“ Theirs, of course. Please, tell them it's just to get a dig in at the abductor, maybe stir him to some foolish action, like perhaps contacting us or the newspaper.”
“ It already has hurt the family, Jessica,” replied Santiva. “It already has.” Santiva stared about the room, did a bit of pacing and rampaging, mostly muttering to himself. “So now you're all dug in here?” He didn't wait for a reply. “I just got heat from the police commissioner who just got the mayor off his back. Everyone upstairs wants results yesterday, people.” He lifted the newspaper and slapped it down again with a rifle shot result. “And this kind of crap can only worsen our public appearance, unless we're all in agreement on content that goes out of here. Is that clear? Say not a word to the press that isn't cleared through channels. Repeat it back, both of you.” His eyes settled on Sharpe and Jessica, even as murmured yes sirs wandered the room like so many blind birds.
Jessica remained silent; Richard almost broke the silence, but Jessica jabbed him in the ribs. Santiva stormed off, a section of newspaper taking wing in his wake. Sharpe exchanged a long stare with Jessica before J. T. got between them, saying, “Gee willikers, you handled that well, Jess.” J. T. lifted the newspaper and began scanning the story for himself.
Jessica laughed lightly, but it was a hollow laugh at best. Sharpe put an arm around her, bolstering her and saying, “All in a day's work, sweetheart.” She tilted her head upward and they kissed while J. T. gave them a firm frown. “Are we absolutely sure it isn't some sex pervert with sexual intentions on his mind?” asked one of the other agents. “Maybe we locked down on the notion of revenge motive too soon.”
“ Yeah? How do we know?” she replied. “Maybe that asshole O'Brien-the Newly Established Irish Anti-Sexual Perversion League-can define sexual perversion for us.”
“ What kind of game are you playing, here, Jess?”
“ Is that the best you can do, J. T.?”
Now it was Sharpe's turn to frown at Jessica.
J. T. asked, “What's-at supposed to mean?”
“ Hey, what if our guy reads the Post, or the Enquirer for that matter? What'll be his reaction to the news that he's being called a sex pervert?” Jessica asked her longtime friend and Richard. “You tricky devil, Jess,” replied J. T., squeezing her hand. “Smart move.” A big laugh escaped him. “You meant for O'Brien to plant this in the newspaper, didn't you?”
“ You were there, Richard; you heard what I gave O'Brien: nothing. I gave him zip. The fact he ran with it, well, he ran to my goal post is all.”
Going along with things now, Richard added, “A newspaperman is easily guided when he's given to think an idea originated with him.”
“ Gotta handle him like you would Chief Santiva is all,” Jessica put in.
“ So if our abductor sees or hears the news that he's some kind of aberrant sex offender, you think it might shake something from the proverbial tree,” J. T. surmised aloud as if it would be clearer if he could vocalize it. “Not bad.”
“ I have a gut feeling that we don't have a lot of time for niceties or anything else where this guy is concerned, my friend,” Jessica replied. “We certainly don't have time for petty concerns and petty politics. Understood?”
FIVE
When is death not within ourselves?
Home, her daughters, her son, family, friends, her passions, her work, her passion for her work, the safety of familiar surroundings, more about family, friends, full circle to home, then inside her home with the doors locked, roaming familiar corridors, loving a place of mortar and wood, windows drawn, a hot bath drawn-warm and soothing against her skin-music playing in her ear, the smell of candles and incense she'd bought on a trip to India, a teasing, pleasant incense-all of these wonderful thoughts felt now like lost treasures, promises. But could she believe the promise of ever seeing or feeling any of these special things again? Is that what heaven is comprised of, she asked herself, you get back all you've lost?
Maureen DeCampe thought of everything that ever meant anything of real value to her, and all that had been stripped from her: all sense of security and faith in the ground beneath one's feet, replaced by fear, uncertainty, and horror in its rawest sense. She imagined having been drugged and kept in a state of unconsciousness, taken across country into a maze of farmland, hills, and paths, into a heartland that was crisscrossed by seemingly endless, anonymous blacktop roads. A place of wheat and cornfields that went on for endless miles, fields on a grand scale, a grand place to lay train track and raise children on little farms amid a paradise called Iowa; a place where nothing bad ever happened until now, and it was happening to her.
He'd abducted her and had transported her from the nation's capital to here, somewhere Iowa… Iowa Falls, Iowa. Wasn't that where Jimmy Lee had been raised on a farm? She had never seen it on a map; she had no idea of the geography of Iowa, knowing only the cliched facts: Indian name, flat terrain, nothing to interest the casual traveler, sleep-inducing wheat fields, and close-knit neighbors who didn't bother locking doors or windows at night. In the midst of this, a dark little farmstead that reeked of animal slaughter and feces, a dark little place where she would die a horrid death not heard of in the modem world.
How did I get here? How was I made so stupid? Turned into a victim-a g'damn victim, me! A thing I swore to never, ever become again after walking out on Stewart after three months of being the teen bride he so liked to victimize! How did I wind up thrashing atop a vile corpse in a black place in the middle of no-fucking-where?
“ Go on,” came his voice out of the gloom surrounding her. Bastard sat on a three-legged milking stool in the gray gloom, just within her sight if she squinted; sitting there watching her struggle, no animal sounds but her own sad whine.
She could not form words. The tape choked her. Attempting to form words took too much effort. Still, she strained against her bonds and cursed him just the same. “More you thrash around like a sturgeon on a pike, faster the bruisin'll pop up all over Little Jimmy; I say little 'cause he's done shriveled up so since they threw the switch on him. Body's just a shell of what he once't was, but it's full of dying cells, you can believe that. Hell, you can smell it. My old pap always told me what you can smell, you can believe in.”
Despite her gag, she cursed him in no uncertain terms.
He ignored her feeble attempt to curse him, adding, “Like an overripe apple, Jimmy Lee is. He'll decay faster if'n you help it along that way, and so you'll catch the decay from him more quicker, so's you can end it that much sooner. So, you just carry on, little Miss High and Mighty Judgess.”
Again she thrashed and cursed under the gag.
“ You thought it was cute, first time I called you Judgess in your courtroom office, way back when you was still just a judge in Houston. I could tell you thought it was cute. You still like it some?” he asked, a hissing snicker escaping him. 'Treated me like dirt when I come to speak to you personal about taking on Jimmy Lee's appeal case, remember?”
She lay perfectly still and silent, thinking. I'll be damned if I'll put on a show for this mother fuckin' throwback son of a motherless fucking pig.
He laughed hollowly, as if he understood her silent curse. He lit a lantern and studied her and his dead son where they lay like some kind of game with four legs and four arms. He hemmed and hawed for a few long minutes, then, taking his lantern with him, he left her in the empty darkness of what felt like a barn, alone with the diseased thing that meant to kill her in flowing ooze and in slow motion. Only a small light was left burning, a single flame that dipped and rippled with the intermittent wind through the cracks. The old man had left a small candle burning on the stool where he'd been sitting earlier.