Richard Hale - Frozen Past

“Alright, I want to hear apologies from all of you and then sweep this thing under the rug. Let’s go.”

Mumbled ‘sorrys’ worked their way around the group and Jaxon was glad to see the John kid even joining in.

“Good. Let’s all try to get along now. Don’t make me have to pay a visit to your parents.” Jaxon pointed to Jimmy and then John. “You two, dismantle this little project you have attached to the bridge and carry it back to your house. Harrison and Pemberton, I need to talk to you.”

The girl and boy looked at each other and then walked over to where Jaxon and Sally were standing off to the side. Stinson walked up and said, “That’s it? You aren’t going to do anything to these kids? Maybe I should talk to their parents if you aren’t. They almost got someone killed!”

“It was a prank gone wrong,” Jaxon said. “I’m not going to make this more than it was and create more hardship for these kids than already exists. They seem to be genuinely sorry for what happened and it doesn’t appear they meant any serious harm. It’s your prerogative if you want to seek out their parents. I can’t stop you. I just think it’s best to let it go.”

“Fine,” Stinson said, and turned to leave. “Come on kids. We need to get home. Who knows who else will rig some bomb or trap and get someone else hurt.”

“Daddy! I want to stay with Ellie!” Mel said.

“No!” Stinson said, pulling her by the hand, “Ellie is not coming over again, ever!”

The little girl started crying as her parents led her home. Ellie Pemberton watched her walk off and started to cry herself. Jaxon actually felt a twinge of pity for the girl.

Luke watched Jimmy and John dismantle the rocket launcher and thought to himself, How in the world could it have come to this? He couldn’t believe how quickly things had taken a turn for the worse and he never would have predicted the outcome.

Jaxon was saying something to his partner, who Luke now knew as Sally, but couldn’t hear the conversation. He knew they were talking about him and Ellie, but he hoped they were going to let them go. Luke looked over at Ellie who had fresh tears running down her cheeks and reached out and grabbed her hand.

“Are you gonna be ok?” Luke asked.

She nodded but didn’t speak. He couldn’t tell what was going through her head, but he knew she was angry at him for getting her into all this. Hell, she was probably angry at all three of them. Now, she had lost a babysitting job and embarrassed herself in front of a family she really liked. Luke felt she would probably never be able to gain her respect back from them. She probably wouldn’t even try.

Jaxon turned back toward them and scowled as he looked them over. “You two keep showing up in all the action in this neighborhood. Do I need to be concerned?”

“No, sir,” Luke said. Ellie just shook her head. She had dropped his hand when Jaxon started talking.

“I like you two,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I enjoy our little get-togethers. The less I see of you two, the better. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Luke said. This time Ellie spoke too.

“Good. Now what really happened here? Is there more to this than I’m seeing?”

“No,” Ellie said. “Not really. It’s just like Jimmy said. We didn’t mean for anything bad to happen. I realize now how stupid we were.”

“Me too,” Luke said. “The two kids on the bike just made us mad and we wanted to get them back. It was dumb.”

“This friend of yours, John,” Jaxon said, pointing, “do I need to be worried about him? He seemed pretty angry.”

Luke shook his head. “No. He’s probably more scared than angry. I think his close call in the creek shook him up pretty good.”

“He’s lucky to have friends like you guys,” Jaxon said. “You saved his life. He could’ve died in there.”

Luke shrugged, not sure what to say. He knew John had been lucky.

“Do you guys remember our little conversation a couple of months back?” Jaxon asked.

Luke could see Ellie nodding and he said, “Yes.”

“Anything jog your memories since then?”

“No, sir,” Luke said.

Jaxon looked at Sally. “It’s important guys,” Sally said. “Even the smallest thing might help us. You didn’t see anything?”

Luke and Ellie remained silent.

“We’ve been given some new evidence,” Jaxon said, “and we know you two had nothing to do with the murders, just so you know. You aren’t suspects. We just need a little help filling in the blanks.”

Luke watched Ellie open her mouth, look at him and then shut it again. Jaxon shook his head. “Alright, let us know if you think of something. Here is our number again in case you lost the other one.” He handed them each a business card, then turned and left, heading back toward the pool area.

Jaxon and Sally were at the station going over pictures from the missing person’s files. They had been searching through the files since late December without a single hit. They had even expanded to the surrounding counties and were currently going through Prince George’s County in Maryland.

Looking at pictures of thousands of missing persons was a tedious and time consuming task and Jaxon was about to go blind from it. He put down the shot he was holding and rubbed his eyes. He had a headache spreading from the back of his neck into the crown of his scalp. He needed a Coke.

“I’m getting a drink,” he said. “You want anything?”

“A Diet Pepsi,” Sally said. “Here…” she grabbed a dollar and stuck her hand out to him.

“I got it.” He waved her hand away and walked around his desk.

“Thanks!” she yelled after him.

The John Doe had been a thorn in their sides. He had never had this much trouble identifying an individual before. He couldn’t understand why they were having such bad luck. The fingerprints came back negative and this led to a suspicion Jaxon had in regards to the age of the boy. Nowadays every mother out there had their kids fingerprinted, photographed, and even DNA typed, anything they could think of in the unlikely event they would have to report their child missing or even provide some kind of identification should the worst happen. He’d even heard of some parents having chips implanted underneath the kid’s skin so they could be scanned into a computer system like a dog or a cat.

This trend was only about fifteen to twenty years old though, and this made Jaxon sure they were searching for a name that had been in the database for over twenty years. Somebody had kept the kid frozen for a hell of a long time.

The decapitated dog had provided little usable evidence as well. The fingernails they had pulled from the skin of the dog had in fact belonged to the John Doe. After running DNA on the skin found underneath the kid’s fingernails, the lab called and told Doc Barstow it was animal DNA. Specifically that of a dog. A poodle mix. It only took a few minutes afterward to match up the missing fingernails of the kid to the ones they pulled from the dog. The problem was the kid had been dead for quite a while and the dog was recent. Dead end. This asshole was smart. He was throwing all kinds of empty leads at them to slow them down and it was working. He felt like he was spinning his wheels for naught.

Doc Barstow had been frustrated too. He was used to seeing things that most people considered appalling, but when he explained what the perp had to go through just to get the John Doe’s fingernails embedded in the dog’s skin, it set him off.

That had been five months ago and they had little reason to visit the morgue since then. John Doe was still on ice there and would remain in the morgue until they either identified him or they no longer needed the body.