The Murder of Janessa Hennley Read online

  He walked to the front door. The two deputies there stirred awake.

  “Just going outside,” Mickey said. “He’s not coming tonight.”

  Miller called out from the front room, “I’m done, too. I’m a have a deputy stationed outside in the car all night and tomorrow. No need for all of us to be loiterin’ ’round here.”

  Mickey stepped out onto the porch as the officers left the home. He dialed Angela’s cell, but it went to voicemail. Nothing to worry about yet, as she’d let her phone run out of power several times. But Mickey briskly hiked around the block just the same.

  The homes were quiet. Leaves from dehydrated and dying trees rustled over the lawns. The cars were old, many with broken windows or busted taillights. Some of the chain link fences were missing sections.

  Mickey rounded the block. Across the street, a single deputy sat in an unmarked car and nodded to him. He nodded back. He took out his phone and dialed Angela again. No answer.

  He texted her twice from the rental car and then leaned the seat back. He would wait here all night for her if he had to.

  After taking a moment to think, he Googled the nearest bar. That seemed as likely a place as any. He started the car and pulled away.

  A few solitary drinkers remained in the dark, smoky bar, though it was nearly three in the morning. The bartender rang a bell and shouted, “Last call.”

  Mickey scanned the bar from one side to the other. No Angela. In fact, only one other woman was here. She sat at the bar with her legs crossed, in a peach-colored dress that reached just below her thighs. She held a cigarette between her fingers, several empty bottles of beer in front of her.

  “Have you seen this woman?” Mickey asked the bartender, showing Angela’s ID photo in her personnel file on the Bureau server.

  The man stared at the picture on Mickey’s phone. “No. Sorry.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Mickey turned to leave. A man that wasn’t there before stood by the door. The man sported a green army jacket with the American flag embroidered on it. He had a white beard and wore glasses.

  Mickey casually walked toward him, feigning going outside. At the door, he spun, grabbed the man by the collar, and pressed him against the wall. He withdrew his weapon and pushed it into the man’s ribs.

  “Where is she?” he said through gritted teeth.

  “You don’t get that gun outta my gut, you’ll never see her again. I swear it, you’ll never find her.”

  Mickey hesitated a moment and then replaced his weapon in the holster.

  “Good,” the man said. “Now come have a drink with me.”

  The man strolled to the bar and ordered two beers before sitting down at a table. Mickey sat across from him, placing his hand on his thigh where he could quickly slide it up to his sidearm.

  “That was stupid of you to let her out like that. It was sloppy.”

  Mickey didn’t respond.

  “You with the FBI, right?”

  Mickey considered him. The man appeared fragile, as though he could keel over at any moment. “Yeah.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mickey Parsons.”

  “Mickey. I like that name. My name’s Harold. But you probably knew that.”

  “I did.”

  “I wanted to join the FBI. Long time ago. But not anymore.”

  “So, what do you do now?”

  He drank down half his beer. “I got some money saved up. Disability checks and a lawsuit I settled. Some drunken sixteen-year-old punk crossed over two lanes and pummeled me. Still got back issues from that.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  He grinned. “I bet you are.” He finished his beer. “Why you got that tattoo on your arm?”

  Mickey glanced down. Most of the time, he forgot it was there. He rolled down his sleeve. This wasn’t a part of him he wanted to share. Least of all with Harold Ricks.

  “I have my reasons.”

  Harold took off his jacket and lifted the sleeve on his T-shirt. A red and black tattoo enveloped his entire shoulder. An Indian dreamcatcher with rifles around it. Written in dark ink above it were the words, “Tiger Force. Never Forget.”

  “You were in Tiger Force?” Mickey said.

  He nodded. “You heard of us?”

  Mickey tried not to show surprise. He knew Tiger Force. All the soldiers in Vietnam did. They were a squadron of men let loose into the jungle with no supervision. Their superiors said their goal was to “out-guerilla the guerillas.” Their orders had been to find Charlie and take him out wherever they could, but that wasn’t what happened.

  On the rare occasions Tiger Force did climb out of the jungles, they appeared like cavemen. Long beards, torn clothing, the ears and noses of fallen enemies hanging around their necks on strings of leather. Mickey personally knew someone on Tiger Force, and the stories he told were inhuman. Murdering children while their parents watched, raping wives in front of husbands, forcing the elderly to fight each other to the death while the soldiers took bets. And those were just the instances he wanted to talk about.

  As far as Mickey had heard, no one from Tiger Force had ever been prosecuted for their crimes.

  “That was a tough unit to be in,” Mickey said calmly.

  “You know, I wasn’t like this before that horseshit. I was a carpenter. My daddy was a carpenter, and his daddy, too. We had a family business back in Tallahassee. I was gettin’ ready for that after high school when them sonsabitches thought we needed to stomp the commies. My daddy said it was my duty to go over there.” He motioned to the bartender for another beer. “My duty,” he said, staring down at the table. He looked up to Mickey. “Who was you with?”

  “Hundred and first Airborne.”

  “No shit? They ever ask you to join Tiger Force?”

  “They did.”

  “And you turned it down?”

  “You couldn’t turn anything down back then. I was shot before they shuffled me around. Just a flesh wound, but they thought I needed to go home. So I did.”

  “Count yourself lucky then. ’Cause I tell you, brother, you would be sittin’ where I am now if that hadn’t happened.”

  “I wouldn’t kill innocent people just for shits and giggles.”

  “You think that, but you’d be surprised how quickly the way you look at things can change.”

  Mickey pushed the beer away from him. “You came here for a reason. You want something from me, so let’s just hear what it is.”

  “I do want something from you. And it’s something you want anyway… I want you to kill me.”

  Mickey was quiet a long time. “I’ll arrest you and watch you rot in a cell, but I’m not going to kill you.”

  “You’re not going to kill me yourself, you mean. They’ll give me the death penalty back in Florida for the things I done. You’re gonna let some pussy from the government do it. Put me down like some dog.” Harold picked up Mickey’s beer and drank a few gulps before the bartender brought another over for him. “You ever seen anyone hang themselves?”

  “No.”

  “Helluva thing. See, my daddy killed himself when I got back from ’Nam. I saw it. He hung himself in the garage with wire. See, but he fought like hell once that wire tightened around his throat. He was clawing at it and cussing and looking at me for help. I saw him do it, and I didn’t stop him. I was high back then. Heroin. And I just sat on this old couch while my father died right in front of me.”

  “You saw the whole thing?”

  He finished Mickey’s beer. “My mother worked, so I ran in and called an ambulance when I got my senses back. But he was dead by the time they got there. But that fight, that fight he had in him after he knew he was gonna die, that’s what I got in me too.” He laughed. “Curse of the Ricks genes, I guess. You wanna die, but your body won’t let you.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want you to know I’ve tried. I’ve tried
blowin’ my head off more times than I can tell you. I get the gun in my mouth, and then that fight kicks in and I can’t pull the trigger. I don’t know why. But I can’t. I need someone to do it for me. And I ain’t gonna let these redneck rent-a-cops around here do it. I want you to do it.”

  “There is no way in hell—”

  “She’ll die.”

  Mickey froze. The two men held each other’s gaze. Nicks and scars marred Harold’s face.

  “I’ll gut her like a pig,” Harold said. “Or, you can arrest me and take me down now. And she’ll starve to death. You’ll never find her. You will never find her, and she’ll die alone.” A cockroach scurried across the tabletop, and Harold slammed his palm down over it. Guts and fluid smeared his hand. “Tomorrow night. That’s when I want it. Meet me at my house and make sure ain’t no one else there. If there is, I’ll just leave. If you tell the cops about this meeting here, I’ll disappear, too. You’ll never know what I did. But I promise you, I will make her suffer before I kill her.”

  Mickey wondered if she was out in Harold’s car right now. He felt the ridges on his sidearm’s grip.

  The man sitting in front of him couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to bring her here.

  “Why do you want to die?”

  “I got leukemia. Stage four, inoperable fucking blood cancer. Another gift from ’Nam, not that them bastards ever take responsibility for it. I gave up chemo months ago. It just made me sick, and I didn’t wanna spend my last days like that. So here I am. But don’t think for a second you’re gonna be the hero and not do it. You’ll do it for her, because you’ll never know what happened. You’ll always be thinking ’bout her. That you could have saved her if you’d just put a bullet in my skull. You’ll do it, Special Agent Parsons.”

  He left a twenty on the table and walked out, leaving Mickey staring at the door.

  13

  Day melted away the night too early. Mickey, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, wasn’t ready for it yet. A general malaise had fallen on him the past six months or so, and he found his energy diminishing. Things he used to do without any issue, like playing racquetball for a couple of hours or shooting hoops at his gym with some other veterans, became almost impossible. He simply tired too quickly.

  The clock on the nightstand said 10:12 a.m. He couldn’t believe he’d slept that long. He sat up, rubbed his face, and went into the bathroom. Still groggy, he urinated and then hopped into the shower.

  The hot water steamed up the mirror. When he finished his shower, he stood in front of the mirror and stared into it. He wiped it so he could see himself better. He looked old. Old and tired.

  After dressing in jeans and a blazer, he retrieved his cell phone. Last night, after half a fifth of Jack Daniels, he picked up that phone several times to call Detective Miller and tell him about his meeting with Ricks. But he never made the call. The risk that something would happen to Angela was too high.

  As he was about to slip the phone into his pocket, he noticed an icon next to the message app, indicating he had a voicemail. It was from his doctor back in Virginia. Mickey redialed the last number.

  “Dr. Glenn’s office, how may I help you?”

  “Yes, I’d like to speak to Dr. Glenn, please. I’m a patient of his. Mickey Parsons. I’ve been waiting on some test results. He called me a few hours ago and left a message.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, he was trying to get a hold of you. Hang on, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Atrocious hold music played at an uncomfortably high volume. Mickey held the phone a couple inches away from his ear. After several minutes, a male voice, deep and with a hint of a West Virginia accent, got on the line.

  “Mickey, I’m glad you called me.”

  “No problem… What’re the results?”

  “I really prefer to do this kind of thing in person. When’s the next time you’re going to be in town?”

  “I don’t know. Robert, please, just tell me.”

  A long silence.

  “I’m sorry, Mickey. It’s positive for HIV.”

  All the breath left him. His knees felt weak, and he limply sat down in a chair. “Are you sure?”

  “This was a confirmatory test, Mickey. We took blood and urine. I tested for the antibodies and then the HIV genetic material directly. They were both positive. I’m sorry.”

  Mickey placed his elbows on his thighs. “It was so long ago. I’m not showing any symptoms.”

  “You might not for a while. But Mickey, this isn’t the eighties. With treatment, the HIV infected live long, fruitful lives. We’re talking decades. It’s not the death sentence it used to be. Listen, I want to follow up with you as soon as you get back. We have a lot of ground to cover. Please call me as soon as you get in.”

  “I will.”

  Mickey hung up and stared at the floor. A red spot stained the carpet. He looked up at the bad hotel painting that hung on the wall. A boat on a sea, gray clouds on the horizon.

  Mickey walked out of the hotel. He sat on the hood of his car for a long time. Someone asked if he was okay. He nodded and slid into the driver’s seat. Without thinking, he started the car and drove to the diner.

  The parking lot was nearly empty, as he’d arrived right between the breakfast and lunch rushes. He saw Debbie through the windows. He noticed for the first time that Angela’s leather jacket was crumpled in a heap on the passenger seat.

  He went into the diner and sat in a booth in the corner. He glued his gaze to passing traffic, but he didn’t see the cars. His vision was different than it was a moment ago, as if he were looking through dirty goggles.

  “Hey, hon,” Debbie said, pouring him a cup of black coffee. “How ya doin’?”

  “Been better.”

  “Where’s that cutie you always bring with you?”

  Mickey was quiet a beat. “Just coffee for now. Thank you.”

  “Sure. Just lemme know if you need anything.”

  Mickey opened a sugar packet. He dumped the contents into the coffee and stirred it much more than needed before taking a sip. Then he placed the cup down, and returned his stare to the window.

  It was afternoon by the time Debbie sat down and finally asked Mickey what was going on.

  “Just bad news,” Mickey said.

  “Sometimes that’s the only kinda news there is.”

  “Yeah,” he said. The coffee was cold, but he drank it down anyway.

  “You know what makes me feel better? A slice of Key lime pie. We have some of the best you’ll ever taste. I’m gonna get you a slice, and I will bet you dollars to donuts that by the time you have that last bite, you will feel so much better.”

  When she disappeared into the kitchen, he left a hundred dollar bill on the table and walked out. He got into his car and drove to the Interstate. He had seen a large wooden bridge over a gorge when they had driven in from the airport.

  He passed barren landscapes and cornfields that stretched so far they seemed to touch the horizon. Men in huge tractors worked fields. Barns the size of warehouses peppered the green and yellow grounds.

  The bridge, wooden with iron supports, came into view. A viewing spot with a parking lot and a concessions stand lay off to the side. Mickey bought an apple juice and then approached the cement walkway that jutted out over the gorge. He sat down on the edge and let his legs dangle underneath the railing. A few boats floated in the water beneath him, but it was far enough down that he couldn’t make out more than their general shapes.

  He reached his arms through the railing and then rested his head against the metal. He closed his eyes and listened to the breeze whistle through the gorge. A burning pain tore at his guts. Regret. Pure regret, so powerful that he wanted nothing more than to slide underneath the railing and slam into the water below. A few moments of loneliness and pleasure cost him his life. He missed his wife now more than he had in years.

  I sure could use an ear right now, Ruth.

  Mickey sat up as the s
un began to set. He threw the empty apple juice container in the trash on the way over to the car. Once in the driver’s seat, he placed the keys into the ignition and then sat there, staring at the orange globe slowly descending back into nothingness.

  The jacket next to him caught his attention. He lifted it and held it in his hands. For all he knew, she was already dead.

  Something was in the right pocket. He reached his hand in and discovered Angela’s keys. At least a dozen keys, along with a rabbit’s foot, on a ring. Also, a slip of paper the size of a fortune cookie fortune, encased in glass. In fact, it was a fortune cookie fortune. It said, “All life is precious and worth fighting for.”

  He grinned and placed the jacket down on the passenger seat. Darkness was falling. He took a deep breath, started the car, and pulled away.

  14

  As Mickey drove down the Interstate back to Madison County, he took out his cell phone and flipped through the recent calls received. He found the number he was looking for and pressed it.

  “This is Miller.”

  “Toby, it’s Mickey Parsons.”

  “What can I do for you, Agent Parsons? My men ain’t seen shit yet, if that’s what you callin’ ’bout.”

  “Actually, about that, I need you to pull your men out.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “He’s not going to show,” Mickey said. “I’m going to do another walkthrough of the house, and I think we should call it quits. But I might know where he is.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll come by in the morning, and we’ll go over everything. But I would appreciate if you could pull your men out.”

  A long silence.

  “If you say so.”

  “Thanks. I’ll, ah, swing by in the morning.”

  “Sure. You do that.”

  Mickey hung up. Miller was suspicious, and it didn’t sound like he bought Mickey’s reasoning. But it didn’t matter. As long as the men were gone and Ricks showed up, Miller could hate him for lying later.