Marcia Clark - The Competition

“I think so.”

“Hang on.”

I started to bite my cuticles-my go-to stress coping strategy when there was no room to pace. Bailey slapped my hand. “Knock it off, Knight. What are you, twelve?”

I turned my back to her and attacked my right hand. I’d just gone to work on my thumb when the officer came back on the line.

“Detective Keller? Looks like your guy was reported missing-​assuming the spelling’s correct.”

My heart began to pound. I told him to have the parents meet us at their house and got the address, then punched it into the navigation system. When I hung up, neither of us said anything about Logan looking good. No more jinxes.

We hit the 101 freeway in the middle of rush hour. We’d roll a few inches, stop, roll a few more, stop. I couldn’t stand it. I had to do something. “What else can we check?”

“You could get the unis to check the juvy records, see if he’s got anything.”

“Didn’t they already check the kids who had records? I thought they were all accounted for.”

“Doesn’t hurt to double-check.”

It kind of did. I needed progress, forward motion. I stared at the line of cars ahead of us. “Wait…if the killers left the scene, at least one of them had to have had a car, right?”

“I’d guess.”

I called DMV, got Logan Jarvis’s license and registration, then called the unis and had them check it against the cars in the school parking lot.

“And?” Bailey asked.

I kept my eyes forward. “Not there.”

Having one idea pay off gave me another.

I put in a call to my buddy in the coroner’s office, investigator Scott Ferrier. “Hey, Scott, how you doin’?”

“What do you want?” His voice was wary. Not that I blamed him. Generally speaking, a phone call from me meant two things: (1) I wanted him to get me something I wasn’t supposed to have and (2) I’d bribe him with lunch at Engine Co. No. 28, his favorite restaurant, to get it. So Scott was always conflicted about taking my calls.

“Just one bit of information. Has Dr. Shoe finished the autopsy on those two kids in the library?”

“Yeah, took him a while. They were a mess. He just finished a couple of hours ago.”

“Can you check out his report-”

“It’s not typed yet.”

“You only need his notes to see what I’m looking for-”

“Rachel, I’m not supposed to-”

“Come on, Scott. This one’s easy.” I heard him sigh. “And I’ll still buy you lunch at Engine Company Number Twenty-eight.”

“No, that’s okay. What do you need?”

“Did either of the two boys in the library have a tattoo or any kind of marking on his right wrist?” We already knew one of them was close to six feet tall.

“That is easy.” He sounded relieved. “No, neither of them has any kind of marking on the right wrist. At least, nothing that’s in the notes. Anything else?” His voice had that wary note again. He couldn’t believe he’d gotten off that lightly.

“Just one thing. Do we have results on the gunshot residue?”

“Yeah. No GSR on either of them. Is that it?”

“Then the report confirms they’re not the shooters?”

“Well, the official report isn’t done yet-”

“But the answer’s yes.”

Scott sighed again. “Yes. They are not the shooters. But I can’t get the report for you. Not this time, Rachel. The case is too hot, I might really get fired-”

“Scott, what are you thinking? I would never ask you to jeopardize your job.”

“Would and have, Knight.”

True and true. “Well, I’m not doing it now. Just one more thing.” I waited a beat to build suspense. “How about lunch in a couple of weeks?”

I could practically hear him exhale. “You got it.”

I ended the call and told Bailey what Scott had said. We continued to inch along, and I leaned forward in my seat, straining against the seat belt. I sat on my hands to keep from biting my cuticles. I looked at my watch, then the car clock, then back at my watch. I must have done it fifteen times before we finally got off the freeway and headed into Logan’s neighborhood.

Bailey turned ontoa quiet street lined with trees that had grown so large their roots had buckled the sidewalks. The houses were a mix of ranch, Tudor, and Cape Cod styles, but all were in the four-thousand-square-foot range and well maintained. Bailey pulled over and pointed across the street to a beige two-story house with off-white trim situated on a large lot at the end of the block. Red and white roses lined the walk leading up to the front door, and still-leafy jacaranda trees shaded the front yard-the very epitome of upper-middle-class suburbia. I wondered if it housed one of the nation’s most heinous mass murderers.

We headed across the street and when we reached the door Bailey used the brass knocker to give two sharp raps. I felt footsteps approaching from somewhere in the house. Seconds later, a tall, stoop-shouldered man answered the door. His eyes were red rimmed behind wire-framed glasses, his short brown hair was matted on one side, and his clothes-a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans-looked slept-in.

Bailey produced her badge, and I did the same. “Mr. Jarvis? I’m Detective Keller and this is Deputy District Attorney Rachel Knight. Thank you for meeting us here.”

I saw alarm and misery in his face. He opened his mouth, but just stared at us silently for a moment before gesturing for us to come in. We followed him down a short hall and turned right, into a tastefully furnished living room. We settled on the sofa and he sat down in the wingback chair across from us, his hands on his knees. He cleared his throat with a harsh cough, took a deep breath, and made himself ask the question. “Have you found him? Have you found my son?” He looked from me to Bailey.

I could see how much that question had cost him. We shook our heads. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jarvis,” I said.

He blinked slowly, nodded.

“Does he usually drive his car to school?” Bailey asked.

“Yes. But it’s not there. We’ve been calling everywhere trying to find him. No one seems to know anything-”

A woman’s voice called out from the hallway. “Brad? Are they…” A small, slender woman in jeans, whose face and body sagged as though attached to lead weights, entered with quick, nervous steps.

“Yes, it’s the police, Bonnie-”

Her swollen eyes asked the question she was too afraid to voice.

“We have not found your son yet, Mrs. Jarvis,” Bailey said.

The mother sank onto the other end of the sofa and twisted a Kleenex in her hands. The anguish in that room was heartbreaking. They had no idea why we were really here. Their only fear was that he was a victim. What we would tell them in the next few moments would make them long for that relatively simple form of agony.

“Can I ask you if Logan has a tattoo anywhere on his body?” I asked.

Bonnie lifted her head. “Yes, he has a tattoo of an iron cross on his right wrist.”

I pulled out the photograph of the taller shooter’s forearm. “This is a little fuzzy, but could this be it?”

The mother leaned forward to look but didn’t take the photograph from my hand. She pressed her lips together and nodded. I showed the photograph to the father. His face turned white.

“Where…when was this taken?” he asked.

I glanced at Bailey. We wanted to hold off on telling them for as long as possible.

“Would you mind if we had a look around Logan’s room?” Bailey asked. “We might pick up on some clue as to where he might be.”

Brad Jarvis’s face lifted with surprised relief. “So you’re saying he’s still alive?”