case, what about that?”
“What third case, Max?”
”The one in Iowa.”
“A different MO altogether, Max. I thought when I first heard of it that it might be the same guy, but it wasn’t. That perpetrator…well, he burned her alive, Max. Lieutenant Humboldt went there himself right after the task force was formed, checked the records and physical evidence. That was almost certainly someone altogether different.
Trust me, Max. Bob and I have been working this case off and on for three years. If it were easy we’d have him by now. I now you are frustrated…I know the Sheriff’s frustrated..but we are all doing our best here.”
“What if ‘our best’ isn’t good enough, Doctor? What if ‘our best’ means that Liz dies a horrible death…all by herself?”
“All anyone can do is their best, Max.”
“If she dies, Doctor, I’m going to do my best…for the rest of my life if I have to..., to find that guy. And then he’ll wish that it had been him in that box…instead of Liz.”
In all her time as a profiler, Sandra had never had such a roller coaster of emotion. She went from wanting to mother the boy to …somehow…actually believing that he was capable of incredible violence. It was like there was a demon waiting inside him, and Max had him on a short leash, every minute.
And she was almost certain that if Liz Parker died, Max was indeed going to be capable of doing something …..something that would make being buried alive seem pretty benign by comparison.
His mind was like a chimera…like a changeling…he was really a nice kid but she felt that if he was pushed….there might be no end to the horror he would visit upon someone. She hoped he never found the guy who did this to Liz Parker…..no, that wasn’t quite right. She hoped that if Max Evans found someone he THOUGHT did this to Liz Parker…well, she hoped he got the right guy, because she’d hate for anyone innocent to run afoul of an enraged Max Evans.
But whatever Max might do in the future, Sandra was nearly convinced he was right now, they were wasting their time. Max Evans might well kill someone in revenge FOR Liz Parker, but she couldn't see him ever hurting the girl himself.
Still, she had a job to do. She'd talk with him until the Sheriff and Bob got back. As she looked back up she noticed officer Lambright had moved over next to him, and was patting him sympathetically on the forearm, her gun within his reach. Not very good police work usually, although she didn't think Max was really a threat to either of them. He didn't even notice the gun, she couldn't picture him ever using one. Certainly not if he found the perpetrator first. It would be too quick....and too painless.
“I can tell you are upset Max…, with me, with Lieutenant Humboldt,.. with Sheriff Valenti. We are only doing our jobs, Max.”
“Jobs? This isn’t your job. Your job is to find Liz.”
“I know everything we do doesn’t make much sense some times, Max, but we are trying. We want Liz saved just as much as you do.”
“I doubt that,” said Max sullenly.
And suddenly so did Sandra. ‘He’s really in love with her. All those clippings…that’s what they are about. Maria DeLuca said she thought he was too shy… but what’s happened to the girl has pushed him right to the edge.’ “Were you really going to take on three armed officers Max? That was what it looked like…”
She watched as he looked nervously at Officer Lambright, shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t have hurt Officer Lambright…or you…and I would never hurt Liz.”
Although Officer Lambright smiled at the teenager, that didn’t reassure Sandra a bit. The unspoken meaning was clear. He would have taken on the Sheriff and the Lieutenant but with Officer Lambright in the room….that didn’t make sense. Did Max truly think he could somehow take out the two armed male officers, then take out the armed female officer too…but not hurt her? And him unarmed? Even Bruce Lee couldn’t do that. That almost sounded like megalomania….but at the same time, that really did sound like the idea of hurting a woman was just….alien to him.
“So you don’t approve of violence against women?”
“I don’t approve of violence against anyone..unless they’ve done something to deserve it.”
“and Liz, Max, do you think she deserved it?” Sandy’s heart skipped several beats when she saw the fire come into those big brown eyes, wondering if she hadn’t pushed him over the line herself with that question.
“Of course not. Liz is…Liz is …”
But when she saw the tears come, she knew that she’d pushed him over the edge alright, but not pushed him to violence. Max fought back sobs as he continued…
“Liz is kind and sweet and she’s so good to people…even me…of all people Liz least deserves for this to happen to her…”
‘Well this just sucked,’ thought Sandy, looking toward Officer Lambright who seemed about to forget the kid was under arrest and start hugging him. Of course, she felt the same way.
“Max, I’m so sorry…so sorry for Liz….so sorry for you. No one should have to go through this.”
He looked up at her, tears falling unashamedly. “You’re a doctor..a psychologist. Why? Why would anyone do this to anybody…why to Liz, of all people.”
“Max, I don’t know. Even after three years of studying this guy, I really don’t know. I know why some people do it. Some people do stuff like this for excitement…for the rush. That sounds crazy I know, maybe it is. But it happens…like firemen sometimes commit arson. The thrill of the fire is what got them in to it…and they need that thrill, even if they have to light the fire themselves. Sometimes the violence is targeted at someone…someone who has done something…made the perpetrator feel inferior some how. Other people, well…sometimes it’s because it just makes them feel important. Maybe they’ve had some disappointment in their life, didn’t get the promotion they wanted, the girl they wanted, the recognition they thought they deserved….doing something like this gives them a sense of power…makes them feel important. The first two cases were random…so is this one apparently. I doubt that Liz even knew her attacker. He was going to grab the first girl that went by that alley most likely. Liz was that person.”
“But the third case, what about that?”
“What third case, Max?”
”The one in Iowa.”
“A different MO altogether, Max. I thought when I first heard of it that it might be the same guy, but it wasn’t. That perpetrator…well, he burned her alive, Max. Lieutenant Humboldt went there himself right after the task force was formed, checked the records and physical evidence. That was almost certainly someone altogether different.
Trust me, Max. Bob and I have been working this case off and on for three years. If it were easy we’d have him by now. I now you are frustrated…I know the Sheriff’s frustrated..but we are all doing our best here.”
“What if ‘our best’ isn’t good enough, Doctor? What if ‘our best’ means that Liz dies a horrible death…all by herself?”
“All anyone can do is their best, Max.”
“If she dies, Doctor, I’m going to do my best…for the rest of my life if I have to..., to find that guy. And then he’ll wish that it had been him in that box…instead of Liz.”
In all her time as a profiler, Sandra had never had such a roller coaster of emotion. She went from wanting to mother the boy to …somehow…actually believing that he was capable of incredible violence. It was like there was a demon waiting inside him, and Max had him on a short leash, every minute.
And she was almost certain that if Liz Parker died, Max was indeed going to be capable of doing something …..something that would make being buried alive seem pretty benign by comparison.
His mind was like a chimera…like a changeling…he was really a nice kid but she felt that if he was pushed….there might be no end to the horror he would visit upon someone. She hoped he never found the guy who did this to Liz Parker…..no, that wasn’t quite right. She hoped that if Max Evans found someone he THOUGHT did this to Liz Parker…well, she hoped he got the right guy, because she’d hate for anyone innocent to run afoul of an enraged Max Evans.
But whatever Max might do in the future, Sandra was nearly convinced he was right now, they were wasting their time. Max Evans might well kill someone in revenge FOR Liz Parker, but she couldn't see him ever hurting the girl himself.
Still, she had a job to do. She'd talk with him until the Sheriff and Bob got back. As she looked back up she noticed officer Lambright had moved over next to him, and was patting him sympathetically on the forearm, her gun within his reach. Not very good police work usually, although she didn't think Max was really a threat to either of them. He didn't even notice the gun, she couldn't picture him ever using one. Certainly not if he found the perpetrator first. It would be too quick....and too painless.
Sandra looked up when Sheriff Valenti and Lieutenant Humboldt appeared at the door.
“Excuse me a minute, Max,” she said as she got up. She looked at Valenti and nodded toward the door, while Humboldt went back to sit down, nodding to Officer Lambright to let her know that he would be staying with her.
They went back into Valenti’s office and she closed the door behind them. He looked at her expectantly, but she shook her head. “I don’t think it’s him, Sheriff Valenti. He’s a funny kid in some ways….a scary kid in some ways, but I don’t think he’d hurt Liz Parker. “
“Why not?”
“Well, he’s in love with her, for one thing…”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that unrequited love led to violence, doctor. In fact, that’s just what I think did happen.”
“I don’t think so, Jim. He’s a scary kid. I read over Maria DeLuca’s statement, talked to him, looked at his school records, called a few of his teachers. They all think that he probably liked the girl…and she liked him. Hell, she requested they be made lab partners again this year…same as last.”
“So she changed her mind…dumped him.”
“She never had him. He never had her. The word from his teachers is that he’s shy…painfully shy. Other than academics, and he is amazingly bright there, he’s never been a standout at anything. He defines unassertive….except…he’s not.”
“Now your speaking in riddles, doc. Is he or isn’t he?”
“I think he appeared to be….but I think that was just hiding something…hiding something that he’s afraid of.”
“And any guess what that something would be?"
"If I had to guess I’d say it was…Max Evans. Something about himself he was afraid of…or hated…or was embarrassed by...something he didn’t want the world to see.
But whatever it was, it’s right under the skin now…..somehow this happening to the girl…the girl he loves, whatever it is doesn’t matter to him anymore…at least not as much as saving her….or if he can’t do that, finding whoever did this.”
“Dr. Fowler, with all due respect, that sounds like a bunch of psychobabble. He knows way too much, and if he’s hiding something, and he probably is, it’s most likely where he buried Liz Parker. And what’s more, he’s our only real lead. If it’s not him, I don’t know where we go from here. So I say, we just keep pushing on Max Evans….hoping the kid will break…it’s all we can do for that girl.”
“He thinks you're wasting his time, wasting your time…time better spent looking elsewhere. I think he’s right. Chasing a dead end, Sheriff, isn’t a good idea, even if you have nothing else, because it keeps you from actively looking for anyone else. “
”Like you said, Sandra. He’s hiding something. I’m not letting this go without finding out what that something is.”
Sandra Fowler shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe how much you two are alike, Sheriff...you and that boy in there.
You both act like hammers. The difference is that you have the wrong nail, and Max hasn’t yet found his nail.
I know you are feeling pushed by that girl running out of air, Sheriff, but that boy is too. Just a word of advice. Don’t push him too hard, you came close to doing that in there, I could tell…tell just by the way he looked at you.”
“The way he looked at me? What way is that, doctor?”
”Didn’t you see it, Sheriff? I certainly did. He was starting to view you…as a nail.”
“Excuse me a minute, Max,” she said as she got up. She looked at Valenti and nodded toward the door, while Humboldt went back to sit down, nodding to Officer Lambright to let her know that he would be staying with her.
They went back into Valenti’s office and she closed the door behind them. He looked at her expectantly, but she shook her head. “I don’t think it’s him, Sheriff Valenti. He’s a funny kid in some ways….a scary kid in some ways, but I don’t think he’d hurt Liz Parker. “
“Why not?”
“Well, he’s in love with her, for one thing…”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that unrequited love led to violence, doctor. In fact, that’s just what I think did happen.”
“I don’t think so, Jim. He’s a scary kid. I read over Maria DeLuca’s statement, talked to him, looked at his school records, called a few of his teachers. They all think that he probably liked the girl…and she liked him. Hell, she requested they be made lab partners again this year…same as last.”
“So she changed her mind…dumped him.”
“She never had him. He never had her. The word from his teachers is that he’s shy…painfully shy. Other than academics, and he is amazingly bright there, he’s never been a standout at anything. He defines unassertive….except…he’s not.”
“Now your speaking in riddles, doc. Is he or isn’t he?”
“I think he appeared to be….but I think that was just hiding something…hiding something that he’s afraid of.”
“And any guess what that something would be?"
"If I had to guess I’d say it was…Max Evans. Something about himself he was afraid of…or hated…or was embarrassed by...something he didn’t want the world to see.
But whatever it was, it’s right under the skin now…..somehow this happening to the girl…the girl he loves, whatever it is doesn’t matter to him anymore…at least not as much as saving her….or if he can’t do that, finding whoever did this.”
“Dr. Fowler, with all due respect, that sounds like a bunch of psychobabble. He knows way too much, and if he’s hiding something, and he probably is, it’s most likely where he buried Liz Parker. And what’s more, he’s our only real lead. If it’s not him, I don’t know where we go from here. So I say, we just keep pushing on Max Evans….hoping the kid will break…it’s all we can do for that girl.”
“He thinks you're wasting his time, wasting your time…time better spent looking elsewhere. I think he’s right. Chasing a dead end, Sheriff, isn’t a good idea, even if you have nothing else, because it keeps you from actively looking for anyone else. “
”Like you said, Sandra. He’s hiding something. I’m not letting this go without finding out what that something is.”
Sandra Fowler shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe how much you two are alike, Sheriff...you and that boy in there.
You both act like hammers. The difference is that you have the wrong nail, and Max hasn’t yet found his nail.
I know you are feeling pushed by that girl running out of air, Sheriff, but that boy is too. Just a word of advice. Don’t push him too hard, you came close to doing that in there, I could tell…tell just by the way he looked at you.”
“The way he looked at me? What way is that, doctor?”
”Didn’t you see it, Sheriff? I certainly did. He was starting to view you…as a nail.”
Jim Valenti really didn’t like what he was hearing from Dr. Fowler but he also recognized that the woman had solved some difficult cases with her insight in the past. And maybe he was a little too much of a hammer at times, he thought, although he really couldn’t see how that applied to the Evans boy.
Max and Kyle were in the same grade and although his police duties kept him busy, he tried his best to go to Kyle’s school events. Mostly that was athletics and Kyle turned out for everything. Max, on the other hand, turned out for nothing,. Oh, Jim recalled the kid had won a science fair contest or something in the past…or maybe that was a second place next to Liz Parker, he couldn’t recall. But the boy seemed anything but an alpha male, and if there was a hammer in there somewhere….well, Jim Valenti sure didn’t see it. During the interview the kid had shown a little spunk….more than he would have suspected, but that could as easily be the brief show of bravado of a cornered rat as anything else.
But that’s why you work in teams, sometimes, to get insights from your team members. So when they went back to the interrogation room, he asked Lieutenant Humboldt to come back to his office for his perspective. Humboldt was a big guy, a former football player, an alpha male in his own right. Valenti wanted to know his opinion. When he heard it…it sort of surprised him.
“Well, I’ll agree with Sandra on one thing…I don’t think this kid is the guy,” said Humboldt. “…but it’s not so much that I think the boy wouldn’t do it as that he really couldn’t do it. I have to say, Jim, I see a couple of problems with Max Evans as a suspect.
First of all, he’s a sixteen year old kid, and that kind of limits him in resources. Could he knock the girl over the head and bury her in some shallow grave out in the desert, well, hell yeah. All that takes is a shovel and his Jeep. But if he’s trying to emulate the guy we’ve been after….well that takes some resources. You ever carry a sheet of ¾ or 1 inch plywood? Those suckers aren’t light, and if he’s duplicating what our guy did, he needed two of them.
Now your mommy and daddy might overlook you building a soap box derby racer in the garage….they’d have to be blind, but they might….but a box the size of a coffin? Where would he do that? Wood shop? I think the shop teacher might get a little suspicious if you told him it was a napkin holder or something…when it’s five feet long. Then how does he get that box somewhere? If he has the top on his Jeep, it won’t fit. If he doesn’t have the top on the Jeep… well even if the first police officer to see him didn’t pull him over for an unsafe load….everybody who did see it would notice it. You’d have had a dozen people reporting it by now. And look at the kids hands. See any blisters? There isn't anybody going to rent the kid a backhoe or anything...he's only sixteen. Burying someone like that...well it takes a hell of a hole. So logistically, Jim, I think you have a real problem with this kid as a suspect.
The second reason, Jim, is that this kid really just doesn’t seem that smart. Sandra and I have been tracking our guy for three years, but we’ve studied every aspect of how the guy works. The real guy is smooth, Jim, and that’s how the snatch of this girl went down.
OK, maybe the guy put a letter in the wrong slot…a post office he’d never been in…late at night, even a smart guy could make that error and even a not so smart guy like Evans probably WOULDN’T have made that error, because he would have known the post office, …but to pull off a near perfect snatch of the girl…to get her under the ground somewhere….to put it together with oxygen bottles and everything? I just don’t see it. This kid’s a lightweight. The guy we are looking for has some real cojones..big brass ones…I just don’t think this kid does.
I’ve got to throw in with the doc, I’m afraid, Jim. I just don’t see this kid being the guy…”
“I don’t know, Bob, call it intuition….call it a hunch…. Call it a wild guess, but I tell you, there’s something about this kid. He’s been hiding his feelings about this girl for a reason, and he’s hiding something else as well. Maybe the girl found out…maybe she’s already dead, maybe she is just in that shallow hole in the desert...all this just a ruse, maybe the letter is just a red herring to confuse us…. I don’t know what….but this kid, Bob…..he just knows too damn much for it all to be a coincidence.”
“Well Jim, you’ve heard from me and the doc, but it’s your investigation…your game to win or lose. You’re the quarterback on this one, I’ll play it whatever way you want it.”
“Thanks, Bob. For right now I think the thing to do is to go in and just keep pressuring the kid. Maybe he’ll just lose his cool and blow up and admit something. Right now we don’t seem to have any other leads.”
Max and Kyle were in the same grade and although his police duties kept him busy, he tried his best to go to Kyle’s school events. Mostly that was athletics and Kyle turned out for everything. Max, on the other hand, turned out for nothing,. Oh, Jim recalled the kid had won a science fair contest or something in the past…or maybe that was a second place next to Liz Parker, he couldn’t recall. But the boy seemed anything but an alpha male, and if there was a hammer in there somewhere….well, Jim Valenti sure didn’t see it. During the interview the kid had shown a little spunk….more than he would have suspected, but that could as easily be the brief show of bravado of a cornered rat as anything else.
But that’s why you work in teams, sometimes, to get insights from your team members. So when they went back to the interrogation room, he asked Lieutenant Humboldt to come back to his office for his perspective. Humboldt was a big guy, a former football player, an alpha male in his own right. Valenti wanted to know his opinion. When he heard it…it sort of surprised him.
“Well, I’ll agree with Sandra on one thing…I don’t think this kid is the guy,” said Humboldt. “…but it’s not so much that I think the boy wouldn’t do it as that he really couldn’t do it. I have to say, Jim, I see a couple of problems with Max Evans as a suspect.
First of all, he’s a sixteen year old kid, and that kind of limits him in resources. Could he knock the girl over the head and bury her in some shallow grave out in the desert, well, hell yeah. All that takes is a shovel and his Jeep. But if he’s trying to emulate the guy we’ve been after….well that takes some resources. You ever carry a sheet of ¾ or 1 inch plywood? Those suckers aren’t light, and if he’s duplicating what our guy did, he needed two of them.
Now your mommy and daddy might overlook you building a soap box derby racer in the garage….they’d have to be blind, but they might….but a box the size of a coffin? Where would he do that? Wood shop? I think the shop teacher might get a little suspicious if you told him it was a napkin holder or something…when it’s five feet long. Then how does he get that box somewhere? If he has the top on his Jeep, it won’t fit. If he doesn’t have the top on the Jeep… well even if the first police officer to see him didn’t pull him over for an unsafe load….everybody who did see it would notice it. You’d have had a dozen people reporting it by now. And look at the kids hands. See any blisters? There isn't anybody going to rent the kid a backhoe or anything...he's only sixteen. Burying someone like that...well it takes a hell of a hole. So logistically, Jim, I think you have a real problem with this kid as a suspect.
The second reason, Jim, is that this kid really just doesn’t seem that smart. Sandra and I have been tracking our guy for three years, but we’ve studied every aspect of how the guy works. The real guy is smooth, Jim, and that’s how the snatch of this girl went down.
OK, maybe the guy put a letter in the wrong slot…a post office he’d never been in…late at night, even a smart guy could make that error and even a not so smart guy like Evans probably WOULDN’T have made that error, because he would have known the post office, …but to pull off a near perfect snatch of the girl…to get her under the ground somewhere….to put it together with oxygen bottles and everything? I just don’t see it. This kid’s a lightweight. The guy we are looking for has some real cojones..big brass ones…I just don’t think this kid does.
I’ve got to throw in with the doc, I’m afraid, Jim. I just don’t see this kid being the guy…”
“I don’t know, Bob, call it intuition….call it a hunch…. Call it a wild guess, but I tell you, there’s something about this kid. He’s been hiding his feelings about this girl for a reason, and he’s hiding something else as well. Maybe the girl found out…maybe she’s already dead, maybe she is just in that shallow hole in the desert...all this just a ruse, maybe the letter is just a red herring to confuse us…. I don’t know what….but this kid, Bob…..he just knows too damn much for it all to be a coincidence.”
“Well Jim, you’ve heard from me and the doc, but it’s your investigation…your game to win or lose. You’re the quarterback on this one, I’ll play it whatever way you want it.”
“Thanks, Bob. For right now I think the thing to do is to go in and just keep pressuring the kid. Maybe he’ll just lose his cool and blow up and admit something. Right now we don’t seem to have any other leads.”
As he returned to the room, Jim Valenti realized that time was running out. Not just time for Liz Parker, but time to put pressure on Max Evans. He was, in fact, a little surprised that Philip Evans wasn’t pounding on the desk of the desk sergeant out front already, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be long.
Whatever else Max Evans was, he was still a 16 year old kid, and there were things that could be said that would get under the skin of most any kid. He needed badly for Max to lose his cool, either to say something that incriminated him, or even at this point to take a punch at a cop…..give him a charge that he could for sure hold the kid on. If he could goad him enough, Max Evans would make that mistake….he was sure of it. Right now that seemed the only real chance that Liz Parker had.
Doctor Fowler watched as Jim and Bob came back into the room, the Sheriff sitting down squarely across the narrow table from Max Evans. It as apparent to her from the Sheriff’s demeanor that Bob had not been able to make him see reason either, and that scared her. Max didn’t seem like an irrational kid, but his body language spoke of being pushed past desperation right now, a state in which any human being could become unpredictably violent. And though it didn’t seem like Max would be much of a threat against the larger Sheriff or certainly against Bob….Max Evans didn’t look the least intimidated by either of them….not the reaction she would have ever predicted from a boy known for his shyness.
“OK, Max. It’s time you came clean….time you told us where Liz is.”
“Sheriff, for the last time, I don’t know. If I did, I’d be with her, not sitting in some stupid interrogation room talking to you.”
‘Oh no,’ thought Sandra, ‘..this is about four sentences from getting out of hand.’ As it would turn out, her assessment was fairly accurate.
“Come on, Max. It’s obvious the girl excites you…she’s been exciting you for a long time. Do you really think she’ll still excite you if she’d moldering in a box somewhere? Will it still be the same when you jerk off looking at her picture…or have wet dreams about her, Max. Wouldn’t all that be more fun…if she was still alive?”
Sandra Fowler saw the boy first stiffen with shock…then somethg even more frightening happened. He suddenly became very calm. That worried her more than anything else.
Jim Valenti was waiting, wondering why the boy wasn’t doing something…wasn’t saying something..he was caught by surprise when the hand shot across the table, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him forward face to face with the boy across the narrow table.
Bob Humbolt had played college ball as a quarterback, and he’d seen defensive players come across a line rapidly, but he was caught flat-footed by the boys grabbing of the sheriff. He jumped onto the table to grab his left hand and just as quickly found himself swatted away by the boy, like a 250# linebacker would shove aside a small wide receiver trying to block him. As Humboldt slid off the table in surprise, he realized this fight would likely be over before he even picked himself up.
Sandra Fowler leaped toward the two, grabbing Max’s right hand as he shoved Bob away with his left. “No Max, you can’t do this..” but the teenager had a grip of steel. He continued to stare into Jim Valenti’s eyes…the determination obvious on his face. Desperately Sandra looked at Bob, who was still sliding off the table. She knew she had a rapport with the boy, but she knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Valenti had crossed a line with the kid and she didn’t have the ability to hold him back.
At one level of his mind, Max knew he was being stupid, but the fact of the matter was, he really didn’t care. His life had been pretty unhappy for the last three years, since he’d put distance between himself and Liz Parker…that alone was bad enough. But he’d also been accused of a heinous crime he had absolutely nothing to do with, the girl he had loved since third grade was dying a miserable death, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it, he’d been without sleep for all but 30 minutes of the last thirty-five hours, and even THAT thirty minutes he remembered far more for the guilt than the pleasure. And Jim Valenti had finally done it….finally pushed just the right button. Doctor Fowler had been right, sometimes you just needed to let the demon out….some time you just needed to be the hammer…and maybe he wasn’t the right nail…but Max in the end was a lot like Jim Valenti….Valenti was the only nail he had.
Max brought his left hand up toward the side of Jim Valenti’s neck, knowing he could augment it with his power to snap the man’s neck like a twig, long before the lieutenant could get up off the floor….the pleading of Doctor Fowler distracted him, but only briefly as his left hand reached for the man’s neck…..
“Max….STOP IT. Stop it right now,” said Philip Evans from the doorway.
The desk sergeant behind him was already apologetic, “Sheriff, I told him he couldn’t come back here….” But the words died in his mouth as he looked at the scene inside.
Max hesitated…his eyes fixing on those of Jim Valenti…..
“Max. I mean it. Let go of him…let go of him right now.”
Max let go, and Jim Valenti backed off a step, eyes wide and breathing deeply.
“Now you’ve done it, kid,” said Valenti, “…assaulting a police officer.”
Valenti found himself spun around by the collar and facing an angry Philip Evans.
“Don’t even go there, Sheriff. Questioning a minor…without reading him his rights? Without a phone call to his lawyer…or his parent? Taunting him by saying something like that? You want to try to defend those actions in court? Bring it on. And when we get done…when none of the three of you have a job, when you get out of jail after federal charges of conspiring to deny my son his civil rights, …when you think it can’t get any worse, I’ll sue the three of you in civil court for your actions, and get every dime you have. You even think about trying that, you will all be in such deep shit you’ll need a snorkel."
“Mr. Evans, we have a missing sixteen year old girl, and reason to believe….”
“You don’t have crap, Sheriff. I’ve got sworn affidavits from my daughter that she was there when the research was done on the computer, that it was done AFTER my kids had been informed of the disappearance, and I have Lexis-Nexis account records to back that up. You’ve got nothing on my son, and if you’d done a little police work, rather than go on some damn vendetta, you would have realized that. Let me tell you what is going to happen now, you are going to give me a private room so I can have a totally private discussion with my son and client, then you are going to leave him alone while I go see Judge Ortega and get a writ of habeus corpus. He’ll either sign that and you will release my son, or I go over his head, and you, the county, the state, and everyone else involved in this is going to wish they’ve never been born….you got that?”
Jim Valenti looked at Sandra Fowler, Bob Humbold, and Officer Lambright, realizing as he did so that not one of them was backing him. He glared at Max Evans, but swallowed several times and finally turned to Lambright and said, “Take the prisoner to a room where he can talk to his counsel. I’m going to go see the DA, then Judge Ortega."
Max glared back over his shoulder at the Sheriff, even as he was led from the room. His face burned with rage, hardly looking at his father as he silently contemplated his next meeting with Valenti.
“I’m going to kill that bastard…..” he muttered to himself.
Philip Evans reached over to his sons chin, and pulled it abruptly toward him, looking at him eye to eye.
“You’re going to do nothing of the sort, Max.”
“You don’t understand, Dad. What he said…”
“I don’t care what he said, Max. Listen to me, and listen to me good. You are not to talk to Valenti or anyone else while I am gone. If anyone demands that you talk, you will take the fifth amendment, do you understand?”
“I won’t do that, Dad. They’ll think I’m guilty.”
Philip Evans looked at his son. “Max, you will do what I say. Your mother and I could not have asked for a better son this past ten years, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to put up with you ruining your life by deciding to make some stupid teenage show of independence now. So I want you to understand the rules clearly. I will be back in less than an hour from the judges office. During that time you will take the fifth amendment, you will not mess with the lock on your cell, you will not manipulate one damn molecule, and if you even THINK about powerblasting, …by the time your mother and I get through with you, you’ll wish you’d never crawled out of the pod…you got that?”
Max had learned English just prior to going to the third grade, but until this second he had never really truly comprehended the word, ‘speechless’.
Not saying a word, he simply nodded his head in the affirmative. He’d figure out how to close his mouth sometime later…..
Whatever else Max Evans was, he was still a 16 year old kid, and there were things that could be said that would get under the skin of most any kid. He needed badly for Max to lose his cool, either to say something that incriminated him, or even at this point to take a punch at a cop…..give him a charge that he could for sure hold the kid on. If he could goad him enough, Max Evans would make that mistake….he was sure of it. Right now that seemed the only real chance that Liz Parker had.
Doctor Fowler watched as Jim and Bob came back into the room, the Sheriff sitting down squarely across the narrow table from Max Evans. It as apparent to her from the Sheriff’s demeanor that Bob had not been able to make him see reason either, and that scared her. Max didn’t seem like an irrational kid, but his body language spoke of being pushed past desperation right now, a state in which any human being could become unpredictably violent. And though it didn’t seem like Max would be much of a threat against the larger Sheriff or certainly against Bob….Max Evans didn’t look the least intimidated by either of them….not the reaction she would have ever predicted from a boy known for his shyness.
“OK, Max. It’s time you came clean….time you told us where Liz is.”
“Sheriff, for the last time, I don’t know. If I did, I’d be with her, not sitting in some stupid interrogation room talking to you.”
‘Oh no,’ thought Sandra, ‘..this is about four sentences from getting out of hand.’ As it would turn out, her assessment was fairly accurate.
“Come on, Max. It’s obvious the girl excites you…she’s been exciting you for a long time. Do you really think she’ll still excite you if she’d moldering in a box somewhere? Will it still be the same when you jerk off looking at her picture…or have wet dreams about her, Max. Wouldn’t all that be more fun…if she was still alive?”
Sandra Fowler saw the boy first stiffen with shock…then somethg even more frightening happened. He suddenly became very calm. That worried her more than anything else.
Jim Valenti was waiting, wondering why the boy wasn’t doing something…wasn’t saying something..he was caught by surprise when the hand shot across the table, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him forward face to face with the boy across the narrow table.
Bob Humbolt had played college ball as a quarterback, and he’d seen defensive players come across a line rapidly, but he was caught flat-footed by the boys grabbing of the sheriff. He jumped onto the table to grab his left hand and just as quickly found himself swatted away by the boy, like a 250# linebacker would shove aside a small wide receiver trying to block him. As Humboldt slid off the table in surprise, he realized this fight would likely be over before he even picked himself up.
Sandra Fowler leaped toward the two, grabbing Max’s right hand as he shoved Bob away with his left. “No Max, you can’t do this..” but the teenager had a grip of steel. He continued to stare into Jim Valenti’s eyes…the determination obvious on his face. Desperately Sandra looked at Bob, who was still sliding off the table. She knew she had a rapport with the boy, but she knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Valenti had crossed a line with the kid and she didn’t have the ability to hold him back.
At one level of his mind, Max knew he was being stupid, but the fact of the matter was, he really didn’t care. His life had been pretty unhappy for the last three years, since he’d put distance between himself and Liz Parker…that alone was bad enough. But he’d also been accused of a heinous crime he had absolutely nothing to do with, the girl he had loved since third grade was dying a miserable death, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it, he’d been without sleep for all but 30 minutes of the last thirty-five hours, and even THAT thirty minutes he remembered far more for the guilt than the pleasure. And Jim Valenti had finally done it….finally pushed just the right button. Doctor Fowler had been right, sometimes you just needed to let the demon out….some time you just needed to be the hammer…and maybe he wasn’t the right nail…but Max in the end was a lot like Jim Valenti….Valenti was the only nail he had.
Max brought his left hand up toward the side of Jim Valenti’s neck, knowing he could augment it with his power to snap the man’s neck like a twig, long before the lieutenant could get up off the floor….the pleading of Doctor Fowler distracted him, but only briefly as his left hand reached for the man’s neck…..
“Max….STOP IT. Stop it right now,” said Philip Evans from the doorway.
The desk sergeant behind him was already apologetic, “Sheriff, I told him he couldn’t come back here….” But the words died in his mouth as he looked at the scene inside.
Max hesitated…his eyes fixing on those of Jim Valenti…..
“Max. I mean it. Let go of him…let go of him right now.”
Max let go, and Jim Valenti backed off a step, eyes wide and breathing deeply.
“Now you’ve done it, kid,” said Valenti, “…assaulting a police officer.”
Valenti found himself spun around by the collar and facing an angry Philip Evans.
“Don’t even go there, Sheriff. Questioning a minor…without reading him his rights? Without a phone call to his lawyer…or his parent? Taunting him by saying something like that? You want to try to defend those actions in court? Bring it on. And when we get done…when none of the three of you have a job, when you get out of jail after federal charges of conspiring to deny my son his civil rights, …when you think it can’t get any worse, I’ll sue the three of you in civil court for your actions, and get every dime you have. You even think about trying that, you will all be in such deep shit you’ll need a snorkel."
“Mr. Evans, we have a missing sixteen year old girl, and reason to believe….”
“You don’t have crap, Sheriff. I’ve got sworn affidavits from my daughter that she was there when the research was done on the computer, that it was done AFTER my kids had been informed of the disappearance, and I have Lexis-Nexis account records to back that up. You’ve got nothing on my son, and if you’d done a little police work, rather than go on some damn vendetta, you would have realized that. Let me tell you what is going to happen now, you are going to give me a private room so I can have a totally private discussion with my son and client, then you are going to leave him alone while I go see Judge Ortega and get a writ of habeus corpus. He’ll either sign that and you will release my son, or I go over his head, and you, the county, the state, and everyone else involved in this is going to wish they’ve never been born….you got that?”
Jim Valenti looked at Sandra Fowler, Bob Humbold, and Officer Lambright, realizing as he did so that not one of them was backing him. He glared at Max Evans, but swallowed several times and finally turned to Lambright and said, “Take the prisoner to a room where he can talk to his counsel. I’m going to go see the DA, then Judge Ortega."
Max glared back over his shoulder at the Sheriff, even as he was led from the room. His face burned with rage, hardly looking at his father as he silently contemplated his next meeting with Valenti.
“I’m going to kill that bastard…..” he muttered to himself.
Philip Evans reached over to his sons chin, and pulled it abruptly toward him, looking at him eye to eye.
“You’re going to do nothing of the sort, Max.”
“You don’t understand, Dad. What he said…”
“I don’t care what he said, Max. Listen to me, and listen to me good. You are not to talk to Valenti or anyone else while I am gone. If anyone demands that you talk, you will take the fifth amendment, do you understand?”
“I won’t do that, Dad. They’ll think I’m guilty.”
Philip Evans looked at his son. “Max, you will do what I say. Your mother and I could not have asked for a better son this past ten years, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to put up with you ruining your life by deciding to make some stupid teenage show of independence now. So I want you to understand the rules clearly. I will be back in less than an hour from the judges office. During that time you will take the fifth amendment, you will not mess with the lock on your cell, you will not manipulate one damn molecule, and if you even THINK about powerblasting, …by the time your mother and I get through with you, you’ll wish you’d never crawled out of the pod…you got that?”
Max had learned English just prior to going to the third grade, but until this second he had never really truly comprehended the word, ‘speechless’.
Not saying a word, he simply nodded his head in the affirmative. He’d figure out how to close his mouth sometime later…..
3:15 Chaves County District Attorney’s Office.
“Hell no I’m not going to back you, Jim, and neither is Judge Ortega when Philip gets to him with the petition. What you had was barely enough to get the search warrant, I’m frankly surprised that Ortega gave it to you to begin with. If he has documentation that his kids did their research after the girl wound up missing….that’s it. Your case against the kid just disappeared. “
”But he knew she was buried underground, Arthur, before we even opened the letter..”
“So what do you want me to say, Jim? That the kid did all the research AFTER he abducted the girl…to make sure he’d done it right?? And that he brought his sister in too….for a second opinion?”
“But how else could he have known? Answer me how he could have possibly known that.”
“This is LAW, Jim. Not twenty questions. Maybe the kid is psychic….maybe his sister is psychic…..maybe they’re both aliens from the ’47 saucer and read the girl’s mind… Not only don’t I KNOW, but I don’t CARE, because it doesn’t MATTER. What part about this don’t you get? You and the other two…you’re going to be lucky if Philip doesn’t sue you for a bundle, or more likely the state and county, since he can get more. You can’t do this…it’s time to let the case about the Evans kid drop. Unless you get something solid on him…hell, you even get near him right now and it’s police harassment, and the county can just get its checkbook out.”
”Well, will you go with me to see the judge at least?”
“Oh sure, I’ll go with you…just to make sure you don’t open your mouth and get us all in trouble. Philip’s doesn’t do much criminal law, mostly corporate stuff. But he’s still a man to be reckoned with. I know him fairly well, maybe I can talk him into not suing, but Jim it has to end here. And at that you are getting off lucky.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you were fortunate enough to just screw with the Poppa Bear. Diane Evans would have eviscerated you if she’d caught you picking on her kids…”
3:30 Chaves Superior Court, Roswell New Mexico
“I guess the real question, Sheriff, is why you haven’t ALREADY released the Evans kid,” said Judge Ortega as he read the statement from Isabel Evans and reviewed the printed Lexis-Nexis receipts.
“If all you got with that search warrant is an indication that, the day after you questioned the boy about Liz Parker, he and his sister started doing research on abducted girls…well, I certainly don’t have any choice but to give Mr. Evans his writ.”
“Judge, I’ve been in law enforcement for 17 years. Something about this Evans kid just isn’t right. I think he's mixed up in this somehow.”
“I’m giving Philip Evans his writ then, Sheriff. If you want to STAY in law enforcement…well…I suggest you honor it.”
3:30 Interrogation room, Chaves County Sheriff’s Office, Roswell New Mexico
“Excuse me,” said Kyle Valenti, “…the desk sergeant told me my father might be in here.”
“He was,” said Sandra Fowler, “and he’s supposed to be coming back. But I think he’s at the Superior Court right now.”
“Thanks…I’ll go wait in his office I guess…..
Say….. aren’t you Bob Humboldt? Sooners number twelve?”
“That was a long time ago, kid. I haven’t played ball in years.”
“Man, you were my idol in PeeWee football. I wanted to be just like you. I’m quarterback on the West Roswell team…well, second string anyway..I’m just a sophomore…”
“Well, be careful with your knees, kid.”
“Yeah, I heard about that too, that sucked….you’d have been a star in the NFL if that hadn’t happened. That must have been tough.”
“Water under the bridge, kid. I’m doing OK in police work…just missed a big promotion to Captain, I’ll get it next time.”
“Is that the ring? The Fiesta Bowl MVP ring? Gee, can I see it?”
“Sure kid, take a good look.”
Kyle held the ring up to the light, reading the engraving. “Wow, Oklahoma won forty-two to seven, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, the special teams screwed up…let them run back a kickoff on us. Of course, when you kick off to the other team eight times…well…that can happen I guess.”
“Gee, how’d your ring finger get all scratched up, Lieutenant Humboldt?”
The big lieutenant put the large ring back on, smiling at Kyle. “Doing a little woodworking, kid. You ought to be careful wearing rings using power tools….bad things can happen. I saw a guy lose a finger that way once. This….hell, I was lucky.”
“Hell no I’m not going to back you, Jim, and neither is Judge Ortega when Philip gets to him with the petition. What you had was barely enough to get the search warrant, I’m frankly surprised that Ortega gave it to you to begin with. If he has documentation that his kids did their research after the girl wound up missing….that’s it. Your case against the kid just disappeared. “
”But he knew she was buried underground, Arthur, before we even opened the letter..”
“So what do you want me to say, Jim? That the kid did all the research AFTER he abducted the girl…to make sure he’d done it right?? And that he brought his sister in too….for a second opinion?”
“But how else could he have known? Answer me how he could have possibly known that.”
“This is LAW, Jim. Not twenty questions. Maybe the kid is psychic….maybe his sister is psychic…..maybe they’re both aliens from the ’47 saucer and read the girl’s mind… Not only don’t I KNOW, but I don’t CARE, because it doesn’t MATTER. What part about this don’t you get? You and the other two…you’re going to be lucky if Philip doesn’t sue you for a bundle, or more likely the state and county, since he can get more. You can’t do this…it’s time to let the case about the Evans kid drop. Unless you get something solid on him…hell, you even get near him right now and it’s police harassment, and the county can just get its checkbook out.”
”Well, will you go with me to see the judge at least?”
“Oh sure, I’ll go with you…just to make sure you don’t open your mouth and get us all in trouble. Philip’s doesn’t do much criminal law, mostly corporate stuff. But he’s still a man to be reckoned with. I know him fairly well, maybe I can talk him into not suing, but Jim it has to end here. And at that you are getting off lucky.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you were fortunate enough to just screw with the Poppa Bear. Diane Evans would have eviscerated you if she’d caught you picking on her kids…”
3:30 Chaves Superior Court, Roswell New Mexico
“I guess the real question, Sheriff, is why you haven’t ALREADY released the Evans kid,” said Judge Ortega as he read the statement from Isabel Evans and reviewed the printed Lexis-Nexis receipts.
“If all you got with that search warrant is an indication that, the day after you questioned the boy about Liz Parker, he and his sister started doing research on abducted girls…well, I certainly don’t have any choice but to give Mr. Evans his writ.”
“Judge, I’ve been in law enforcement for 17 years. Something about this Evans kid just isn’t right. I think he's mixed up in this somehow.”
“I’m giving Philip Evans his writ then, Sheriff. If you want to STAY in law enforcement…well…I suggest you honor it.”
3:30 Interrogation room, Chaves County Sheriff’s Office, Roswell New Mexico
“Excuse me,” said Kyle Valenti, “…the desk sergeant told me my father might be in here.”
“He was,” said Sandra Fowler, “and he’s supposed to be coming back. But I think he’s at the Superior Court right now.”
“Thanks…I’ll go wait in his office I guess…..
Say….. aren’t you Bob Humboldt? Sooners number twelve?”
“That was a long time ago, kid. I haven’t played ball in years.”
“Man, you were my idol in PeeWee football. I wanted to be just like you. I’m quarterback on the West Roswell team…well, second string anyway..I’m just a sophomore…”
“Well, be careful with your knees, kid.”
“Yeah, I heard about that too, that sucked….you’d have been a star in the NFL if that hadn’t happened. That must have been tough.”
“Water under the bridge, kid. I’m doing OK in police work…just missed a big promotion to Captain, I’ll get it next time.”
“Is that the ring? The Fiesta Bowl MVP ring? Gee, can I see it?”
“Sure kid, take a good look.”
Kyle held the ring up to the light, reading the engraving. “Wow, Oklahoma won forty-two to seven, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, the special teams screwed up…let them run back a kickoff on us. Of course, when you kick off to the other team eight times…well…that can happen I guess.”
“Gee, how’d your ring finger get all scratched up, Lieutenant Humboldt?”
The big lieutenant put the large ring back on, smiling at Kyle. “Doing a little woodworking, kid. You ought to be careful wearing rings using power tools….bad things can happen. I saw a guy lose a finger that way once. This….hell, I was lucky.”
3:40 PM 8 miles outside of Roswell on Silvermine Road
As she turned the handle on the valve, there was only the slightest puff, then silence. The first cylinder was exhausted. Liz had been waiting for that…uncertain about how she would feel. She found her feelings now a bittersweet mixture. While she found herself no less terrified…still..an end was now in sight. One way or another…she would not suffer any longer than the end of that oxygen bottle. She would not let herself know the terror of the carbon dioxide building up…panting for each breath as her brain felt itself slowly being poisoned….screaming…scratching at the box…becoming an insane animal..only to die anyway. When the next oxygen bottle was exhausted, she’d light the matches….it wouldn’t be painless, but it would be relatively quick. She’d die Liz Parker…not some irrational insane animal, panicking as each breath became an agony. She’d made up her mind.
She reached for the valve handle of the other cylinder between her legs….only to find that it didn’t have one. She took the handle off the cylinder by her side, fighting back the urge to panic. Yes, she’d waited until the air was already pretty full of carbon dioxide to turn on the cylinder of oxygen, but her scientific mind knew there was still plenty of oxygen in the box…she just had to quell her fears. But that proved easier said than done when she finally got the handle on the valve stem of the other bottle…and found she didn’t have the strength to turn it.
The panic built in her as she thought….Was this some final obscene joke by her captor? To give her oxygen…but a jammed valve? To have her die trying her best…with oxygen right between her legs, while she choked in her own carbon dioxide?
She felt for the matches…drawing comfort from them. She’d have to switch the bottles….push the top one down toward her legs, pull the other up to where the first was. Only then would she have the leverage…only then MIGHT she have the arm strength to turn that valve. There was so little room in the box…so very little room...the bottles may not even fit passing beside each other..with her still in the box. But she had to do it…had to get the positions of the bottles reversed. If she didn’t…well..she’d need to use the matches. She needed to do this soon…before the rising carbon dioxide made her to uncoordinated…to panicky…too insane.
3:55 PM Chaves County Sheriff's Office, Roswell New Mexico
As Philip and Max Evans were leaving the Sheriff’s Office, Sandra Fowler walked over to Max, drawing an instant glare from Philip Evans.
“I’d like to talk to your son for a minute, Mr. Evans.”
“My son has nothing to say to you..”
“Please Dad..let’s just listen to her…OK?”
“I’m not asking him for a statement or anything, Mr. Evans. Just a request…just a favor.”
“He owes you no favors.”
“Not a favor for me, really. A favor for Liz and for the other victims of this man. I’m just asking that you please…don’t tell anyone about the ether. The other two girls had dry areas on their faces..where the ether had taken the oil off the skin. That’s how we figured out he was using ether…from the autopsy results. We’ve never released that information…we use it to sort out the kooks and the crazies…the false leads and red herrings. If your son would please just not mention that to anyone.”
Philip looked at his sons face as Max looked into the eyes of Sandra Fowler. He had never seen his son so intense…so focused.
“I won’t let it get out, Doctor Fowler, but it isn’t going to matter. I’m going to find Liz…somehow. And the guy that did this to him…I’m going to find him too.”
As she turned the handle on the valve, there was only the slightest puff, then silence. The first cylinder was exhausted. Liz had been waiting for that…uncertain about how she would feel. She found her feelings now a bittersweet mixture. While she found herself no less terrified…still..an end was now in sight. One way or another…she would not suffer any longer than the end of that oxygen bottle. She would not let herself know the terror of the carbon dioxide building up…panting for each breath as her brain felt itself slowly being poisoned….screaming…scratching at the box…becoming an insane animal..only to die anyway. When the next oxygen bottle was exhausted, she’d light the matches….it wouldn’t be painless, but it would be relatively quick. She’d die Liz Parker…not some irrational insane animal, panicking as each breath became an agony. She’d made up her mind.
She reached for the valve handle of the other cylinder between her legs….only to find that it didn’t have one. She took the handle off the cylinder by her side, fighting back the urge to panic. Yes, she’d waited until the air was already pretty full of carbon dioxide to turn on the cylinder of oxygen, but her scientific mind knew there was still plenty of oxygen in the box…she just had to quell her fears. But that proved easier said than done when she finally got the handle on the valve stem of the other bottle…and found she didn’t have the strength to turn it.
The panic built in her as she thought….Was this some final obscene joke by her captor? To give her oxygen…but a jammed valve? To have her die trying her best…with oxygen right between her legs, while she choked in her own carbon dioxide?
She felt for the matches…drawing comfort from them. She’d have to switch the bottles….push the top one down toward her legs, pull the other up to where the first was. Only then would she have the leverage…only then MIGHT she have the arm strength to turn that valve. There was so little room in the box…so very little room...the bottles may not even fit passing beside each other..with her still in the box. But she had to do it…had to get the positions of the bottles reversed. If she didn’t…well..she’d need to use the matches. She needed to do this soon…before the rising carbon dioxide made her to uncoordinated…to panicky…too insane.
3:55 PM Chaves County Sheriff's Office, Roswell New Mexico
As Philip and Max Evans were leaving the Sheriff’s Office, Sandra Fowler walked over to Max, drawing an instant glare from Philip Evans.
“I’d like to talk to your son for a minute, Mr. Evans.”
“My son has nothing to say to you..”
“Please Dad..let’s just listen to her…OK?”
“I’m not asking him for a statement or anything, Mr. Evans. Just a request…just a favor.”
“He owes you no favors.”
“Not a favor for me, really. A favor for Liz and for the other victims of this man. I’m just asking that you please…don’t tell anyone about the ether. The other two girls had dry areas on their faces..where the ether had taken the oil off the skin. That’s how we figured out he was using ether…from the autopsy results. We’ve never released that information…we use it to sort out the kooks and the crazies…the false leads and red herrings. If your son would please just not mention that to anyone.”
Philip looked at his sons face as Max looked into the eyes of Sandra Fowler. He had never seen his son so intense…so focused.
“I won’t let it get out, Doctor Fowler, but it isn’t going to matter. I’m going to find Liz…somehow. And the guy that did this to him…I’m going to find him too.”