James Swain - The Program

She stuck her head into the second bedroom. Tiny, with a desk and a bed shoved into opposite corners. The walls were black, the ceiling white, with plenty of streaks where the colors came together. A Megan Fox bikini-poster hung over the bed. No one should have a body that gorgeous.

She cased the room. A pile of text books sat on the desk. She glanced over the titles. Advanced Algebra, Biology, English lit, third year Spanish, and a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions. The kid wasn’t stupid.

She found Wayne’s notebooks beneath the pile. She thumbed through them, hoping to find some personal notes or drawings that might give some insight to Wayne’s psyche. Instead, she found page after page of school notes.

The closet was next. Wayne’s wardrobe consisted of baggy jeans, chinos, and Nike sneakers. An electric guitar sat in the corner wired to a speaker. Behind it, a shelving unit containing song books and a shoe box filled with letters.

She went through the shoe box. The letters had been sent from Adam Ladd when he was stationed in Baghdad. In chilling detail, Adam had described life in a war zone, and the numbing effect it was having on him, and the other soldiers in his platoon. She put the letters away thinking the two brothers had been close.

The last place she looked was under the bed. That was where boys usually stored things. She found a thin cardboard box filled with photos of Wayne taken in elementary school. He’d been a handsome kid even back then.

Vick dusted herself off. Something wasn’t right here. It took a minute, but she finally put her finger on it. The room was too normal. She’d expected to find a collection of hunting knives, or an illegal handgun, or a diary filled with rants against his teachers and classmates with some graphic drawings thrown in. These were the things that indicated deep-rooted anger in teenage boys. So where were they?

She had a thought. Perhaps Jewel had gone through her son’s room after his arrest, and thrown out the bad things. That was the natural thing for a mother to do. She decided to ask her, and returned to the front of the house.

Jewel lay on her back on the couch, passed out. DuCharme stood beside her, shaking his head.

“She kept crying until she fell asleep,” he said. “She’s really looped.”

“I need to ask her some questions,” Vick said.

“Good luck.”

“You’re not going to help me wake her up?”

“What do you want me to do – sing to her?”

Vick knelt down beside the couch and gently shook Jewel’s shoulder. “Mrs. Ladd? Please wake up. I need to speak with you.”

Jewel muttered under her breath but did not come to. Vick hoped a strong cup of coffee would bring her around, and stood up.

“I’m going to brew some coffee. Stay here and watch her.”

“Get me a cup,” DuCharme said. “Sugar, no cream.”

“In your dreams.”

The kitchen was like the rest of the house – dark and depressing. Vick found the coffee maker on the counter. Beside it sat a fifth of vodka in a brown paper bag. She pulled the bottle out of the bag to see that three quarters was already gone. She fished out the sales receipt. Jewel had bought the bottle from a liquor store that morning.

It made Vick mad. Jewel was getting shit-faced while her son was being held captive by a killer. She poured the rest down the drain, and returned to the living room.

“No coffee?” DuCharme asked.

“Lock the door on your way out,” Vick said.

Popping the trunk of her Audi, Vick fished through the box filled with files of active cases. She found Wayne Ladd’s file, and soon was studying it in her car. DuCharme climbed in and fastened his shoulder harness.

“Ready when you are,” he said.

She ignored him, and continued to read. Wayne Ladd had murdered his mother’s boyfriend by sticking a bayonet through his heart. The boyfriend was a bartender with a history of abusing women. When the police had arrived at the boyfriend’s house, Wayne had been standing over him clutching the weapon, his clothes soaked with blood. He had confessed at the scene, and shown no remorse.

Vick found the description of the bayonet buried in the report. The murder weapon was a Swiss Sig 1957 Pattern Bayonet, made of tempered steel, with a nine and a half inch blade. The detective who’d written the report had checked the bayonet’s history, and discovered that it was a collector’s item, and cost three hundred dollars on the open market.

Vick closed the report, deep in thought.

“Find something?” DuCharme asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me, or do I have to arm wrestle you?”

“Wayne’s bedroom didn’t have a single military item in it, yet the bayonet was a collector’s item. The murder weapon belonged to someone else.”

“You don’t think Wayne is a killer, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re pissing in the wind. The kid had a motive, and he confessed. Case closed.”

Vick slapped the file shut and tossed it into the backseat. DuCharme was right; she was grasping at straws. Only the smug look on the detective’s face was too much to bear. That, and the knowledge that Linderman had moved the investigation forward, and was close to catching their killer, while she had done nothing.

She fired up her engine and backed down the drive.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office Evidence Unit was situated a block off Sunrise Boulevard inside a soulless industrial park. The size of a small airplane hanger, the warehouse housed over a quarter million pieces of crime-related evidence, and was responsible for maintaining the integrity of evidence before trials.

The reception desk was empty. Vick and DuCharme scribbled their names on a sign-in sheet and waited for assistance. DuCharme whistled like he was doing bird calls.

“You are so easily amused,” she said.

“Two o’clock. Everybody must be on break,” the detective said.

“Do they all take a break at the same time?”

“Sure. They’re three-ninety-fives.”

“Is that their job classification?”

“Uh-huh. They make nothing, and give nothing in return.”

Vick tapped her toe impatiently. It was not unusual at police evidence warehouses for things to get misplaced or simply disappear, never to be seen again. She hoped this wasn’t the case with the murder weapon in Wayne Ladd’s case.

She wanted to see that bayonet. During her training at Quantico, she’d learned a great deal about weaponry. The Swiss made some of the finest weapons in the world, and proudly marked their products with serial numbers. If Wayne’s bayonet contained a serial number, she’d have a good chance of tracking down it’s previous owner.

An evidence tech appeared behind the desk. Blond and skinny, he didn’t look old enough to be shaving. He grinned at Vick while acting like DuCharme wasn’t there.

“Afternoon. Can I help you?” the tech said cheerfully.

Vick and DuCharme both displayed her ID.

“We need to get a piece of evidence from storage,” Vick explained.

“Wow. You’re with the FBI. I always wanted to be an FBI agent,” the tech said. “Do you like your job?”

“The hours are long and the pay stinks,” Vick said. “Otherwise, it’s a great life.”

The tech laughed under his breath. He slid a request form across the desk.

“Fill this out, and I’ll go find your evidence myself,” the tech said.

“Why, thank you.”

DuCharme filled out the form. Protocol dictated that only a Broward detective could request evidence from the Broward Evidence Unit. Vick made sure that DuCharme wrote the case number in bold letters so the tech didn’t bring them the wrong item. When DuCharme was finished, Vick handed the tech the sheet.